A Ho-Hum Day?

One of the neat things about blogging is that at the end of a day when I feel not much has happened or that the day has just slipped away from me and I haven't done anything really worthwhile, sitting down and putting all the little events of the day on paper shows that . . . well, I guess things were actually happenin'. (It also illustrates the need to learn how to write non-run-on, non-convoluted sentences.)

First thing each morning for a few weeks now (since the snow's been gone) Roy goes out to do morning chores and then puts in a half hour or so taking down dead trees and cleaning up the woods along our driveway and still-running ditch/stream. This morning when he came in for breakfast he brought this little bouquet of Marsh Marigolds, the very first blossoms of the season.

After breakfast, I did a few household chores and then hit the transplanting and starting some more seeds inside. Made the decision to go to Plan B for flowers on the north end of the field garden. I've got a total of only nine phlox sprouts. Need 35 for the row. Ain't gonna happen this year. Although I still could buy the phlox plants. I did see some when I was last at the local greenhouse, but I think they were good-sized ones in 4" pots for around $3.50 each. If I need 35 of them . . . well, that's not gonna happen either. I do have a good fall-back plan with my zinnias.

They got transplanted today and I have more than enough of them for the row. Matter of fact, if I don't use them for that space, what the heck will I do with so many of them? Got great germination and by the time I divided them, I think I ended up with about 45 plants.

I'm thinking starting nasturtiums inside is the way to go for me. Look at these beauties. Tomorrow I'm going to transfer them to the long, narrow planters I set on the deck railing. I'll still have to keep them inside at night for a while but, doggone if I shouldn't finally have planters of lovely, trailing nasturtiums this year.

These tomater plants are getting so big (over a foot tall now) that I'm just leaving them by the south window rather than under lights. Gotta slow 'em down somehow. It will be at least two weeks (or more . . . we had snowflakes on and off again today, if you can believe it) before they can go outside and they're just growing too fast.

Finally decided to replant broccoli . . . using the new seed. It should work better this time. Duh. Also started some green and red cabbage and some lemon cucumbers. I'm addicted to lemon cucs and eat them like apples. They take longer to mature than regular green slicing cucs so I decided to give them a jump start this year by starting them inside.

Then I cleaned up the terrible mess planting/transplanting on the kitchen table makes and went to help Roy do some wood splitting and stacking for a while. Splitter ran out of gas around 4 o'clock so we took that as a good time to stop.

Toured the strawberry bed and, holy smoly, look! They're alive and green!

I haven't had a chance to mulch the strawberries yet, and balderdash, wouldn't ya know the weeds are starting to grow back in already. It rams home the point that you should finish a job. I should have pushed to get the patch mulched when I had it weed-free the first time. But it wasn't so hard to overlook the weeds when I saw nearly all of the strawberry plants looking healthy.

Moving along to the raspberries, it's good to see them leafing out as well as they are.

Okay, blueberries. I hadn't done anything other than walk through them earlier this spring.

I don't think you can actually see by this bird's-eye view, but they are starting to bud out. And would ya look at those honking, big weeds around the base? Why do weeds insist on growing right where it's so hard to get them out without damaging the roots? There oughta be a law. I wonder if I don't mulch heavily enough right under the bushes? There aren't weeds like that elsewhere in the patch. I couldn't walk away from the blueberry bushes without attacking those weeds for at least a short time. I worked for a little less than an hour and got not quite half of them de-weeded.

Next the whole area will get a heavy layer of peat moss for mulch and to keep the soil acidic which is what blueberries require.

Now to do dinner dishes, take a shower, get into bed and read (for about 4-1/2 minutes) before konking out for the night. Gotta get rested for another ho-hum day tomorrow.