Maximum Sillage

Hasn't been as much windowsill-gardening fun here on Frogma as there was last year - that's partly because a lot of last year's was really just randome futzing around out of boredom in the wintertime, which then turned into actual gardening, which I had no idea was going to be one of the benefits of joining Sebago - such a totally cool surprise. This year, knowing there's a bed to be planted, I was going to approach things in a slightly more normal fashion, starting seeds when you're supposed to start them -

But then we were having such a nice warm spring I decided to spare myself the hardening-off business & just plant almost everything directly. I did definitely gamble, I planted well before our last frost date & everything could've just gotten creamed by one last spring freeze - but it all came out OK!

Here it was last weekend. We had a couple rainstorms this week, of the sort I think some regions of the country call "toad-stranglers" - just massive, massive amounts of water coming down - I took advantage of those to NOT go out to water, going out to the club for a work day tomorrow (getting ready for our open house) and I'll see how everything came through. Adele the Gardening Chair was there during the week, said everybody's beds looked good, but of course I'm dying to see for myself how everything looks.

I did start some tomatoes on the windowsill. Last season's tomatoes were just grocery-store cherry tomatoes - this year I'm getting fancier, the Paddling Chef set me up with a bunch of heirloom tomato seeds. Due to work craziness, these got started a couple of weeks late, and actually for a while I was wondering if any of 'em were going to start - but right after I'd asked the Chef how long it was supposed to take, I saw the first one, he said that once one popped up the rest would be right behind & he was right - I think everything I planted sprouted! It also seemed that I planted the pepper seeds too soon, they never came up, so I picked up some seedlings (Sun Bells, pretty yellow bell peppers) & have been keeping them on the windowsill for a bit longer too. Today, I picked up some ageratum - I like some flowers in the bed to make it pretty (although I'm skipping last year's cosmos that grew and grew and grew and grew and grewandgrewandgrew - they were SPECTACULAR when they finally bloomed but the show was only a week or two in fall, and with a 4x6 bed I just decided that that wasn't quite how I wanted to use the space). Since I was giving a few of the tomato seedlings to a famous local garden blogger, and more will be going to another friend, and then everything else will gradually going out to the club to get planted starting, oh, tomorrow, I thought I would just take a picture of this year's peak moment for my windowsill plant population:


& a closeup of the ageratum 'cause I love it - I've actually planted some but I saw these in Newkirk Plaza today & just couldn't resist. No, no, can't wait, must have adorable fluffy blue flowers NOW!