How Does Our Garden Grow?

This week has brought a number of little green heads peeking out from under their brown sandy blankets so I thought I would post some updated pics of the garden progress. 

Above is our new house plant... with the cats eating everything we bring in -- even succulents -- we're planning to bring this little snake plant indoors to see how he fares.  I was so excited to find the two little buds peeking out when I repotted him.  I think I might leave him outside for a few more weeks while it's still pretty cool out there.  I want to give him the best chance at life in here, and he might need to get a little stronger before he faces these animals.  Of course my hope is that they may not even recognize him as a plant which would be super fab!  I am told that these snake plants are among the top air purifying house plants in the US, and we sure could use some air purifying.

Let's start with the new additions shall we?  Unfortunately none of my tomato seeds came up, so we stopped by the veg section in Home Depot yesterday and snagged some Early Girls so I can at least get some tomato satisfaction -- that is if these early girls live up to their names and sprout in the next month or so.  I planted my first upside-down lady, but didn't check first if they will work planted this way... it seems this little love prefers the upright position, so I think we're going to lose at least one.  Glad to find these things out so early in the season... we have a lot of growing season yet to come and I am excited to put the things I've learned into practice right away.

You can also see the to pepper plants to the right of the above collage.  I couldn't decide between Sweet Red Cherry and Pimento, so I picked both... of course some research has revealed that the flavors are fairly similar... oh well, they look different, and that's 50% of what matters to me.  :) (Cue sighs of experienced gardeners the world over saying, "N00b!")

  Please allow me to introduce you to my favorite part of the whole garden as it currently stands.  Meet my butternuts... ahh yes... the most modest of all our plant investments, these seeds were saved from the last butternut we bought at Thanksgiving 2010.  Peter put them aside and left them to dry out for planting this year.  I plonked them in these narrow sprouting containers thinking for sure that I was wasting my time... when we reached Monday and still nothing was peeking out I was sure the experiment had failed, but when I picked up the clear container to throw it in my compost pile I saw one single thick juicy long root running the length of one side of the container.  Upon closer inspection I discovered 4 more!!  ZOMG!! <-- I literally said that and ran inside with the tray to show Peter.  Well, yesterday our first little shoot poked its head up, and today it seems we have a few more grand ladies joining the party.  Oh PLEASE heavens above me, let these babies grow me some squash!!  My life will be complete!

So now, what about those potatoes?  Well, they seem to be sprouting and shooting out some more green nubs, but I am told that you need a specific seed potato (not the standard kitchen spud that I used) to get this to work right... while these are showing signs of growth I've never grown potatoes before, so I am not sure if this bug will just go brown and die at some point, or if it will eventually shoot up and become a potato plant.  Peter is convinced that this will work and is already planning on sinking $10 into another 10 buckets of staggered planting potatoes to keep us stocked all through the summer.

I am sure you couldn't ignore the cuteness all posed like a perfect lil boy next to the potatoes for his picture.  *Sigh* We're so in love with him!  It breaks my heart tht I can't let him live indoors with all of us...  :(