Here's a pic of my Buttercrunch lettuces coming up in the cold frame. It's about time to start thinning them. I love that part. Pick and eat, pick and eat, etc.

http://i195.photobucket.com/al...hed/PotatoBin006.jpg

The plastic bags you see in the corners are there to keep too much cold air from getting in.

That looks like a good setup, with plenty of insulation and all. What did you use to grow them in? I have a couple of raised beds, and I wasn't too happy with the bagged 'dirt' from lowes and wallyworld that I filled them up with. Even with peat and such mixed in with it. Took a long time to get it conditioned.

I went with Miracle Grow Garden Soil. A word of caution...if you see a brand called Organic Choice, pass it up. We bought a few bags of that stuff a few years ago and it turned into a brick after we watered a couple of times. The seedlings never had a chance.

The little red and white bags of Premium Topsoil at Wallyworld and Home Depot works pretty well. I always stir in a bit of homemade compost just for extra flavor. Make sure it's the premium bags.

The tumbler composters that they sell at Lowes work pretty good. I have one and it has made me some good stuff in a short time. The only problem is the locking mechanism. I have mine tied up so it can't lock. If you start tumbling a fairly heavy load and the thing decides to lock, it can bend the plates that hold the axle. There are better built ones out there but they cost 4 to six times what the little Lowes model does. All in all, I'm happy with it!

I have some onion sets to put out. I haven't planted onions very often, and not sure if they would be okay to put out now with the winter weather we are supposed to finally be getting this weekend, or if it would be best to wait until that is over. I need to do some research on them I guess.

The ones I put out a couple of years ago in the Spring (didn't do any gardening this last year), survived the drought and all, and had come up in the garden spot. They were green onions and actually had started to divide/multiply. I don't know if that is 'normal' or not, as I haven't grown onions very often in the past. I would have thought they would have started growing into large onions if anything. Anyway, they are going into supper tonight. lol

We planted our 3 varieties of sweet onion on 2/23/11. Outside of the downburst, we had a pretty good crop. The hail wound up ruining about a quarter of them but the rest were fine. NOW...I'm talking about slicing onions, not the little green dinner onions.

This year's almanac says to plant between the 8th and the 20th. I'm gonna be planting spuds and onions this weekend. Got two huge bundles of Texas Supersweets at Marcum's. I saw that Atwoods has some late season taters. Kennebec is one of them. I can't remember the other right now.

After considering that I'd planted the last onions in the Spring of 2010, and didn't even mess with the garden at all last year, just let it 'go to seed' so-to-speak, and still three onions survived to make new bunches, it appears that onions can take a bit of snow and ice and come through. After all, last winter we had some very extreme cold and snow on the ground for a long time.

I think I may put mine in tomorrow or Friday. I have a bunch of the Texas sweets and a bunch of some red variety. They are all going into the old herb bed that didn't survive last Summer.

One of my coworkers is harvesting the onions from his 2011 Spring planting. They kinda went dormant during the heat and then started growing again. His green onions are HUGE and really tasty.

I think your onions should do very well. They're our most successful crop.

Here's a story about a guy really making a difference and it DOES include gardening.

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/...ry-battlefield-farm/

Gonna wait until next weekend to plant. I don't wanna put a bunch of taters and onions out right before it might get icy.

This WOULD be a good time to go out and turn your beds over to kill grubs and any winter weed starts. I have to be careful because I have toads and snakes that make their winter home in my beds. lol

I'm going to wait too. Been a busy weekend, and don't feel like doing a whole lot outside in this cold in the time I'm home. I'm glad we're getting the moisture we are getting recently, but not looking forward to freezing rain tomorrow night and Monday.

We had several toads every year for the last few years. One big one we named Jabba the Hut. I would hate to disturb or hurt one that was still in hibernation. Snakes, I don't care for at all. I know they "have their place"...but it's best it's not my place...lol.

It probably won't surprise you but I was one of those kids that liked to hunt for snakes. I learned to swim in a creek that was heavy with poisonous water snakes. Bob Jenni(television personality and naturalist) walked me around inside a swimming pool full of rattlesnakes once during a fishing expo when I was a little kid. In ALL the encounters I've had with snakes(poisonous and non), I've never been bit.

The snakes here are just the little garden variety ones that couldn't bite you if they wanted to. But I DO know that a snake is a snake is a snake to a lot of folks.

I feel like a kid waiting on Christmas morning while I wait to plant. lol

Enjoying the lovely snow this morning.

Makes the morning coffee taste even better, to be sipping it while watching the birds at the feeder, enjoying their breakfast in a snow-covered yard. Just filled the feeder and scattered some seed around for the little foragers, and already had a bluejay and a female cardinal visit. I'm sure the snow won't last for long, but it's nice to not have to get out in it.

Read this article today, it was shared at an organic gardening site this morning:

http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy...-dirt-213800904.html

Time to make some more coffee.

Today I'm planting the seeds in the seed starter kits. They'll spend the next six weeks going from the heating vents to the window sills, and sometimes outside during the day when it's warm after they've sprouted.

I'm only going to plant the tomato seed (two varieties) and the pepper seed (three varieties) this way. All the other seeds can go straight into the ground when it's time.

I hope to have enough seedlings to plant some in my brother's garden too.

I just went out and uncovered a couple of my raised beds so they can dry out a little before I plant the onions this weekend. Don't wanna ruin the tilth after the worms have worked so hard!

Gonna put the tater bin out front and get it planted too.

You might wanna check out the Red Dirt brand at Atwoods or the place on Sooner Rd.(for your brother) It's local and they raise veggies and fruit that thrive in Oklahoma(when it's not 5 degrees hotter than Afghanistan in the summer).

I now have seeds planted in the starter beds, if just one seed germinates in each little holder, I'll have nearly 50 tomato plants and 50 pepper plants.

If they all come up, I guarantee I'll be giving some of the away to good homes. My brother and my cousin most likely. They both like to garden.

Though, my brother got so discouraged last year. He had a beautiful garden coming up last Spring, when the "microburst" hit and totally wiped it out. Then the blast furnace of last Summer finished off what managed to survive the microburst. lol He was so turned off of gardening, he hadn't planned to have one this year, but I told him he was going to have to fix a spot...I way over bought-seeds lol!

For some reason, last year I had no desire to garden at all. Turned out to be the best, let the land 'rest'. This year I'm pretty pumped about it again. Hopefully that's a good sign, that we'll have a decent growing season this year.

Time will tell!