Archive for April 6th, 2009

Finally a chance to get in the garden…

Posted in Hearth and Home on April 6th, 2009

Gardening PosterAfter complaining about all the rain and the damp, we’ve had several dry days. Today was beautiful and in the 70’s. So, after catching up on some email, pulling all the old review copies that are at least four months past publication and/or the date we received the book (in the case of books that are older), I finally had organized shelves of review copies. Then there was the wash and the dishes and so on and so on.

Finally, walked down to get the Sunday paper at the mailboxes with my hubby and when we got back we decided to put in some garden time. First up was the porch — I swept and cleaned out the gardening pots. We’ve got three blueberry bushes on the deck — the only place to put them so we actually get blueberries to eat (or at least we get more than the critters do). Then we have a pot of summer savory — a perennial that is still doing well. Then two pots that will eventual hold a tomato and the other a cucumber plant (easier to just get for a salad that way).

Then we cleared and cleaned up the table in front of the sliding glass doors. It will eventually hold a geranium and brighten up my view from the living room. We also cleaned/cleared up the barbecue so we’re ready to go for the summer.

Next we moved down to ground level. We cleared the leaves off the mulch around the peonies and found the lovely tips of the plants coming up out of the ground. All four of the peonies are returning and the two peony trees already have buds. We learned we need to buy some more bricks to finish the outline of this area and we need to add more mulch.

Then we clipped back some of the raspberry plants, tied them up and pulled those that had dipped over and started to make a break for it into areas not authorized by us for their new homes. Looks like the raspberries will do well again this year. Of course whether we get them or the crows and birds do is up for debate at this point. We then moved down to the orchard area to check out a run of daffodils and tulips that line a path through the woods. I’m going to have to separate some of the plants this year and spread them out.

Then as things go, we started to pull up some of the brush, then the kudzo and one bunch led to another and another and an hour later we’d cleared about ten square feet of underbrush and kudzo. Only 4+ acres to go…. and we didn’t even do the herb circle.

Now I can barely move and I know I’ll regret all this work tomorrow or at least my body will. But, then it’s supposed to rain tomorrow so I’m glad we got this done today. I’m getting real excited about gardening this summer.