Kathy's post - More Flowers!

 It's so good to see all the flowers opening up and brightening up springtime! I got a pic of my Mom's Star of Bethlehem flower (shown to the left). This is a rather small flower blossom. Next in line, the pink flower, I say is a tulip, but my Mom thinks it's a day lily. Anyone want to chime in to tell me who's right? (My Mom's usually right, but I think I got her beat on this one :) I think if you click on the photo it will enlarge it if you want to get a better view of either.

In addition, I've seen the dogwoods blossoming and our strawberry plant out front also has it's blossoms. I think that the strawberries are rather early this year although I'm not sure how long it takes from the time they flower to the time the fruit appears. (But that's one thing that's good about writing in this garden blog is that it helps me keep track of things.) I should get a net for the strawberry plant because the birds usually beat me to the strawberries.

My tomato plants that I have inside are still doing well and I think (now I don't want to jinx myself), but I think I may actually have some of them make it from seed to tomato producing plant. Hooray!

Kathy's post - Flowers!

The flowers are starting to come to life! I have included a picture of my Virginia Bluebells which I bought from Sugarbush Nursery several years ago and I'm happy that it comes up every year. Bobby, my son, is posing with the Virginia Bluebells. In the woods I've seen Dutchman's breeches. (That is not how I would have guessed breeches is spelled.) Next time I'm out I'll try to remember to take a picture of it.

We tilled the garden and started to plant somethings outside today. So far I have radishes, carrots and lettuce planted. The bottom picture shows our garden plot with watering hose. I was too tired to walk all the way out to take a better picture, but next time I post hopefully we will have some sprouts! There's a peach tree next to the garden which is flowering.

This is the first year that I'm planting head lettuce, usually I go with the leafy lettuce, so we'll see how it comes up. It looks like the Easter break is going to have some wonderful weather. Hope everyone's enjoying it and getting out in the garden!

Kathy's post - Tragedy and patience

 This week I have my first tragedy to share. My broccoli plants are gone. :( Although they started out strong and were growing rather quickly, they were not able to withstand the elements when I placed them outside last week and thus, they are gone. Don't worry, I didn't put them out in the recent cold weather we had, but I guess the one day of "hardying" that I tried didn't work out for the broccoli. Other bad news, none of my pepper seeds sprouted. I think that they were duds. Will have to try again.

The second photo I've included is my photo of patience. These tiny little green dots that you see are my Bee Balm plants. They are maybe 2cm high, and they've been up for a couple weeks now. What a difference their growth is compared to that of the tomato & broccoli plants which shot up to a height of 1"-2" within a couple weeks.


And the last photo that I've included is one of my tomato plants. It now has it's second set of leaves, yeah! We're continuing well with the tomato plants.

Kathy's Post - Still nice outside

It's still nice outside! I put the tomato plants outside last week . This isn't the best photo, but the stems are starting to thicken up on the tomato plants. I think I'll need to thin them out soon. I probably should have thinned them out while I was there, but, oh well.

I've split half of the sprouts up and put some outside and left some inside. The weather this week is supposed to be relatively good, so I think the ones outside will be okay. My husband suggested using a fan on the ones inside so they get hardier. That's not something I thought of before, so it's good to have him around!

Hope everyone is enjoying the lovely weather! Happy Spring!

Kathy's post - They're here!

 We have sprouts! Our tomato, broccoli, snap dragon and zinnia sprouts are up. (Which is the easy part) Now I just have to try not to kill them until they are big enough to go outside in the garden.

I'll admit that I have not been very successful with trying to grow tomatoes from seed, but I'm determined this year I'm going to get at least one of these seeds to make it to a full-grown, tomato-producing plant.

I've also included my assistants in the photos. Bobby is the water boy and Natalie is the destroyer, I mean, soil distributor. We're still waiting for our pepper and Bee Balm seeds to rise. There's no sign of the pepper and I may have one tiny Bee Balm shoot coming out of the soil, but it says that it takes 21 days for the Bee Balm to germinate so I think we have another week to go. It's still VERY warm outside for March. Wondering what April is going to be like... And if it's too warm outside for veggies like lettuce and radishes. Hopefully Mother Nature will cool it for a little bit!

Kathy's post - Seeds planted...

This picture isn't very attractive, but hopefully in a week or two there will be signs of plant life here! Seeds are started indoors. In the past I have had success and failures (yes, that is plural!) with starting seeds indoors. This year I'm trying to start tomato plants from seed. In the past I have always bought plants at the farmers market. So if anyone has any tips for getting my tiny tomato seeds to make it into the garden in one piece, please share your wisdom!

Since we're just getting started with this group, if anyone is interested in posting, please let me know. You can contact me at katstoica@yahoo.com.

Happy gardening!

Kathy's post - Making pots

This photo looks kind of like a paper bird, but this is actually my first attempt at origami pots. Since I now have  my seeds I need something to put them in. So I'm giving this a try. It will be my first time using these for paper pots so I'll let you know how it works. From what I've seen online the newspaper will hold up until it's time to plant outside in the garden. Let's hope so!

If you want to give these origami pots a try, here's a video to watch to learn how to make them.
How to Make Origami Pots

Kathy's post - They're HERE!

THEY'RE HERE! So excited to see my seed packets in the mail today. Looking at all the shiny colorful pictures of flowers and vegetables makes me wish summer were here. Yet, it's still only March 2nd and the grass is still a dull yellow outside my window. :( 

But now that my seeds are here I can start some of them inside.

Since this is a new blog and we're always looking for new members for our garden club, if you're interested in posting about your garden or sharing photos with us, please contact me at katstoica@yahoo.com and we'll add you to the list of bloggers.

Kathy's Post - Seeds ordered (Yeah!)

Seeds are ordered! Starting with carrots, radishes, lettuce, broccoli, sweet pepper, tomato and flowers (zinnia, snapdragon and bee balm).

It's been so mild out, I'm wondering if we're going to get any snow this year. Maybe April! (Hope not.)

Last year I tried broccoli and it never flowered or produced any actual broccoli, all I got were the leaves -Which then were covered with caterpillars! And the little buggers blended in so well with the leaves I didn't see them until they had had themselves quite a snack.

I also tried carrots, but they were minuscule. Maybe I didn't wait too long, but when gardening with a four year old we are quite impatient for our vegetables to grow!

It's almost March and I'm getting very excited to get out there and start growing. Only a few more weeks.

If you plant it...

If you plant it… it will grow.  It may not always produce, it may not look pretty, but bury all those little seeds and something’s bound to come up!

My husband is the green thumb in our family. The first year we planted our garden I was overly concerned about the exact spacing, soil nutrients, sun exposure, timing and everything else I read in the gardening books. And I’m sure that there’s a place for all that planning if we were aiming for a record harvest or some prize peppers, but we weren’t.  We just wanted some nice fresh veggies that we could enjoy throughout the season.  Despite my worry we had a pretty nice little garden, all thanks to my hubbie.

So, if you’re feeling like you’re plot isn’t the best- don’t worry about it. Seeds are meant to grow. Follow the seed packet the best you can and cross your fingers.

Kathy's first post - Jan. 30, 2012

And so it begins... Another gardening season almost upon us. I've got my seed catalog in hand and a list of seeds I hope to purchase for this year. This winter has been so mild, I would like to start planting now! But I know we have to wait a little longer.

This blog is created for members of the Kittatinny Group's garden club to share their gardening stories: successes, failures, updates, questions -  if it deals with gardening, you can post it here! You don't have to be an expert gardener or a master gardener, I'm not. But I love gardening and hope to learn from others through this blog.

This year I'm trying out a new seed company - D. Landreth Seed Company. They are located in New Freedom, PA. Their seed catalog is AWESOME. I've learned a lot from reading this catalog so far. They sell heirloom and genetically non-modified seeds.

Here's my list of seeds to buy (so far):
Flowers:  Zinnias, Snapdragon, Sweet Pea
Vegetables/Fruits:  Mexican Sour Gherkin, Plum Purple Radish, Connecticut Field Pumpkin, Small sugar pumpkin, Silver King Corn, Little Finger Carrots, Calabrese Green Sprouting Broccoli & Orange Sun Sweet Pepper.

That list might be a little over-ambitious, but I'll write back with what I actually ended up with.