signs of spring.

Garlic does really good in this part of Southeast Alaska.  Says a friend and according to my Gardening Southeast Alaska book.  Last fall we planted three different types of garlic: Polish softneck, Purple Glazer and some other (?) variety.  This is our first experiment with garlic growing. Today I was really thrilled to go out and see the garlic is actually growing! :) Yay! Hopefully the end results are as good :) 

The only down side is that we have the garlic growing in the green house.  I should have planted it outside :(  We are thinking about what we should do with all the tomato plants we have started.

Seth and our perfectly useless dog, Eli, who lets bears, deer and ravens come into our yard.

Seth feeding Eli dog treats. This treat ended up in Seth's mouth and not Eli's!  Yuck.

Poor mans green house

We built a poor mans green house (at least that's what I call it!) this past weekend.  It turned out pretty darn nice.  It has three planting boxes in it.  We are planing to put the plants that need a warmer, drier climate in the green house.  This would include Jesse's 72 tomato plants that we have started in the house! Yes, he went a little over board; we will be down sizing!    It still gets to cold at night to put the plants in the green house.  Hopefully it will start warming up soon.

Here is my dad and Jesse working on the green house

Seth enjoying some outside time as well~!

Getting ready...

Lately we have been spending time getting ready for the gardening season! Building garden boxes (10) , collecting seed weed, getting the dirt ready etc...  We have been starting some seeds (Tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers and squash) inside hoping to give them more of a chance.  We are learning how to garden in south east Alaska; it can be tricky.  One book that has been a huge help is Gardening Southeast Alaska made by the Juneau Gardening Club.

We even started a garden journal where we write down the type of seeds used.  With so many different variety of seeds we are trying to find which ones work better up here.

Our deck gets incredible sun; Jesse built these garden boxes for the top rails. This is where difference lettuces/ leafy greens, herbs and flowers are going.