Waterlogged!!!

**Note: This was originally posted in February 2010 as part of an earlier attempt at blogging**

Now don't get me wrong, I like rain, I really like rain but this year I wanted to take advantage of living in Southern California and get my seeds started early this year.  However, ALL this rain has waterlogged my beds and I think most of my seeds have floated away.  It will be interesting to see where things start growing this spring...Carrots in the sidewalk cracks?

So when I got home today I re-planted some of the beds.  I actually started some seeds back in November last year so I do have a few things growing already.  Alot of things I planted in the fall didn't make it but the carrots and butter lettuce did so that's cool.

I am trying a new seed company this year -- Sustainable Seed Company.  Since I started the garden in 2004 I've used Burpee but I wanted to try a company that offered more organic and heirloom seeds (plus the prices are really nice).  So I am trying to do an all-heirloom vegetable garden this year.  I come from a long line of American farmers who worked their way from Virginia to Kentucky to Missouri to Colorado to California.  Perhaps some of these veggie varieties may have been the same that they ate sometime somewhere.

So here's what I got in the ground so far:
Broccoli (Green Sprouting Calabrese) - I've had trouble getting this started from seed
Carrots (Scarlet Nantes) - I have some of these growing and just filled in the bald spots with some more seeds.
Lettuce (Tom Thumb) - Got a little bit of this growing already and planted some more today.
Spinach (Bloomsdale Long-Standing)

 Scarlet Nantes Carrots

Tom Thumb Lettuce

This is my tiny little broccoli seedling.  We'll see if this one makes it.

Me and My Garden

**Note: This was originally posted in Feb. 2010 from an earlier attempt at blogging**
I always wanted to have my own vegetable garden but after we got married we spent almost three years in an upstairs apartment.  Yeah, I tried the whole "herbs on the balcony" planters and pots of tropical plants I bought at the fair, but everything eventually "past away".  If only I had an irrigation system out on the balcony (and sunshine).  Now that I think about it, I seemed destined to fail...=-(

So when we moved into our house in the summer of 2003 I was pumped up to have a garden!!! Now, my backyard is loaded with bougainvillea that blocks alot of sun and frankly, I'm scared of it so I try to stay away from it...so the backyard was not looking good for a garden spot...so it was up to the front yard to fulfill my dreams (no pressure, front yard).

Well, there was a small area between my driveway and my neighbor's driveway that was choked with crabgrass and Lilies of the Nile (ugh!).  So I figured there was no rule about putting a vegetable garden in the front yard so I dove in and tore out the grass et al. and tilled up the dirt and in the spring of 2004 I put in my first veggies and every year since then, around February or March I get out there and get my seeds in the ground.

This is by no means a garden meant to save us money or get us through the winter like Barbara Kingsolver.  It is for us and our friends and I like it that way.