Plants & Seeds. . .

Orange Mint   Peppermint   Chocolate Mint
Scarlet Bee Balm (x2)   Basil (generic)

My first plants of the 2012 season have arrived!  The mints pictured are for my tea garden.  Well, tea containers as mint must kept confined else it overruns your plantation.  I am still searching for the perfect mint containers, though--long and somewhat shallow.

While it may seem obvious, cliche even, the Bee Balm is, well, for the bees.  I did learn, however, that this herb is also good for tea use, so maybe I'll give that a shot, as well.

The basil is just a generic sort.  The seller couldn't give me a specific type, but I figure basil is basil. . . For my purposes at this point, anyway.

Sugar Pumpkin      Bush Bean     Pickling Cucumber
Cortland Onion     Garlic Chives     German Chamomile

My seeds are here, too!  I'm super excited about this.  In gardening, there is nothing quite like planting a seed, waiting and watching a tiny sprout push through the soil to grow and become a productive member of the garden.  My started-from-seed plants indulge me in the joy that is one of the seven deadly sins:  pride.  I take pride in my entire garden, but these are my babies. . .especially the gourds, which I spend much quality time every night while they are blooming.  But more about that later.

This weekend I also transplanted two Rose of Sharon trees/bushes.  One of them came with Grape Hyacinth bulbs already tall with bright green leaves.  I'm not exactly sure I did the transplanting right, so here's to hoping I didn't kill two very healthy plants.

Tulips bulbs are also on the transplanting agenda.  Again, I'm not sure I'm doing it right.  The thing that scares me about the tulips is that they've already started pushing up for the spring, and I'm not sure they'll take being moved at this point.  But, it's either move them now, or bury them under the raised beds coming in.

I don't know if you can see them behind the Rose of Sharon, but I have staked out my raised bed plots for my herb garden.  Once all of the bulbs have been moved--I still have to dig up some dwarf Irises--the beds will be moved forward about 6-8 inches to move the back one away from the pine stump that was never removed.  (If you have any advice for moving my bulbs, please offer.)

Next week I should have some pictures of planted mints and seemingly empty pots of dirt.  But those "empty" pots will have hidden treasures just below the surface.