Seeds planted and growing!

I'm so behind, its been a very, busy week! Last Saturday, I went to my seed starting catalog, taught by the tomato lady at her home. Here is my dream garden, just located in her backyard:)

She has chickens in this white coop on the left, and these adorable pansies growing on the roof, so cool!

I was the youngest person there, and ecstatic to learn. I should have had someone take a picture of me, but I was too busy planting my seeds and taking notes. Leslie used a little speaker to talk into and taught us a lot of helpful things. It was really great to meet her, after reading her books hundreds of times.

She showed us how to carefully,with a butter knife, pull out the seedlings when they are too big in the cookie box. The cookie box is helpful because it has a lid that closes, keeping the moisture in until they pop out of the dirt. Then, you leave the box open for air circulation.

Our newest garden friends, hanging out in the kitchen. Italian parlsey on left, chives on right. I remember growing chives in my kitchen window in Rexburg, ID, during winter! They grew great. Its fun to grow herbs in the windows.

I have been up at 6am everyday, playing in the garden. One night, Shaun helped me plug in my big hose to the exsisting main hose underground, and we started our irrigation for the garden area. SO exciting! Each morning, I go out, punch holes in the big hose, attach the small poly tubing and drip line, then run it up into the beds. Later, Ethan and I turned on the drip and watched the water drop steadily out of the holes, into the plants. No more watering by hand!! This is HUGE!

People put fun stuff in their gardens, like ceramic frogs and stuff. I put in a seashell, to remind me of my Santa Barbara days in CA. I love small reminders of good memories. For some reason, Ethan loves to give the shell a kiss each day, and carefully put it back. Cutie.
Lettuce and cabbage! When I went to get dirt from Leslie, she gave me some free cabbage to try. She is the nicest lady on the planet, and gave me more garden tips, as I shoveled dirt into my storage bins.
We're trying strawberries, not sure if they will work, but this is a test garden:)
I had to buy a shop light fixture and sun light flourescent tubes. Thank goodness it all came to twenty bucks. This was the best place to hang it, from the shelf in our washer room. Its SO bright in there, its like the Luxor hotel light! These are the seedlings at day one.
Here is a week later, woo! I got green beans on the left, and tomatoes on the right. Its a fun project. I figure if I can grow them successfully from scratch and transplant them into the garden (after they are hardened off, another adventure) I could save money by growing them myself. (We'll see what the power bill is after this project, the lights have to be on all day, ugh.)

So that's the latest chapter in the Hatch garden, whew! Valentines weekend was wonderful. We got a sitter, and went to the Cheesecake factory for dinner, divine! I made sun dried tomato tortellini for Shaun's dinner, and an incredibly easy and yummy Brownie pudding dessert.

(New thing I learned from Coffeshop: Make text links open in new window, thus not leaving the blog. Awesome! Click on the dessert link, and you'll see. Click HERE for the tutorial)

Shaun got me a dozen roses, and hid them around the house with notes, including chocolate covered strawberries, and a balloon that Ethan has loved playing with. Shaun is so wonderful at these things, he is my darling friend:) The boys are happy and eating all the time, and I just took some pics that are fabulous, gotta edit them and post next time!