Baby Garden

My little plants in their jiffy pellets are getting too big, but it's not quite time to put them outside.   I transplanted them into bigger pots.  These are really big pots, so I put two per pot.  It will give them room to grow for a few more weeks until it's warm enough outside.

My plants in the basement are outgrowing their spot under the lights.  A friend pointed out that the average last frost in Boise is May 9th, so we decided it's time to get these guys used to sunlight.  Yesterday they were out for two hours.  Today they stayed out for four.  Tomorrow will be six, and on until they can go the whole day without being traumatized.

Those big leafy things on the edges are celery.  This is not a good climate to grow celery — they need a long cool season without frost.  Here we've got eight weeks at most between last frost and intense heat.  But, I'm still giving it a try.  Even if they're small, they will be great in soup next winter.

Christina's milk is different every day.  Over the winter when she ate hay, the milk and cream levels were pretty consistent day to day.  Now things are fluctuating a lot.  The cream level swings between a shallow ¹⁄6 layer up to a think ⅓ layer.  Her production has stayed up at 4½ to 5 gallons a day for the last three months, with no drop off as we expected.  My theory is that as the pasture grows, it feeds her so well that her production has stayed up and the cream level is the result of the different stuff growing in the pasture.  We originally planted with a "pasture mix" that had different kinds of grasses and legumes.  Last fall we overplanted with alfalfa.

Tomorrow my two teenage daughters take their first AP test.  They have been working all year getting ready for this test but their teacher (me) is inexperienced and the preparation hasn't been smooth.  Homeschooling has so many benefits, but one of the draw backs is that the teacher is always inexperienced, kind of like parenting.  I pray my daughters don't pay the price for my lack of experience.  By noon tomorrow the test will be over and then two aching months of waiting for the scores begins.