Another season begins

We all have different times that our seasons begin, mine has started now. We still have snow on the ground and its over 2 months before our last frost date, but I have got some things to do. For those of you who do not know, my honey is graduating from grad school at the beginning of May and he wants a Graduation Luau party. I am taking over a little more of the back yard from the dogs. They still have plenty of room to run, dig or their favorite thing, killing the grass. I do not have my camera charger so pictures at the time of this and the next few writings will come without photos. Sorry. I will try to use our older camera but it didn't work real well to begin with, hence the second camera. Any who, I have some gigantic plans on an empty wallet budget but tons of enthusiasm.
I was looking back on last years garden diary and realized I was busy this time last year. I need to step it up a bit. I am focusing on flowers this year instead of veggies. Don't get me wrong, we are still having our vegetable garden, I am just not doing as much as last season. Last years Celeriac, and Jicama were a big joke. Yes they both grew and the Celeriac grew quite well from the looks of it. The tops of the Celeriac looked like flat leaf parsley and was quite lush. However, the bulb that I was planning on harvesting was laughable; although tragically. The Jicama did worse, once again the bugs enjoyed my eggplant, the deer got all my pepper plants, the broccoli sucked, and the melons were a disappointment. The tomatoes weren't all that good but I blame the weather, it was a cold summer last year; hell I about froze to death on the 4th of July. You would think with all of that disaster, why would I bother? The only answer I have is that, I enjoy what I do when I get to do it, and some seasons are great while others a failure. I wouldn't call last years garden a failure, but I have definitely enjoyed more bumper crops in the past. The beans were a success, the squash was fine, the onions had a better showing than ever before and I did get some broccoli, just not enough. I think I will do broccoli again but a fall crop instead. The potatoes weren't bad but I think they are just too much work for something I really can't tell the difference in store bought. My plans for this years vegetable garden are about 60 tomato plants, 140 pepper plants, beans, corn, onion, garlic, and squash.
The real work will be in the back yard this spring. I have a large list of things to get accomplished before our last frost date. If you know the back yard, you now that I have a little NE corner of the yard fenced off for flower gardens around the back patio. I am now taking the East side of the yard and the doggies get the west side. I plan on only using plants from the yard to place around to fill in the areas I will make into flower beds. For color, I am planning on using plants started from seeds. I have started 5 flats of flower seeds this past Monday and noticed I already had sprouts as of Friday. Cleomes, Cosmos, Daisies, Lilies, Hyacinth bean, Nasturtium, Ligularia, White Echinacea, Hibiscus, Clematis, Moon Flower, Wave Petunia, Poppy, Balsam, Coleus, Lobelia, Zinnia, and marigolds. Hell, I didn't realize how many different things I started. Please let there be room in the greenhouse soon. I will be heating the greenhouse earlier than I did last year, so if everything goes right there will be a lot of color in the yard early this year.

As soon as the weather cuts me a little slack, I will start to get busy with things outside that don't require warm weather. I am planning on building a permanent structure for the screen gazebo, that I like to call Ghetto Gazebo but more on that at a later writing. I have a fence to move, a fire pit to move, about eight bushes to move and possibly 30 plants to move or split. I have to turn all the parts of the yard that are nothing more than a mud pit at the present time, into either lush grass or nice pebble stones, maybe even flagstone. I have not committed as you can see, just anything but mud. I want the back yard to be more comfortable for larger crowds. At some point I will add a small deck to the patio but I need my ship to come in first. That is some of what I have planned for this season. Wish me luck.