planting store-bought garlic, the soybean debate, daffodils any minute now

Hello! Back again! Wow--it's been an icky month weather-wise--sheesh--gotta love Idaho in the springtime. Tomorrow could be snowing, could be 90 degrees, just never know.

So I hear that organic store-bought garlic is plantable and I'm going to see if that's true! Couple bulbs of grocery store garlic is certainly less expensive than garlic-for-planting bought at a garden store. We'll see! Any advise would be great!

I'm also going to go for soybeans although I hear it can't be done--all this hearsay--it'll be a miracle if anything grows this year.

I've commandeered the veggie garden for the moment--John's really busy, I've got the time, and I need to put my "Monica" touch on it--as in straight rows, real tomato cages instead of old wire decorative edging, things labeled and organized. It's going to be great! I have no idea how ground temperature should factor into things--but I've planted lettuce and spinach, sweet peas, carrots, beets, pumpkins, and corn so far. I'm going to plant potatoes, onions, the aforementioned garlic pretty soon, and am trying to toughen up my tomato, squash, and cucumber starts so they will be ready to go in--probably a month or so?

The flower garden is going nicely--we are so behind with bulbs! Don't have a single flower yet--combination of elevation and late bloomers, I suppose. AND the deer chomped off the new starts of my tulips a few weeks ago, so Osa has to sleep outside now and guard the plantation!

Each Fall I end up moving tons of perennials around--overgrowing here, need to be in full sun there, and so on. Looks like I've got a pretty good survival rate on the ones I moved last Fall. The summer was evil last year--we had a plague of locusts (seriously--never seen anything like it!!) and it didn't rain all. summer. long. So a few good ones died (like my cool bi-colored penstemon--sad), but the miracle is most survived! So that's what drought tolerant means--it will survive a drought. I love that most things are coming up just like last summer never happened--and I'm getting tons of seedlings on the hillsides that I'm trying to naturalize with wildflowers--poppies, larkspur, bachelors buttons, sunflowers. Can't wait to see what it looks like.

We are limping along with the hops--John's planting them for beer-making. We got a few starts from a neighbor/fellow-brewer who has thousands coming up right now and who pretty much supplies the entire beer-making community in Pocatello with Cascade hops. Pretty useful kind of hops, apparently. We ordered a few different kinds from a brewing catalog last year that came in these puny little starts but they seem to have survived as well. Yay beer. John is starting to draw the neighborhood boys on the weekends when he "plays beer." This weekend he made a beer and a cider (for dad!) with Matt, Matt, and Joe. Boys and beer--gotta love it!

OK, we're getting some garden action finally! Happy me!