From El Jardin

*WTH is up with blogger's formatting now? Trying to figure it out, but in the meantime, I've got a little gardening update.

Spring cannot arrrive soon enough for me. I've started a majority of our veggies from heirloom seeds this year and our first set is sprouting nicely. The only seedlings that haven't shown any signs yet are some of the peppers; the purple tomatillos, godfather peppers, and one orange roma tomato finally sprouted yesterday. I feel like the the little boy from the classic story, The Carrot Seed, watching and waiting, but nothing comes up. :) I'm also starting many herbs from seed as well and so far the two basil varieties have sprouted. I'll learn to can and preserve this summer, and have many different varieties of tomatoes this year. I look forward to no longer buying tomato sauce from the store, and I'm contemplating a little urban porch stand for my neighboring friends.

Garden soil has been gently tilled and just the beds need to be made, and as you can see, the only items left from our fall and winter garden is some lettuce and spinach, so the hubby kept the tiller away from those. We pulled up the rest of the carrots, and the artichoke plant looks like it survived the recent freezes.

Another project we have is relandscaping the large plant bed in the front yard. A few weeks ago, Mike removed the large old bushes which were an eyesore and the rose bushes which just weren't producing anymore. My goal is to replace sustainable native and adapted plants, which also provide some greenery during the winter. I've been researching, but really feel at a loss with landscape design. So I keep putting it off since it's still February, and instead I go watch the seedlings.

Roses bushes from the front yard hibernating in the wheelbarrow. Will probably put them in pots and go from there.

Our baby citrus trees hopefully survived the recent freezes and even though Mike protected them with plastic and heat lamps during the low temps, we still don't know how they will fare. The trunks look ok so far.  We'll know soon.

Some petunias that the nursery was giving away for free post freeze, so I scooped up half a dozen. After a couple weeks here, colorful petals have emerged.