Our Tour of Lesbian Garden Centers

Today was a dreary, rainy, COLD, gray day. However, it was also opening day for Garden Dreams and The Urban Gardener, so we were determined to think garden thoughts. First though, we had coffee in bed and watched about half of Brokeback Mountain on Bravo. We figured we would watch until it started to get sad and that would motivate us to get out and do stuff. Which sort of worked.
We loaded up the van (Rebby just drove back from a work trip to Virginia Beach last night---with a nice parcel of seafood, BTW) with recycling and shopping bags and headed out for a circular trip: Wilkinsburg, Point Breeze, North Side, home. We found Garden Dreams easily and I got over my enormous fangirl garden crush well enough to actually ask Mindy if the strawberries were June bearing or everbearing. Seriously, she is five thousand kinds of awesome and even though I have been in the same place as her more times than I can count now, it is always hard for me to talk to her because, well, I am totally crushed out. But I didn't act like a freak and instead acted like a person who was very interested in perennial food plants, which is what I am. I ended up getting four Sarian strawberry plants, four nice hearty asparagus starts(I can't remember their name right now, I'll look later), and a big lovely rhubarb. She grows all kinds of interesting tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, but I want to see what I can cultivate out of my seedling starts before I buy any plants. I will probably want to return later on in June to pick up a few of those guys.
From there we headed to the co-op, which was about as nightmarish as usual for a Saturday. I grabbed a big cart without thinking and then when I was waiting at the cafe bar for my juice drink I could not find a spot to put it that wasn't in someone's way. I am often frustrated by space issues at the co-op. But, we shopped efficiently and paid and got out of there and over to Construction Junction for recycling. Something was going on over there so that the spaces normally used for recycling were full of parked cars, and people were making really bad choices about trying to fit their SUVs in between cars and trucks where people were moving around recycling. It was a little traumatic, but we survived.
From Point Breeze we headed over to another garden center I had heard much about but never visited on the North Side. This one seems to be more ornamental than food oriented, and they didn't have much going on just yet, but the women who run it were so friendly and nice and the little shop itself is so beautiful that I definitely want to go back later on. I'm hoping that we can eventually add some more berry bushes to our perennial garden.
In other garden news, Rebby got one half yard of compost+topsoil into the newest raised bed, and she's off this week and plans to get at least two or perhaps three more loads (our little Ford F-150 can only handle a half yard at a time) to fill in the two other beds and have some in reserve for tire taters and three sisters plantings a little later on. Lots of pea shoots are poking out their little heads, lots of radish leaves and some arugula sprouts in the salad garden, and the volunteer cilantro is jumping off. I just picked a bunch tonight to put in a peanut noodle salad. I also picked some of my overwintered red veined sorrel for a green salad--it's a pretty grassy tasting herb, but it sure is gorgeous tossed with some spinach.
Up in the nursery, we've had some casualties from the weird weather extremes. I think all the Thompson broccoli seedlings bit the dust, as well as most of the kohlrabhis. A few other things seem to be having a rough time of it too. I thought for one very sad day that I had killed my okra sprouts but they have all come back after some water, extra grow light time, and love. Seriously, I had a couple days of serious allergy drama and didn't give them the attention they deserve, and it shows. Part of tomorrow will be dedicated to the nursery--I've got some more things to start, a few things to divide (gonna try to save all the strongest tomato plants) and if the weather is sunny at all, I might even put some dudes in the ground. Wish me luck!