Showing posts with label Organizing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Organizing. Show all posts

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Um, About the Rain

Sheesh. I really got what I asked for. A pretty much whole week of blinding, stay in the house rain. Right now, I'm chilling out in the library waiting for the first of the severe storms expected today to arrive. More rain. Ahem. The rain in question will usher in a blast of frigid air--we're expecting cooler temps all next week, with two nights dropping to or below freezing. Argh.

With the coming cold (and rain), I elected yesterday not to set any of my winter sown babies out. The cukes and squashes are getting pissy in their containers, though, so I may try to get some slightly larger pots (or make some out of newspaper) to transplant them into next week. I've just realized that there's supposed to be an intermediate step between the place you first sow your seeds and the place they'll stay. Oh. Huh. It makes sense, I suppose. I have plenty of used newspapers after the weekend, so I think I'll roll some pots tonight after the kiddies are in bed while Will is watching the Braves. There are a few different ways to do it, so I'll hopefully have a veritable armada of pots come Monday. (BTW, omalawsy at the last link, I have found another urban gardener and she rocks my socks off. I think I'll be spending all of today poring over her site and pretty being lazy as she talks about all the work she does.)

I don't feel all too upset about the laziness today, as I worked a good bit outside yesterday. Having abandoned my setting out plans, I elected instead to do some transplanting of various plants around the yard and beds. First up were the lavenders I've been growing for about a year in the transplant bed. I dug them all up and used them to line the walkway of the cottage garden. Darryl from Olive Forge told me last year that he thought they might be Spanish, and a quick Google proved this to be so. Spanish lavenders aren't typically as fragrant as French lavenders, but these particular lovelies have a wonderful, honey-tinged scent as they leaf and bud out in the spring. The two (rather straggly) plants that I had in the front flower garden greeted me every day with that scent and it made me smile, so I decided to haul them all out front. I was able to get eight plants from the original four or five. I hope they'll grow into a nice little hedge for me. Research shows that they just might, providing the very moist soil in the bed allows them to. (Research also shows me that the name comes from the Latin word "to wash," which makes me long for a bathtub deep enough to steep myself with a few sprigs of lavender...sigh...) Hopefully, removing a few of the bordering blocks to allow a path through the bed will help with drainage. I'll be trimming them back hard after the rain to give them a break from making flowers and to encourage root growth.

I've decided to turn the front bed from herbs (with the exception of the lavender) to straight flowers. There are a few reasons for this. The first is that I have yet to find an organic solution to blackspot and the Joseph's Coat is prone to it and I need to go ahead and treat the bed. I want anything I use in my cooking or home solutions to be organically grown, so I need to move the herbs back to the main garden. After the lavender, I took out a sweet grass I got last year from Olive Forge and a tiny itty bitty jewel weed that self-seeded (oh, I hope I find some more later in the season.) I rearranged the stokesia into an orderly cluster (stumbling upon a truly gigantic dark brown spider scurrying around with her egg sac tucked under her...yay, Mama!--also, *shudder*) and moved an aster from the path's edge.

Then back to the back to put in two rabbit-eye blueberry bushes. They're covered already with blooms and berries, so I have much hope for at least a handful of berries for a snack come early summer. (The raspberries also have a few buds on them, which makes me SMILE as we edge closer to the kind of self-sufficiency I crave. I'm hoping to get a couple more blueberry bushes, some blackberry brambles and maybe some self-pollinating kiwis next week--unless the nurseries say it's too late to plant. FRUIT! Woohoo!) Anyway, I put them in the transplant bed after removing the last small lavender and mulched them with the grass clippings Will swept out of the yard.

What few clippings were left were added to the Phase One composter (the aluminum trash can). I'm trying to be very good about chopping everything into smaller bits, because I've realized that has been the primary problem in my composting history. I also am more careful to layer dry and wet stuff. I checked on the contents of the Phase Two composter (actual tumbler-style bin that Will got me for my birthday) and was THRILLED to realize that (drummmmmrooolllll) I'm getting some compost!! I finally did it right and I'm so excited because that means that if all goes well, I'll be able to use it when I put my transplanted seeds in.

I was reading over some of my blogs from last year and taking into account the things I've learned. The biggest success so far this year is the sweet peas. The vines are so healthy and tall (worried about them come Tuesday and Wednesday night), I know I did the right thing by planting them so early. Next year, I'll do the same for the Swiss chard. The winter sowing/heat fiasco this year and the lack of seedlings last year taught me that they need to go in the ground at the same time as I do my lettuce and peas. Live and garden and learn!

Plans for the upcoming week (despite the fact that it's supposed to be really chilly):

  1. Figure out what to do with all this chocolate mint. (It's the darker green stuff bordering the beds.)I don't mind having a bunch of it around (it's my favorite mint to use in charms and cooking) and in fact was afraid I had killed it dead, but this is ridiculous!! I might try to encourage it to grow around the little flower bed/not very much used spot under the bigger crepe myrtle. We're thinking about putting a little zen fountain out there, so it might work nicely.
  2. Decide on the zen fountain. :)
  3. Finish trellising the Joseph's Coat.
  4. Fix the front bed gate.
  5. Repot the seedlings.
  6. Start working on the sidewalk bed--the foundation will be transplanted rosemaries. I'll fill in with a few trellises of mini-pumpkins and some inexpensive annuals for right now.
Off to do laundry and attempt some homemade graham crackers from the recipe over at Baking Bites.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Springing (and Cleaning) Out All Over!

The sweet peas and bunching onions are up! Yay!


Tiny lil sweet pea


Baby onions in a row


(Is it wrong that I kinda want to smooch on them?)

Clearly, the rain from the storms last night (which I apparently and uncharacteristically slept through, which is scary because Will never checks the Weather Channel and we'd be halfway to Oz before he realized we were having a tornado) helped them out. I really need to get my garden planned out so I can get my watering system set up. Last year I tailored it to each bed, which meant a lot of sweating in the pathways after everything came up. I'll still use the soaker method this year, but I'm going to try to configure it in such a way that I can set the lines up without having to plant around them OR move them around the plants. Hopefully I'll be able to salvage the lines and all of the drippers as I start dismantling the system in the next few days. Having them will keep me ahead of the game.

The winter sown seedlings all got a good soaking last night and are looking good--even the blown-over Swiss chard. Another Lemon Cucumber is coming up. I'm actually worried about all of the seedlings, winter sown and otherwise, since we're expecting a hard freeze (or several of them) over the next few days. I can always rake some leaves over the peas and onions and maybe "bank" some around the containers. The theory is that nothing will come up that isn't ready to, but our weather is so temperamental in the late winter/early spring that it makes me wonder.

In other (and far more boring and unpleasant, in my opinion) news, I'm still working on my Imbolc-inspired inside overhaul. The office is awash in discarded CDs and papers. I feel guilty throwing so much JUNK out, but at the same time, paring this down will help me be more efficient in running the house and garden. I'm planning on making binders for home projects and our schedule and budget, much like the one I've already made for my recipes. (One project will be using bills and envelopes and other junk mail to make paper, as I recently came across my old paper-making frames. Viva la organization!)

Another thing we're working on as a family right now is an itemized budget. We've always had a budget--but I use that term loosely, as we never followed or tracked it at all. I suggested we itemize our budget for February so we could see where the money's going. No big shocks so far--we're already over our monthly grocery limit AND we've eaten out A LOT. This is my fault. I need to do better on planning and cooking our meals. We over-budgeted for gas, though, and had a big "miscellaneous" chunk, so we can adjust as needed. Still, I'd like to do better on groceries next month. Cleaning out the pantry today will help me plan better for next month--I won't buy extra of those things we don't use.

Fascinating stuff, no? Sigh. I'm going to have to roll up my sleeves and take to the office again before I put myself to sleep.