Pink season

It's just about time for the peonies to open up this far north.

I love peonies.

Let me rephrase that:

I looooooooooooooooooove peonies. 

If you want them to last in a vase, here's a little tip for you...

..cut them when they are still fat buds with the outer leaves just starting to open.

Admire them, take them home, settle in a vase and wait a couple days.

Mine will look like these from last summer, pure pink cotton candy sweetness... 

*tapping foot impatiently*

Next stop: Sarah Beth's garden.

Have seeds much?

Yes.

Yes I do.
And then I ordered some more...because you just do, don't you?
Plus I may have picked up some at the garden center.

I use these nifty little pellets when starting my seeds (the brand is Jiffy).

Pop them in the container, water very generously and watch them expand.

Add your seeds, put the cover on and then the hard part of waiting starts.
These are the tomato seeds I got from Courtney.

Why the question marks?

Those two seeds got mixed up in the envelope, so I won't know until I see tomatoes ripening .

I don't mind a little mystery.

...cue impatient waiting...

I tend to grow veggies we like to eat. makes more sense :)

Love, love, love carrots.
Using up left over seeds from last year and added the red and white varieties.
Most of my seeds I ordered from Thompson & Morgan from the UK, some are from the local garden center.

Mixed variety of lettuces. The little gem one was my favorite from last year.

Greens and such...
I had broccoli and chard last year, spinach should be easy enough to grow. The leeks were part of a bonus seed packet I got. I'll give it a go, apparently not the easiest to grow.

Radishes and beets.
Last year I didn't do well with beets, but I know more now.
And you really can't mess up radishes...

Peas, peas and more peas.
Lots of peas. My neighbor at the allotments named me the pea magician last summer :)
Last year I lost all my cucumbers that I had grown in advance, so this year I'm sowing direct.
The pumpkin grew happily in a hugelkultur bed, which I'm making bigger this spring.

I have chives, oregano, thyme and lovage growing already.
Adding the sage.
Anyone interested in lovage seeds? :)

I will be growing equal amounts of veggies and flowers.

Lots and lots of flowers

I believe in a pretty and eclectic garden.
The allotments have their own beehives, so this is a great way of attracting those pollinators.

Calendula and nasturtiums.

Sweet peas are my favorite.
However seed packets with no pictures are not...
The links below the photos show pics.

 Mollie rilstone

Blue shift

Spanish dancer

Fragrant ripples

Poppies and snapdragons.

 Antirrhinum twinny appleblossom

The double bloom cosmos bloomed like crazy last year.
Also hollyhocks, rudbeckia, nigella, cornflower and flax.

 Cornflower sweet sultan

Sunflowers equal happiness.

And of course zinnias... you just can't go wrong with them.
They last two weeks in a vase!

 Zinderella lilac

Zinderella peach

Elegans candy mixed

Zinnia Marylandica Zahara

Giant double mixed

Most will be direct sown.

I've also bought this greenhouse shelf to use to start the zinnias, snapdragons and cosmos.

Ooohhh look!

I love this part!

Now off you go to check out what is going on in Courtney's garden.

It's almost April...

..and that means it's time to get the allotment planned for this season!

This is how it looked this weekend, the snow is almost gone and I walked around planning where the eight new raised beds will go.

Yes, eight!

But as I can't yet plant anything, I decided to try out making some seed tape. I figured it might make life a bit easier planting carrots and lettuce.

What you need is strips of newspaper. I read that you shouldn't have colored ink on it, and found out just how much color a newspaper has! But I managed... no color ink on the obituary pages.. my sense of humor was tickled :)

The goop, as we will here forth call this, is regular wheat flour mixed with some water.

Read from your seed package the recommended growing distance of your produce and drop small amounts of the goop at those intervals.

Drop 2-3 seeds per goop drop.

Sometimes more go on there, it's OK, just go with the flow.

I wrote the seed type on the end of the strips, just so I'd know what I will be planting.

Once completely dry, the next day, roll up and store someplace dry and sheltered from the sun.

This growing season I'll be part of a blog circle of all sorts of garden goodness.

*happy dance*

So do get yourself a nice cup of tea (or coffee.. or wine, who am I to say..), sit back and clickclick through.

You can start by heading out to Audrey's garden.

Flower power

 The last flowers from my garden made their way to a vase on my desk at work.

I also went from no socks to socks within a month.

And thicker knits.

And there were increasingly more fallen leaves on the pavement.

Fireworks, sort of...

..the floral kind

I can't remember when, if ever, my rhododendrons have bloomed like this.

They looked like cotton candy, they were so full of blooms.

I wonder if one of the reasons is that we cut down the huge birch tree next to them last year.

It was still pretty when it was almost over.

Who's hiding in my dahlia?

bzzzzzzzz.....

 That's the sound you hear in my garden right now..

It's buzzing with busy bees.

I love sitting and watching them being busy while I am on vacation.

Oh, how I love my peonies...

My favorites though are the pink and white foxgloves that pop up in new and surprising places around the garden each summer.

This white one is hiding in the lilac bush.. it's taller than I am!

 But if you thought either of these is the queen of my garden, you are mistaken.

If you have walked by my house this past week, the scent of the jasmine has hit you 30 meters before my gate.

 My Grandma would be so happy to see it thriving like this, it was always her favorite.

I think it was because it was in bloom right around her birthday (july 10th).