{garden notebook} March & April notes

My garden notebook was a little neglected in March and April, but I managed to get a few things in there. I am using it to keep track of weather, temps, and what I’m doing when in the weekly pages.

I’m also trying to do at least one sketch per week to build my skills with observation, sketching, and watercoloring. Right now things are wonky and my watercolor is brutally heavy handed. (It takes way more skill and practice to be light and delicate with watercolors… I’ll get there, hopefully.)

As far as working in the garden, I find I do better if I leave myself notes for what I should be doing the next day, right after I’ve been out there that day. It seems each day I don’t, I forget what I was doing and have to start all over again. If I leave myself notes, I don’t have to reinvent the wheel each morning.

In the back section of the notebook I’m adding garden notes

The notebook isn’t anything beautiful, but it is such a handy place to keep all my information and plans and notes. I love that it’s small, portable, tough, and with lots of space to write.

Now on to what’s going on outside in the actual garden.

Spring has sprung, which means these crazy multiplying flowers (anyone know what they’re called?) are taking over my garden. They are so pretty for a couple weeks, but the bulbs are DEEP in the ground and they multiply so quickly I can’t keep them contained. I’m going to have to dig them out again this year, there’s always some I miss and they come back again, where I don’t want them, again. That’s the definition of a weed.

The onions that overwintered are going to seed, so I’ll have plenty of seed for next year.

The Bright Lights Swiss Chard and the home-saved seed spinach (I think it’s Bloomsdale) are doing great.

The blueberries and strawberries are blooming and growing. The strawberries are growing exactly where I don’t want them. They are rebellious and just do what they want, I guess. Right now they have moved from the bed to the walking path. I think if given enough time, they’d eventually walk themselves out of the garden. I’ll dig them up and move them in the fall.

The blueberry plant pictured is a wildly growing messy thing, but it puts out big huge blueberries. Unfortunately, it’s the one that I didn’t record the name of.

The pea germination rate was pretty dismal. Either that or the slugs plowed down about 80% of what I planted. The tall plants are the first planting, the little buds are the second planting. We were out of town for almost two weeks when all this was going on, so there will be a long harvest of snow peas between the first ones and the replanted ones. Lots for the Farmstand!

In the greenhouse so far I have a flat of tomatoes and peppers. This will be my first spring starting seeds in the greenhouse!

And the spring chives are growing like crazy. If you have a bunch of chives and don’t know what to do with them, I HIGHLY recommend making this Vietnamese chive oil. It’s SUPER simple and has an incredible taste and is delicious on rice, in eggs, on meat… just about everything.