Seeing is believing!

Have you ever started something and then wondered why you did? I'm sort of at that point with the recent spate of videos I've posted at https://youtube.com/kckendricks. I'm having fun (sort of) learning to edit a cohesive video so that's a good thing. I've joked I'm going to be ninety years old in the nursing home and pulling up these vids to prove to the old codgers I really did operate a John Deere tractor and I really did use a chainsaw. Ha ha. 

But seriously, a conversation with some friends got me to thinking. Myself and another member of our "dinner group" live alone, and we are not afraid to cut down a tree and chop firewood for ourselves. Several other group members have no clue about how to garden, how to can food, how to take their car in for service. They just don't know where to start. I want these videos to show women in my age group that they can do it. 

So what have I been recording?

Using the Brush Crusher on the John Deere tractor to remove fallen tree limbs, brush, to aid cutting firewood, and using the backhoe attachment to dig out stumps and a clothesline post among other things. I'm going to run out of ambition to keep making videos long before I run out of projects. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUYFmD6rG3c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZLTCa_x19g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVIhb51F6hE

Of course, I manage to get video-bombed by Deuce at least once per video. 

I try hard to not allow myself to get annoyed by women who think they can't do for themselves. So many times it's conditioning from their parents. You can take care of yourself. I'm walking proof of that. I had good examples of strong, self-sufficient women to guide me. I had a husband who believed it was part of his duty as a husband to teach me all that he could. His life was my biggest blessing. 

Sooooo, if you'd like to see me in action, visit the YouTube channel. If nothing else, you'll get a laugh or three as I blunder my way through projects here at Holly Tree Manor.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, John Deere 1023, strong women, self-sufficient, tractors, chainsaws, gardening, cooking, rural living, country lifestyle, a writer's life, greenhouse, YouTube channel

Sprouts!! Lookee lookee!

 It's official! My 2025 garden is growing. Seeds have sprouted! 

It's not much at the moment. Two green cabbage varieties and one red, plus one of the basil seed packets. It's a lot more cabbage than I'll need, but I can give some away when the time comes. My cousin next door likes cabbage and Cole slaw so there we go. 

As for the basil, this is just a start. I love pesto so the plan is to make a BUNCH of it this year and freeze it. I used the last of what I made in 2024 months ago, so I need to be on it this season. 

I'm ready to begin work in my garden but the weather is not helping. It's chilly and windy outside - not the weather I want to work in outside. But it has not stopped me from planning my garden and making a "plan of attack" to ready the raised beds, refresh the grow buckets, and set the second Greenstalk in its 2025 location. I also have a new greenhouse to set up and I need to move the old greenhouse frame to a location where I can zip tie shade cloth to in later in the year when the plants need a break from the solar maximum. 

Today is the day we set our clocks ahead before we go to bed, and I'm looking forward to longer daylight in the evenings. That will help me get things done. There's more on that over a Between the Keys. 

Things to do, things to do, but I think the only thing I'll really accomplish on this windy afternoon is some writing. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, gardening, rural living, cabbage, basil, greenhouse, country lifestyle, garden planning, organization, a writer's life, KC Kendricks

The impulse purchase - it's not a bad thing!

I confess. I do shop at Walmart from time to time. They have quite a few pantry items at much lower prices than the local grocery. For example, our favorite Ragu spaghetti/pasta sauce is $.71 cheaper per jar. If I'm re-stocking the pantry with ten jars, that's quite a savings. 

So I was at Walmart, and I took the opportunity to wander around in the garden department to see what was already set out for the season. The seed packets called me over. It was a summons I couldn't ignore. Seriously! It was not my fault!!

Joking aside, I've been thinking I should include more flowers for the bees in my garden. The Lord of the Manor has, in one of his rare absolute authoritarian edicts, forbidden me a beehive. Okay, so he's scared of bees. He can't stop me from feeding the wild ones, ergo, flowers in the garden patch. Last year, the bees "worked" the begonias and marigolds, so expansion is called for in 2024.

I've got a seed starting area set up in the den using grow lights. This will be the first year for it and I hope it works out. In past years I've set seed trays in the sunroom, but that is also my office. With everything else going on this spring, I don't need that chaos in my workspace. Add to that I plan to reinstall the shade cloth over the sunroom porch around the first of April. That cloth blocks a lot of sunlight and keeps my office space cooler in the summer, but it would also block sunlight the sprouts need. 

The first of March is my target date for seed starting. A little before or a few days late matters not. Some time between the middle and end of April, the seedlings will migrate to the greenhouse to harden-off, and then be planted in the appropriate container around the first of May. And then we can sit in the garden and watch everything grow until it's time to harvest. 

I really think having lots of flowers mixed in with the veggies will be pretty to see and help create a relaxing area. I hope so, anyway.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, seed starting, gardening, rural living, country lifestyle, shade cloth, greenhouse, container planting, beehive, seed packets, seasonal living, organization, planning

Almost time! Flowers forming on toms!

One of the most pleasurable things about gardening is walking through to check the plants and discovering the changes. Seeds sprout, plants grow, they start to vine, new leaves pop out, and flower buds form. Yea!

Several of the tomato plants, both the Beefsteak and the Giant Pink Belgium, have flower buds ready to open. I'm not at all sure where this fits in the 2022 schedule. I know that by mid-June last year there were green Roma tomatoes on the vines. This year the weather seems cooler, so it may take longer. 

But no matter. All happens in a garden in its own time. You can only hurry the season so much without a heated greenhouse. Oh, yes, I'd love to have one but as with all expenses, we'll have to wait and see.

It's enough for now to see the buds in the tomatoes. One lesson that is quickly taught to novice gardeners is that you must be patient. 

The Lady of The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, tomatoes, gardening, flower buds, rural living, country lifestyle, container gardening, greenhouse, Beefsteak, Roma, Giant Pink Belgium

Cucumbers 2023

I will freely admit I am not a master gardener, but a novice at best. My grandfather was a Master. Oh, he never went to school or took classes for it, but he knew it. He lived it. His parents and grandparents' survival depended on the crops they raised and "put by" for the next year. He worked the garden right beside them. From my front porch, I can still see the area where they planted and it is about three acres in size. 

I wish I'd been able to learn more from him, but I needed to work a full-time job. After work, there was my first marriage to tend to, not that my efforts there were successful. Now I have time to garden and I'm learning almost from scratch. 

Pop grew cucumbers from time to time, but they weren't a staple in his garden. I recall that my grandmother would tell him she needed to make a batch of pickles (bread and butter) every few years, and he'd plant some cukes. Once the pickles were in the jars, the family got salad cucumbers because my grandparents didn't eat very many of them raw. 

This is the first year I started cucumber seeds inside. Nine seeds sprouted that have been transplanted into buckets in the garden patch. Cucumber is a fruit and is about ninety-five percent water. The seedlings are very tender and can't tolerate colder temperatures the way a tomato plant can. 

I knew I took a big chance getting the cukes outside this early. We're still ahead of our last frost date but my instinct tells me that while the temps are dipping into the mid to high thirties, we won't have frost. Nonetheless, I decided to hedge my gamble and move the cukes and tomatoes into the greenhouse for the next two nights. We had a good rain yesterday and the air is damp. I expect the greenhouse will add a layer of protection from the dampness settling on the leaves overnight. 

Planting early wasn't something my grandfather did, but we have new and improved varieties these days. If my cucumbers wilt due to the cold night, I still have time to direct sow more seed. If that happens, I'll consider it a lesson learned and stick to direct sowing from here on out. 

Live and learn.

The Lady of The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, gardening, rural living, country lifestyle, cucumbers, tomatoes, greenhouse, freeze warning, a writer's life, simple country pleasures

We need this rainy day

A rainy day view

It's a wonderfully rainy day here at Holly Tree Manor. It's been very dry, so dry in fact that the county government issued a burning ban. Twenty or so miles west of us, several wildfires have occurred in the last few days so this rain is a blessing to the firefighters. I'm always worried about wildfires living as we do. All it takes is one fucking idiot discarding a lit cigarette on the mountain trails to change the mountain forever. 

We've been busy with several projects. The Lord of the Manor is working on modifying an aluminum ramp to more easily load his power chair into the van, and changing out the engine on the log splitter to one that has an electric starter. We've reached the point where a pull-string starter no longer works for us. 

I've been busy with my little garden setup, getting seedlings to the greenhouse, and planting brassicas. Having an abundance of tomato seedlings, I even planted a few tomatoes into their buckets. My instincts say we're unlikely to see a hard frost this year, but if it looks like one will happen, those buckets can be moved inside the greenhouse. It's not a problem. 

Everything here has turned green. I "threw the mower" at the yard to chop the tops off the high spots, but after this rain, I'll need to actually mow. I took a morning and cleaned up around the edges of the yard, picking up and raking downed sticks and general tree debris. Anything large enough to damage the mower blades went on the brush pile. 

We built a rough frame for the sunroom porch and I draped 40% shade cloth over it to see if that would help keep my office cooler. It appears to work so I've ordered a denser shade cloth to make a more permanent installation. The shade umbrella I've used for several years has an unfortunate propensity to fly away in the wind. I'm not buying another one. 

This rainy day gives me the chance to catch up on a few things I've let slide. I want to get my planting diagram into the computer, all neat and tidy, so I have it for next year. I may even get some laundry done! The weather may have convinced me to take it slower today, but that's fine. A little break never hurt anyone.

The Lady of The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, gardening, greenhouse, rural living, country lifestyle, rainy days, a writer's life, shade cloth, wildfires, woodlands, log splitter

Feeling stymied

Stymied: To be an obstacle to; prevent the advancement or success of; thwart or stump: weather that stymied attempts to locate the missing hikers; a math problem that stymied half the class. 

I feel stymied by our wonderful weather. The sky is blue, the sun is bright, the grass is greening-up, the breeze is blowing, and it's a mere 45F outside. It rained yesterday and the ground is damp. 

I can't mow, I can't dig in the too-wet dirt, I can't set the begonias out on the porch for another round of hardening-off. 

But there is hope! Tomorrow, if all goes as predicted, I'll be able to cross off a lot of items on my To Do List. I'll be able to mow (or maybe convince the Lord of the Manor to do it), get the begonias to the greenhouse, plant sugar snap pea seeds outside in a few grow bags, sow a row of spring onions in the raised bed, and plant a few seeds in starter packs once the begonias are out of the way. I may even make a quick trip to the landfill if Himself is willing to do a few things for me this afternoon. 

I'm definitely feeling frustrated this spring. There are so many things to do, that I want to do, and I need to wait out the weather, at least until tomorrow.

Tomorrow's 10-day forecast is a beacon of hope. After tonight, there is only one night that the temperature dips into the thirties (Fahrenheit). Since my little greenhouse isn't heated, I plan to cover the begonias at night with an old sheet for the next little while anyway, so it'll still work for me. 

There are, of course, things I could do today if I had more of a domestic bent. Housekeeping and laundry have never excited me the way being outside does. I'd probably die if forced to live in the "concrete jungle." I do enjoy home food preservation, but I don't have any canning projects lined up. 

I'll figure today out soon. I'm never stymied for very long. 

The Lady of The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, gardening, home food preservation, rural living, weather, greenhouse, country lifestyle, a writer's life, Greenstalk, seeds, sugar snap peas, seed trays, 

Shade cloth

Last year was the first time I used shade cloth. The small greenhouse I purchased really heated up inside and it was pretty obvious if I didn't moderate the temperature, plants would burn up on really hot days. The answer was shade cloth.  What surprised me about the shade cloth over the greenhouse was that it also kept the inside a bit warmer a bit longer in the evenings. I hadn't expected that. 

I also learned last year that "full sun" can kill a tomato plant in a five-gallon bucket. I had a devil of a time keeping the soil in the tomato buckets from going bone dry. It's one of the many reasons I've moved my garden to its current location. It will get dappled shade early in the morning and full sun from about ten-thirty to five-ish. So will that still be too much full sun? 

Good old Sol is doing a few things that are not conducive to great gardening. We've had the Grand Solar Minimum, we've had coronal flares, and pretty soon it looks like a solar maximum may be in the works. What's a gardener to do? 

I'm going with shade cloth. I recently purchased a small shade cloth for over the frame of the first tiny greenhouse I got several years ago. The plastic shredded (I knew it would eventually) but the frame is fine. The plan is to cover the frame with the shade cloth and go from there. I also got a larger shade cloth to drape over the wooden frames. I can screw one side down and pull it over the rails as necessary. I think it should work, but as with all things, I'll make adjustments as I go along. 

And for those who wonder how well the greenhouse withstands high winds, I zip-tied 10-pound barbell weights to each corner for a little extra insurance. The greenhouse hasn't moved yet. 

The Lady of the Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, gardening, greenhouse, shade cloth, rural living, country lifestyle, blogging, a writer's life, sun activity

Now we wait a bit

The next batch of seeds are started. This morning, I replanted the marigolds, which damped off. Damp-off is the bane of many a gardener, and I fell prey to it. Along with the marigolds are one tray each of cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower. 

The almanac gives the beginning week of March the date to plant these seeds, but I didn't think a few days would matter too much. I think cold-liking crops are going to have a bad year so an early start is a good thing. 

Lemongrass is next on my list. I've never grown it before. No one I know has, but I like it. We'll see what happens. 

This is a hopeful time of the year for me and others. We hope for seeds to sprout. We wait and watch. 

Yes, hope is the eternal partner of the gardener. 

The Lady of the Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, gardening, seed starting, rural living, greenhouse, Lemongrass, country lifestyle

Begonia cuttings: I may have jumped the gun

Begonias, or wax plants, are a staple among my plantings every year. My grandmother loved red begonias and I feel that keeping a red wax plant keeps my connection to her more alive. Begonias are easy to come by in the spring, so I've not always bothered with 'wintering over' a mother plant. Some years the day job got to me that much.

This year, I brought in two red and two white wax plants to winter over as mother plants. Last summer I noticed my veggie garden lacked some color and I want to remedy that in the 2023 season. My plan for this year included space for annual bloomers.  

I have a five-tier planter that was originally bought with strawberries in mind. That didn't work out so well. I think the planting cubbies are too shallow for berries, but they are perfect for begonias. I need fifteen plants to fill it. 

I may have jumped the gun.

A few days ago I noticed two of the mother plants were beginning to fade. My fault. I did something stupid and one evening turned on the space heater in my office without setting the plants in the other room. Sometimes plants don't do well around ceramic heaters and I suspect that's what happened. I ordered a tray of peat pellets and they arrived yesterday. 

I've gone ahead and taken cuttings from the two plants that were looking stressed. It may be too early for the cuttings to grow, but established wax plants are tough enough to rebound if judiciously cut back. It'll be a win/win if all goes well. I'll still have the mother plants in their red pots and I'll have enough young plants to fill the planter. And I have two large wax plants that don't seem to be affected by exposure to the heater. 

With any luck, I'll be able to get the begonias in the planter around mid-April, and let them harden off in the greenhouse for a few weeks. That should give them a good start. 

It's only the second week of January. Did I start the cuttings too soon? Maybe. But since I needed to trim the mother plants, I'm only out a few peat pots if the cuttings don't root. I think it was worth the gamble. 

The Lady of the Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, begonias, wax plants, gardening, rural living, country lifestyle, traditions, annual plantings, greenhouse

Four short months

In just four short months, I can start some seeds for the 2023 garden. That may sound crazy - it sounds crazy to me - but according to the Old Farmer's Almanac, you can start brassicas seeds in early March.  

Short lesson: brassicas include cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, turnips, and a few other things I've forgotten and am too lazy to look up at the moment. 

My brassicas of choice are cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts. I've never had kohlrabi, but I've been told it's bitter even when properly prepared. That's the sort of thing that I could probably grow tons of - something I wouldn't like. 

In the 2022 growing season, I had good results with cabbage. Not so much with the broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts. I'll take a pass on them since it was the first year I tried to grow them and it's all part of learning. I was happy with the cabbage as we love fresh cole slaw. The downside to cabbage is it can't be home-canned. I ran a batch through the freeze drier but as of this date, I don't know for certain how well it's storing. It may be bitter as hell when rehydrated for all I know. I'll test it before I start the cabbage seeds to judge how many cabbages I want to grow.

With cold weather fast approaching, I got my butt in gear to move the garden corral and greenhouse to their new home. I purchased some woven ground cloth from Grower's Solutions and got that put down before moving the frames and greenhouse. Getting that done now is, I hope, a win-win. I won't have to do it in the spring when the ground is damp, and it helps me visualize how I want to plant next year.  

Another big plus is that with the corral moved, it frees up the pad for its original intent - our small pool. It's been a few years since we put the pool up, but we both wished we'd had it this past summer, so we're going to give it a go in 2023. 

Planning ahead helps keep things moving along. Next spring I can concentrate on the fun stuff (planting) and not worry about moving everything. The pool can go up in May and begin to warm. And I'm sure that next summer, there will be new projects to plan and execute. That's just the way it goes here at Holly Tree Manor. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, country living, rural lifestyle, gardening, greenhouse, swimming pool, planning ahead, a writer's life, growing vegetables, success, failure

Tomato surprise!

I love living on the mountain and having nature all around me. I learn something every day, even more so now that I'm retired and home more.  

This past August, we had a bit of a heat wave. Our temps got up into the 90sF every day for about two weeks. It's not unusual for us to have 90F days, so don't go all climate change on me. But it is rare for us to have a long stretch like that. The last time it happened was back around 1992/93. 

But I digress...

Due to the heat, my tomatoes stopped putting out new flowers which meant no new tomatoes. I allowed what fruit was on the vines to mature, and then I cut off the plant and moved the grow bucket to the winter storage area. I had a good crop so it was fine with me. When you garden, you have to take a lot of things as they come. You can't fight it.

Yesterday, I noticed that several of the tomato plants had sent up new stalks. That was unexpected! There's not time enough for them to set new flowers and produce fruit, but it's a fascinating development. I'm going to move one bucket into the greenhouse just to see what happens. It's an experiment, a test, of both plant and greenhouse. It should be interesting - and a lot of fun! 

Here's the link to a short video:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8eQhWIdOlU 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, tomato plants, nature, country living, gardening, greenhouse, rural lifestyle, green peppers, container garden, grow buckets

We upgraded the greenhouse

There's never a shortage of things we want to do here at the Manor, and it seems there's always a roadblock or two on the way to getting it done. I want to grow more veggies, and you'd think it would be a simple matter of tilling up a spot for a garden. Nope. Deer. We have a DEER PROBLEM. 

To go off on a tangent, this past hunting season was a bust. As in there were not many hunters in the woods. Why? Well, they couldn't get any ammo! Now all you left-leaning folks probably think that's a good thing. In real life, next winter, the deer will starve to death because there will be too many of them. Good going. 

But I digress...

With our local deer herd population, that is to say the little herd that lives in my woods and beds down in the thickets we leave for them, expanded to fifteen, there's no way in hell my veggies are safe. The small greenhouse I got two years ago is just that - small. So I upgraded to a 12x7x7 greenhouse, and amidst screaming wailing and gnashing of teeth from the spousal unit, it went up yesterday. I think it will work out fine. 

I should be able to extend the season for a few tomatoes and plant a few fall Brassicas. Next year, I'll be able to move my seedlings outside a lot faster, and that's always a plus. I may even be able to coax some herbs to live over the winter inside the greenhouse. 

This greenhouse is probably a stepping stone to a more traditional constructed greenhouse, one that won't need to sit on the leeward side of the house to be protected from the wind. I'll just have to see how I do with this one to more accurately gauge whether or not it's worth the investment in a more permanent structure. 

Like a lot of things in life, it's an experiment. It may work out, or it may not. This is just one more step in my life's journey to somewhere. It requires patience to allow everything to happen at a pace I'm not sure I control. No matter how it all shakes out, I know I'll enjoy spending time in the greenhouse on chilly winter days. Maybe it'll be a warm spot to read a book on a cold day. Wouldn't that be fun?!

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, simple country pleasures, greenhouse, gardening, Lady of the Manor, a writer's life, white-tail deer, hunting, ammo, veggies, herbs, stepping stones

Trust the almanac? Maybe not every year.

My grandfather planted by the signs, which is to say he read the yearly Old Farmer's Almanac and followed its planting guidelines. I get a digital copy every year, and it does contain some good "country" knowledge about when to plant what. With the digital copy comes access to a variety of documents which includes a planting calendar for my zip code. 

I planted my seeds according to the calendar, but I'm starting to think it wasn't a good idea for 2022. The Roma tomatoes look really good, but everything is a bit "peekid." That is to say, it's not looking good. I purchased good seed from Burpees so the sprouts should look a lot better. 

One of the starts, the Bodacious** tomatoes, look really ragged, so much so that during my last trip to town I purchased a different variety, Rutgers, and just this morning planted those seeds. I think that next year, I'll give the seeds an extra week or two before planting them. They'll catch up growing quick enough once it's time to get them outside. 

The weather surely plays a big part in the health of sprouts and seedlings. We're having a protracted cold, wet, and windy spring. Sunshine has been at a premium. Next year, I'll pay attention to what sort of cycle we're in. 

I did add a new shelving unit to my seed sprouting repertoire this year. I don't mind the sprouting trays taking over the floor space in my sunroom office, but it pissed off Loki the Cat. He knows when I'm at my desk and will come to the sunroom door for me to let him in and out. The trays in his way making it so he had to make a leap over them did not make him happy. Pandering to the feline? You betcha! He gets mouthy when things don't please him. 

The unit is a good addition, though. It's of mid-grade quality and will disassemble easily to store until next year. Add in that it has wheels and I can turn it every day for the plants and it's win-win-win.  

Come 2023, I may purchase a larger greenhouse and perhaps move the seed sprouting operation to it. It's something I'm pondering this year. It would mean planting seeds later in the season and keeping a very close eye on the temperatures inside the greenhouse. We'll have to think about that for a while. I'm not in a rush to spend the money and then discover it doesn't work for me. 

This summer, my first being fully retired, will be a learning experience on so many fronts. I hope I'm up to the task. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

**4/25/22 update - all the Bodacious tomatoes were a loss**

So I'm obsessing over it

 

I'm obsessing a bit over how healthy the celery and green onions are in the greenhouse. We've had night after night after night of temps down to 20F, and even one night that dipped into the teens. We've had three frost-covered mornings in a row, and yet the celery and onions are doing fine. 

The celery actually needs to be harvested at this point. That may be the end of it, but I plan to cut it and dehydrate it. I've found The Purposeful Pantry on YouTube and the content creator has a lot, and I mean A LOT, of dehydrating tips.  I need to dehydrate the green onions, too, and I'm very sure that will end them and I'll have to start over. That's all part of gardening, though. It will give me the opportunity to restore the soil in that grow bag so it's not a bad thing. 

We made a quick trip to Lowe's earlier today so I could get potting soil, vermiculite, and cow manure. I already have a scoop of screened garden soil that was purchased last summer. The weatherman says tomorrow will be about 50F and if it happens, I'm going to mix up enough of the elements to get a few of the grow bags filled. I might even sow some radish seeds in one. 

The season is coming. I can feel it. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

The hardest part of gardening is just ahead

We've not done extensive vegetable gardening here on the Manor. We have a huge problem with white-tailed deer and therefore, in the past, we had an even bigger problem with working hard just to provide them with a nice salad bowl. But the times, they are a-changing, or so they say. This past summer we were successful on a very small scale. For 2021, we're upping our game. 

I'm already in possession a collection of seeds from Burpee. My grandfather and my mother both bought seeds from Burpee so I'm continuing the tradition, at least for this year. I can't say as it got off to a good start since I received someone else's order, but apparently, the lady who got some of my seeds got to the company before I even knew it happened. I had an email telling me my replacement order was on the way before I got the wrong seeds. That I get to keep. I'll be growing sugar snap peas, spinach, and different varieties of radish and lettuce along with what I ordered. It's all good. There are enough seeds in each envelope to plant for two or three seasons. Just because they're packaged for 2021 doesn't mean they will magically go "poof" on December 31st. 

Now I need to figure out when to start the different seeds. That means research into each variety and careful notes on a gardening calendar. After the seeds spouts, the fun begins as the plants grow, then flower, then produce. I'm kind of excited about it! 

I already know some of the seeds can be started early in seed trays inside my little greenhouse. Others will need to go directly into the growbag for the season. Some, like the lettuce and spinach, I'm undecided about how I want to grow them. I have an old wagon and I'm tempted to plant them in that and move them around to thwart the critters. 

Yes, the time to do serious planning for 2021 is here. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor  (The Hideaway)

Tiny houses

I've always wanted a greenhouse. My grandfather used cold frames, but I prefer not to kneel, bend over, or sit on the wet ground to tend seedlings. Pop did it but he was a tough old guy. I'm a wimp. I'd rather stand.

There are so many things I've wanted to do over the years, but working full time, and then my partner's health, precluded them. Until I can simply hop in my car and go, travel is out. To travel with a person who has mobility issues is a lot of work - let me repeat that: A LOT OF WORK. They travel. You're a pack mule. 

Having a greenhouse is a lot of work, too, to fully utilize its potential so I've gone small. I've purchased a tiny house, about five feet by five feet square and about six feet high in the center. It has four shelves for seedling trays and should be all I really need for the scale of gardening I'm about to undertake.

Like what Pop did with the cold frames, I'll be able to start seeds about six to eight weeks before our "official" last chance of frost date, which is May 10 to May 15 depending on who is doing the talking. I always picked the weekend between the two to plant, the weekend being when I was home. If you're in tune with the season, you know if the chance of frost is past. It's in the air. 

This past Sunday, we unboxed and erected my tiny greenhouse. The instructions were cryptic, but we laid everything out to study the parts and it suddenly made sense. The frame went together with no missing parts, but getting the covering on? That was a bit of work. I had to go inside the greenhouse to line the cover up with the frame and it was hot in there! 

Yep. It will make little seedlings very happy. I used to have a good number of large pots around the patio that I planted with annuals. It's been a few years since I've set them out due to the price of annuals. I'm not paying fifty-cents per plant. Now, for around a dollar, I can start my own from seeds and fill the pots again. Red salvia, zinnias, impatiens, coleus, dianthus, portulaca, marigolds, lobelia, ageratum, alyssum, dusty miller, lantana, and a lot more have all graced my patio. By next spring I'll have to decide on perhaps four and set the color scheme of the year. 

In with the flowers will also be some veggies. I discovered something called Cowboy Candy this year and high on my list are jalapeno peppers, along with tomato and a smattering of other things, all container grown. Starting the veggies from seed will be a boon. A pack of 30 seeds costs less than one single plant at the nurseries around here. The tiny greenhouse will pay for itself in one season. 

Another good thing about the tiny greenhouse is that it is mobile. If I find it needs to be in a better location, I can literally pull up stakes and move it. It can be disassembled and stored each winter. And what if I decide I want a permanent structure? I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor