We have vegetation!!!

After all of the rain we've gotten over the past two weeks I was afraid that all of our seeds had slid away into some other yard. But never fear - we have vegetation!

The first thing I checked was the lettuce. Check - two long rows of teeny, tiny lettuce has sprouted. So from April 11th until April 25th (14 days). That sounds right.

Then we checked the onions. Hmm, they don't look so good; however, the garlic has gone gang-busters! Little green shoots of beautiful garlici-ness are covering three rows of our garden. Can anyone say 'Italian' or 'hot sauce'? Yum!

Then a couple of rows over we have carrots (nothing) then celery (we have life!) and then broccoli (again, life!). Sounds so yummy, but wishing the weather would perk up a bit so I could plant everything else!

We sat our seedlings outside yesterday to harden a bit. I think they enjoyed the sun, but they're safely inside again today. Madeline and I started some more seeds on Saturday. Mexican Feather Grass, English Daisies, African Daisies, Shasta Daisies, Tomatoes, Tomatillos, Chives, Petunias, Coleus, Zinnias, and two others I can't think of now.

On Saturday morning, a WT friend posted that the Canyon High School PTSA was having a tree sale. Okay, up and at 'em. Madeline and I went (in the wind) to check out the sale. I think we made a killing! Here's what we got: 4-1 gal. Pistache trees, 5 Shumard Oaks, 5 Burr Oaks, 5 Locusts, and 5 Pecans (hey, I'm a Texan, I had to have them).  So excited by our recent additions to the family.  The lists of five are all seedlings and will need lots of TLC to make them grow.  They're about, John Alan's height!  :)  I also, got several plants from the Flower Power students at CISD.  They are precious and a steal of a deal!

We did plant my circle of oaks out in the back forty.  My dream was to have a place where we could someday congregate under the canopy of giant oak trees, one for each of us, and one to grow on!  So Jay planted those yesterday.  It's funny to watch a geologist plant trees exactly based on magnetic north.  I can't wait to watch these little guys grow.  We were going to only plant five, but then decided that we wouldn't want a pentagram in our backyard.  How silly is that?

We're contemplating names for our 'manor' now.  When we were going to do five oaks, it was easy, "Five Oaks".  But now that superstition has created six, eeeh, not so sure.  We could do 10 Oaks.  Thoughts?

Last night after the kids went to bed, Jay went back outside to plant our seedling trees in a bucket until we could decide where they should go.  He'd been out there a while, and I went out to see what was going on.  He was planting irises in the flowerbed.  I'm telling you, this guy works.  But our irises are beautiful and are about to start blooming!  These are precious to me.  I haven't bought a single one - they are all from my mom's garden and my father-in-law's garden.  I love them and they are going like gangbusters too!  I would have thought they wouldn't have bloomed this year (since we just planted them last spring), but they are going to make a show at last!  If you didn't know, irises are my FAVORITE flower of all.  Heaven smells like rain, rising bread and irises.  See, you learned something today!

We have mud!

I thought I'd check on the garden tonight. You know we've gotten some rain. About half an inch. This is what half an inch looks like on your flip-flops. link://http://twitpic.com/1fvwfw

I think it rained.

I'm not sure but I think it rained. Nothing grew overnight. I'm disappointed. I was expecting big things for today but here's hoping for something tomorrow.

Seriously, it did rain here so no need to water today. I've got to get one of those fancy digital rain gauges. Or maybe I'll just figure out how to get Doppler Dave to send me one, ya think. ;)

It's begun!

Yesterday (4/10/10) marked the official begining of the 2010 Milleson garden.  Jay spent most of the day working on the tiller, tilling, buying fence supplies and installing them. 
The purpose of our blog is to keep a high-tech garden journal and to hopefully make our friends laugh.  If we achieve neither, then we've done our best.
So who are we?
Both Jay and I are city-folks, pretending to live in the country.  We live on 2-acres out west of Amarillo.  It's farm-land turned quasi-domestic so we feel like we're roughing it.  Jay's family came from farms.  Mine came from oil fields and millwrights.  Between the two of us, we're just north of clueless, but determined to make the best of it.
Technically, some seeds were started a few weeks ago, but the vast majority were planted outside today.  They were:

• Parris Romaine Lettuce
• Lettuce (Fancy) Mix
• Red Onions
• Sweet Texas Onions
• Garlic (a butt load - it's a technical term)
• Stringless Green Beans
• Peppers
• Bell (Green, Red, Purple, White, Yellow)
• Jalepeno
• Anaheim
• Green
• Habenero (Amanda these have to be for Tim)
• ??  There's one more but I can't remember
• Carrots
• Broccoli
• Celery
• Lemon Cucumbers
• Round Zucchini

That took about 1/3 of the garden so we have lots more to plant, including tomatoes, pumpkins, more cucumbers, etc.  So excited. 
I'll post more 'technical' information later, but for right now, welcome to the journey.  ;)