Mistress Talia: a sadistic domme

I've got a lot of transplanting done. The broccoli and cauliflower are in! And the peas have begun sprouting.

Unfortunately, things were left in kind of a mess last year, so lots of my gardening chores lately have been about cleaning up. This is not much fun to do and certainly not interesting for me to write about or for you to read.

My leeks seeds did not sprout, I assume because I was using old seed. I'm probably just going to blow them off as I'm doing onions, garlic and shallots anyways.

The onion bed is definitely greening up. The fall-planted bulbs are putting forth lots of leaves. It's tempting to cut some spring onions, but I want the bulk of the harvest as storage onions. I'll give it a bit of time and see if some thinning is needed in a few weeks.

I have shallots planted last fall, though honestly I kind of forget what variety it was. I've been replanting the same stuff for a few years and have lost track. I'm thinking to try something new this fall; we'll see.

I had wanted to plant Chilean Silver garlic, but forgot to order it last fall. I found a source for spring garlic, so that will go in as soon as it arrives. If you're looking for spring-planted garlic, Pinetree Seeds sells it.

The strawberries were growing like crazy, so I had to get my butt out there and get the bed cleaned up. That was a long day.

I also cleaned out the herb bed, but it doesn't look like a lot survived. I seem to have a pile of sage growing, and the chives reseeded, but that's about it. So I'll have to get moving with that.

I've started tomato, pepper and eggplant seedlings, but Johanna wanted a big crop of paste tomatoes to make sauce with this year, so I also ordered a bunch of plants from Territorial. My nightshades are all sprouted and under the grow lights.

Varieties I've started include:

• Brandywine tomatoes - simply can't live without these! My main crop for fresh eating as nothing beats the flavor.
• Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes - I've been reading about them in the catalogs for years and figured to try a few hanging baskets
• Purple Beauty bell peppers - the only open-pollinated purple pepper I've ever been able to locate, a scrumptious treat
• Golden Calwonder yellow bell peppers - our main crop of bell peppers
• Black Beauty eggplant - main crop

I ordered Amish Paste and Opalka seedlings for Johanna's sauce, and a few other items to try - mini yellow bell peppers and a yellow pear cherry tomato (both to go into hanging pots), a Principe Borghese plant (supposed to be good for drying) and a few herbs to replenish my sad herb garden.