Spring Fever

 

 Blink!

 

I'm always surprised by how quickly things green up; all it takes is a few warm spells and a lot of sun.  I've been keeping busy raking, cutting back, and planting cool weather crops. Sugar snap peas, lettuce, mesclun, arugula, and radish have been sown in the hillside garden.  The cinder block bed has been filled with sweet onions, cipollini onions, and shallots.  I tried using a planting aid I've seen on Gardeners' World; Monty Don uses long planks to walk on when he plants in raised beds.  The planks help distribute his weight, so the soil doesn't get as compacted as if he were walking on it.  I think my planks were a little too short, but I noticed when my mother's dog walked through the bed (!!), she sank about an inch deeper into the soil than what the boards had compressed holding my enormous bulk.  I guess it works!  

They don't look like much now, but by the end of summer we should be swimming in oniony stuff.  I'm excited to see how the cipollinis do, this is a new crop for me.

In the big planter by the house I've transplanted the leeks I grew from seed. 

I'm pretty happy with this experiment; I used seeds collected from my leek plants that I let flower, not sure if they would germinate.  Well, they definitely did!  I still have about 20 or so older leek plants in the hillside garden and I'm thinking of letting a few go to seed again this year.  The flowers are so pretty, and the bonus of having fresh seed for next year's plants is too good to pass up.

2024 leeks in flower

 

Between the newly planted rows of leeks I've sown some carrot seeds.  Normally I wait until August to sow them so I get a harvest around Thanksgiving, but I'm thinking two sowings this season might be a good idea considering how expensive groceries are getting.

Inside the house my seedlings are doing ok.  I've had some damping off issues on top of the aphid attacks, but I think what survived is nearly ready for the polytunnel - time to start hardening off these puppies.  The dahlias are doing great, so I'm really excited about those.

 

I'm thinking of putting them in the empty pots around the wildflower meadow.  Speaking of which, I'm really frustrated with that project.  It looked really great the first year, but it's so hard to keep the weeds out.  Just about every icky plant that thrives in "recently excavated areas" has set down roots.  I spend more time pulling up weedy invasives than planting my beloved perennials.  I am going to try to work on that area a little more this year.  It's on the list, but there's an order to everything.  First I need to get that downed pine tree cut up and moved off the mule track, then I can get a truckload of material in to make another dry lot that actually has shade.  Then I can move the mules so I can get the second half of the French drain in around the barn.  While the equipment is here, I can get the composted manure moved to the mound to prepare for the corn, and have a bed dug and boulders set to start the alpine garden.  Once that's done, I can start the cat fencing and Calypso will finally get to go outside again.  Then I will have plenty of time to work on configuring the meadow.  Yes, there's a plan, it's just taking longer and fraught with more obstacles than I ever planned for.  Oh well, no rest for the wicked.  Happy spring!

Mooshie in the daffodils