The "Sweets" Life: Potatoes and Lettuce... my two early sprouters

It's (gasp!) almost mid-April and I still haven't gotten my plants in the ground outside! What am I doing?! Summer's going to pass me by.

Kidding. I'm not actually freaking out about this... I'm feeling rather good. The plan is for Superman to help me get my tomatoes, peppers, sunflowers, carrots, and zucchini in the ground tomorrow after church. April 4th (the last frost date for our region) came and went last week and I didn't have so much as a free minute to get outside. There's also the little fact that my tomatoes are supposed to have been slowly acclimating to the outdoors and I've been keeping them inside, babying them. They still just worry me with their "lying down" tendencies and I worry about exposing them to harsh winds.

Harsh winds or not though, I let them sit outside for a few hours each day this past week. (This is called "hardening them off." It's a gardening technique used to gradually introduce seedlings to life outdoors.)

Oh! And check these out!

No, these monstrous seedlings are not mine. Well, they belong to me, but I didn't grow them. They were given to me by an expert gardener from my office. John knows everything about organic gardening. We talk about it all the time. These are going to produce delicious brandywine tomatoes (which are pink in color.) I'm really excited to plant them outside!

And here are my little babies. They're definitely growing. Just lying down while doing it. :)

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I'm also excited to see that my sage is starting to sprout! I love sage. I think the leaves are so gorgeous and veiny. And the flavor is outta this world.

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But let's head on outside, shall we?

Though I haven't planted most of my veggies outside yet... I did get a chance to sprinkle out a few lettuce seeds and potato tubers. (Planting potatoes is basically done by planting a small, eye-filled potato about six inches underground.) I went ahead and planted these two things because lettuce especially likes cooler weather and potatoes tolerate it well.

Would ya believe it! I'm already seeing big results and its only been a few weeks!
Here're the baby lettuce leaves beginning to sprout up in a pretty little row.