Thanks to all of you who have been faithful readers of GreenArtz. I wanted to let you know that, due to a combination of factors, I’ve decided to recombine GreenArtz & ChezArtz. I will still be blogging frequently and in detail about gardening and food preservation especially as we document our year of eating local, which begins next month. So I hope you’ll join me over at ChezArtz. In the event that you do not want to read about such topics as parenting & politics, you can always subscribe & then click Manage Your Subscription to select only gardening-related categories. Then you will only get an email when I post on one of those categories.

Thanks again, and please email me if you have any questions (Julie AT CHEZARTZ Dot COM).

Looking for something that indulges your shopping fix, your gardening fix, and supports a great local cause? Then check out the Boulder County Master Gardener Ginormous Plant Sale this weekend!

Each year, Boulder County Master Gardeners start flats of seeds and divide unusual perennials from their own gardens to sell in the plant sale. A selection of water-wise favorites including grasses, flowering perennials, vines, and shade-tolerant perennials is also purchased from local nurseries. In addition, Plant Select® perennials will also be available, providing sale-goers with a good combination of the unusual and local favorites. Master Gardeners will be selling perennials, Plant Select plants, xeric plants, ornamental grasses, alpine plants, and more, while Growing Gardens focuses on annuals, heirloom vegetables, and herbs.

The sale is this weekend, May 17-18, from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm in the parking lot of the Public Health building at 3450 North Broadway in Boulder.

We use the funds to sponsor scholarships for Master Gardeners to attend conferences; purchase books for the library; purchase equipment for the program; fund special projects such as the Garden to Schools, Heritage Orchard, Balfour, Jail Garden, and small fruit trials; under-write the cost of classes for MGs, so that we don’t charge Boulder County folks for participation.

So stop by this weekend, check out the spectacular selection of plants, talk to a Master Gardener, and help support this wonderful program!

Three days short of four weeks after planting my flat of asparagus, I have surpassed 50% germination rate with 49 seedlings out of 84 planted! They are still tiny, and I admit that I will likely lose some of the tiny, fragile shoots when I transplant them outside and again when I cull the female plants, but I’m still pleased.

I’m up to a whopping two shoots of winecup and the creeping thyme (of which I have planted a full flat and could probably use twice that for xeric groundcover throughout the yard) is coming on strong. The best performers, aubrieta, all the rudbeckia hirtas (black eyed susan, gloriosa daisy, etc.), tomatoes, asters, and some, but not all, of the native grasses, are looking close to needing to go outside and I’ve still got at least three weeks to go before I can do that without protection, although I’ll start hardening off a few things this weekend if the weather holds (it’s been in the 70s!).

I got a bunch of seed garlic and have been sitting here watching it sprout on my counter top because my raised beds were not done. Until today that is…I see garlic planting in my future!

Julie

So I’ve finally gotten around to taking some pictures of our edible-landscape-in-progress. You can probably see that we have our work cut out for us since the only plant matter in the yard at present is 4 non-fruiting trees and non-edible (except to goats and puppies!) sod.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like my St. Patrick’s Day peas are going to happen. First, there’s the matter of the landscapers not being done driving heavy equipment across my garden patch (they still have several large boulders to place for us). Second, there’s Mother Nature’s silly sense of humor; it’s currently snowing and the various weather folks are predicting anywhere from 5 to 18 inches.

Even I’m not hardcore enough to go out and plant peas in 18 inches of snow! So instead, I guess we’ll just have to be happy with what we got done this morning, which is leveling and starting to lay out our front yard patio. This little rough set flagstone creation will have creepers like Thyme and maybe even some chamomile planted between the gaps in the stone. It will house two chairs and a small table and allow Matt and I to sit somewhere other than on the front steps when we’re out watching the children ride bikes in the cul-de-sac (or at least it will provide a place to set our drinks where the pup can’t knock them over!).

I guess I’m stuck just dreaming about spring for at least a few more days…

If you’re wondering where the gorgeous photo at the top of the page came from, you have my husband, Matt, to thank. Want to see more of his pretty pictures? Check out his new photo blog. I intend to change these photos periodically and although it’s possible that the odd one will come from me (or my talented sister-in-law), it seems more likely that most of them will come from Matt. Hope you like them!

Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s supposed to be “spreading my wings” but that wouldn’t tie back into the theme of this site, the latest ChezArtz creation.  I’ve been blogging more and more about gardening on ChezArtz and found that I was cutting out some of the detail I wanted to include for fear of boring all those wonderful readers who really just wanted to check for updates on the children. Now I don’t have to do that, and if you don’t care a bit about my kids, you can just read the garden-related stuff and skip the rest right here on GreenArtz.