Scarlet honeysuckle in butterfly garden

The butterfly gardens starting to come into bloom now. Here's our honeysuckle we tied up earlier this Spring ready to burst into bloom

Harvested some red leaf lettuce.

I harvested some red leaf lettuce today. I'm hoping by giving it a good trim i'll make more leaves instead of going to seed. Not quite enough for out family, it's my first attempt at lettuce. Next year I'm may do a whole raised bed of it.

Also got some more seeds planted. Mostly squash, zucchini, baby boo pumpkins, jack o lantern pumpkins, acorn squash, marketmore cucumbers, lemon cucumbers and some datura seeds that were loose in my seed box.

I LOVE this apple container I got from Costco to start seeds in! I may have to go buy more apples just for the container!  It even comes with drainage holes

Found a dead mouse in the yard

I found a dead mouse in the yard today while watering the grass. I think maybe the chickens got to him? They didn't eat him if they did. One that won't be making it into my house thankfully!

I keep discovering more and more benefits of keeps chickens everyday!

My gorgeous foxglove I got for Mothers Day.

I'm going to try to get this planted todau in my butterfly / hummingbird garden.

Little chicken sneaks

I have my vegetable garden blocked of so our chickens Molly (barred rock) and Annie (Rhode island red) can't get in and they sneaked up across my deck to get in the other way!

My seed starting system

We recently installed a grow light over the shelf in the laundry closet for starting seeds. Had to bring the seedlings indoors last night and put them under to grow light to protect them from the frost.

Love this mini greenhouse! I started my seedlings in it using dixie cups. I think I'll probably use plastic next year as they aren't holding up to well.

Growing lots of things for the first time this year as I sent away for the free seeds for a SASE to wintersown.org ang gardenhoard.com. I was so happy with both of the offers I recieved! 6 different kinds of heirloom tomatoes from wintersown, I let them pick the varieties as they're all new to me. I'm really excited about growing my first yellow tomato and the amazon chocolate tomato they sent.

Also growing loofa gourd for the first time this year!

Just picked up some ornamental grass hosta and daisies on freecycle.org

Freecycle.org is a great place to source for new FREE plants in the Spring when everybody's dividing their plants. I was so thrilled when I saw someone from a neighboring town post free perennials. I hurried over there after fighting with my 2 almost 3 year old to get dressed.

The lady dug them up right then and there for me and as soon as she handed me the daisies I could see they were LOADED with aphids :( she was such a sweet lady I didn't dare say a word and polity took the bug infested daisies home with me.

When I got home I immediately had to ask my gardening friends what to do. Some said a mix of 1 tablespoon of dawn dish soap, 1 tablespoon oil and 1 gallon of water. I ended up finding an old bottle of insecticide soap in the back of my shed that I must have pick up at a garage sale.

I've sprayed my freecycle plants down well and I'll probably do another coat before planting.

FREE May 2013 printable gardening calendar !

*Don't forget to bookmark for June's calendar! Download full size here http://stephszone6.blogspot.com/p/free-may-gardening-calendar.html

Regrowing Celery

I kept seeing "how to re grow celery" all over the web, so I decided to give it a try. Guess what? It works! It hasn't actually grown any roots yet. I've also had great luck re growing scallions.

Look at all the fresh eggs starting to pile up!

We only have two laying hens right now. Obviously enough for our small family of three. Not sure what I'll do once the silkies start laying? Thankfully eggs and shells are one of the best things you can feed chickens.

I could think of worse problems! :)

Wonder why they don't like my Asian eggplant. Here comes hubby with baked scallops!

10 FREE Plants to Michigan residents if you register a garden!

10 Free plants to Michigan residents if you register a garden with http://www.urbanfarming.org/. I registered our garden, but I'm not a Michigan resident. Let me know if you get the plants!

Looks like everything survived the freezing temps!

Good condensation build up on those containers.  Probably a good thing I decided to cover them.

Hopefully I can harvest some of this heirloom red leaf lettuce soon! I also added a package of black seeded simpson lettuce to fill in the bare spots. We're using a old bar well my husband found in the basement of his work. So far it's working pretty good and fits perfectly in our tiny space.

Waoah its chilly out here!

Came out and threw some Asian eggplant to the chickens. They don't seem to care for it.

FREE Amazon Kindle Gardening eBooks!

Here's a couple of Amazon Kindle gardening book freebie's I found for you. I can't wait to read the "How to grow beans and peas" & "Clever Gardening Tricks"

*Download these ASAP they don't stay free for long!



 

Our backyard flock

Let me introduce you to our backyard chickens.  Molly (the barred rock) Annie (Rhode Island red) both rescues and our Silkies, Snowball (white), Pumpernickel (buff) and we're still working out some names for the others. They hatched the week of Christmas.  So far I like Maebelle and Popcorn.

We're expecting a frost here in the Boston area.

I actually saw this on facebook a couple of days ago and didn't think much of it, until I saw my neighbor pull out a huge blue tarp to cover his garden. I didn't want to feel left out so I decided to cover mine as well. I used trash bags and plastic covers. I've been saving all my Dunkin Donuts Ice coffee cups for this, plus I started most of my seeds in them. Great mini greenhouses! I still don't think we'll have a frost, better safe than sorry I guess.

I hope I'm right because, I didn't cover the lettuce or strawberries.

Vintage Uncle Sam Victory garden poster.

Just finished planting my Michigan bulb order

Just finished planting my Michigan Bulb order I recieved in the mail earlier this week. Still waiting on my strawberries and freesia they're on back order.

It'll probably be the last order I place with Michigan Bulb too. I was so disappointed with the size of the trees I received.  They do look healthy though.

Lemon tree, patio blueberry, fig tree and a bush apricot.