Spring has Sprung

Today is the first day of spring, and after a chilly start to the week (9 inches of snow and chilly temperatures), it has warmed up and is lovely out today. Unfortunately, I did not quite manage to escape winter without a winter's cold, as I started feeling ill Wednesday and felt so lousy this morning that I took a sick day. However, by mid-afternoon I was feeling somewhat human, thanks to cold meds and a morning nap with Westley (who makes an excellent cuddle buddy). Not wanting to waste the entire day, I spent a bit of time finishing up a project begun about a week ago: the dining room faux Roman blinds. To see the how, check out the last post, but I essentially did the same thing with a different fabric and the bay window in the dining room.  This fabric is also a geometric pattern, but in a medium blue to contrast with the light gray walls. Once again, I re-purposed window panels from Target.  It's not quite perfect, but overall I'm pleased with the way they came out, and they definitely add a touch of elegance to the room.

Last night Nick helped me transplant more of our fast-growing seedlings to larger compostable pots, ones that should be able to hold them until we plant them in the garden beds sometime next month. How are the seedlings doing, you ask? Quite nicely! The cucumber and squash plants have all been germinating within a few days of being planted, and are growing like gangbusters. The tomato and broccoli plants are also doing nicely. 

 The potting bench Nick built is working out beautifully!

Cucumbers: Boston Pickling and Parisian Pickling 

 Tomatoes and Broccoli

Zucchini and Acorn Squash

Nick jokes that we are a good fit on this project: he really enjoys planning and taking care of the large outdoor garden beds, and I am obsessive about taking care of the seedlings and keeping everything organized.  How organized? I decided that digging through giant Ziploc bags of seed packets wasn't working for me; it took ages to find anything. Then I realized that none of the packets are bigger than 4" x 5", meaning that if I bought a photo album with 4" x 6" pockets, I could put the packets in there. So I found an inexpensive scrapbooking album at Michael's, bought the appropriate page inserts, and added my seeds. 

However, I did not want to organize them alphabetically, because then as soon as I bought anything new I would have to move everything else to make room. That drives me nuts. So how did I do it? 

I organized by plant family. Which I had to look up, since I don't know plant families. Neither does Nick. He thinks it's hilarious that my new organizational system is one that neither of us knows, but I think it's time to learn. For example, did you know that while broccoli, radishes and kale are in the same family, spinach, beets and Swiss chard are in a different family? See, now we've all learned something.