What a difference a week makes...

My Mom and I went to tour Sunset Magazine's gardens in Menlo Park last week. Although smaller than we expected, it was beautiful, and was not surprisingly divided into sections: Desert, Southern California, Coast, Northern California, just like the legendary magazine itself. I must say, though, my favorite part was the small vegetable garden and chicken coop. I'm thinking we need chickens as soon as we have some land of our own~~maybe a goat too... I wonder how Ty will feel about those additions to the family?

I potted most of the rest of the seedlings and now my kitchen is feeling like herself again. I'm still having some trouble with the cucumbers; the seedlings in my big homemade planter are doing well by now, but the more recent transplants are struggling. As long as I can get 3 or 4 prolific cucumber plants out of the lot I'll be happy! My beans, on the other hand, are growing like crazy and I may have to thin them at some point. Incidentally, thinning, to me, is one of the saddest parts of gardening. I hate pulling up beautiful plants whom I've raised from seeds (I have a strong tendency towards anthropomorphism)! But if not doing it will kill them all by depleting the nutrients and leaving less than enough room, what choice do I have?

I was feeling similarly about pinching back my sweet peas. The seed packet stated very clearly that to get the fullest plants and the most blooms, pinch off the top inch of the seedling once it was 3-4 inches long. I almost wasn't going to do it but at the last minute found myself wincing as I pinched off a few token tops of my beloved sweet peas. They still aren't as tall as I'd hoped they would be by now, but they are doing fine and are green and healthy.

...Looks like we'll be having bell peppers coming out of our ears this summer. The seeds I planted didn't sprout, and so I gratefully accepted some hand-sprouted seeds (dried from her crop from last year) from my neighbor, as previously mentioned. I was about to toss the entire 2 flats of peppers after they failed to sprout after nearly a month (the packet stated 14-21 days) but I gave them a few more days and they all popped up like crazy! Now I've got tiny pepper plants EVERYWHERE. Not that I'll be complaining once they grow--we've got red, orange and yellow.

Sorry about the delay in photos but keep an eye out, they're coming soon...