Planting . . .FINALLY

Ages ago . . .meaning last summer. . .Jerod and I extended and reframed a flower bed running along the front of our house (check out what it looked like before we worked on it here). Unfortunately, by the time we finished building it we were well into the hottest, driest summer since the Dust Bowl so we decided to wait to do any planting until this year AND I must say I am super excited about it and think it really jazzes up the front of the house. . . here are some pictures! I can't wait to see what it looks like after it fills in a bit.

This is our little house before the planting. The mums were there when we moved in and are lovely in the fall but may ultimately get transplanted elsewhere. I will have to see how they are looking as the rest of our plants grow some. It was hard to get up the nerve to remove the one thing growing.


 A corner shot of the flower bed. Yes . . . I know we need to weed-eat.


All my happy little plants ready for planting:)


Everything planted and mulched! Doesn't it look great? . . .or maybe it's just me?


Again, I think it is a major improvement to have some living things in front of our house.
Oh. . . you can also see the attachment for the soaker hoses Jerod put in. This will make watering and upkeep sooooooooooooo much easier.
Now I am going to give you a run down on what we planted starting with the perennials:


1: Pampas Grass- We both like ornamental grasses and it should give us some much need height and look
good for the whole growing season.



2: Russian Sage- This is supposed to fill out nicely plus it smells delicious AND it helps in attracting butterflies. . .which seemed to be true as I was surrounded by them while planting.


3: Tickseed- It's pretty it's yellow what more do I need to say!?!?!?
Now for the Annuals:


4: Celosia- Jerod saw these and loved them (and I have to agree they are pretty cute) so we thought we would fill in with them (at least this year) and add a pop of color to the bed.


5: Sweet Potato Vine- This is very popular in Oklahoma. It loves the heat, covers big areas and Jerod and I both think it is good looking so. . . we bought the green and purple varieties and staggered the planting. . .my thinking is it will overlap as is fills out and create a cool two-tone ground cover.

Don't worry I will take pictures as the summer progresses.

So what is everyone else planting? Do you love bedding plants as flowers as much as I do? I hope everyone is having a happy late Spring.

Kitchen Garden

It has been an extremely mild winter, here in OK, to the point that people still have patches of green grass BUT (as always) I am ready for spring and longer days and outside projects. I don't think I am made to handle the winter I usually feel tired and a little sad by this point in the year, luckily spring is near. As a way to usher in nicer weather (hopefully) and bring something living and fresh into the house I decided to try out a couple of kitchen gardening ideas I had been hearing about. 1: growing green onions from the bulbs of store bought onions. 2: growing my own sprouts in a mason jar.

Kitchen Garden-Attempt #1: GREEN ONIONS. While looking at random things on line I came across this post, explaining that one could take the green onions they had purchased at the store, use the green part, place the bulbs in water and regrow. I thought this seemed too good to be true but I had some onions in the fridge that needed used ASAP so I gave it a whirl. . . look at how great it turned out! In a little over a week I had beautiful green onions just waiting to be stir-fried or put in who knows what.

Freshly trimmed

A little bit of new growth

Even more growth

Beautiful!!!!!

Kitchen Garden-Attempt #2: SPROUTS! A few weeks ago Jerod and I had brunch with some friends who happened to mention they had recieved a sprouter as a gift and were going to start growing their own sprouts. I had never heard of doing this or that you could buy a contraption to help you so I did a little research and discovered that you can also grow sprouts in a mason jar. I figured I would try this method and see if I was even interested in being a sprout farmer (I based my growing method on the instructions provided here and here). It ended up being super easy. All you do is take a 1/4 cup of whatever you are growing (I used lentils), add atleast 2 inches of water over the seed/bean/whatever, cover the top of the jar with cheese cloth secure it, and let the seed/bean/whatever soak in a dark place for 12 hours. The next day you rinse the seed/bean/whatever, get as much water out as you can and place the container back in the dark spot to drain, you will do this step 2 to 3 times a day. Once your sprouts have begun growing and get to around a 1/4 to 1/2" place the container in the window for a day or two to greens things up and get the sprouts a little bigger, remove from the jar and place in an air tight container in the fridge. I have been eating sprout, cucumber and turkey sandwiches nonstop! This little project took about a week from soaking to eating. The time and care might be slightly different for other sprouts. I am dying to try Mung Bean so we will see what happends with those.

Soaking!

Rinsing

Draining. . . in my jar cabinet

Ready for the window.

All greened up and ready to eat.

The best lunch ever!

I hope all of you are making it through the winter or finding ways of coping.