Garden of Eatin'

I am very glad I bought those tomato plants because *none* of the seeds I planted on Mother’s Day sprouted. They’ve had plenty of water, but not too much, and it’s been nice and warm, so I don’t know what the deal is with them. Yay for Winco…hopefully I’ll have enough to make salsa again this summer. Mmmmmmm.

It’s not getting as hot as it did last year at this time, but it still managed to hit 81 today and I am not liking it!!!

After I posted about my mystery tree and couldn’t figure it out, I decided to wait and see what the tree did. It got leaves and started growing helicopters :lol It’s what my family calls the seed-wings:

Because when they are big and dry, you can throw them in the air and they twirl down like a helicopter.

I was able to figure out it’s a Maple, and according to  Google, it’s a BigLeaf, or Oregon Maple.

Now to figure out what the other 2 trees are!

Odd way to find my site, yet a few have (through my Salem chicken updates). So to prevent any readers from food poisoning, I’ll answer in it’s own post:

The smell is from bacteria. Lots of bacteria. Bacteria decomposes food, makes you sick and STINKS. If it smells bad, throw it out. Don’t think cooking it to the recommended temp or higher will kill everything – to kill some bacteria it has to be basically boiling for 15+ minutes. Chicken that hot for that long? Blech. Throw it out. And don’t give it to fido unless you want an outragious vet bill and/or a dead puppy dog.

Green flower cluster,
originally uploaded by clickclique.

What is this tree in my back yard? We have a few trees I need help identifying but this is the only one really growing.

This photo isn’t mine, I found it on flickr while trying to identify it myself…of course it doesn’t say what it is!

This cluster looks exactly like the cluster I just picked.

Thanks!

Not only did we turn our heat completely off instead of way down, but I got a lot done in the garden and got my first sunburn of the season. Not the fluorescent red like I had last year at this time, but enough to remind me not to scratch an itch. Totally gorgeous day, at least 65, sunny and supposed to get to 76 by monday, woohoo!

No pictures for a few days, my camera died taking photos of my oldest son’s 12th birthday and I’m out of back up batteries. I could have swore I just bought that 24 pack :eyeroll

I got more lettuce planted, plus cabbage, potatoes, zucchini, crookneck squash, 2 kinds of cucumber (for slicing and pickling), carrots, spinach and green beans. The garden map I printed up (see this post) was very useful…I think I still managed to get the squashes too close to the taters but that was my refusal to use a tape measure and trying to eyeball the distance. The only thing left to plant/transplant are the green peppers, tomatoes, and herbs, which I plan on doing in a couple weeks.

Remember my redneck greenhouses? Don’t do it. Even with a lot of drainage and the tops taken off, those plants are getting damping disease and wilting, where the ones still in peat pots are doing great. Another lesson learned.

So apparently it’s not so easy to get in gardening time when you’re working all the time. I think it’s easier for my work outside the home counterparts because they generally (not always) leave work at work. Not me. It’s right here, there’s no clocking out at 5pm for me. I don’t generally bring in enough moolah to let myself off the hook so my family fully expects me to be at the computer from wake to sleep, with time off for (home)school work with the kids, some chores and feeding the bunch. I feel guilty walking away from work because the more I work, the faster I get paid – which might be the sign of a workaholic except workaholics tend to make enough to pay rent :lol

Anyway, so I’m trying to get in some gardening. The other half did some row prep done this afternoon and I full intended to transplant some stuff but nope, didn’t happen. I also have forgotten to start a few seedlings that my nifty planting calendars say I should have, like, uhhhhh, 2 weeks ago. Hopefully this week I’ll have a few hours of sunny (or at least not torrential downpour) to get some work in the garden done.

Compostings made an excellent Excel spreadsheet for planting dates. Just input your last frost date and it gives you your dates!

Ugh. Thanks to Dora the Explorer I’ve got “I’m the Map, I’m the Map, I’m the Map, I’m the Map, I’m the Map, I’m THE MAP” stuck in my head. :shake If you’ve got little kids and Noggin/Nick Jr, you know what I mean!

Anyway, here’s a tentative, not to exact scale map of what I think I’m going to do with the garden.

Made with GrowVeg.com

9 gauge wire purchased, row covers up. They aren’t as pretty as all the pictures I’ve seen on the internet, but they stood up to the nasty wind and rain we had during and after we put them up (it’s sunny now, of course :eyeroll ). Lack of an inexpensive way to secure the plastic led me to use clothes pins and landscape timbers we already had! Function over beauty this time!

I haven’t done any research if these are Monsanto, but I still wanted to pass on this link:

http://www.ebfarm.com/AboutUs/GrowYourOwnOrganicSalad/index.aspx

edited – it looks like they took the page down, those sure went fast!

See, I should be a meteorologist! I predicted one more during our last one :cold

http://weather.yahoo.com/storm/USOR0304.html

LOW ELEVATION SNOW EXPECTED THIS WEEKEND IN NORTHWEST OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON…

A WEATHER SYSTEM COMING DOWN FROM ALASKA WILL BRING SNOW TO MOST OF NORTHWEST OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON THIS WEEKEND. SNOW LEVELS WILL INITIALLY BEGIN TO FALL BEHIND A COLD FRONT THAT MOVES THROUGH THE AREA ON SATURDAY…THEN DROP DRAMATICALLY TO NEAR SEA LEVEL BY LATE SATURDAY NIGHT AS ADDITIONAL COLD AIR PUSHES IN.

SNOW SHOWERS ARE LIKELY SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY…BEFORE DIMINISHING SUNDAY NIGHT. SOME ACCUMULATIONS ARE POSSIBLE AT LOW ELEVATIONS…ESPECIALLY IN THE OUTLYING HILLS…LATE SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY…BUT POSSIBLY EVEN NEAR THE VALLEY FLOORS. IN THE MOUNTAINS HEAVIER SNOWFALL WILL BE POSSIBLE THIS WEEKEND…WITH UP TO A FOOT OF NEW SNOW AT THE CASCADE PASSES… AND 6 INCHES IN THE COASTAL MOUNTAINS.

It snowed again :lol And now it’s almost 50 degrees, but my 11 year old son managed to get out in time and make a snow man. Being the bad blogger and mom that I am, I forgot to get pictures I would bet money if I had it that’ll we’ll get another snow before April the way this climate change is going. I know it’s not the worst or best winter ever, but worldwide, things are changing.

Hey, at least before the ice age in a couple hundred years it’ll be nice and tropical in Canada, eh?