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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Done!

Okay, so I didn't actually finish anything major, but I did get the last yucca out of my herb garden the other day.


That damn thing has been taunting me since I pulled the others out last fall. It's not really a hard thing to do, but you've got to know what you're in for. I cut all of the leaves off and then dug the root out with a spade. If you've never dug out a yucca, this is what you'll find under all of those leaves:



That's not two pictures of the same clumps. I dug out the first ones, threw them in the yard waste can, and then dug out the rest. After that, I still had to dig this out of the hole:


That is a giant chunk of root. It's also why I hate yuccas. Besides being ugly and prickly, they are tenacious. I'm expecting little shoots from every tiny bit of root I didn't get out of the ground. Oh well, I'm determined, and I will pull out every last shoot.

I shouldn't hate something that is so useful. I know you can make soap from the root, and I believe indigenous people made clothes and shoes out of the leaves. However, since I don't need the yucca to survive, I'm going to use the space for more delicious things, like basil, rosemary and sage.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Seedlings


My indoor seedlings are growing quickly. The outside ones are doing well, too, but I keep forgetting to take pictures of them.

Inside I have marigolds, zinnias, and kale.


The kale is very leggy and flopping over but growing well.


I've also got four kinds of tomatoes


two kinds of peppers, and basil.


Despite the size of my new yard, I don't have any more garden space yet than I did before, so I'll only be planting 6 or 7 tomatoes and 4 peppers. If the other seedlings do well, I'll give them away.

I'll try to remember to take pictures of the bottle seedlings. I may actually put some basil outside, since only about half of the inside basil germinated.

Friday, March 18, 2016

Crossing things off the list

It's still pretty early, but I've managed to cross a few things off my to-do list.

First, my peach tree arrived last week, and I planted it on Sunday.

shovel marks the spot
He was 2-3 feet tall when I got him.


before
But after I planted him, I lopped off a good chunk.

after
I'm going to attempt to prune him so he doesn't grow to his full potential height of 20 feet. I saw instructions in the October/November 2015 issue of Mother Earth News last fall and decided to give it a try.

The second thing I did was dig all of the detested Stella d'Oro lilies out of my future herb garden.

holes instead of lilies
The best part is, I realized I could put them somewhere else instead of just killing them. There's a flower bed in the front of the house for which I have no immediate plans.


You can kind of see in this picture from last summer that it has perennials and shrubs in it: sedum, echinacea, stinky boxwoods, It had a couple small barberry bushes until a few weeks ago. Those prickly things were just waiting to get stuck in the dogs' feet. At any rate, with the barberries gone, there were some open areas, so I dug holes for the lilies, and in they went.


There are now lilies on both ends and in the middle between the sedum, in front of the echinacea. They should fill that bed in nicely and, as much as I hate them, they will probably look pretty good.

For what it's worth, the reason I have no plant plans for this bed is because my long-term goal is to put a covered porch on the house, meaning this whole flower bed will be under concrete. That's a ways off, though, so these perennials will have to look nice for a few more years.

Finally, I got some fence to put around the herb garden. With the daffodils starting to come up, it was getting obvious how much damage Scout can do to plants.


It's not pretty, but it keeps her out.


It feels good to be making progress. Lots more things to do.


Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Plan B

Which was really Plan A until I decided on another Plan A, but that Plan A isn't working out so well, so I needed a Plan B, so what was A, is now B. Got it?

Since we moved last August, I've been wondering where I was going to set up my seed starting things in this house. There are no shelves or counters in the basement, like I used to have. There's plenty of room, and the laundry room really needs something, but we're in the beginning stages of some major remodeling in the basement, so we aren't in a position to build or install anything.

It was this lack of readily available space that made me very excited about winter sowing. Unfortunately, I'm not having stellar success in that endeavor. I have several broccoli sprouts, one cabbage sprout, but no kale at all. The thyme, however, is doing very well. I'm having a heck of a time keeping any of them damp, so I'm now watering twice a day. I think the other herbs will come along, but I'm not convinced that I should do everything else this way, especially since I made the decision to try tomatoes and peppers from seeds this year.

That was a long way of saying, I figured out where to put an indoor seed-starting station and got some seeds planted last weekend. Instead of using an existing shelf, I made a light rack and converted the spare bedroom to my seed-starting room. Let's face it, the room was really a dog bedroom/storage room anyway, and it will probably be a staging area for pieces of the basement remodel, so why not use it for another, possibly dirty, project. Besides, no one's knocking down the door to come stay with us.

I dreamt up my own design and, with some help from D, turned this:


into this:

With the light and my seed-starting trays, I was in business.


Sunday was such a nice day, I did my planting outside.


Some zinnias and marigolds.


Warm and happy in their heated, damp world.


I later planted a few kale seeds as well, because I really want some kale.

Those little seeds sprouted so fast, that I turned off the heat mats and turned on the lights tonight.


These might be the most spindly seedlings I've ever seen. I put the light really low, so they could stop reaching for the sky.

Plan B is a success so far, and I'm getting really excited for spring. Lots of seeds to get planted in the next week or so.

Sunday, March 6, 2016

I spy

daffodils
tulips
more tulips
more daffodils
broccoli
Last fall's bulb planting is beginning to pay off. The broccoli is the only thing doing much in my bottle garden. I'm afraid they got too dried out for things to sprout. I am now watering them daily, so, even if the kale and cabbage don't come around in time, the herbs should hopefully sprout well.