Inside gardening....
April has been a cold month. A week or more of days under 5ºC can set a garden back a fortnight. (I still read Dickens.) On the one hand, I like the fact that the cold weather has helped people stay in and keep their distance, on the other hand, I hate that I can't get the beds ready for planting.
In mid April, I bought seeds on-line from Stokes, because I thought bedding plants would be scarce, if the lock down continued into June. I do know I cannot go a summer without growing something. Hence, (I look for opportunities to use this word) I ordered seeds online - tomato, cucumber, egg plant and zucchini. They took a long time to arrive and I knew I was behind the 8-ball, when the directions suggested starting the seeds indoors in January or early February. We shall overcome!!
Anyway, I had been saving all these empty egg cartons and styrofoam meat trays since March. I also now had seed packets with interesting names, such as, Patio Baby (egg plant), Everglade (zucchini) and Sub-Arctic (tomato), well, it could be a very cold Spring.......and I needed to plant something, so I spent the day starting my seedlings indoors. I'll let you know if anything sprouts.
Outside gardening....
Yesterday, it warmed up enough to venture into the garden. I had a project in mind - I needed a raised bed for strawberries. I had already bought the frame a week or two earlier, on-line, from Home Depot. It was now time to assemble it. The instructions said - "Easy to put together - Assembles in minutes." Several hours later we finally had a 4' x 4' x 1' grey plastic frame to hold soil for a raised flower bed. Now, of course, it had to be filled. At this point, my husband disappeared - go figure. So, it was that I, in my twilight years, filled 9 wheelbarrows full of compost from one of our compost bins and trucked them halfway down the garden to fill the raised bed. Never say never!! I now have a patch of 10 strawberry plants 1 foot off the ground and my fingers crossed.
Scoring...
Well, yes, gardening in some areas is also a kind of sport. Today the score is Squirrels - 6. Homeowners - 2. Now that would be daffodil flowers heads - why they can't just eat the bulbs and die, is beyond me. The pansy score is a little better, for the moment. Squirrels 2. Homeowners 34 - yeah!! Well, without baseball, you sort of go to bat where you can and believe me, if I could catch them, I'd beat the daffodils out of them - just sayin'
Have a safe day - we're all going a little strange - that's my excuse.
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