Strawberry Fields for Breakfast

Mother’s day seems to be the official day around here to buy plants, even though the average last frost date isn’t until the 15th. We went hiking on the actual holiday, but I stopped at my favorite local nursery after work today. I have ordered a bunch of plants from a friend who has started seeds for a school fundraiser, but I had to fill in the gaps, and pick up the floating water plants that I can’t overwinter, but Gulley’s can.

Water lettuce and water hyacinth- I picked the biggest ones they had in the bucket. The lettuce is more than a foot across.

When the girl was a baby, we would go to Gulley’s once a week in the winter, just to enjoy the greenhouse- they actually had a Koi pond inside, with a bridge overlooking the water, and turtles basking…they have removed it, because it really doesn’t make sense to have several hundred square feet of retail space devoted to goldfish. Especially when they didn’t even sell goldfish.
So, on Monday afternoon, I got 2 kinds of tomato, a kohlrabi plant,(because my kids keep insisting that they only like the broccoli stems, not the florettes, and kohlrabi is basically broccoli stem) a “Wee be little” pumpkin, and a jalapeno and a sweet pepper.

Just a box of plants- pond plants in the bag, everything else in 2"pots.

I have always hated green peppers, but if I am trying to get my kids to try new things, I should also…and notice how much better home-grown tomatoes taste than grocery store ones? Maybe it’s the same with peppers.
I resisted the huge selection of herbs- especially the scented geraniums, which they had several varieties of, but I have one already, a rose-scented, and no space to overwinter any more than that.

I went ahead and planted everything when the temperature was 80- then looked at the weather forecast- rain/snow mixture predicted for last night. Curses!

When I went to bed the thermometer was at 40, and it was sprinkling. I covered the plants with big clay pots, just in case it did freeze. When I woke up today, it was cool and rainy, but no snow on the ground.

Come on, weather, warm up so the tomatoes can be happy...