Can the real Spring weather please show up, please show up, please show up!

Another busy week! Unfortunately there have been several losses within the families of my work community over the past week and I want to pass my condolences on to the families of those who have left us.

Between the bad weather, evening meetings and funerals, I have been kept jumping. In the meantime, my garden has continued to grow. The seedlings have shot up and the pepper plants are looking quite fantastic!

SO PRETTY!

While last week it finally looked like we had put the cold weather behind us, the weather this week has been pretty dreadful. Cold, rainy and windy, we even had snow on Wednesday afternoon and at one point on my way to Brantford, I thought I was driving in a full on blizzard. While I am exceedingly unimpressed with mother nature and her fickle ways (and the fact that our federal government is doing nothing to combat the climate change causing this weather), there was a little bit of good weather and all in all I was able to accomplish a few things both in and outside of the house.

* I finally cracked open the bottle of apple cider I have had fermenting in my bathroom. To say that it tasted like vinegar is an injustice to vinegar. I was able to buy a few carboys from a fellow brewer this past week and I am going to be restarting my brewing adventures over the upcoming weeks!*

When I wasn't busy this week, I transplanted pretty much all of my tomato plants. I have some extra pots, though, so perhaps I need to grow some more!

Ready for plants!

Planted!

Jenga!

Yesterday when it was warm I did some cleaning, both inside and outside of the house, and took my plants outside for a few hours while it was sunny, and then worked on cleaning up the back yard and my garden area. Last year I bought a greenhouse to store my plants in and I brought it back out again this year. It was super handy to put trays of plants on and the plastic covering keeps my little guys nice and warm while they still get the pleasure of basking in the sun all day.

The Greenhouse!

Peppers of the sun!

A little sunbathing al fresco!

Last year I grew all my plants in buckets and I plan on doing pretty much the same thing this year, although I am still planning on putting in a raised bed. Below is a picture of where all the growing is going to happen. Off the back of the patio where the buckets are in the grass is where I intend to put my raised bed. For the record, I owe a debt of gratitude to my girlfriend, who allowed me to take over her patio last year for my garden.

This is where the growing happens!

At this point, while I am trying to get something done every day, I am waiting for that warm weather that I know is slowly but surely coming. T-shirt and sandal season is just around the corner and me and my plants can't wait!

Seedin Ain't Easy - The Remix

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. Whether you celebrate Easter or not, time off from work is when we usually visit family and friends and I hope you all had a great weekend. I had a splendid time visiting my family, having an amazingly delicious dinner and, overall, it was a fantastic weekend. It also helped that Arsenal SMASHED Liverpool on Saturday morning to the tune of 4-1! All four Arsenal goals were picturesque strikes and with four different players getting on the score sheet, Arsenal are getting goals from everyone at the moment. I thought Mesut Ozil was particularly terrific. The German has been ON POINT since he came back from injury and the free kick he scored in this game was tremendous. I feel that he has received a lot of unjustified negative criticism lately. He is a special player and can change an entire game with single touch.

My Man of the Match!

Also this weekend, I decided it was time to plant the tomatoes for my garden. While I had originally planned to grow 26 kinds of tomatoes, my overzealous dogs ate some of my bags of seeds (and yes, as a good dog owner, I realize this is really my fault, as I left the seeds where they could get them). While I was able to salvage pretty much everything, I did lose my packet of Siberian Red Tomatoes and thus they were cut from the growing list this season.

Look at all those seeds!

I started out be refilling my growing tray with peat pods and by reorganizing my pepper sprouts. I knew I was going to need as much room as I could get to get all my tomato seeds planted. 

Pepper Sprouts!

My reorganized pepper sprouts!

After sorting out my pepper sprouts, I poured water over the fresh peat pods and waited for them to puff up. Once they puffed, I sorted my tomato seeds into the sauce tomatoes and eating tomatoes. I have several kinds of sauce tomato this year and I feel it will help me make a tremendous sauce! I planted the sauce tomatoes first, and once they were seeded I started into the eating tomatoes. Except for the major sauce tomatoes, I planted 3 peat pods of every kind of tomato and planted 3 seeds in every pod. For the sauce tomatoes, I planted 6 peat pods of each.

Seeded Tomatoes!

That's A LOT of tomatoes!

After I seeded all my pods with what I needed for my garden, I had a few rows of pods left over. I seeded them with some eggplants and a few varieties of tomatoes I wanted an extra plant of. Once all the pods were seeded, I covered all the seeds with dirt and covered them to make a greenhouse.

All the seeds are covered!

In order to stay organized I made a chart to keep track of where I planted each tomato!

That's a big chart!

Extra room!

While I still have my peppers growing and coming along nicely. In fact, other than 3 peat pods, all of the seedings have come up! I am hoping that my tomatoes will sprout shortly. I know it's going to mean I have a lot of plants around the house, but planting season is just around the corner and I can't wait to get these beauties in the ground!