AAAAAaaaaahhhh, Spring!!!

I love Spring.  Because of our long winters up here, this is often the hardest part of the year for me.  I am so ready for winter to be over, that I try to "force" Spring to come.  Of course, that never works.  March and April are the months that I grow very impatient. (I guess it's cabin fever).  I just want to go outside and do "summer things".  But there's still snow on the ground, and just because the calendar says it's technically Spring, that really doesn't mean much for us Alaskans.  We can pretty much expect to get 3 or 4 more snow storms.  This past week we have been getting super nice warm and sunny days, but we know better than to let that fool us.  But we enjoy these "false Springs" as much as we can anyway.

Even the kitty cats crawled out of the woodwork to enjoy the warm sunshine today.

So now that Spring is "sorta" here, I got excited about my new adventure project for this summer.
A vegetable garden!  A real one!  No more trying to grow a head of lettuce in my flower bed!  My loving hubby is finally going to build me some raised garden beds so I can get serious about growing my own veggies.  Pictures will come later.  It is still "winter" here so he is only at the stage of looking for the lumber right now.  But, I couldn't wait any longer.

I finally received the seeds that I ordered from an Alaska Seed place, so decided to get them started.  I am going to try:  broccoli, carrots, beets, peas (lots and lots of peas!!), lettuce, sugar pumpkins, dill, cucumbers, parsley, radishes, and cabbage.  I don't have a greenhouse (not yet anyway), so I know I'm probably wasting my time with the cucumbers and pumpkins, but I want them so bad that I'm going to give them a shot anyway.  I want to make homemade pickles with the dill and cucumbers (got the recipe from my mother--in-law so I know Chuck likes them), and the pumpkins I want because they are so hard to find in the stores when they come out in the Fall.  (they always sell out the same day they put them out) The pumpkins are VERY tricky to grow in Alaska, so I really don't expect them to work, especially without a greenhouse, but at least I can say I tried.  Last year I tried to grow a pumpkin plant with my flowers and they died right after I transplanted them.  This year I will try one in a big pot, and another one in a raised garden bed in a warm spot next to the deck (to see if one does better than the other), so that means they might last for one week after I transplant them.  But hey, that would be one step closer to success!  This is how they are doing right now.

Exciting, ain't it? The seeds are planted in black pots on the window sill where it gets tons of sunshine.  They will have a good head start, but I really expect to kill them after I get them outside.  I have a big windowsill here with big huge windows where the sun shines in really strong, so I asked Chuck if I could just grow a pumpkin on my window sill.  I don't understand why he objects............

The other seeds I have started in those Jiffy things.

Kinda looks like a pan of brownies, don't it?  Yum.  These are the ones that were optional to start indoors.  They could be planted directly in the garden, but I am impatient and want to give them a head start.  I'm thinking I should've ordered more seeds cuz Chuck is going to build me more gardening space than I have seeds for.  But that's okay cuz this year is an experiment.  Next year I'll have a better idea what and how much to order.  Plus next year I hope to have a greenhouse to boot!!

Stay tuned for the veggie drama.  Which ones will live, and which ones will die? 

These flower pots are impatiently waiting for Spring, just like me. When REAL Spring gets here, we'll get some flowers, but there's really not much of a story there.  I can't believe we still have two months before we can dig around in the dirt.  How can that be?!