New Beginnings or That Poor Lavender Plant

So today is it 84 degrees, something that is all but unheard of in May in the Pacific Northwest. My kids are playing outside with the kiddie pool eating homemade peanut butter cup ice cream and I am in a tank top drinking...yup...hot coffee. I have never been able to get behind the iced coffee phenomenon.

Today I am thinking most about our garden at the new house. We purchased some of the plants we want (as we got started too late in the season to grow most things from seed.) Right now my biggest concern in the garden is keeping all the plants alive for the next 3 weeks in their containers. The new house is supposed to close at the end of the month and then we can get this garden really going. I can’t wait. I would love to be able to grow at least 80% of our vegetables in the garden. It is going to be a real labor of  love, but totally worth it in the end I'm sure. So here we go. The last few seed varieties have been ordered, and the garden is planned. Beans have been started, peas have been started too. Now I know the garden purists out there are going to say that it is too late to start peas and I should wait until the fall. To those purists I say, “I know.” But I would much rather have a small crop of fresh peas in the summer than none at all. I will be starting more for a fall harvest but I have my eye on a fresh pea ice cream recipe and I only need enough of a harvest to make that, (about 2 cups.)

It made me jump for joy, emotionally not physically. My seeds are advanced! 3 days early! There won’t be any average radishes in this house. 

Now the hard part starts. Keeping the kids from “picking” my new additions to our garden. If my two year old hadn’t just stripped a poor little lavender plant bare I might not be concerned, unfortunately now it looks like this:

I have been teaching my boys about growing plants. We all planted the peas and beans in the jiffy pods together. My youngest thought the dirt pellets that expand in the water were way more fun than putting the seeds in the dirt. I mean if I were two that would be my favorite part too, lets be real. Gardening is a huge lesson in patience. That is why I have such a need to do it. I think I need a lesson in patience. Blogging about it is only going to give me a space to vent about how impatient I am. Hopefully I will be able to get over it and if I do it right I will have a constant list of things that need to be done even in between the harvest times.

Four days ago I planted some radish seeds. If everything goes right we should be able to harvest them before the big move. But I have been horrible about them. Staring at the pot willing the seeds to grow, even though the package says it takes a week for them to germinate. I know that my seeds are going to be advanced and sprout early, that is why I stare. I know that any second the dirt is going to part and I will see the little leaves spring up. This is what I was thinking on day 2 of planting. And again on day 3. Now this morning, day 4, I was pleasantly surprised to see two little green leaves popping out of the dirt.