Progress Report

Things were sprouting up all over the place here at Rancho Gringos Blancos this week... The broccoli finally came up as did the nicotiana and the Jet Black hollyhock. I went down to our local nursery, Christopher's Gardens to pick up some more supplies to transplant the seedlings up... I picked up more trays and more peat pots... plus I peaked into some of the greenhouses and bought some tomato starts: Quick Pick, Celebrity and Nick's favorite, Champion! Nick is the nursery foreman and quite a funny character. He's from Colorado so had lots of experience growing things in higher elevation with shorter growing seasons. Anyway, a couple of lavender starts and a six pack of echinacea jumped onto my cart before I managed to check out! Christopher's is a great place they have the most knowledgeable staff around! Plus the owners are parents of one of my students.

Also with everything growing and some seeds getting started as we creep closer to that all important "frost free" date, things have gotten a bit cramped so it was back to the drawing board for our seedling start area. Everything was getting spread out all over the kitchen table, so I moved everything to "inglenook." Adam and I had went dumpster diving this past week and at Home Depot in their HUGE roll off dumpster, we managed to procure some 2x4 and 2x6 scraps plus... huge wire shelves! They a solid, 52 inches long by 32 inches wide so they will hold more than 4 flats! Anyway, next to the wood burning stove I built a bench out of the scrap lumber and topped it off with a wire shelf. Then we made another trip to Home Depot to purchase some more lights after those were hung, I organized the inglenook into the "garden nook" and we have plenty of room... at lest for the time being! While at Home Depot some Russian sage jumped into shopping cart so I brought them home too! Our garden entrance is going to look really nice!!!

With everything organized and in it's proper place, I am going to be working outside today and finish building that elusive garden gate!! Not to mention some more transplanting!