Sweet Basil seedlings emerging. When these have two or three sets of leaves on them, I will lift them from the dirt using a dinner fork (super handy garden tool), and transplant them into the garden and pots to give away to friends. Everyone likes basil.
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Heavenly Blue Morning Glory seedlings. The plastic collar is a section from a sports drink bottle. I call them plant moats. They help to protect young seedlings from slugs, snails or other crawling bugs.
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Two native varieties of milkweed seeds that were soaked overnight (following the LadyBird Johnson instructions). I was surprised to see that some of the orange milkweed (Tuberosa) seeds sprouted after just an overnight soak!
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This is the second step of the LadyBird Johnson instructions for germinating the milkweed seeds that did not already sprout. This step involves putting the pre-soaked seeds in equal amounts of moist perlite and vermiculite and storing in the refrigerator.
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I call these cilantro cooking bouquets. It is just some cilantro in a glass of water (vase), that is ready to use for cooking. The cilantro looks a little elongated because the plants are getting close to bolting or producing flowers/seeds.
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I don’t care for Fruitless Pear trees, but they are pretty when in bloom.
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Pansies and dianthus on the first day of spring.
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A Swiss Chard harvest on March 18th. These were boiled for 5 minutes and the water drained (to reduce oxalates). Then they were returned to the pan and sauteed with garlic in olive oil with some red pepper flakes and garbanzo beans (at end).
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A pretty Gavota tulip. It was nice to see this tulip, since several of them that tried to bloom a few weeks earlier during the Texas snow apocalypse were damaged.
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Create ready-to-eat individual salads when you have too much harvest from your garden and want to encourage your family to eat more salads. If you don’t have plastic containers, just put the salad in a zip lock sandwich bag. Then it can be emptied into a bowl when ready to eat.
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A few of the tatsoi plants were allowed to bloom for the bees and to make seeds for the next fall/winter garden. The flowers are covered in bees.
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The weather has been so warm that my winter lettuce has reached the bolting (making flowers/seeds), point of no return. So, I had to harvest any that had not started to elongate (start to make a flower stalk). I left 2 plants of each variety to make seeds for next year.
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One of three baskets of lettuce that was harvested. I love this Garden Collander. It is large, roomy, and vegetables can be washed in it before bringing them into the house. This helps to insure that dirt and bugs stay outside.
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Washed lettuce and onions from the March 13th harvest.
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Cute little Tom Thumb heads of lettuce from the March 14th harvest.
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A bee enjoying a tatsoi flower. I am letting some of the tatsoi flower and make seeds for next fall.
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The fruitless pear tree that was in the yard when I moved here (would never plant one of these) is going to bloom. It is pretty when in bloom AND some birds and squirrels do eat the little ill-formed pear balls during the winter.
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If you have not already planted your onion bulbs or transplants in February, you can plant them now. They can be planted 3/4″ to 1″ deep and 3″-4″ apart in a sunny to partially sunny location. These are just an assortment of red, yellow and white onion bulbs.
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I am letting two of my tatsoi plants make flowers and then seeds. When the seeds are golden brown they will be harvested, put in a paper envelope and stored in a dark, cool place until we are ready to plant our 2021 fall/winter garden.
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All the holly berries were eaten by large groups of robins during the snow storms. This picture was taken through my bedroom window.
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