Good morning all! I sit here w a cuppa, contemplating the new week ahead. It's dark out, and I'm below a large run of windows. And as I sit here I hear the birds singing away. Must have rained and the worms plentiful!
I had put out my jelly feeder last week, haven't seen my first oriole yet, but I haven't had time to sit and watch I guess. But they are lovely to have visit the house. I think they are a bit magical w their orange bellies.
Dahlias - did I say I found two more bag of clumps at Walmart? I picked up one that would be a replacement and I picked up a new to me. Not a normal one they usually stocked so I picked it up. Nenakazi I think is the name. Hope it's as named.
I have to do the dahlia shuffle this morn. I have about 15 to move back to the basement and under the lights and wait for a good pinch and hopefully by the end of the week they'll be out on the porch. And I'll finish my plant layout that I keep babbling on but I want to verify finally what all is up and will be able to be planted out and then I'll finally finish what will go where on the dahlia chart. I have so many loose ends with my life and projects - I've got way too much to do.
I'll keep trying!
The front porch hopefully will be full of plants by the end of the week. I'll keep the annuals and perennials on one side and all the dahlias on the other. It may look like a mini jungle! Fine by me. It just means spring is underway and soon to be colorful.
Happy day to you all. Enjoy a new week ahead.
Today is greenhouse day for me where I actually will buy!
I'll be stopping at 2 of them. One is my main buy and the other has more odd varieties and good little surprises to plant in the beds as this one has more perennials. So I'm excited to head out.
As I sit in the living room with a long eye shot to the patio door. And I'm seeing sprouts above the pot. Great! Temps tonight will be above 40 so I'll start moving the hearty ones to the porch. I won't begin moving dahlias out until Monday as we will be gone over the weekend. But I think I am underway!
The seedlings are looking good! Very full plants on some of them. Still some smaller ones and maybe they'll fail. I'm excited to see what I get from all of these. I still haven't had time to slow down and do the photo of all the blooms from last year. If I can ever get anything completed non plant related and the hubs back in the actual work office - novel concept - work in an office out of the house - I'd have time to sit on my own computer! Between his work and his class I never get to use my own computer. It's frustrating. Sorry I shouldn't vent but I am. I need to this week. My days are crazy and my mind worse! 
So I'm underway. Besides the shopping, then I also have to plan to get these dresses done. I'll get over the potato bag shaped me and just be glad I know how to fit to myself as best I can. I'll try not to see all my lumpy bits. I'd love weight to fall off, but if so, I have to work at it the normal way with diet and exercise. No, I'm not asking for the hot shots - unless medically necessary, I've already done the cancer thing, I'm afraid they don't have their full long term results of using that stuff off label, I'm glad people have had success that need success in bringing their diabetic numbers in line. The famous taking it for vanity reasons - kind of a bit much people, deal like the rest of us in this world. A huge help would never to have worries and stress eat in my own personal world. I know I turn to comfort food and sugar based foods.
Whew.
So I'm excited about the new growing season. I went looking for planter ideas and saw one loaded w curly parsley. Looks interesting and maybe something to try. I'm open to good things. I should really go count how many tunies I have in the basement and then alter what I buy from there. But I need to make a list of what I think I need. I'm sad, won't be buying anything for my moms as there is not a huge reason to.
I need to find my shoes and head to the basement and make my list.
Wishing you all a beautiful day ahead!
The hubs did not kill the plants - everything was in good shape with my time away. Well, with the exception of the liatris, I'm not sure what its problem is. But it all looked good.
I scoured the accu site this morn to determine when I can safely move things to the front porch. It's open air and where I dump my plants until I plant out as it's protected and gets easterly light. So a good spot for everything. Anywho, I should be able to move the heartier things out first by Thursday. So I'm thinking coleus, geraniums - those type of things.
The dahlias are looking good. My last box came yesterday and they are all planted. I was able to get two future extra plants out of them as what I got were clumps. One had eyes the other two not yet but maybe they'll eye up shortly with some warmth and moisture.
The seedlings are looking hairy. Right now they have spread and I'm hoping they head north instead of east/west as they are doing. I seem to recall last years seedlings kind of did the same thing and then once in the dirt figured it out and grew taller.
I'm ready to get underway. I need to figure out what type of support system I'll use for the snapdragons, maybe I'll do the same thing I've got for the dahlias - twine and posts. Maybe I can hide the posts behind cannas or something. Will have to see. In fact some of the new cannas aren't up yet.
The hubs did get the tilling done. Yay! The dahlia bed looks like it's been revived with some goodness. I hope so. The dirt looks fluffy whereas before it just looked forever sandy, dry and well friable. I need to start moving the heap contents so he can till down further for me and it can be turned. I plan to load the south and front beds with its goodness. More the south bed. It too is very similar to what is by the garage. The heap was full of leaves, rabbit poo, grass clippings, cardboard tubes, egg cartons etc. I hope it's of great benefit to the plants. I'll have to see how the day goes if I can start moving it around. I do have to get my sewing projects completed first. I need dresses for an upcoming wedding.
Hope everyone is doing well with their gardens and outdoor pursuits. Have a lovely day ahead!
I'm down visiting my mom with the kids in tow. The hubs is in charge of getting two big garden projects done while I'm here today. I hope it goes well and reveals some rich looking dirt. And hopefully things grow beautifully once in it. That would be the dahlia bed, and then I need him to run the tiller through the heap so it's ready for me to begin moving to the front and south beds - of course once my sewing projects are completed, or if I'm bored with that I'll hop over to the other.
The last box of tubers is on its way, but stuck in the cities yet again. I swear that distribution center is where all packages go to die. I don't know if they have too much volume or they shove the nonAmazon packages to the side until they meet the ammy travel goals first. Unsure; but I hope it shows up Monday. Time to get the last into the dirt and growing. I do hope they are as named and are a bunch of healthy blooms in the long run.
And then I will probably be watering - lots of watering in my future. And I'd like to get my purchases at the greenhouse this week. I don't know if I'll be able to get that all done but I will try! And hopefully the nights will be warm enough to move plants to the porch. My basement is ready to spew forth!
We hope to stop at the local greenhouse here today and take a look. I wonder if they have agrobond? I'd love to get a section instead of taking my sheets out to the porch when it's cold at night to cover the youngsters. Otherwise we'll see what they have there. Not really buying unless there is something I can't find at my own haunts by me. I'll keep my eye out for the trailing amaranth as my normal greenhouse says oh it's SO easy to grow just scatter seed and mine keeps damping off. Will see what I can find.
The hubs says he's on it for the tilling. We've gone over the area and he'll FaceTime if he's not sure. He's like I DONT know what an iris is, I said you do … then he's like you need to be here to direct me. I said FaceTime me and I need it done. My life is too, too busy to put it on the backburner which would be in a month. No sir-ee! It becomes a master class in negotiation I know he would rather sit and watch the cubs if they are playing and then tell me he's too busy w his grad class and then the next few weekends are a conference, wedding, kid1 ball games etc and then it's June, so no, it needs to get done even if I'm not home today. And besides he doesn't have kid2 trying to run the tiller.
So everything is underway as slow as it may go, we are moving forward. And hopefully soon the yard is all abloom!
Catchy tune - good old Burt Baccrach.
We did get rain and high winds yesterday. No tornados this far north but the rains fell heavily. I woke this morn to a deluge, I live in an old craftsman with deep eaves and rain is always a delight to listen too.
The sky color right now says snow. It's that weird white sky that just looks cold to me. No sun yet today. I hope everything greens up beautifully.
The seedlings: are holding their own. They got a water and the last ones got a pinch. I've got some nice looking plants that I hope offer up some lovelies! No clue what to hope or expect! Right now they are kind of sprawly. But once in the dirt they usually take off and behave. Will see though.
The rest of everything is growing and I'm officially out of room in the basement. I've got everything as stacked as I can. The hut upstairs is full and I have the canna in front of the patio door. And I hope to go get annuals in the next week. Go figure. I'll have plants all over the place.
With the much needed rain, I think the totals I saw this morn are wrong so many large deep puddles when I took kid1 to school for practice this mornin.
My hopes this week are to get the heap tilled and started and moved into the south bed and front bed. But the sewing I need to do has to come first, then I can worry about the plants. I'm so overbooked w my family's activities I really don't have good blocks of time for myself and all my projects and I try to squish so much in a small space maybe things turn out looking lousy. I don't know. I keep trying though and one of these fine moments I won't have walls to scale to feel I'm getting stuff done.
Now if only kids and husband came with an auto-cleaning and pick up feature my days would be so much further along.
A girl can dream!
