Getting Ready

 Today was clear and pretty yet cold, not getting up out of the 30s.  I need to start prepping raised beds.  I may start sowing peas as early as this weekend.  Because the ground was so well covered by snow all winter, blocking the sunlight, very few weeds grew.

The bed below was the worst.

I set up the bed for Broccoli, Cauliflower and Cabbages.

The Broccoli, Cauliflower and Cabbages are below, newly transplanted.  They should go out 5 weeks from their sowing date which for these will be around April 18th.  I have a few Romaine Lettuce started to go with them, and more Romaine seeded.

Below are the Ornamental Peppers, five days after transplanting, putting out new leaves and catching up to the Dwarf Tomato plants.

Below are my Dahlia seedlings, the second batch of saved seeds from 2024 singles.  I had so much fun watching them open last year that even though I saved all of last year's tubers, I started more just to see if I get anything different.  On the right of the tray are my Profusion Zinnias.

I used to start Profusion Zinnias from seed way back in the early days of my gardening.  In fact, they were probably the first annual flowers I tackled.  They are a nice short, bushy little Zinnia and I plan on alternating them with white Marigolds around the edges of my Dahlia beds.  The Apricot will border the bed with orange, copper and peach Dahlias and the Cherry will border the bed with the purple, pink and white Dahlias.  Last year I tried the same thing with Celosia, but Celosia are so tricky to transplant I decided to only direct sow my Celosia and try something different for my border.

Profusion Apricot and Profusion Double Hot Cherry

I am growing a tray of white Marigolds to go with the Zinnias.  The first variety is my favorite from last year Vanilla Cream, and the second is a new release from Burpee, another white variety called Star-Spangled in honor of this year's US Semiquincentennial.  Boy, that's a mouth full.

Star-Spangled and Vanilla Cream

I have the tray filled with potting mix and ready for the transplants as soon as they start putting out leaves.  Next week, the first of April, I will start my indeterminate Tomato varieties and then my indoor seeding will be done for the year.

On March 10th I scattered some Pansy seeds in the Strawberry bed and they are already up.

Look at all of these littles babies!

The Pansies I already have growing here are Delta Citrus Mix which are yellow, white and a very few orange, so this year I added more orange and some blue.