Garden Planning!! My favorite time of year

Ive been working hard to get all my seeds organized and plan exactly what will be going into our garden this year! It has been so fun! I love sitting at my front window right beside my wood burning stove with a hot fire and looking out the window at snow on the ground while dreaming of a warm spring garden! But the planning is coming to an end because these plants are being started and we are getting a few nice days to get out and work the dirt! 

For my planning I have #1 "The Vegetable Gardeners Bible" (MUST HAVE book for gardening!!), as well as a diagram of my garden layout, and last but not least...a spreadsheet of all my seeds and how many plants I am wanting to start! I try to put as much information on my 2 sheets as possible so I can refer to them for all my information instead of having to look up info online or fumble through tons of seed packets. 

As the cold winter days come to an end, I will be spending the last few by my wood stove just dreaming of getting my hands dirty in the garden!

First Sign of Green

Today I woke up and eventually made it in to water the seedlings, and there were a few arugula seedlings starting to make their appearance! This is one of my favorite parts of starting our own seeds! As the next few days roll by we will hopefully see a lot more of these cute little green leaves peeking out through the soil to greet us.

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My New Toy!!!

Yes, mommies deserve new toys too! 

I started all my seeds and got into watering them daily and I am realizing how sore my hand is going to get using a spray bottle to "mist" all these seedlings twice a day! I did it last year, but I sure don't remember it being this frustrating. Bryan came home from work today with this delightful pump sprayer!! It was $7 at Lowes.  "GardenPlus Garden Sprayer". I am excited to water tomorrow!! It is so extremely easy to give these tiny seeds a good misting of water without disturbing the soil or making 10 trips to the sink to refill my water bottle while trying to avoid hand cramps!

I hate spending money, but this is $7 WELL spent! 

Let it Snow!

I found a few pictures from our past snow storm a few weeks ago! Addie's boots kept falling off and so she ended up carrying them most of the time. Other than that wardrobe malfunction, they had a blast playing in the yard! Then of course the snow melts away and now the grass is starting to perk up through the dirt and there is delightful signs of spring right around the corner!!!

Christmas for Farm Animals

This post is a little late, but I wanted to share with everyone how excited I am about this past winters watering situation! For Christmas, we got the chickens and goats a heated waterer! They loved it...and so did I!! It is a 9 quart heated bucket that we picked up from Tractor Supply. Extremely easy, and well worth the $25! 

I put this off because I didn't want to spend the money, but last year I was constantly chipping the ice away and bringing out warm water. If you have outdoor animals or are planning on getting outdoor animals, I definitely recommend spending the extra money and making sure you have a heated dish for winter!! Since the weather is warming back up we have replaced their heated blue dish with the standard black water pail and the heated dish is safely stored in the garage and wont be needed for quite some time!! 

Getting Ready to Start Seeds!

Its time for seed starting and I couldn't be more excited! We have done some planning based on what we learned from last year and now its time to watch that planning grow!
This year we decided to try the seed starting with cardboard egg cartons. I have heard and read a lot lately where people are saying how great it works...so in about 2 months we will know for ourselves! I have 270 open slots for seeds, so now I'm going to lay out exactly what seed will be started in each slot and see what we end up with!
Last year we also did all out seed starting in our loft...since I am 6 months pregnant and only getting bigger, I thought it wouldn't be the best idea for me to be scampering around a small loft 10 feet off the ground in tight, confined spaces...so the seeds are being started in the baby's room. I know, I know that sounds terrible...but the baby isn't here yet and the seeds will all be moved out into the garden long before the baby arrives :) We have been trying to scale down on our space requirements since the baby will need extra space and it is really paying off now that we have a whole room empty for seedlings!
Very excited to see our 2011 garden take off!!!

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It's Cold Outside!!!

It has dropped to crazy low temperatures around here lately! Last week it got down to negative 22 wind chill :( Yes, we considered bringing in the animals...but the goats just snuggled up together real tight in their barn and it stayed plenty warm in there. During the day Sarge keeps watch over the back yard and snuggles the goats so they all stay warm! It is quite adorable! Thankfully the weather is warming up a bit, but there is still some chilly nights in the forecast!

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