Spring is here and the beautiful, perfect days just keep coming!!! We keep having these amazing mornings that start off with a light rain and then all afternoon we are blessed with a warm sunny day, and sometimes we get another rain or thunderstorm at night. Thank you mama nature!
We have lettuce popping up all over the garden, thanks to my throwing old seeds all over the place just for fun. The other day I went out and thinned them and was actually able to save every single one and they are growing so happily!
valerian – a wonderful herb
Valerian is a unique herb whose roots are used as a natural sedative and body / mind relaxer. The aroma and flavor are fantastic! I will let this grow all spring summer and harvest some of the root in the fall.
delicious cabbage!
Today I made a little ladybug friend. She was climbing up the radish sprout and it was oh so cute!!
I’m so excited to be gardening again and I know this year is going to be GREAT! I learned a lot from last year and will be able to plant even more in our small apartment garden this year. Yay!! We’ll be incorporating more vertical gardens later on this spring, so stay tuned!
What have you started growing so far?
Re-Grow Roots 
April 7, 2013 at 7:25 pm
How are your cabbages so big in April? And how come nothing has chewed your stuff? 🙂
April 7, 2013 at 7:33 pm
Haha! The cabbages were planted in the fall and fared very well through the frosts and snows of winter! Once the days got longer, they blew up. We only have those two though, so I need to plant some more asap. Since spring has only just begun we don’t have many bugs yet.. but we normally don’t have a big bug problem because we do a lot of companion planting with flowers and herbs. We attract such a diverse array of bugs that they keep eachother under control.
April 7, 2013 at 7:38 pm
I need to get wise like you 😉 I want a wild food forest type set up, but the odd cabbage here and there is also good, Must get to it… !! Have you got any pics of the whole garden?
April 7, 2013 at 8:00 pm
I have a bunch of pictures from our garden last year on my personal facebook page. Find me – Dez Dino – and take a peek! We grow mainly at our apartment complex where we live and grow a good amount of food. We did start a big garden at our friend Jo’s house, but we’ve gotten out of touch with her and need to reconnect… We are also looking for a community space to grow a huge food forest type thing, but yes.. start small and take it from there! Just get it going and you’ll be inspired to keep it up and add more and more. 🙂
April 7, 2013 at 8:20 pm
OK I added you, can’t see the pic atm, maybe you can point me in the right direction. I see you follow GMO Awareness! Is that how we met, I forget 🙂
I have stuff in the garden already: http://habitguide.com/2012/09/05/rhubarb-crumble-and-forests-of-food/
April 7, 2013 at 8:41 pm
Hmmm the way that we met… I think you found my blog somehow. Oh man your food forest article is totally phenomenal!! Incredibly inspiring. How do you keep your plants watered? There are so many options.. Here at the apartment there is a spinkler system setup that I’m not a big fan of, but nothing I can do about it. At Jo’s house she doesn’t want to water her plants everyday, but in the summer it’s really hot and dry here. We also don’t have much money to invest in watering systems… Any advice?
April 8, 2013 at 9:08 am
Oh, how fun! Love your ladybug friend! I’ve been staggering my radish and arugula seeds the past few weekends with still a few to go. Trying not to get all my harvest at once this year! Otherwise, we’re getting 8-15″ of snow tomorrow so the garden isn’t ready for much more, though I sure am!
April 8, 2013 at 11:20 am
Yay thank you for sharing your gardening story! It’s such a good idea to stagger the seeds and plant some every week. Yesterday I planted beets so I’ll have radishes in May, beets in June. I also planted more radishes yesterday since they didn’t all come up (old seeds). YEsterday was a big seed starting day for me! watermelon, tam dew melon, thai eggplant, black cherokee tomatoes, straight cucumber, boswellia, and a few other things… So glad it’s spring!!! Enjoy the snow. 🙂
April 8, 2013 at 3:07 pm
Curious – how old do you find seeds have to be before they stop working? Being frugal, I buy organic seeds on closeout from the season before and reuse them even the next year if I have any left. So far, no issues, but I wonder how far I can push it!
April 8, 2013 at 7:08 pm
I never have an issue with using year old seeds of any variety. All seeds are different though, and they have different life spans. I find that with a lot of my lettuce seeds, after a couple of years the germination goes down a lot. With some things I have planted them 5 years after I purchased them and they do great! It never hurts to try so I just throw them around the yard at a certain point and see what happens.
April 8, 2013 at 6:13 pm
I love that you just threw some seeds around for fun! I will definitely try planting some cabbage in the fall for early spring yield (along with garlic that we never can seem to remember to plant…). Spring seems to finally have sprung here too! We started seeds last week and have had them inside, under grow lights – although today was so warm, we moved the hardier stuff out to our cold frame during the day. We’ve started tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, broccoli, broccoli raab, brussel sprouts, kale, cabbage and swiss chard. Yum yum!
April 8, 2013 at 7:03 pm
yay!!! You are doing fabulous with your plants! You have so many varieties going, yay yummy yum!! I’m in need of more broccoli, caulflower, and cabbage.. don’t know what happened to a lot of my seeds! Cabbage is definitely a great one to plant in the fall, ours will be ready for harvest in a couple weeks I beT! Too bad we only planted two of them. Next year I’ll start a lot more out there in the fall. Today we went to our local coffee shop and planted some mint, iris bulbs, sunflowers, and calendula! And tomorrow I’ll plant more in our garden. Spring has definitely sprung!
April 19, 2013 at 12:11 pm
Valerian, an herb I’ve not tried in my garden, yet! I’ll look into it! It’s so fun that you just scatter lettuce seeds, too!
April 19, 2013 at 12:20 pm
Valerian is beautiful and it grows very fast! Our Valerian is looking beautiful in the garden with kale, mint, and marigolds for company. 🙂