We had snow twice last week and gale force winds one day. I wish it would just warm up and be done with it.
I have melons, tomatoes and other misc up in the greenhouse. Started weeding around the crabapple yesterday. It's a mess. I've got to get the rocks out of the back of Red this week. So much to do.
Towhees are here.
My forsythia is actually blooming this year! I put it on probation and was going to jerk it out if it didn't put out this year.
I've got daffodils beginning to bloom and my poor, tired old hyacinths have been in bloom for a week. I really need to get some new ones in the fall. Nothing on the witch hazel again - I wonder what it needs to bloom??
We had the driveway graded and put more rock on it. JD got it draining much better with some get-aways for the water. Larry got some ecology blocks for free and I ended up with 7 of them. I now have 2 nice compost bins behind the chicken coop that I can get into with Larry's tractor. We had JD grade that whole area including the old compost pile. It looks pretty nice and I'm going to move either the bottlebrush buckeye or the fringe tree out to where the old compost pile was. Neither one is thriving where they are now. I'm thinking also of something next to the compost bins to soften that view a bit. It would have to be somewhat drought tolerant though. Maybe a sumac?
I got some stuff from Deb and put it in the greenhouse for awhile. It's now hardening off in my transition zone. Greg and I went and got a load of rocks to add to my rock garden. I'd like to get it done this year, although every time I go down there, I see some rock I've just got to have. I need to replace all the stepping stones this year too. I thought about just using flat rocks, but I think they'd be too hard to shovel in the winter.
I've weeded the greenhouse garden all the way around and started a little bit next to the garage. It's so windy in the afternoons that I can hardly stand to be out there, even when the sun is shining. I planted an Ebb Tide rose to replace one of the dead ones. Pretty purple color in the picture and supposed to be very fragrant. Also a white iris by the greenhouse. I'm going to pick up a new iris or two every year to get some more colors going. I have quite a few, but they're all purple.
I've started cauliflower in the greenhouse for an early crop this year (got the pretty colored ones) as well as beets. Yesterday I started tomatoes, melons, basil, and some flowers. I also potted up some daylilies that I got bare root. I want to make sure they're thriving before I stick them out next to the driveway - haven't had great success out there in that poor soil with hit and miss watering. Also some cannas for my water barrels.
I'm trying some black rice from seed for the barrels also. They should grow in water, right? It's always a challenge coming up with water plants that will overwinter or that I can start from seed so I don't spend a fortune every year on annuals. I've been looking for a couple Louisiana irises for the barrels, but they're not cheap and the shipping is way high. Why are water plants so overpriced? I'll have to get some yellow ones from Deb again. I really want some floaters this year to keep the algae down. I like the water hyacinths and lettuce. One year I had marsh marigold - that was pretty. I don't think any of my grasses made it through the winter. Or anything else for that matter except for one elephant ears. I don't know why, they were in the pumphouse and I kept them damp. Need more hootenanny from Deb.
I'm going to go with bark mulch this year. I'm not too fond of the look of it when it's new, but it's cheap and readily available. I've tried so many expensive alternatives and I just don't put it down heavily enough to effectively suppress the weeds. I don't mind the bark after it fades and starts to blend in a little bit. I'm so jealous of Deb with her black stuff by the truckload. That stuff costs me $12 for a little bale. I can get a whole pickup of bark for the price of about 3 bales.
I'm going to try to get to weeding every day for an hour or so. I'd like the place to look nice this year.
We had a skiff of rotter snow yesterday morning. Today we have a lot more bare patches. It was cold with a little wind for a couple days and I barely stepped outside. It's back to overcast this morning, but there's a little blue here and there. Saw my first junco yesterday.
I've got the greenhouse cleaned up and looking spiffy and the pump-house mostly all cleaned out as well. The valve is broken that shuts off my greenhouse water so I'm dry in there at the moment. Greg is not happy about that - he just spent a bunch of time out there dealing with a broken pump in December and again in January. I tried to get a shovel in the ground on the sunny side of the greenhouse and couldn't even break the surface yet. I cleaned up a little dog mess but a lot of it is frozen down too. I am really itching to get out and dig! It's gotten up to 88° for the last 3 days in the greenhouse. Outside temps in the mid to high 40s.
We have sunny skies again after a weekend of gray and rain and gloom. The snow is receding and the driveway is drying up. I'm really hoping I can get outside this weekend and do a little dog cleanup. It's been getting up into the high 40s and mostly hanging in the high 20s at night. Only 24 this morning though. The red-wing blackbirds came back last week and it's been so nice to stand in the sunshine and listen to them. I have bare ground most of the Z5 garden, both sides of the sun porch, under the willow and most of the sunny beds where I mulched heavily. My rocks are even starting to show the tops of their heads next to the driveway! I saw my first calf across the river yesterday. My seeds arrived this week.
