Spring Has Sprung

This week has been sunny and warm, and we have been able to take our plants outside almost every day. Tomorrow it is supposed to snow, so we're not home free yet. Our tiny Micro Toms are going crazy and blooming like it's July. I'm hoping that there are some bugs outside that are pollinating those poor confused things. I did pollinate the two first flowers by myself, but I'm not sure how it worked.




Mikko helped me with the pollination, but he thought it was silly that we had to do it. When I tried to explain to him that the parts needed to make tomatoes from tomato flowers are in different parts of the flower, and that's why we need bees to go from flower to flower so the different parts meet, he thought I was making it up. I guess we need to get a book on the subject from the library.


So for now, we're hopeful that in the near future we can have some of our own tomatoes, and that it'll all make sense to him someday.

We also painted some more flowerpots with Mikko and Kari. We did it last year too, and it's one of their favorite things to do.

Our garden is starting to bloom, and not just the crocuses. It's nice to see things come to life again after the winter, even though it's not very long where we live. The flowering pear trees on our street are all in full bloom, and that alone is enough to lift one's spirit.

Our little farm plants love it outside, so I'm hoping for a warm spring. It is a bit of a workout to haul all the trays and pots outside every morning and back inside in the evening. But I assume the plants like it, since they're all growing well.

                         Kari loves to water all the pots, so they won't dry out while they're out in the sun.

                         We officially have three lavender plants. They're still rather small, so we'll see how they'll do during the spring. They're going to their permanent home in May after Mother's Day, if they've decided to grow enough. Lavenders are supposed to like poor soil, so our back yard is perfect for them. 

In the meantime, we keep hauling plants back and forth, hoping that the Creator of all creatures and warm weather will be kind to us this year, and grant us a nice spring, and some rain in the summer.

Slowly but Surely

Finally all the tomatoes are in bigger pots. I barely had enough of pots to do this, so I got some more from my good friend Camille. She even helped with transplanting some of the flowers into the pots. Now some of my herbs and flowers are in big pots, happily waiting for Summer. 

Most of my basil, all of my chamomile, and the red poppies are in big pots like these, thanks to Camille. She is freacking awesome! 


In other news, now we have two tomatoes that are budding! They are going crazy, and I'm hoping that some bugs will show up soon outside, so they could be pollinated. They both are Micro Toms, and so far I like the variety. They are very small, but sturdy, and seem to be getting along a lot faster than the other varieties. They're supposed to stay so small that you can grow them in a regular flower pot. We'll see about that. 

I now have three lavender plants, and I even found one blue poppy! They are still tiny, and you can barely see them in the pots. But they're coming along! Next time I'll just buy the plants, it's been a lot of work to get these things to start growing in the first place.

The Roma tomatoes look kind of sad in their pots, I let them grow in the ninepacks for too long, and they got a little too leggy. But they should straighten out in a few days and start to thrive again. I have eighteen of them which means that every seed I sowed ended up germinating. I also ended up with seven tomatillos, three banana peppers, and nine jalapenos. 

 So things are progressing, it was a nice warm sunny day today, and more of my plants have bigger homes. On the other hand, I still need to pollinate the dang tomatoes by hand. We are getting closer to being ready to plant things outside, so now we need to wait for the night temperatures to rise more. 

Luckily there's a lot of ice cream that we can enjoy in the mean time. 

I Need Bees in my House!

I took all of our plants outside on Thursday to enjoy the 20 + Celsius weather, and when I brought them all in for the night I realized that one of our tomatoes has flower buds on it! Now what am I supposed to do? They have not opened yet, but I guess Mikko will get a lesson on how to pollinate flowers by hand.

It is one of our Micro Toms that has decided to flower before it's even 10 cm tall. None of the others are this crazy. Not that I'm going to complain about having a home grown tomato in April.

Out Mortgage Lifters are taking over the world, and I think we need to construct a cover system so we can plant them outside in a couple of weeks. The biggest one is about the size of Mikko's head, and  you can almost see it grow in front of your eyes.

Kari decided to raid our Nutella jar. There wasn't that much left, so I let him finish it, and showered him afterwards. There just wasn't anything else to do with him.

I visited the poor man's paradise, Ikea, with my good friend Camille, and bought a storage shelf to hold all of the plants. I think I'll need to get another one before long to make sure all the plants get enough light.

Our flowers are growing well, I even found a tiny lavender plant! And I think we might be getting one or two blue poppies. That would be exciting! Lavenders are notoriously difficult to grow from seed, so we still keep our fingers crossed that at least one of them would start to grow. We have several different varieties that need to be planted to separate pots. The chore will most likely happen on Tuesday.

 Our tiny lavender, you can barely see it as a green speck.

The nasturtiums are growing the fastest. I might get some blooms in May.

So things are going super, Kari isn't covered in mysterious brown substance anymore, and in a few more days more of our plants will have a bigger pot to grow in.

We're Running Out of Room

I have been replanting our tomatoes into individual pots, and that has increased the room needed for this project. Our poor old dining room table is filling in as greenhouse real estate, and I'm hoping that spring will come fast so I can put some things outside. 

Some of our flowers have germinated too, making things even more interesting. We planted several varieties of flowers that are supposed to attract honey bees, butterflies, and other pollinators to our little farm. Some of the early growers include Scarlet Flax, Baby's Breath, Cupid's Heart, and Nasturtium. I also brought our English Lavender inside from its cold treatment it was having outside. Apparently Lavender needs three to four weeks in the cold before it can germinate. We will see in a few days if it worked. 

This is the first time I'm trying to grow poppies. I have two different varieties, Danish Flag Poppies, that are supposed to be bright red, and Himalayan Blue Poppies, that are supposed to be bright blue. The Danish poppies have started to grow, but the blue ones haven't shown any sign of life yet. I am still hopeful that they also will show themselves. I love blue flowers! And red ones, and yellow ones, and white ones...

Out of all of our tomatoes, the variety called "Mortgage Lifter" is still doing the best, they are getting so big that I don't think they can grow in their small pots until the weather is warm enough outside. Another variety that has been doing well is "Watermelon Beef Tomato". "Early Girl", which is a very popular tomato, has been a disappointment, only twelve out of 36 seeds germinated, and they are slow growers. I hope they will perk up in their own pots. Otherwise, this will probably be the last time I'll grow them.

Another variety that is doing well is the classic Roma. They're the only tomatoes that I haven't planted in individual pots yet, simply because I ran out of pots tonight. I'll get more tomorrow, and then we'll be back in business. I did get my four yellow bell peppers in their own pots, and planted some broccoli. We still have banana peppers, our jalapenos, and some basil that are waiting for bigger housing. Tomorrow, or next week maybe.

Anyway, Mikko is still excited about his little farm, he wrote some of the labels for the pots. Kari helped with watering. He almost watered my phone, probably thinking that it would grow into a tree... I think I was helped a little too much this time. They are cute though when they are excited about things. It's good to see them learning to take care of something, and to see it grow as a result of that care. In the meantime, I'll just take some deep breaths, and sneak into my room for a chocolate break.