Fiber Fool

A week or so ago the everbearing strawberries started flowering and now it seems the wild ones are also flowering. DH and I may actually get to share a picking this year rather than trading on and off!

I’m a little worried I’ve killed some of my seedlings during the hardening off period. I should have listened to my gut instinct and kept them in the spot where they get shade come about 11am, despite the fact that they were up to the point where they needed more sun. Some are looking good and I watered this morning and moved them to the spot with morning sun and afternoon shade in hopes of aiding their recovering from the hot weekend in nearly full sun. I have my fingers crossed.

The greens bed that Emma dug up after our planting is surprisingly doing much better than the second one we planted the next day. I’m not quite sure why. But that first one is looking good and growing by leaps and bounds. We have a handful of radish that have come up. Something’s wrong with the carrots and quite a lot of the radishes as well. I wonder if we didn’t freeze a bit too hard at the wrong spot in development? We had problems with carrots last year too. We only got two. Oh well, it’s all a learning process, right? And last year my first year and we bought a lot of our plants. So I’m taking big steps with year with seedlings and direct sowing and such.

The heat has arrived which is of course good for the garden, but not great for my mood or our sleeping. We’ve been in the 80’s all weekend and look to be for most of this week. The house even started the day out at 72 degrees this morning. That doesn’t bode well for late afternoon :-/ Next house has AC!

I got the north beds all weeded and nearly ready for planting the seedlings into next weekend. I just need to get some compost worked into them and get a lot more mulch than I used last year! I did manage to sunburn an interesting shape on my back, but the positive news is that it shows that my range of motion for both arms is now equal, which means PT has been a success, LOL! They really need to come up with a good way to apply sunscreen yourself to your back!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Okay, get your minds out of the gutter! Yes, you! Admit it!

Much of this weekend was spent doing garden preparations. DH did a lot of mixing of dirt to prep three of our raised beds in the side yard and helped me get the patio container portion planted as well. However, disaster struck sometime on Saturday night. Emma dog dug up the entirety of the greens bed. Since I did the sand broadcast method to plant that bed and she dug down to the newspaper level in multiple parts of the bed we’re not counting on getting much. But we put an uncovered cold frame over the top to hopefully keep her out. Then I rebroadcast a half of what we had left of the greens into another bed and we also cold framed that. She is also not getting to enjoy the yard as much as she would like because she is being monitored while outside.

The other bed we had planted on Saturday had miraculously been left alone. But we put bamboo stakes at the corners and ran some nylon around them to make an ad hoc fence. It had worked with the lower bed last year so I really should work with this taller bed. I hope! That bed is housing out newly planted carrots (three varieties), radishes (a blend and then last year’s variety), and a short row of scallions.

On the patio I transplanted the two spearmint and the grapefruit mint that we had bought at Bath when we could only find peppermint seeds. These went into containers and we put three bamboo stakes into the pots and put another pot on top to protect them from the cold. Seeing as how it is snowing this morning, I’m really glad we went that route! In two little rectangle pots I sowed some chives and some cilantro.

I also started another set of seeds yesterday. This included mostly companion plants and some herbs. I cheated and used the peat pellets this go round rather than the newspaper pots we’ve used for most of it. I figure these guys won’t be inside for *that* long that they would need the extra room of the newspaper pots. Also, I didn’t have enough pots already made and was out of newspaper strips. Hauling out the paper cutter, digging up some newspaper, and making pots required just a little too much energy for what I was up to after the work outdoors. Also, my allergies or something is ruining my sleep so I’m feeling near total exhaustion, even right away in the morning.

Last Sunday, March 9th I plants my first round of seeds. This included onions, leeks, rosemary, parsley, eggplant, and a selection of peppers. The photo at left was taken this Sunday, March 16th. The onions and leeks have all made an appearance as have some of the spinach (from rather old seed even). As of Monday a couple rosemary were poking out as well. It’s amazing to watch how much progress they make in just a day!

This Sunday I also started more seeds - tomatoes of several types including a roma, a cheery, a bush, and a yellow pear; sweet, spicy globe, and lime basils; catnip, chives, chamomile, and oregano.

Hopefully by next Sunday I’ll have enough sprouts ready to be out in the atmosphere of the living room without the lids on so I can rotate stuff around and start more seeds. But as it stands we are basically full-up in terms of sprouting location.

I’m still mostly playing the waiting game at the moment. I have the yarn for one make that two (one just arrived yesterday) out of three things that need knit this month and the sample for the fourth item that requires the pattern be turned in by the end of the month as well. Unfortunately, the yarn that will be getting passed to my very talent test knitter I have lined up has yet to arrive. What did arrive I won’t be able to look at for at least a few days as I want to get the current project on the needles a little further before I start in on the other one.

I tell you, the phrase “snail mail” doesn’t seem more appropriate than when you are waiting for things (rather impatiently) that are required in order to meet tight deadlines.

I don’t have a ton to show for my work this week which is rough. But if I work at seeing what I’ve accomplished I have actually accomplished quite a bit - it just isn’t all that tangible. It is either all in computer files (and on paper, but somehow that doesn’t seem as tangible as knit fabric) or I’ve problem solved in my head or I’ve furthered communication in places where it had stalled out. I’m probably going to get a reputation as being a PITA, LOL!

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I found a great seed starting guide in my inbox this week from Organic Gardening so I’m itching to spend some quality time with that and figure out what I’m late starting and what needs to get started when. My fingers are ready for some play in the dirt :-) But I’m having a hard time mentally giving myself permission to sit down with a calendar and work out those dates for the veggies we’re planning on this year. But how I am looking forward to opening some of those seed packets and getting the newspaper starter pots filled with seed starting mix!

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The photo leading this post is a contrail at sunset which I caught a couple weeks ago on my way out to SnB. I just loved the vibrant, almost glowing, coral contrail against the darking blue of the sky that I had to take a few moments to capture it. I just had my point and shoot with me so it is just a snapshot, but I like it just the same.