Spring Planting Progress

April 8, 2015

spring planting and building is underway. there will be a couple more posts on new building projects soon, as they are completed. but there are 100's of lil' seedlings wanting to go in the ground already and we're trying to get the garden beds ready for them. unfortunately most of the jobs we have to do require digging or shoveling or lifting and we're both physically wrecked these days and plan each days work based on a) weather b) what we feel physically strong enough for and c) what just has to get done.

we've been officially welcomed to the community by the Feed&Seed this spring. last fall when i went in for Straw to help our perennials enjoy the winter; we were given Hay instead. when the guy pulled the bail out of the truck it was on; i told him that the other guy had said that was the Hay truck and i had previously gotten Straw from the other truck. Guy said no, this is straw. I took the Hay back to the garden and W says that's not straw, it's Hay. i say, that's what i thought but the guy assured me it was Straw. I took the Hay back to the Feed&Seed and said "we think this is Hay and we really need Straw for the garden beds so we're Not Planting Hay in our garden. Guys say's, yeah, that's Straw.... IT WAS HAY. and now we get to weed Hay from every garden bed that overwintered a plant.

the garden bed next to the back porch is going to be a salad bar this year. we planted the green onions and nasturtium already. next will be lettuces, kale, broccoli and spinach. then currant tomatoes, cucumbers, grape tomatoes.

the asparagus row seems to have been given some extra hardship by critters over the winter and so far w can only find a few shoots that have awoken from their slumber. we were able to winter 2 small persimmon trees, a ginkgo tree, 2 goji berries, a pineapple tree and a ginger root. none of which have been placed in their forever home yet. the rosemary planted on the island last year has not shown signs of life yet but the lavenders have done well except the 2 that got ate... we've got 2 more to stick in their place that were from seed.

Thanks to Southern States TWICE refusing to believe they'd given us Hay instead of Straw... we'll be weeding hay out of most of our Garden Beds for awhile