Thursday, March 17, 2011

It's easy being green.

Happy St. Pat's Day! Are you wearing it?
I had a very productive weekend last weekend while Nate was away doing this:

I did some sewing, but in honor of St. Patrick's day I thought I would share the green things I did. And it was a lot of work, and I was worn out when I was done. It was hard in that I was exhausted. I'm not sure if my efforts will bear much fruit, so I can't say if it was difficult or easy, you know?
I wanted to get the herb garden done, separate and transplant daffodils and daisies, and plant flower seeds. That's three beds in all.

1. Here's the herb garden before. I didn't take a picture before the weeding. Imagine this overwhelmed with mint. I couldn't tell it from looking at it, but once I started pulling things out I realized that the mint roots were everywhere. Nate found this mat for me to kneel on, isn't that nice? So first I pulled everything out of the garden. The mint had survived, but we had already bought another mint plant so I just pulled it all out.

The oregano and parsley all survived the winter as well (I think). I divided the oregano and put it in two different spots. I untangled the parsley from the mint and I hope it will survive. If it doesn't, I blame the mint.

I left a rosemary and mint plant in planters and partially buried them. (That way we can take them in in the winter, and the mint won't take over as bad.)

I bought a sage plant and a planted another rosemary plant because I want it to get outrageously big, blow in the breeze, and spread its beautiful smell around.


Oh yeah, I also got a basil plant to tide us over until our seedlings are big enough to transfer (more on that in a sec).

From left to right: mint w/oregano in front of it, parsley, sage, potted rosemary w/oregano in front of it, basil, and rosemary in the ground.
2. Flower bed 1
We had some daffodils. They bloomed, and then they looked a little wilty. I read here that you could go ahead, separate and transplant them. Again, I didn't take a picture before I dug it up, but here is after that.
Here's the pile o daffs.
I thought there were only a few, but when I started replanting I realized that we had maybe 40 after separating the bulbs. I couldn't even find a place for all of them.
Here's the bed afterwards. The daffs in the front, daisies in the middle, and under the sand in the back are posies and snapdragons (in seed form). We'll see how the seeds go.

3. The other bed
It's only seeds in there, so it looks like a pile of dirt. I'll spare you

Speaking of seeds:
We started seeds in a seed flat. We keep it up on top of the fridge because it is pretty warm up there. We are having the best luck so far with tomatoes and basil. Hopefully the peppers will pop up soon.

I made some new friends last weekend when Nate was gone.

This guy kind of had a death wish. And he was camouflaged. It was a bit dangerous with him and me and the spiky tools.
This guy was pretty skiddish, but I got a picture of him.
And this guy.
I didn't scream at all when I found these guys!

Sorry, one more thing.
These are getting huge! And fast!

4 comments:

  1. Your garden looks fantastic! I want to get started on plants but everyone around here says it's going to freeze again (according to one of the farmers' almanacs). Good job, Molly!
    *Jocelyn

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  2. Thanks Jocelyn. I don't know if we'll get another frost or not. All Nate's colleagues out at the ranch say we are on track, (the ranch is such a great resource for people like me who, you know, know very little) so hopefully Mother Nature will cooperate with our vegetables. Although in the same state, I think we are technically in different zones so you might be right.
    Even if we did get another cold snap the stuff in the cold frame should be ok. The flower seeds don't seem to be doing anything yet, so hopefully the same for them.
    I like having the seed flat, it speeds up the seedling process even though it will be a couple weeks before we can actually plant them outside. I'm also starting some flowers in it as well for a planter, so I hope that works.

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  3. I planted some rosemary in a pot today, and I may try to start some seeds too. And yes, you're definitely right about the zone thing . . . we get the Northwest Arkansas / River Valley news channels, and the weather just 40 miles south of here is sometimes 9-10 degrees warmer. If only things would stay as lovely as they are this week, though, I think we'll have a nice, long spring!

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  4. Sounds exciting! I can't wait to see what you do.

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