We’ve been extremely anxious to start planting some seeds and growing our own food. Here in Colorado, the chance of frost can extend even into June, but waiting that long is really difficult. So we went by an old saying of waiting until after Mother’s Day, and did our first set of planting on May 10th and 11th.

Kale and Mint. This one little kale plant somehow survived the entire winter then sprung back up a few weeks ago. Amazing.

In the greenhouse we planted: 4 varieties of tomatoes (roma, manalucie, rutgers, and big cherry), jalapeno peppers, cayenne peppers, okra, basil, lavender, oregano, marjoram, and rosemary. But we’ve discovered that the greenhouse has a hard time holding heat throughout the night, and the first few nights reached below freezing. So we feared that a lot of the seeds would not survive. We watered regularly and kept a close eye on everything, and we have one okra sprout and one basil sprout that has survived so far!

Check out our green onion!

In our outdoor garden beds, we planted: turnips, radishes, swiss chard, spinach, endive, lavender, cilantro, parsley, thyme, tarragon, fennel, and sunflowers. A few days later, we added beets and collard greens. As of yesterday, all of our turnips and radishes have sprouted, and we have a couple of swiss chard, endive, and one little spinach sprout. It has been beautiful, sunny, warm weather the last several days, and we’re hoping even when we get back home today there will be more little babies waiting for us.

Turnip babies!

And this is the newest wildlife sighting at our place! Colorado’s state amphibian:

Western tiger salamander!