I'm down visiting my mom with the kids in tow. The hubs is in charge of getting two big garden projects done while I'm here today. I hope it goes well and reveals some rich looking dirt. And hopefully things grow beautifully once in it. That would be the dahlia bed, and then I need him to run the tiller through the heap so it's ready for me to begin moving to the front and south beds - of course once my sewing projects are completed, or if I'm bored with that I'll hop over to the other.
The last box of tubers is on its way, but stuck in the cities yet again. I swear that distribution center is where all packages go to die. I don't know if they have too much volume or they shove the nonAmazon packages to the side until they meet the ammy travel goals first. Unsure; but I hope it shows up Monday. Time to get the last into the dirt and growing. I do hope they are as named and are a bunch of healthy blooms in the long run.
And then I will probably be watering - lots of watering in my future. And I'd like to get my purchases at the greenhouse this week. I don't know if I'll be able to get that all done but I will try! And hopefully the nights will be warm enough to move plants to the porch. My basement is ready to spew forth!
We hope to stop at the local greenhouse here today and take a look. I wonder if they have agrobond? I'd love to get a section instead of taking my sheets out to the porch when it's cold at night to cover the youngsters. Otherwise we'll see what they have there. Not really buying unless there is something I can't find at my own haunts by me. I'll keep my eye out for the trailing amaranth as my normal greenhouse says oh it's SO easy to grow just scatter seed and mine keeps damping off. Will see what I can find.
The hubs says he's on it for the tilling. We've gone over the area and he'll FaceTime if he's not sure. He's like I DONT know what an iris is, I said you do … then he's like you need to be here to direct me. I said FaceTime me and I need it done. My life is too, too busy to put it on the backburner which would be in a month. No sir-ee! It becomes a master class in negotiation I know he would rather sit and watch the cubs if they are playing and then tell me he's too busy w his grad class and then the next few weekends are a conference, wedding, kid1 ball games etc and then it's June, so no, it needs to get done even if I'm not home today. And besides he doesn't have kid2 trying to run the tiller.
So everything is underway as slow as it may go, we are moving forward. And hopefully soon the yard is all abloom!
Catchy tune - good old Burt Baccrach.
We did get rain and high winds yesterday. No tornados this far north but the rains fell heavily. I woke this morn to a deluge, I live in an old craftsman with deep eaves and rain is always a delight to listen too.
The sky color right now says snow. It's that weird white sky that just looks cold to me. No sun yet today. I hope everything greens up beautifully.
The seedlings: are holding their own. They got a water and the last ones got a pinch. I've got some nice looking plants that I hope offer up some lovelies! No clue what to hope or expect! Right now they are kind of sprawly. But once in the dirt they usually take off and behave. Will see though.
The rest of everything is growing and I'm officially out of room in the basement. I've got everything as stacked as I can. The hut upstairs is full and I have the canna in front of the patio door. And I hope to go get annuals in the next week. Go figure. I'll have plants all over the place.
With the much needed rain, I think the totals I saw this morn are wrong so many large deep puddles when I took kid1 to school for practice this mornin.
My hopes this week are to get the heap tilled and started and moved into the south bed and front bed. But the sewing I need to do has to come first, then I can worry about the plants. I'm so overbooked w my family's activities I really don't have good blocks of time for myself and all my projects and I try to squish so much in a small space maybe things turn out looking lousy. I don't know. I keep trying though and one of these fine moments I won't have walls to scale to feel I'm getting stuff done.
Now if only kids and husband came with an auto-cleaning and pick up feature my days would be so much further along.
A girl can dream!
I have one box of named varieties left to arrive. Small order so will see what I get. I was made aware that one I had ordered they lost stock on. So I'm getting something smaller and not necessarily what I had planned.
As for the seedlings, they are looking good. Always a plus where that is at. They are holding their own and probably need a good water today.
I'm not moving super great, when I'm stressed I turn into a ball of knots and so right now my back and hips are taunting me with not moving with any ease and making me feel like I'm 100. Terrible. I don't need that as it's getting close to the time to plant.
But the suns out, seems to renewal and refreshen the soul when you have a beautiful day as we do and of course the fire warnings are back. We are still too dry and tiptoe around drought like, we need a good week of soaking rain. And then probably a second one! Throw in a third and we are off to the races.
Got a call from my MIL and sounds like the tiller can be borrowed. That's great because I'm gearing up to want to move the finished compost, get those beds ready and nourished and hope everything grows tall and beautiful. Speaking of, I should probably check the heat mats. Whoops. Can't say I've been good w that task the last two days. Had to help ready for a school activity and well, be attached to a darn heating pad.
Hope everyone is well and doing heavy planning and maybe even playing in the dirt! It's time to get moving. Enjoy and don't overwork! We've got all summer to perfect!
Good morning all! It's still black out, I have horrible back pain when I went to bed and it's still with me. Grrr. So I'm in my recliner with a heating pad to settle it down some.
But that's not why you might stop by, my back is not the topic!
I did a short trip to the basement last night when I returned home. The plants look good and green. I'm hoping the mycorhizal was a big help and make some nice plants, blooms and future tubers!
If the day gets better for me - some of my goals would be the great plant shuffle but to basement and vice versa. Pinch out those tall enough and with the right number of leaves. Both seedlings and tubers; however, I think almost all the seedlings have been done and just those last few I had seeds for late start are finally catching on up. And I think I need to go back through my labels on some of them as I duplicated my numbers and I need to straighten that issue out.
Also today I have to alter the prom dress and get that out of my hair. So in all, my minds eye says I have a lot that I'd like to get completed. Whether or not that will happen is another story. As long as I have healthy plants I guess some of the must do list can wait or get done here and there. And the non gardening may take precedence. Will have to see.
I think to keep myself on task is to make a list for today.
Sounds like a great idea, now where did my notebook run away?
My best to you all!
The mycorrhizal came today and within an hour I began adding it to the dahlias. I did all the basement tubers first, I still have some with sprouts but craptastic roots. This was the only thing I hadn't added at plant up. Took a break and then headed back down and added the mycorrhizal to the seedlings. I also found there were a bunch I had forgotten to pinch. Off those young shoots went, discovered I still have some tiny dahlia seedlings so moved pots around in the trays and now have a full one of the smaller guys or less aggressive growers.
Boy howdy! I do have maybe 5-6 that are pretty huge for seedlings in April. I hope they are fantastic bloomers. They are currently heavy leaf makers!
Finally after a break, and making a batch of caramel corn for my loves, I took care of the hut. And today was one of the first days I noticed at the end of afternoon that it was steamy in the hut. Maybe these buggers will now take off?!
I do hope the beneficial fungi does it job. I'd prefer tubers with lots of root action when I plant out. The loose tubers w sprouts is a bit concerning from my point of view, I'm afraid they'll peter out or the plant will tip over with a slight breeze. It doesn't help I've been an impatient dahlia mama and kept pulling them out of the promix either to see if there were eyes, roots or growth of any type. Todays add in was side dressing and … now for the rest of the story …
back to my post title on how I broke my spoon.
Said in my best Paul Harvey voice (if anyone recalls the man at noon on the radio).
It was really nothing great (made for a better post title!). I was using a plastic spoon to apply the mycorrhizal, and I guess as I was digging and depositing that I did so with a little too much zest and the bowl of the spoon went left and the handle went right. I decided using one of our everyday spoons would suffice for the rest. And now you know, the rest of the story.
Terrible, wasn't it?!
This of course is much better, and in honor of dear Paul Harvey:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=...
Why don't we have more people like this anymore? Not the influencers, the tiktocktoers, but people who can spin a yarn and speak on matters that remind you why things can be hard but good with some work?
I miss that.
Reminds me when I was 12 and helped out in the school office at lunch and the secretary left on the radio to Paul. I learned a lot that year just listening. And 40 years later I still remember his patient voice and knew generally his stories would make me think and most times they ended well, not always, but most times.
Anyway, the plants have been taken care of, the fungi hopefully growing and I'm hoping by tomorrow there is a lot tugging back.
Finally, just for a moment, enjoy a bit of the past and the way a story could be knitted together to draw you in. Times were a bit simpler and people actually listened.
Tomorrow is another day. The tubers hopefully will get here, the hubs knows to watch for informed and hit up the post office for them before they close and don't hold them until Monday. Time to get the garden moving into spring.
