Spring time in Tallahassee

Ciudad Victoria Currant Tomato
Last weekend we had a busy Saturday. First we stopped at the Farmer's Market for the first time in months. We stopped by Turkey Hill Farms to purchase one more tomato plant. Farmer Herman helped me out while Zoe tried to play with another dog (he wasn't feeling it and made his opinion clear with some loud nasty barking). Our newest addition to the garden: a baby Ciudad Victoria Currant Tomato plant! Come on, it has my name in it's name, how could I not!?! Farmer Herman was sweet and helpful and makes me want to continue to try to buy as much as I can from them! (Participating in their farm tour this year was just wonderful!)

Springtime Tallahassee
The three of us traversed across town and proceeded on an adventure to find parking. We finally parked somewhere between 1/4 and 1 mile (Zoë's Dad's estimation versus my estimation/exaggeration) from the actual event. Zoë had surprising stamina (for her) and made no signs of slowing down as we went uphill almost the entire way. We were shocked, usually after a few hundred feet she's done. It was totally worth the trek, Springtime Tallahassee was a lot of fun. Unfortunately our timing was bad, we got there 10 minutes before the parade ended and then had to wait while everyone fled from the parade back to their cars. While we waited for the crowd to die down we met several people that were just in love with the little monkey. (Oh, that's another name for Zoë, it's one of our favorites.) She also made quick work of entertaining several little kids, she loved it.

"People are my favorite!" -Zoë This is a favorite of Zoë's with several stipulations: (1) I'm paying attention to them wanting to see me and not something else, 'cause if that's the cases then I'm only paying attention to those other things, (2) I'm not tired, (3) There aren't too many at once, because if there's too many at once I have to look at all of them and I can't spend time with just one, (4) Usually I love little people (aka kids) even more than big people.

I was lucky enough that Zoë's Daddy bought me a really nice bird feeder. I'm hoping that putting this up with bring even more birds and make our back yard full of beautiful living nature (and not just plants). I'm also hoping the squirrels won't ruin it completely for the birds....

 In the background against the house you can see the bird feeder.

herbs, radio flyers, and gnomes

Herbs

Last weekend Mommy and Daddy left me at home Saturday morning. I don't know where they went but I was so glad when they came home. 

"Spending time with MommyDaddy is my favorite!" -Zoë

After a really interesting class (Native Nurseries's Annual Herb class) I realized why some of our herbs didn't make it last year: mostly because they don't all want FULL full sun and not all herbs live past the season. Class Highlights: 

• basil is an annual plant and it's mission every year is to produce seeds for it to survive (your mission is to not let it seed until you've had your fill of basil for the year/season)
• chives need partial shade
• rosemary is a perennial but unlike basil it doesn't like a lot of water
• lavender can be grown in Tallahassee rather well in planters (or so we were told)
• Pesto is soooooooo yummy (there was a taste test portion to the class)

With this year being so all over the place in terms of weather Tallahassee's plants are confused and behind schedule. All herbs were available after the class, except for basil. Supposedly they'll be ready in April. Maybe Zoë will buy me some basil plants for my birthday then. All the same we left with a new funky pot and a rosemary plant that we hope to have for years to come.

We were told Rosemary doesn't like getting it's roots wet and loves full sun. Here's hoping the rosemary will be happy perched atop of our bench on the deck. (If not we'll just move it somewhere else.)

Radio Flyers

After planting our seeds in our rows made with love and sweat we had left over seeds. Waiting in line to check in at our herb class I happen on something wonderful looking: little individual planters for seeds. You know, the ones you buy seedlings from at the major chain stores. The kind of container you plant in the ground with the baby plant, that degrades in to the soil as the plant grows. (Well that's what's in the baby Radio Flyer. It's serving as a planter/tray to help keep it moist and look cool!) Since I'm not going to hold my breath for our planted seeds to take off I figured I'd give that a shot too. So I used 2 of the trays and planted extra squash (okay a lot of extra squash, an entire additional tray extra), a few extra watermelon seeds, and some wildflowers. Oh, when we bought seeds I also bought a container of wildflower seeds. The original goal had been to try to plant wildflowers in the "untamed" areas of the yard. After digging up and raking a teeny tinny little itty bitty area of the "good" part of the "untamed" area I realized I would not be doing this to the rest of the "untamed" area. So instead I hope to fill my tire planters with wildflowers (from seed).  

the start of this year's garden

As soon as it stayed warmer than cold for a few days we couldn't help but start our garden. For the past two weekends we've worked hard to pick just the right plants and seeds, till the ground, build up the soil, and try to make the plants happy.


First came strawberries
The very first act of spring for us was putting strawberries in our strawberry planter! Last year there were herbs in this, it was an utter disaster. It's been two weeks and these strawberries are already thriving! And yes, the strawberry container is sitting on a (now rusting) milk jug circa 1970 something.


Next came tomatoes
Two years ago we had a Lowe's who-knows-what-type-it-was tomato plant. We had it in a planter with a basil plant. The basil did wonderfully while the tomato plant didn't seem to be as happy. Never knowing if it was doing well and just slow to fruit or really about to die it went to stay with friends while I went on vacation. In those 2 weeks my tomato plant fruited beautifully, or so I'm told, and then died. This year I want to try really hard to make my tomato plants happy and healthy. After a few visits to Native Nurseries we took home a new terracotta pot and 2 heirloom determinate tomato plants: (in the terracotta planter) Black Seaman and (in the silver planter) Silver Fir Tree.