What's The Deal, Steele?: Veggies Through the Weeks

They say the magic day to plant tomato seeds is Tax Day. April 15. (And, since we've brought it up, a big round of applause to my dad for rocking through another billion 1040's. He's a CPA. For those of you who know and love CPA's, there are special rules surrounding the month of April. April 1-15 = speak and walk softly around your dear accounting professional. April 16 = rejoice.)

I was kind of impatient when it came to the seed planting bit (which is totally out of character for me, I know!) (Quit laughing.) and so I planted my first batch of tomato seedlings in early March.

I also planted a container of herbs, along with a snazzy label so that I could remember which was which.

As you can imagine, I have since lost the label. But have no fear, dear reader, because I can tell which one is the basil, and that is all that truly matters to me at this point.

I think the one below is the oregano. I read that it can take over a space if given the opportunity, so I gave it a special little container all to itself.

And, as I'm sure you know by now, the laundry kingdom has been usurped by plant life.

They went from small pots to bigger pots in late March, and they were glad for the space.

Here's my little Roma tomato, going strong.

I believe this is a carrot. I mistook a dandelion weed for a carrot the other day, though, so perhaps we shouldn't trust my intuition about these things.

Here's the red lettuce.

In addition to the indoor seed starting, I planted a bunch of cold-weather crops (ha! Crops! I have a 4-by-9 veggie garden. I'm not sure these qualify as crops...) outdoors. Here's a view of the mesclun lettuce on March 28:

Brussles Sprouts on March 28:

And here's the garden as a whole on April 4:

Baby Spinach:

Carrots (or, as previously mentioned, these could be dandelions. Or elephants, for all I know.):

Brussles Sprouts and Spinach, mixed together:

I went through yesterday and plucked out all of the brussles sprouts seedlings from this mess, which resulted from my forgetting where I'd planted the spinach and tossing brussles sprouts seeds right on top of the spinach. Nice job, there, Farmer. I've got a really strong-looking brussles sprout plant about a foot above these spinach seedlings, and I'd rather have a lot of spinach than a lot of brussles sprouts, so the sprouts were sacrificed.

Here's the better-looking brussles sprout:

Also, it is hard to take a picture of green things against a dark background. Here's what the whole garden looks like today:

Not half bad, right?

And here are my happy little tomatoes, which I have officially run out of room to plant. I might have Steven help me with another makeshift raised bed on the side of the house, just to have space for these little beauties.