I see your tomato plants are in bucket as opposed to in ground. Is there a reason?

The tomato plants are in buckets because our soil looks like this:
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But our compost heap looks like this! (Actually the compost heaps are now about 3 times that size.) :)
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We tend to have flash flooding rains around here, so when we used to augment the garden beds the compost would wash right out after a few gully washers. The buckets keep our compost from all washing downhill. We grow all of our veg in buckets or tire gardens and have around 500 - 700 buckets in use each year and at least 70+ tire gardens so far.

That is a lot of WS plants! Please post pictures when everything blooming, I bet it is going to be beautiful. The hellebore are beautiful. I've never seen them in person...must grow some next year.

It so organized. I Love the Goats.

Thank you Lynda ... you give us newbies insight as to what our future holds!

Dorothy (Meadows)

What a difference in the growth of your plants? Now do you take and sell any of them?

No - I don't sell any. I use them all for my photography.

When they overflow the front yard I'll plunk divisions out in the hills.

W O W !!!!

Did you really grow the hellebore from seed? I have a few that came from my sister's garden, but I would love to grow some from seed.

Thanks,
Betty

Betty - my first two hellebore plants were purchased, not winter sown. But they are self sowing now.

You would probably find them easiest to grow in your zone by buying plants in late August and doing a fall plant out. They should be settled in enough to bloom and produce seed the following spring. As long as they have nice soil around them they should self sow around the parent plant and eventually you'll have a lot of them.

Love the goats. And the gardens. I'm going into the second year with a few perennials and looking forward to them blooming.

Caryl

great transformation, Lynda.

Karen

Thanks, Lynda.

I'll try that.

I too, want to see pictures of your garden when everything is in bloom. It is amazing now.

Betty

LOVE YOUR GARDEN!!! I also want to see pics in bloom! I'll bet it's gorgeous!

Don't worry, there will be plenty of photos this year.

I've got a lot more time for photos now that the garden is full! The past two years have been kind of crazy, but hopefully this year will be the "stop and smell the flowers" year.

In addition the photos I post here and on Flickr, I'm also writing about the garden in my weekly blog In Bloom This Week". I've been on a bit of a slow motion flower video kick lately too, so there are quite of few video clips each week in the blog too. Slow motion video is great for when it's too windy to get a decent photo!

I keep most of the grungy "mud on your shoes" type garden photos off my blog, but I'll be sure to post plenty of them here. It's fun to snoop in other wintersowers' gardens, isn't it? :)

I just can't believe how much of a garden you can get in just 3 years if you go nuts with wintersowing. Do you know that I used to peek in at this forum for years before I tried it and I thought WSers were a bunch of nut jobs with their milk jugs in the snow. Then one year I peeked in during the summer when everyone was showing off their sprouts and bloomers - and I get hooked on the idea. So glad I did!

Lynda

Here is a link that might be useful: My blog master index page

Oh - and for the long time WS friends that enjoy goat & cow photos, here's Connie the Cow and her goat team mates in a special garden clean up video.

That driveway bank is going to be one of the spots where I plant out surplus garden divisions when they overflow the garden.

Here is a link that might be useful: Connie and the goat help clear new garden space