More repotting madness

I know it hasn't been 40 days and 40 nights of rain, but it sure felt like it sometimes. Today, we caught our first nice, sunny day in ages, and Nicole and I celebrated by taking some time off work and working in the garden. I spent the afternoon repotting several more seedlings (see pictures on left and right), got my herb pots all going (basil, rosemary, lemon verbena, chamomile, and cilantro - see bottom picture), and then went to work starting in on those bush stumps behind the garage. Cole put in several Longfield Day Lilies, a couple of violas, and some flowering garlic, in addition to working with me on the stumps.

Things seem to be going well in the garden. The radishes are all up, as is the spinach, lettuce, kale, and peas. No sign of carrots or parsnip yet, but it's still early. This weekend, I need to get potatoes in the ground, along with chard, broccoli, and cauliflower. We are also going to get over to the Davenport Compost Facility and pick up a truckload of mulch. Cole wants to start mulching in around our trees, so they stop getting hit with the lawnmower every time the grass gets cut. Combine that with wanting to expand our front flower beds, dig up the rest of the stumps, and take a long bike ride, and that adds up to a heck of a busy weekend!

Happy birfday to me!

Yesterday, Nicole gave me a wonderful birthday present ... a paint-your-own garden gnome!! After years of wanting a garden gnome that looks like Vir, my World of Warcraft character, at long last, I shall have one!

In honor of this occasion, I took Vir to the barbershop to get him a beard that more closely matched the ceramic gnome, and a pointy hat. Take a look! It's going to be epic!!

Elbow room, I mean, err... root room?

This year, we've decided to attempt to grow as many things from seed as possible in the vegetable garden. We set up our greenhouses indoors, and rigged grow lights and everything. Many of our seedlings (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, basil) are quickly outgrowing their little peat pellets, and needed to be repotted into some larger living areas. So, I gathered up some of the plastic pots that we've been gathering from previous plant purchases over the last several years, and potted away. It's still a little bit too chilly to begin hardening them off, but at least they have more room to grow now.

The exception to this is the basil. Note to self: next year, only plant about four weeks before last frost date. This year, we planted them at eight weeks out, and they're gargantuan now... they actually got some sun scald from growing up too close to our grow lights. So, I planted several of them together in our larger herb pots and sat them out to begin hardening off. I had a few left over, and those went into the garden. Again, it's probably too early to do that, but they're too big to be indoors anymore, and if they die, enh, we'll plant more.

Operation: Shrub Eradication 2011 (part 2)

The front "vector" of shrubs that used to run along the stairs leading up to our front door have now been cut down and burned as well. So, all that remains is digging out the stumps from those and the ones in back of the house, and I think we'll be done with shrub eradication for a while! Yay!

Yesterday (after burning the shrubs), I prepared the bottom garden bed, reorganized the walkway stones so that we can have three rows of tomatoes, and planted some dwarf bee balm in the tomato bed. Nicole spent time pulling ivy out of and planting her Lenten rose into the shade bed, and putting (full size) bee balm in the sun bed, to replace the ones that look like they're not coming back this year. We're actually very happy with our returning perennials this year; it looks like they're almost all coming back.

Upcoming outdoors projects: killing off the creeping charlie in our lawn with Borax; building a potato box and planting potatoes; finding space to trellis some squash; setting up our strawberry planter system when it arrives; and beginning to harden off our plant seedlings, in preparation for planting in the garden when it warms up a little.

Spring has sprung

I got out this morning and snapped some photos of a few of the spring flowers popping up to say hello today. On the left, a picture of our purple hyacinth, while on the right, there is a very pretty cream-and-yellow daffodil.

Today, I was able to finally play in the garden. We were hemming and hawing for a few weeks about how we were going to rebuild the three current raised beds in our garden, but finally came to the decision that we're not going to touch them this year, we'll just continue to use them as-is until we get some trees down -- those take priority since they cause terrible shade problems throughout the property. So, since we're going to get a high of 85 today with rain tonight, I wanted to make sure we got as many seeds into the ground as possible. I planted: more radishes (early scarlet globe), spinach, lettuce, kale, mache, peas, parsnip, and carrots (orange and purple). I was pleased to see that the vole didn't cause too many problems in the upper bed; our worms are still everywhere, and we had two very happy lovage plants coming up from last years plantings, as well as some garlic chives (which had been completely shaded out last year by the zinnias).

I'm still hoping to get a build-as-you-grow (BAYG) potato box set up and plant some potatoes this week or next, and get some strawberries in some sort of planter, but otherwise, I think the garden is in good shape for as early as we are.

"What kind of pyre? A pyre of fire!"

Flashback to fall 2010: Some absolutely beautiful sweet potato plants thrive in the fall garden, taking up a full quarter of one bed. The plants are huge, vining, and luscious-looking, and Bob and Cole anxiously dig them up, only to find... the tubers themselves have been gnawed down to stubs by some burrowing creature. Bob shakes his fist angrily at the sky and vows vengeance on whosoever wronged them in this heinous fashion as lightning flashes and thunder roars.

Back to the present: Yesterday, we worked out in the gardens, planting Cole's birthday presents (two of three Disneyland roses), and burning the shrubs we chopped down last week. The bushes burned very well, and as the sun was setting, and as Cole and I were sitting in the grass, watching the fire begin to die down, we heard a shuffling noise coming from underneath the walkway stones in the top garden. Sitting perfectly still, we saw the ground move slightly, and a dirty, stinking vole poke his head out from underneath. Earlier in the day, we had noticed several surface tunnels had been burrowed in the lawn and in the garden. This beast (or his kin) was responsible for the damage, and more than likely caused the great sweet potato travesty of '10.

Hefting his trusty metal rake (+1 to rodent-slaying), Bob slowly approached the stepping-stone. There was a tunnel leading in, and a tunnel leading out -- the monster was trapped underneath, with nowhere to escape. Quickly turning over the stone, the evil vole was exposed. A mighty battle ensued, and when the smoke cleared, only Bob remained standing.

We know not how many other invaders and evil-doers remain to combat, but today's funereal pyre should give them pause. These lands are under the watchful eyes of Bob and Cole, wielders of Volebane, and their noble vigil to protect good, decency, and vegetables.