I have a job to do...

I have a job to do.....

while I am waiting and waiting and WAITING!!! for my Peeps girls to lamb - yes, all 5 of them are holding out, dang bad sheep so spoiled by being born in warm weather they swore they wouldn't lamb in anything less than 50 degrees....

ok,

I digress....

while I am waiting for Her Highnesses to lamb, I have to get my garden installed. No, you don't plant a garden, you install it...

you plant flowers.

Carefully.

Delicately.

Treasuring every beautiful blossom for every flower to come.

Gardens, well, you install them. 6 of this, 4 of that...some over here, some over there....a row, ok another row, alright....many rows.

Gardens are important this year, more so than usual. Things are too expensive. Everyone hurts at the gas pump and the grocery store. Why are we buying so much? Time to grow your own. Go plant some lettuce and vegetable starts amongst your flowers in your flower beds...really, you can do it. Save a few bucks this year!

Did you know we harvested over 3,000 pounds of organic potatoes last year? Yep, the boys got together, fixed an old 2 row planter, fixed it again, modified it, then finally planted a few long rows of potatoes. Of course I knew I'd have to help harvest them sooner or later.....I knew the potato digger which was also fixed, fixed again, and then modified, wouldn't do it all. Men think the machinery will of course...they are sure it will...ok, you know where I'm headed here, so I'll stop that now...hehehe....so one very cold morning with the threat of frost in the air I helped harvest and bag up the last of that load of 3,000 pounds of potatoes. Now, back to my garden...

My garden was lovely last year. How did I find the time? I don't know, but I did. People leave you alone when you're weeding, so just tell anyone in earshot you're going out to weed...they'll leave you alone. Oh, and take your favorite dog with you. Mine loves to lay in the garden, keeping close tabs on me and any potential danger. I don't recall ever feeling in danger in the garden, but my Aggie thinks there might be danger so she watches intently anyways. She doesn't mind the word 'weeding' either. My garden produced enough carrots and onions to carry us through March into April. Good garden.

This year I have some fun carrots to grow. After I install the carrot rows, I will alternate the 3 types of carrot seeds I bought. Did you know they have purple carrots? Solid purple through and through? Strange color for carrots...wonder if they still have carotene in them..........anyways, someone will enjoy serving purple carrots on their table or better yet, take them raw to work and make your co-workers wonder what gross thing you're munching on. Then there are the rainbow carrots...purple ones, white ones, red ones, orange ones...that will be fun to harvest. And then my favorite orange Nantes, the sweetest carrot on earth here. Our frosts in the fall make for THE sweetest carrots in North America...no kidding, they are rated as the best. Fine culinary chefs clamour for them...CC's think they are sugary sweet, and so do kids. I love them preserved in glass canning jars...not only are they good to eat, they are beautiful to look at on the shelves.

So, I have a job to do. There are 18 brussel sprout starts; 9 red cabbage; 27 lettuce starts; 18 broccoli starts; 200 onion starts; and a flat of flowers that need to be installed. I didn't want to plant today, it was too sunny, then too windy, and was supposed to be clear and cold tonight so thought better of it. No, hopefully, by the end of this week, little by little, my garden will be growing instead of just installed.

And in the meantime, I will be threatening said Her Hignesses with evil looks of impending doom if they don't just hurry up and deliver healthy lambs soon!