Today I worked outside just doing general clean up, adding mulch to the compost bin and bedding to the worm bin to cut down on the bugs, weeding around the plum tree, honeysuckle vine, roses and sugar snap peas and removing some extra sod from around the flower bed in the front so the lawn mower won't knock down the plants.   We tried to use the weedwacker and the lawn mower today but neither will work...saved for another day I suppose.  It felt really good to get the basic "cleanup" done, tomorrow I'm going to build a little arbor for the pickling cucumbers and get those planted.  I also have zucchini seeds to plant.

After that it's on to the next experiment!   we are going to sew tubes out of the burlap sacks we got from Seattle Coffee Works and fill them with mulch and make a new herb and tomato bed by the side porch.  I'm really excited to get that started.  We have 6  bags of compost and 3 topsoil so hopefully that will be enough for now.  I also want to get to a farmers market next week to get a seed potato, I'd love to grow some Yukon gold or purple potatoes!

Plans are being discussed to build a chicken coop, we are hoping to get some free pallets for wood, we'll see how that works out.

Today it was really warm and beautiful out!  We planted a lot of seeds both in our beds and in the house under the grow light.  I'm so excited for them all to grow-the yard is going to be gorgeous with our roses, the climbing lily and the honeysuckle along with all the vegetables.

Heirloom yellow wax bush bean seeds and purple bush bean seeds went in the large bed along with our Gloriosa climbing lily and my tomatillo and some leeks that we'd been growing in the house.  Radishes, broccoli rabe, and  walla walla sweet onion starts went in the small bed.  Cilantro starts and beet seeds in the blue pot on the porch and pickling cucumbers, more leeks, more cherry tomatoes, kohlrabi, basil and more tomatillo seeds are starting inside.

We have been talking about which squash to buy, we don't have seeds for those.  I think we're getting yellow squash, zucchini, spaghetti squash and possibly some sunburst.  We didn't have a lot of luck with the sunburst last year though so I'm not sure if we'll try again.  Here's more pictures of the garden:

strawberries:

cabbage and brussel sprout starts:

 planting the tomatillo:

blue pot, cat helper, potting bench and cute boots:

Observe the mess. It means we were working hard! Those little black containers on top have cherry tomatoes being burnt by the sun. They weren't too happy that I left them outside last night.