An abundance of babies

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I know the email is late, I’m sorry!

We have family visiting for the weekend, and Saturday was FULL.

I knew it would be and got most of the email written on Friday. But I didn’t accurately plan out the sending part of the email. Oops.

To make up for the “old” news, you get a lot of pictures this time.

Enjoy!

The high tunnel is empty!!

And no, not the one destined for tomatoes. It’s another empty tunnel.

It’s actually not that empty, there’s just a lot more bare ground than we normally ever have in a tunnel at one time.

There are just 4 things still in the ground in here: parsley (far left), lisianthus and gladiolus flowers (far right), and lemongrass (not pictured).

Ruth got all excited looking at the glads (from across the tunnel) thinking they were starting form buds. Being the excellent daughter that I am, I promptly pointed out that she was wrong and it was just twisty leaves.

But the leaves are all looking good and we’re excited for some early glads.

But this empty-ish tunnel works out well because the seedlings are uprising and taking over!

(And this is the tunnel we raise/pot/re-pot seedlings in)

We have so many seedlings, that they don’t all fit on the shelves right now and are sitting on “growing ground” for now. So even though we don’t like to let ground sit empty, this empty ground is good right now.

There are the usual culprits – baby bok choy, lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, etc.

But we also have started repotting all the perennials from their little plugs up into quart and gallon pots.

This means that the same number of plants are now taking up 3-4 times more space than they were last week.

And there will be more to re-pot every every week.

AND… dun dun dun… the perennial plants in their big kid pots even have TAGS so I, you, everyone knows what kinds of plants they are! Gasp!

I am probably one of the laziest gardeners ever, so I love perennials.

Plant it, mulch it, and then forget it is my motto.

Seriously. If one of the requirements is watering the plant, I won’t plant it. And pruning? No way. Won’t touch that with a ten foot pole.

And with perennials, that works; you leave your garden alone and all of a sudden one morning you’ll have this big beautiful plant and you didn’t have to do anything but put it in the ground a month ago.

(If you can be a better gardener than I and water your perennials the first year, they’ll appreciate it. But after that first year, they’ll be fine on their own).

Then it will come back every year! And if you’re like me and forget what you planted – or that you planted something – it’s an exceptionally excellent surprise each year.

This year we’ll have more perennials than ever, so whether you’re looking for sun, shade, native, foliage, flowering, ground cover, bushy, and more, we’ll have something.

We are trying something different this year though. All the perennials that become available in mid to late April will be in quart size containers (think tall geranium pots) and be just $7.99. As they outgrow that size, we’ll up-pot them into gallon pots (the round ones), and the price will increase to $12.99 with the larger pot.

So if you’re looking to get a lot of perennials, mid/late April’s going to give you a good deal.

Or if you’re a little unsure if you can keep it alive (don’t worry, you can), it’s easier to risk losing $7.99 to your plant-killing skills than $12.99.

And let’s face it. It is soooo much easier to dig a quart size hole than a gallon sized hole.

More perennials will be coming up for sale in May and June; these will be a mix of $7.99 and $12.99 pots.

Ruth wrote out all the perennials that will be available in mid-April, along with what they’ll look like, preferred growing conditions, etc. Check it out and start planning your garden layout. Or don’t and just buy what strikes your fancy when you stop by.

And apropos of absolutely nothing, except that it’ll be old news by next week, the snap peas have started flowering!

Some seasonal inspiration:

​Spinach Pancakes​

​Baked Apple French Toast​

​Healthy Potato Salad with Dandelion Greens​

​Roasted Butternut Squash Broccoli Cheddar Chicken Couscous​

​Parsley Pesto Pasta

PS: did you hear? Ruth published an ebook! Designed for the small farm farmers, homesteaders, and backyard gardeners: fruit you can grow that doesn’t require more attention than children. Paper copies also in the works.

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This is one of the weekly newsletters that is emailed out every Saturday night (no more, no less). If you liked the information make sure you sign up so you can get Elizabeth’s (sometimes snarky) writings delivered right to your inbox. You can read it on the website – obviously – but a copy of the newsletter isn’t posted to the website until several weeks later.