Awaiting this dopey possible last frost at 7am. What a kooky time to do a temp drop at 7!
Then once the kids head to school I'll get myself together and head out. Today I think I'll work the garden and plant, then if I can still move I'll work on getting the planters out and cleaned and ready for tomorrow. And next week I think will focus on the in ground stuff!
The dahlia layout is done. I have all the seedlings marked on it and will plant in sibling order. Look forward to what might emerge even though some of the seed parents weren't what I had hoped you never know what will come forward!
Looking forward to my flowers and garden. Speaking of I should quickly figure out what will go where in the garden. I lost one tomato plant it looks like. Grrr.
Will also have to drop buckets off with the nephew for more rabbit poo. I did notice the rabbits aren't hanging in my garden boxes and I was speaking to someone and they said sometimes rabbit poo from others deters wild rabbit visitors. Fine by me! And maybe it will protect things from getting eaten down to the quick. Who needs it?! Darn rabbits.
I'm looking into next week for the dahlias. If the body behaves and doesn't decide to yell at me, my plan would be to do a few rows each day. In the past I've done them all and then couldn't move the next day. Not the wisest!
Hopefully everyone else's gardens are looking good and all is well. Suppose to be 82° or so on Mother's Day, maybe if I get all the dahlias to the front porch they'll all take off in height!
Making eggs in purgatory. Never had them before, but hoping that extra protein powers me through until lunch. I'm back and forth on whether nightshades are my issue with inflammation. DONT TOUCH MY TOMATOES! They are always summer to me year round packed in the flavor. I'll toast up some up bread and have that with it.
Happy day all! Stay safe if you are in the path of spring storms.
Do I need a frost warning? Do I really need early morning temps to dip to 32°? Ok atmosphere, get this hinky temp thing out of your air, BTDT a while back, it's time to move on from ice crystals.
I covered the tuber plants with sheets and they are on the porch. Hopefully they and the annuals will be just fine. I brought the tomatoes and dahlia seedlings into the house. So no worries about those overnight. I hope.
I need to trash two of my plants and bleach out their containers. I had been thinking they had mosaic virus and I had it confirmed w the dahlia peeps that they did look sketchy. So no huge loss, I'll give them a toss and try to keep the rest of my stock healthy as I can. Who knows if that will be, but I'll try.
I got the dahlia bed roughed up again, in fact I sank in part of it. I amended the soil over the winter with rabbit poo, bedding, leaves and grass clippings. I'm hoping it makes fantastic soil. And even more fantastic blooms.
Now I struggle with what I plan to fertilize with at planting. Since I added all the compost I don't know if that will tilt me anyway in particular. Nitrogen and potassium are my soil recs from two years ago. I've added potash at close out and let it work in over the winter. A friendly agronomist told me that can be best for working into my soil. So I keep trying and will probably do a soil sample this fall again and see how I am sitting. Hopefully for some sort of improvement is my goal. But still stuck on how to fertilize properly. I mean what do you think rabbit poo does? I don't think it'd be super high in any one thing, but I have no clue.
Totally ready to get it all going! I'm ready for blooms and totally not welcoming to hopefully what will be our last frost!
It would totally be nice if the weather actually got rid of these near freeze temps. Thursday night the low is to be 34°. Do I want to bring in all the flats and plants? No. I can keep them on the porch and covered and toasty I guess but who knows. I'm back and forth. The good news is the hut shelf is now empty so I can put the flats on that and roll it the laundry room and I should be able to get 12 flats on it if I went the narrow way if it indeed is 36" wide but I don't think it is. So maybe 8 flats. Will see what I do but that might be wiser I don't know. It's such a pain in the rump.
Speaking of, this whole aging thing stinks! I not only realize it with my mom and what she's going through but with my own self and to say in 40 years I can be doing the same thing. Ugh. I'd rather go to sleep one night before it all goes to hell and not wake up.
Anywho, that's where my mind is stuck right now. Aging! And caregiving from a distance. That type of crazy.
Making dinner and then once that's done have to help kid1 make a treat for school tomorrow. Then need to find the gumption to do the low hanging household fruit - dishes, laundry, cleaning etc. yuck.
Tomorrow it's to rain most of the day. Therefore, I think I'll plan to sew. I'll get that other dress done for Mother's Day (brunch) and then get my mom's quilt top done and maybe dropped off. That would be great!
Friday I'd love to start planting! I plan to do baskets first. But I also need to get the brackets in shape to hang so maybe Friday will be doing the planter cleaning: rust removal and repaint. Aaack. Always something from here that I forget I need to get done.
Seedlings still look good. Didn't notice that one of last years that didn't bloom is a dark leaf variety. However I'm wondering if it's my missing David Howard because the one I have labeled D Howard is not a dark leaf. Hahahaha. Wouldn't be the first time I mislabeled. But I didn't think I had the David Howard's by the seedlings at all at harvest - two opposite ends of the garden. Who knows anymore. With bloom I'll hope to have my answer.
But back to the original thought: I think I'll plan to just cover the darn plants w flannel sheets and hope for the best. Dang weather! The freeze can get the hell out!
Super froggy out - my youngest sister never would say foggy when little, it was always super froggy in her book! It's kind of pea soup out in my backyard at least.
I'm watching those night time temps. Looks like Thursday will be the last of the 30s. I'll have to cover the porch plants as it's to get down to 35°. Who needs that?! But it's spurring me to get ready.
I think my goals will be:
Planters
Garden boxes
Beds
Whether it happens that way I don't know. Will see what it does, will see what inspires me more each day to work on. I think the planters will be a good start.
I was looking at my seedling photos from last year. I am sad I lost my most favorite from last years blooms but I have 4 that never did bloom last summer so maybe just maybe there is a twinsie lurking in those seeds. I had 4-5 I thought were lovely in their own right. So I have multiple plants I'll be putting out this year as a result. Why not?!
I'm thinking today to see if I can find 4 - 5ft posts when I hit menards and then I should have enough tall ones to stick in the ground. I seem to recall I was short that many. They have over 100 in stock it says. So I'll grab those today as well.
I'm ready to get going and growing! Time to find some lovelies in the beds. Time to get growing and time to see what's been hiding in those seeds collected from last year.
The suns out! But more rain is coming! We need the rain, it'd be nice if the temp quits diving down to low 40s though.
I went out about a half hour ago and pulled the flannel or tshirt knit sheets off the babies. They all look good and I'll probably give a water in a bit.
Need to check the hut and see if any other sprouts are now over the 2" mark and can go down under the lights. I don't see anything waving at me like I have in the past few weeks.
Sewing for the weekend events is almost done. Hemming the last item right now. Not sure what I'm wearing tonight. I guess I'll have to go root through my boxes and see what springy dressier stuff is in them. Maybe I can find something that looks good and fits.
As for my layout, I stalled - AGAIN! I'm hoping here in a bit to head back to it. This is my hope. I'd like it done. I do need to check and see if my most favorite seedling from last year sprouted. I have notes I planted up two but when I inventoried the basement I'm not seeing it and when I was outside I didn't mark it. I'm afraid I lost it. 😰
This was it:
I hope it was just oversight on my part. Grrrr.
It was also the one I landed on in July/early August when I fell and sat on my plants. So it didn't get a huge chance to develop well. If only I had a bigger space to grow blooms in.
Sadness.
Well here's hoping things go well.
