End of April

The end of April finally. The weather got much better, warmer, with pleasant soft rain yesterday. Nightly temps in low 50's, and the day highs in low 70's. I think it's the best time to enjoy dining al fresco on our patio, there is not much of a bug life yet, not too hot, not humid - I love these days! And we for sure took advantage of this gorgeous weather, spending most of our weekend outside. Magnolia is in bloom, forsythia is just glowing, daffodils, hyacinths, tulips - blooms are everywhere!
Now I should mention my veggies... Eggplants are looking very strong, big, very green with thick short stems. Basil is just beautifully growing, we made Caprese salad the other day using our homegrown basil. I planted two varieties; regular Genovese basil and new for me Lettuce Leaf basil. They are both great, but we think that we will use Genovese for cooking and Lettuce Leaf for eating fresh in salads, it's much more tender, delicate then Genovese basil. But again both are great. Tomato seedling are still kinda slow, well maybe not, but I went to Lowe's just today, took a look at tomato plants for sale - they are so big compare to mine, some even have flowers! I am upset :-) Oh well, I should be patient. It's been 3 weeks exactly since I've seeded them, all of them starting second pair of true leaves, but they are sooooooo tiny! I hope everything will be alright. I just fertilized all of my veggies with fish emulsion ( 2 Tbsp for a gallon of water ), let's see how my babies will like it. Next time I should do it in 3 weeks. So here are the pics from our end-of-April weekend.

mini daffodils in the garden

hyacinths

my best garden friend - a garden snake. it devours my enemies - voles and mice!!!!!

my Jimmy and I - enjoying afternoon sun

my beautiful Barbara with her little Gucci

tomato seedling, 3 weeks after seeding them

a pot of home grown basil, LOVE the smell!

a giant leaf of Lettuce Leaf Basil

eggplants are doing great!

Caprese salad. That is why we are growing basil and tomatoes :-)

Sunday breakfast on the patio, we can bird watch while we eat.

Cherry blossoms

Couple of days ago we encountered a really miserable weather in our area. I am not sure how many inches of rain fell on us in 5 days. It is really great for our plant life for the season, but goodness! what a misery... Fortunately Barbara and I were lucky to escape for couple of days. Gorgeous trip to DC, cherry blossoms, Georgetown University, and the temperature climbed up to 90 F! At the mean time my basil and eggplants continuing doing great, and all of my tomato and pepper seeds germinated well and happily growing under the light on the heating mat. Didn't take the pictures of them, but will soon :-) But today I am posting some pictures from our trip to DC.

 Charming french cafe in Georgetown, we were really pleased with the atmosphere and food...French crepes with caramelized peaches, homemade vanilla ice-cream and berry melba sauce.

Finally tomatoes!

It's this time finally, time to start tomatoes. I love them! Any color, any size, cooked, fresh from the vine, tomatoes are my favorites! Easy to start, easy to grow, and quite productive...every gardener's dream :-) So today I soaked tomato seeds in my seed starter potion which I still have left in the fridge from starting eggplants. I am going to prepare cells today, put them under the light to warm up the soil, and tomorrow will sow the seeds. Also this year I am trying new sweet peppers "Chinese five colors" and hot Caribbean Habaneros. That will go together with my tomato seeds to soak in this potent potion until tomorrow. It is finally a bit warmer here, we warmed up to 49 F yesterday...I know, it's not warm enough for this time of the year, but will do for now. Barbara and I moved my cold frame out of the shade on the sunny spot, I cleaned it and actually got brave enough to put in my little jolly eggplants and basil for a little sun tanning. Basil doing great this year, fat little bushes, very green and smell wonderful! A little change of subject, I am contemplating whether to buy or not to buy a cute green house from Gardeners Supply place...hmmm...Will wait till May. For now I am going out to work in the yard, yes. The oregano on our herb bed is taking over the entire bed, I really need to fix it......
Worked almost four hours outside, got some sun tan. And by the end of the day we had a very nice dinner, tried potatoes recipe from Pinterest, it was really good!!!