Showing posts with label springtime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label springtime. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

The Month of March

It appears that I've neglected my blog for nearly a month! Don't worry, I have plenty of excuses for my lapse in posting; plus pictures for proof!

March is my busiest greenhouse preparation month. And, as you can see by the photo below, the Schmit Home Solutions greenhouse is nearly full. Regardless of how much space I have (the greenhouse doesn't get bigger from year to year) I always feel that it's necessary to get MORE varieties of flowers and vegetables each year, thus resulting in MORE plants. I panic around this time every spring, because I don't know where I'm going to put everything! Yet, somehow I manage to find some magical left-over space for my plants that previously didn't exist, and then I think, "Whew! That was a close one. I'm never ordering this many plants again!" (Yeah, right...)



The seedlings have really been enjoying the spring sunlight. And, as a result of that sunlight, they have grown and grown! Here's an updated look at the baby gerber daisy's I was showing off a few posts ago. I can't wait for them to start shooting up blossoms!



I also made the decision to grow ALL of our vegetables from seeds this year. Typically, we order tiny seedlings of most plants, and then transplant them into larger pots. This saves a lot of time, but I don't get to select as many different tomato and pepper varietals. So, because I've started them from seed, I get to offer sweet red and yellow peppers along with the typical green variety; Rutgers, cherry, and Roma tomatoes along with the usual tomato line-up; and an assortment of chili peppers like cayennes, pablanos, and anaheims. The itsy-bitsy sprouts below are Roma tomatoes (it's hard to tell who's who at this point in the tomato life-cycle, they all look alike as sprouts.)



And, for my final greenhouse photo, I'd like to leave you with a little spring beauty to get you through this cold and blustery day. The first bloom of the season opened up this morning, and it belongs to a gorgeous white tuberous begonia!


Thursday, February 13, 2014

Bugs 'n' Slugs

I've been in an especially "spring-y" mood lately. Some of our ice started melting into the streets yesterday, because the temperatures finally crept above that dreaded freezing point.

The greenhouse is also back in order after serving as a temporary storage facility all winter. I can not begin to explain my excitement about planting season. I've already started a few trays of seeds, and this morning  I noticed some little green specks reaching through the soil. I involuntarily clapped my hands at the sight. You know what they say, "If you're happy and you know it..."

This past month I've been on somewhat of an art hiatus due to a terrible case of "the blahs". But all this new springtime excitement finally got my creative juices flowing again. I'm working on a few new characters of the bug 'n' slug variety. I made a tiny set of paintings yesterday as a little bit of a test run. I want my creepy crawlies to have mismatched antenna and eyes to make them more cute than creepy. I also want to dream up a little abstract world for them to live in. I made my tester paintings using acrylics on 4"x4" canvases (I adore tiny canvases). They feature three characters; a beetle, a snail, and an inchworm. Their little abstract habitat is composed of trees with fancy filigreed roots and a sky filled with swirly white clouds. What do you think? Are they keepers?