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Lots of new things popping up this week.

	These little guys are my Easter Egg Radishes, a gift from my friend Cyberegg. They are going to be all shades of pinks and purples. Hopefully.
	This… this is my weed patch. This is the flower bed I made last year, but never got around to planting. I put a batch of peas in the ground several weeks ago, mainly just to see if they’d grow by themselves in un-amended soil. As you can (maybe) see, they are growing. Hopefully I will get some flowers into this bed this year.
	My thyme has started to show its lovely green and white face. I am somewhat surprised that my perennial herbs have all returned. Sage, thyme and oregano are all growing.
	This is the oregano i just mentioned.
	Release the mini Kraken! Just kidding, this is one of my hostas, the first to return from the deep.
	This shrub was with the house when we bought it. I’m sure its a common plant, but I’m not all that into flowers and shrubs so I have no idea what it is, other than pretty.

For the last couple of years, and even so far this year, the babies (seedlings) have taken over my office for the early part of the growing season. I have run out of room in my office and after buying a new grow light with no place for it, it was time to build the nursery. Using some scrap 2x4s I had laying around I put together a little seed starter rack that sits out in the garage. The garage is actually a better place for it since it gets cooler at night and will help the seedlings grow harder and adjust to the outside easier.

	This is it. I have 2 – 2 bulb lamps right now, with room to add one more row below. After that if I still need more room I will switch out the 2 bulb lamps with 6 bulb lamps, and be able to grow at least 432 seedlings at a given time. I think that should be enough.. for now!!
	This is the second harvest of the year. Some more spinach and green onions and some sage. This all went into a lovely omelet my lovely wife made for me.

This is one of my favorite parts of the growing season. Planting tiny little seeds that turn into tiny little plants, which hopefully turn into not-at-all-tiny plants down the road. I have a good selection of cold crops that just sprouted and are growing well under my grow light. The new grow light I mentioned in another post hasn’t been set up yet, but will be soon.

No pictures yet, but I picked up 6 strawberry starts this weekend. They are hanging out in the coldframe for week to make sure they are hardened off before getting planted this coming weekend.

	These are my oldest kids, heh. Two types of onions. There are two 4″ cells in the photo, but they are in single file so you can’t see the pot behind the other one. They are Guardsman onions and Shimamoto Japanese onions.
	These are Thompson’s broccoli and Cheddar Hybrid cauliflower. The cauliflower will be a fun orange color when it’s finished. Sadly, they won’t taste like cheddar.
	I really have no idea what these are. These are ANS #47, as seen on the plant tag, which means they are Red Acre Cabbage. ANS stands for Aaron’s Number System. I’m planting 54 different varieties this year, most with at least 3 plantings, some less (like corn) and some a lot more (like greens). Each start or planting (cold frame or direct) has a small metal plate with a number on it which is it’s primary key in my database. Putting “47″ on a tag is a lot easier than “Red Acre Cabbage – Planting 1 – Started Indoors 03/18 – Moved to Coldframe 3/30 – Transplanted 4/05″ on a tag!
	These little guys are super fun. They are red cabbage, but what I didn’t know was the red cabbages are all red even from birth. They should add a cool color to the garden for the first part of the year.
	These are the newest babies. Just barely starting to sprout. These are my second round of scallions, but a different variety than the first. These, along with the red cabbage seeds were gifts from my buddy Cyberegg.

In the words of Ice-Cube: Today I didn’t even have to use my A.K., I gotta say, today was a good day. A good day indeed. It was mid 60s and sunny here today and in the sun it felt much warmer.

I hit up the community garden plot with cbro this morning around 11. We got the plot sectioned off into beds and worked in some coffee grounds and organic fertilizer so that it can all start to break down so when we do plant a few weeks from now there will be available nutrients. We did plant a few beds of peas, just to see what will happen. I bet they all do well.

Back home I worked on my garden for a while too. I was surprised that my compost pile did so well over the winter.. I got two full wheelbarrows full of the most beautiful compost that I spread over my new garden beds. I built a sifter a month or so ago when I made my potting soil, so I sifted my compost as well. I also worked in some COF (complete organic fertilizer).

Now I’m sitting on my deck smoking my pipe and writing up this blog post. And I didn’t even have to use my A.K. It was a good day.

	Yeah that’s right. Be jealous. Dearest coldframes, how I love thee… er.. thees.. thous.. I love you both. Today I did the first thinning harvest of the winter spinach and lettuce in the coldframes. We made a gorgeous salad for lunch with these. And yes, that is a frisbee.
	Here are the new beds at the community garden.
	This is my weeping cherry in the front yard. It is blooming out beautifully.

Last year was the year of trying the Intensive Gardening method. Double dug raised beds.. brought in quality soil to fill them.. heavy (organic) fertilizer and very intensive irrigation. It worked.. somewhat. It was good for hobby gardening. There was definitely no money made by the end of the year.

This year I’m going back to the ‘old school’ methods. Spreading out and using the land that I have. I have just under half an acre, so there really is no reason for me to do intensive gardening.

	Here is what my garden looked like last year. Well.. this was a few days ago, nothing growing but the garlic, but it shows the raised beds I used last year.
	And this is the beginnings of my new garden! This awesome guy on craigslist that rents out his tractor by the day. I asked him if he just did work himself for small projects like mine, and sure enough he agreed. He came over one morning and in about half an hour had sod transformed into the beginnings of a new garden bed. Some of the best money I’ve ever spent, that’s for sure!
	Here is the final product after I’ve made a few paths for myself to get around in. I blocked it off into roughly 6′x4′ blocks.
	Same thing from another angle. The plot in the foreground will be my landing/staging area. It will be either mulched or graveled. Maybe I’ll put a nice little garden chair there or something. A gardener needs to just sit and relax every now and then!
	Here is some of our locally produced waste seed meal. Since this is Seattle, that would be Coffee grounds. I stopped by my local Starbucks and picked up a bag one day, and another bag a few days later.
	You can see there is some espresso grounds in the mix as well. I’m going to have some highly caffeinated worms!
	My blueberry bush was right in the middle of where the new garden went in, so I trimmed it back and moved it to a different spot on the other side of the house. This isn’t the right time of year to make cuttings to propagate (as root grow takes place in fall and winter) but I decided to give it a shot.. why not. If it fails I’ve lost nothing, and if it works, I have 6-8 free blueberry bushes!