Tastes of Spring

My office is closed today, and I’m watching the snow fall outside through the kitchen window…again.  I like snow, but I am ready for the warmer weather we experienced briefly this weekend.  It was quite the teaser!  We did manage to squeeze in a few spring activities, one of which I am so, so excited about: planting vegetable seeds!!

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Last year we took the “go big or go home” approach with our vegetable garden, tilling a 10-ft x 20-ft plot in the middle of our back yard, and we experienced surprisingly great success.  (You can check out last year’s garden updates starting here.)  We ate amazing, fresh produce throughout the summer, and we are still working our way through the veggies we froze by using them in soups and stir-fries.  It’s been wonderful.

This Saturday we gathered our supplies–some seeds saved from vegetables last year, some new seeds, dirt, a seed starting box, a clear storage bin to use as a makeshift greenhouse–and set up a planting station in our driveway.

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We planted:
-Brandywine Tomatoes
-“Sweetie” Cherry Tomatoes
-Black Krim Tomatoes
-Yellow Pear Tomatoes
-Bell Peppers
-Pimento Peppers
-Tomatillos
-Butternut Squash
-Spaghetti Squash
-Watermelon

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And now our guest bathroom is a greenhouse. 😉  In the seed starting box in the foreground, which has a clear plastic lid, we planted all the tomatoes and peppers.  For the others, we are experimenting with 1. bigger containers and 2. a bigger greenhouse: a clear, upside down storage container.  We put our space heater in the bathroom with the seeds to make sure they are nice and warm. 🙂

Even though our garden last year was a success, I feel so nervous about how well these little guys will do;  we are still rookies who just happened to have ideal growing conditions last summer.  We’ll have to wait and see what happens!

Sunday was even more gorgeous than Saturday.  With temperatures in the 70’s, we simply couldn’t stay inside, so we drove to the University of Richmond to play disc golf.   If you’ve never played disc golf before, I think it’s the perfect compromise activity for people like Andrew and me–it’s essentially taking a walk in a park with elements of competition and athletics. 🙂

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Also, we found a turtle:

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#
selfieswithturtles

It was an awesome way to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon. 🙂

And now we return to our regularly scheduled winter weather.  On the upside, I took these photos this morning of a giant hawk that sometimes hangs out in our back yard…so beautiful in the snow!

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Have a great Monday, everyone!

What’s the weather like outside your window today?
-Have you ever played disc golf?  What do you think?
-Are you growing veggies this summer, and have you started the seeds?

8 thoughts on “Tastes of Spring

  1. Cold and snowy today! I cannot wait for the warmth haha. I’ve never played disc golf, either, but it sounds like fun, just like the rest of your weekend! Love that you got to spend some much time outside 🙂

  2. SO over the snow for you! UGH I can’t believe it’s still happening, it’s MARCH for heaven’s sake! So jealous that you got to plant spaghetti squash! I love that stuff!
    And that looks like the perfect Sunday! You two are such cuties! 🙂
    Never played disc golf but it sounds fun! And I’m looking outside at non stop drizzling after a similarly perfect day of weather yesterday. Come on Mother Nature, buck up… 🙂

    • Right?? I’m ready for warmth.
      I’m excited to see how well the squash do–we didn’t have much success with spaghetti or butternut last year, but we’re trying them again (with seeds that we saved from store-bought squash :-D) We’ll see!
      I hope the weather starts looking up soon for you!

  3. #selfieswithturtles made me chuckle. Also, it’s very exciting that it’s time for seed-starting and vegetable garden planning. (Spring still seems so far away!) Good luck with your garden this year; can’t wait to read about it!

  4. I really want to do some potted plants this year, but I haven’t started seeds. The space heater was a good idea! I think I’m nervous to start cause I don’t want to mess it up!

  5. I still have a good 2 feet of drifted snow in my back yard – I cannot wait for spring, but it looks like our cold snap will last well into the middle of March. 😦

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