Purple Hyacinth in the front bulb garden

The hostas in front of the house

The iris’s in the a/c garden

Clover growing in the iris, you can also see the rizomes

The Redbuds are blooming!

The Dogwood flowers are just starting to open.

Here are a few links to help with your garden.

Why I’m Planting Chamomile This Spring

How to Identify Elderberries video on Youtube

Row Covers, Hoop Houses

Grab The Saturday on the Farm Button!

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Saturday on the Farm is a blog carnival that lets us share links to our blog post. It’s fun to visit each others farms.

To participate in Saturday on the Farm, just write a post about your homestead, farm, farmette, or the tomato plant on your deck. Your cows, goats, chicken, or your favorite kitty cat. Add the link to your post (not your main page) below. Please link back to me so others can join the fun, too.

For more Farm & Garden posts, please visit:
Homestead Barn Hop
Fertilizer Friday/ Flaunt Your Flowers

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Well, we didn’t get as much gardening planning done this week as I had hoped to.

I did decide that the only seeds I’m going to start in the house are tomatoes. Our growing season here in Kentucky is long enough that everything will be fine planted directly in the garden. In fact, tomatoes have plenty of growing time also. The only reason to start seeds indoors here, is to be able to harvest sooner.  So I will be starting some of the tomatoes indoors, and also planting some directly in the garden. That will extend the tomato harvest, instead of having them all ready at one time.

My grandmother always planted peas and potatoes on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, every year. That had been my goal. And, well, I missed it. I will be getting some in the ground Monday or Tuesday. So I won’t be too far behind schedule.

The full sized Daffodils starting blooming this week. I love the one above. So pretty.

Here’s the whole Front Bulb Garden, as we call it. The mini – Daffodils are in the front, with the full size in the back. The flowers on the back left are full size Daffodils, too. You can see one lone Crocus bloom left in the lower left of the garden. And in between the mini Daffodils, you can see the Tulip leaves. There are also a couple of other kinds of flowers coming up in the front, you can barely see the green leaves.

Other plants in the yard are starting to come up. It’s so exciting to walk around and find old friends coming back for a visit. 🙂

Have you planned your garden yet? Here are some links to help you get started:

Best Time to Begin Spring Planting – will help you decide when to plant.

This article, How to Plant a Garden That Works for Where You Live, is a great place to start.

This Vegetable Garden Planner will be a great help in planning your garden.

With this Seed Starter Tutorial learn how to make your own seed starter pots from newspaper.

This Frugality and Gardening post from Frugality is Free has lots of great, frugal gardening tips.

Grab The Saturday on the Farm Button!

<a href=”http://lindaslunacy.com/search/label/Saturday%20on%20the%20Farm”><img src=”http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1001/4608457251_49ba7771a6_o.jpg” alt=”Saturday on the Farm at Linda’s Lunacy” width=”125″ height=”125″ /></a>

Saturday on the Farm is a blog carnival that lets us share links to our blog post. It’s fun to visit each others farms.

To participate in Saturday on the Farm, just write a post about your homestead, farm, farmette, or the tomato plant on your deck. Your cows, goats, chicken, or your favorite kitty cat. Add the link to your post (not your main page) below. Please link back to me so others can join the fun, too.

<a href=”http://lindaslunacy.com/search/label/Saturday%20on%20the%20Farm”><img src=”http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1001/4608457251_49ba7771a6_o.jpg” alt=”Saturday on the Farm at Linda’s Lunacy” width=”125″ height=”125″ /></a>

Ah…it feels like spring! It has been a long, hard winter. I’m so thankful winter is almost over. I say almost, because we normally get at least 1 more snow in March.

Then we have to get through all the “winters” Dogwood Winter, Blackberry Winter, there’s another winter around here, for a tree. I’m going to have to do some researched. I tried looking up the name of the tree that I remember my Grandmother using, but I can’t find it.

These “winters” are when the named plant or tree is in bloom we always get a cold snap. For example, when the blackberries are blooming, we know it will get cold for a day or two, then warm back up again. I find it interesting. And pretty accurate.

Have you ever heard about any of these “winters” in your area?

Here’s the bulb garden in our front yard. It’s on the other side of the yard from the house, so I can see these out the front windows and the front door. It’s so nice to be able to look out and see flowers!

White and Purple Crocus’s, there are yellow ones in the garden as well.

This week, we need to make final decisions about what we’re going to plant this year. Then go through our seeds and see what we need to buy. We can by Ferry Morse Organic and Heirloom seeds at our local Tractor Supply, so we don’t need to order them.  Some years we order seeds for some fun veggies but this year I think we’re going to go with just the basics. We do save seeds, and only buy when needed or for seeds we don’t save, like tomato.

Do you save your seeds, buy local, or order through the mail/internet?

Grab The Saturday on the Farm Button!

<a href=”http://lindaslunacy.com/search/label/Saturday%20on%20the%20Farm”><img src=”http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1001/4608457251_49ba7771a6_o.jpg” alt=”Saturday on the Farm at Linda’s Lunacy” width=”125″ height=”125″ /></a>

Saturday on the Farm is a blog carnival that lets us share links to our blog post. It’s fun to visit each others farms.

To participate in Saturday on the Farm, just write a post about your homestead, farm, farmette, or the tomato plant on your deck. Your cows, goats, chicken, or your favorite kitty cat. Add the link to your post (not your main page) below. I would appreciate a link back to me, a text link would be fine. Thanks!

Here’s more of a close-up. Trimming the bushes back really does work. It’s blooming again!

My new favorite flower this summer is the Zinnia. This is the first year that I have grown them. (shocking, I know!)

They are so pretty!

And the butterflies like them, too.

I have them in pots on the front porch. The Butterfly bush above is right off the porch. So it’s like a Butterfly playground out there. We can sit in the living room and see all kinds of butterflies outside the windows.

On the animal front, all is well. The male goat is in rut. Which is a good thing, except we should change his name to Stinky. lol Your alright, as long as you don’t get to close, or stand down wind of him. lol

Next week, I’ll have a picture update of our fall vegetable garden.

I have discontinued the Saturday on the Farm linky until the spring. If you have a garden or farm post that you would like to share, please leave it in the comments.

Please visit:
Tuesday Garden Party

The weather has been so nice here this week. Only in the 80’s during the day.  I went for a walk this morning and here are some of the things I saw.

The Zinnia on the front porch.

Day Lilly in the Bible Garden.

Rose in the Bible Garden.

We have a lot of green tomatoes in the garden.

We even have tomato blossoms still!

This is a beet. I found 2 of them. Who knows what the chickens did with the rest of them. I couldn’t find the carrots, either. I need better fencing next year!

We have a total of 4 squash plants. I have no idea if they are yellow or zucchini. Yep, they chickens struck again, and did away with the seed package markers my husband put out. I’m hoping for zucchini.  Here are 2 of the squash plants

I found this little guy near the squash. He’s not exactly little. I’m just thankful he didn’t jump on me while I was taking his picture!

Do you have anything growing in your garden still?

The yellow thing is a trowel. I’m not sure why a trowel was not only left in the garden, but also covered in cardboard. shrugs  At least I know where it is now.

Since most people have finished with their gardens, I’m not going to post a linky this week.  I’m going to end it for this year. I will start posting the linky again in the spring.

If  you are growing a fall garden (or if it’s spring where you are) please post your link in the comments and I’ll be sure to visit.

The weather has been cooler. Which is such a relief after our really hot and humid summer. It rained all day yesterday. A nice steady, soaking rain that is so good for the garden. It’s raining again today. This should really give our fall garden a good boost.

Of course, all the rain means I wasn’t able to get any pictures to share. I did hang out the front door and take a picture of the rooster this morning. Poor little guy. His tail feathers are so water logged they won’t stand up.

The kids did find an interesting caterpillar the other day. It was  a Spice Bush Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillar. Their host plants are the Spice Bush and the Sassafras. I don’t think we have any Spice Bush, but I know we have Sassafras. The kids found him in the side yard, and they had to go up in the woods to get sassafras leaves for it, so I’m not sure how this little guy ended up in the side yard. Anyway, here’s his picture.

You should have heard the kids try to explain to us what the caterpillar looked like. lol If your kids came in and told you they found a caterpillar with a snakes head, what would you say? lol But they were right! If you follow the link above, you can see a clearer picture. He is now living in a jar in the house with sassafras leaves and a stick. He started to make a cocoon, so hopefully we will have a butterfly hatch and set free.

It’s time for the Saturday on the Farm Carnival!

For more gardens, visit Weekend Warriors at It’s a Blog Party. and Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage.

Also visit Saturday Share at Kerri’s Klutter
Also visit Outdoor Wednesday at A Southern Day Dreamer.