Planting season has finally started!

Started Thursday the 13th....
I didn't do diddly with my day yesterday cept read a juicy vampy smut novel. Well, kind of juicy, kind of eye rolling, hehehe. Was trying out a writer I haven't tried yet, not sure if I'm going to read any more of her stuff or not.
Today I was a much better kid about doing stuff. It's an orange tomato year here- three each of half a dozen toms- Dr. Wyche, Orange Queen, Roughwood Golden Plum, Woodle Orange, Juanne Flamme, and Tobolsk. I'm really hoping for at least a pair of each to grow out, though if I have extra, I won't cry about it, lol. Some of these are on the orange side of yellow and I'm trying to keep my yellows more in the lemon sort of range. Peppers, two each of Cayenne, Red Cheese, Pimient de Espelette, and Manzano Orange, and four Greek Pepperonchini. Peppers for drying hot grind and paprika, a thick walled sweet for salsa, and of course pepperonchini because we eat tons of them when we can. Bunch of herbs, Lime, Lemon, Cinnamon, and Holy Basils, Beetberry, Valerian, de Belleville Sorrel, Lemon Mint, Lovage, and White Horehound. I want to have more variety in my basils, and Holy basil is AKA tulsi tea. Beetberry is AKA strawberry spinach, an attractive plant that can be invasive or beautiful in hanging containers and has edible leaves like spinach, berries like strawberries. Valerian for roots for tea and kitty treats. The sorrel is a french leaf, lemony and peppery. The lemon mint I hope will be a very naughty herb indeed and help finish in my mint border. Now I just need to keep my eye open for apple mint. Lovage is kind of a 6 foot tall celery plant that is cut and come again, comes back every year. And the horehound of course is for cough drops.

I ended up not getting outside to drop in some of the seed I wanted to try wildsowing with. It was just too soggy, then we got in another goodly blanket of snow with cold ass temps. I'm planning on doing it next week Thursday :) Weather is looking like it might potentially be pretty ok for it.
I still have a lot of early planting to work up and deal with. Flowers, tons of flowers. 

With working out in the Solarium... I'm not sure my lemon verbena or marjoram survived out there overwinter. They are watered and put into a sunny spot and I'm hoping, but they look pretty dead. Nicely enough, as I went to clean out little pots, I found that some lemon balms survived out there, this year they will get a dedicated spot in the herb garden :). I'm damn pleased with that. Some of the toothache plant flower heads look about right to potentially sprout up nice this year. Keeping my fingers crossed. All of the small pot lavender did really well and should be able to be planted out under the pine tree out front. The big pot lavender is pretty not healthy and must go into the ground, I'm thinking under the pine at the end of the Fulva Lilly line. Fulva is ditch lilly, but I'm trying to make sure I use the proper name. If the lavender recovers well there, it will really nicely fill in that whole little patch wonderfully.
I need to remember to hit the fruit exchange this spring and pick up some more small pots- I have a friend that has had zero luck getting good live plants by her. And for what they charge, it's worth it to pick up several more this year to grow out in pots to plant in next year.
I now know what I'm gonna do with that lovely bag of tulip bulbs my Mum Ingrid gave me last fall- Pot them up tight like I did with the grape hyacinths last year.

Meows in the solarium... So I let Nova and Pooks out, they were all good. Let Os out too, and by the time I grabbed my coffee and vape and went back out, the little bitch was chomping on my parsley! Ugh, right up and off she went. Pooks got tired of it soon enough and wanted to come inside. Nova was in and out and having fun all day. Tikki got swept up and tossed out there for a few minutes too- every time I see her by a door I have to wonder how in the hell she ever escaped in the first place to end up with us. Marbles wasn't interested. Interestingly enough, Nova, Tikki, and Os all prefer the living room door- that shows promise for using one of those windows. If we can fix up the solarium up to an all year room instead of two seasons porch.. Hell yeah.

Friday was sort of a blur getting the house ready for the boys, and Saturday was all shopping. Thrift shops, farm place, restore... sheesh. Managed to find a brand new 2 pound bread machine for 10 bucks- tested it today and hooray it works great! I will prolly use it more as a dough maker than a bread baker, but sure as hell is nice to have it. I picked up a couple gooseberries when I was at the farm store, fresh healthy ones to pot up and grow out for the year. Tomorrow will be another busy day in the solarium, yay!!