It was a beautiful day today.
Birds are chirping away
I was able to go outside in just a light
spring jacket.
And....
It's time to plant the seeds in my basement
grow-op.
Ya ya...don't worry the only thing I
grow in there are tomatoes, peppers,
pumpkins, flowers and squash.
This year I decided to try my hand at Echinacea.
A few years ago I saved seeds from my
flowers outside. I knew they needed
stratification so I stuck them in the fridge
and promptly forgot about them till
last week.
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| Baby echinacea! |
I planted the seeds and read in my seed book
recommend highly, if I did the correct thing.
Well I guess I didn't. For echinacea I guess
you have to stratify the seeds, like I did,
but also plant them at a certain temperature for
two weeks, then another temperature
for another few weeks, howl at a waxing moon
while Haley's comet is in it's third orbit in the middle of
a snow storm.
Needless to say it's a snowball's chance in hell these are
going to germinate!
Well low and behold!! 4 are popping out! I'm beyond
ecstatic and over that waxing moon I was supposed
to wait for.
There's nothing better than whipping out a brand new pair
of garden gloves. I recommend these ones
highly. They are tough as nails.
The weather is so nice that the fan is going in the greenhouse.
So I figured that I'd give the greenhouse
a cleaning also. We tried to get the water going
but it sprung a leak. There was probably a spot that
didn't drain and froze last winter. Dang.
One thing I did discover in the greenhouse
is if you plant marigolds, please take the seed heads
off the plants before the winter.
I don't think I'll have to plant marigolds
this year...whoops.
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| Going to need some dirt in them thar beds. |
Today was the last sapping day. We had a good run
but it's time to stop so we pulled all the splines out of the trees.
It was so nice today that I did a walkabout in our
backyard. My Hellebores is gorgeous, I'm so proud of them.
The goldfish all survived the winter except for one.
And I think Mr. and Mrs Duckworth are back!
Every year we have a mated pair of mallard
ducks that stay in our back yard for a few months
I chose to believe that it's the same
pair year after year, but since
they never show us their passports I can't be certain.
I tried taking a picture, but they were a bit camera shy.
If you look closely you can see Mr. Duckworth.
The bees are just a buzzing around and a bit cranky.
So we're not bugging them too much these
days. We need to give them some
pollen patties for a few weeks.
The silver you see on the hive is insulation.
That will be coming off in a few weeks.
Garlic is growing well. I hope we don't have the same problem as last year.
We had some type of bug chew little holes in most of it.
Didn't hurt it any,but it was unsightly
and we sell it. So we don't sell
products unless they're perfect
so we had a lot of left over garlic.
Well it's been a pretty productive day.
Tomorrow is chicken coop cleaning day
if the weather holds.
Have a Blessed evening
Lisa
