Delayed planting...now what?I am going to

I am beginning to think that it will always rain on the weekend.  At least the weekends that I plan to get my garden seeds in.  It is the middle of June and my tomato and pepper starts are still waiting on the patio.  The box of seeds which holds my beans, greens, and corn are still full of hopeful plans.  The tiny plugs of soil holding my vining crops are past the point of bursting.  The rain continues to fall.
News also came through the phone line this week that the roofers want to start replacing the aging roof on the farm house.  It will be nice to not have pans under drips, but it also means that the flowers which have been outgrowing their trays have to wait another couple weeks before taking root.  What is a gardener to do??
I am going to have to enlist a technique that most garden centers are doing now as well.  Pot up and hold it longer.  I have done this in the past on a small scale, but this looks like a monumental moment that will take several hours...and it is raining.  I have decided that the second trailer of compost will be my ally in this task.  I will put the plants in pots with compost instead of soiless mix or other media.  This will help me kill two birds with one stone.  The roots will have more room to grow and have some nutrition to give them that boost that they need.  I will not have to do a major soil amendment in the areas that they will be going eventually.  They will bring their media with them so I can reduce the amount I would have used otherwise.  I may also have to cut back the tops.  This will mean the loss of the existing flowers in some cases, but it will mean more branching and more buds in the future.  the secondary buds are often smaller, but the masses of color make up for that hands down.  Many times you would be dead heading plants around this point in the season, so this is not a drastic measure to take.  After potting up, I will find a semi-shady spot out of the path of the contractors.  Past experience has taught me that no matter how far you go, they will manage to need that space to work as well.  Some plants are already in the ground.  In this case, I will have to put up boards or shields to keep errant shingles from taking them out.  My herb garden that I put in last weekend is a prime target.  I am not going to remove the plants and it is pretty close to the house.  This area will benefit from a piece of plywood propped over the top during work hours.  
So...if the rain continues today, the rain canopy is going to come in handy.  I will set this up over my trailers of compost and start potting.  During the breaks in precipitation, I will do my best to get the tomatoes and peppers in the ground.  I may have to wait a few more days before the ground is prepped for the seeds inside my garden fortress.  I just hope frost doesn't beat me to the harvest this year.

The flowering kale saga continues

Last fall I had the most amazing flowering/ornamental kale in my garden.  I had grown the rose flowering for a couple years and love the way it looks in a pot.  At Christmas I add greens and lights and it is even more stunning.  Kale, both ornamental and edible, is an extremely cold tolerant crop.  You really have to add some of this to the garden just because it is still looking beautiful when the temps fall below freezing.
I bought additional flowering kale seed to plant more of the peacock red that was in my front garden last fall.  I only had four plants, but they were show stoppers.  I wanted more.  I picked up another more generic variety when a second choice I ordered was out of stock when my seeds came.  Then I lost track of them.  They didn't make it on my seeding list, and they weren't in my seed box.  This "change of life" has not been always kind to my brain.  I looked everywhere logical and then the illogical.  No seeds. 
I broke down and bought plants.  Millager's  Garden Center had several varieties of 3" plants in a 6 pack tray.  I bought three kinds.  Then I went to my favorite little local garden center Luxembourg Gardens and found three more varieties in the smaller 4 pack which made them really affordable.  Lots of kale for this fall.
Two days later, I am putting away some condiments in the refrigerator and a little, plastic bag falls forward.  Yep, it was the kale seeds.  Since the seeds I have are all different than the plants I bought, I put them all in trays to germinate.  They are germinating well.  If all my chickens hatch, there will be a huge flowering kale display on the dead end this fall.
Now, I don't want to put it all in the garden all summer, so my plan is to pot some of it up and hold it for the summer.  I will fill in the empty holes of fall with the pots.  I started the up-grading process tonight to reduce the water requirements on the pot bound plants I bought. It may all seem a little crazy, but it will be worth it in the end.