North Texas has plenty of rain in the forecast!

WFAA

And I am THRILLED!

I just planted Nasturtiums, Sweet Pea, Chives and Carrots in my future Tomato bed and expect the rain to get my seeds off to a great start.

Checking my seed sources

(Wikipedia)

I'm not at a place where I am saving seed at this point and frankly I enjoy ordering from seed catalogs ALOT! However, there is one company (Monsanto) that I do not want in my garden and I was surprised to discover that they own 40% of the home garden vegetable seed market. I've probably bought their seeds, but now that I know I plan to avoid them in the future.

Read the article below and find out if your seed source is Monsanto.

Keep Monsanto Out of Your Garden this Spring by Colleen Vanderlinden at treehugger

I learned about this via Little Homestead in the city blog

If you can't beat them, join them.

I actually loathe this catch phrase. Recently though, I found one scenario where I am eagerly waiting to "join them". "Them" being those clover weeds.

I spent a combined five hours last weekend attempting to remove White Dutch Clover by hand from my small front lawn. By the end of the weekend my back hurt and despite the two full garbage bags of clover, my hard labor hardly made a dent in the yard. So, off to Google I went in search of "Safe, Organic ways to kill clover" and I stumbled upon this interesting conversation on ivillage. After reading though several comments, I came across a post by annaneaves. Which I can sum up as the most brilliant thing I've read on lawn care. Why not just leave the clover alone? annaneaves goes on to say that her lawn looks better than her turf-only neighbor and that the key is an even mixture of grass and clover. She even posted a picture of her super green lawn which can be seen here.


Clover & Grass Lawn

(Green T)

Now that I had the idea I was off in search of more information on how to do this. I got the picture above from a blog post on Green T Environmental Awareness titled Overseeding with clover. From this post I learned how easy it is to care for a clover lawn and that the clover actually feeds the lawn with additional nitrogen. As an added bonus, clover typically remains green year around. I highly recommend jumping over there to read more.

I still plan to thin out my current big clumps of clover, but I now would like to add clover to other parts of my lawn to get the even look. I can't wait to see how it turns out!

Seedling Update

Lettuce - Looks like Red Sails is the dominate (see the red tinge on the tips)

My first tomato plant of 2012 - This is one of two survivors from the January 5th planting. Not sure what kind yet, but its doing great!

The 2nd plantings (Feb.5th) are still at 100% germination and survival. So far so good! I look forward to planting this batch out in the garden next month and getting started on other plantings!

Quick Storage Fix

We recently had a garage door opener installed and for the first time in three years I am now entering the house through the garage (I'm thrilled by this) !!! What didn't change though, was that I am still using my dinning room table as a dumping ground. I typically carry several bags a day and have a tendency to leave them all, plus keys, travel coffee mug and my mail all on our formal dinning room table. Then it collects all week long and before you know it ... I have to push stuff off the table in order to have a nice sit down meal.

For some time now I've been planning to purchase a cabinet or side table as a "home" for all my daily things. Somewhere I can place the mail, notebooks and etc without it looking cluttered. This past weekend, I was talking to my super creative best friend and mentioned that I was looking for the right piece that could fit on a small side wall near the door to my garage. It turns out that she recently visited the Saginaw Goodwill and had noticed a side table with interesting detail....that caught my attention!

Sure enough, after racing over to Goodwill we quickly spotted the table and other than a few nicks on the top it was in great shape with a great price to match! By this point I was thrilled and in full decorating mood. Later that day I picked up a plastic plant pot at Wal-Mart and some blue spray paint to help tie in the blue from the back room. I added some silk flowers, also from Wal-Mart and twigs from my backyard. The clock I already owned, it was purchase from Ross last year. It really came together quickly and cost a total of $27.97 (excluding the clock I bought last year and can't remember the price). Not bad and now my things have a "home".

Garden Plans

While I eagerly await Spring, I've been engulfed in seed catalogs dreaming of all the wonderful flavors. Here is what I plan to grow in 2012:

Tomatoes - Bountiful Gardens Pineapple and Lake
-Plus several other varieties
Yellow Squash - Grew really well summer of 2011
Beans - Pinto and Green Beans
Watermelon - Sugar Baby or Jubilee (whichever grows)
Pumpkins - Small Sugar and a Lumina just because I think it would be cool to grow a white pumpkin!
Alfalfa - To help replenish the soil in one of my beds.
Carrots - Several different varieties
Beets - This is a new one for me
Radishes - Also new
Borage
Basil
Chamomile
Garlic

I will probably add to these as I go. The problem is my eyes are bigger than my garden! What are you planning to grow this year?

Pinterest Green Onion Idea - Works!

A lot of great ideas seem to come from Pinterst these days. I tried this out after seeing my Best Friend's onions growing. While the green onions didn't take off right away, once they were over the shock they came back strong! So far my green onions have been growing for a month now. I have to trim them a couple times a week since they grow so tall they fall over if I don't.