On Wednesday morning I got the seedlings fed and thinned first thing. This is the mesclun at 2 weeks.
The Dakota Tears onions have 2nd leaves now.
Not a great photo but on the right are 3 arnica and in the middle a single surviving Pink Polka Dot plant.
Once I had that done I started to set up for the 2nd Seed starting. We did:
Walla Onions (75)
Lacinato Kale (24)
Celery (18)
Leeks (12)
Blue Flax (24)
and brought the Agrimony (6) up from the fridge and put it on a heat mat. There were 6 trays and the pan that went to the fridge.
The window in the dining room is full. The other areas are starting to fill.
The roundtop window has 2 on the heat mat. I wonder how long it takes the old cat to discover it is warm there…
The office door has 2 that like it cool or fluctuating temperatures.
These were the gardens I went out and tackled after lunch. (Note tarp in background.)
This end of the garden is the West Herb. My sister planted it in 1992 and at that time it had 25 – 30 plants. Three years ago it had 12 or more left. After cleaning it out for the first time in 3 years, it has 6 left.
What I could see, right to left:
Along the divider from the corner is comfrey. Inside the L shape is tansy. Behind the 2nd marker is marshmallow. The pot is catmint. To the left of the L shape may, or may not, be bee balm. Out of sight to the left is lemon balm.
The lemon balm had spread down the garden and I took it out of where it didn’t belong. There was also elecampane, a volunteer crocus, and some daffodils.
The north end of this garden, the whole of which is 24’ long, is the West garden. It doesn’t have herbs, just flowers.
At the far end of it are the coral bells. This is a very old plant that had been moved several times before landing here. I am glad it survived the construction.
Lots of daffodils used to line the edging, but somehow they migrated into the bed at least 6” in places. I’ve never had daffodils up this early in this garden.
The farthest pot is spearmint. Between the pots is linguria. I’ve forgotten what’s in the 2nd pot. Just after it is the perennial foxglove.
There’s a tiny sad hollyhock along the edging. I had to take a lot of coltsfoot out of this end of the garden. Where the edging curves from the foundation, the pink lily of the valley had escaped from the other side. I dug them up and put them into the triangle of the South Herb garden at the other end. They will get too much sun there to be very bright pink though.
At the near end of the West garden the snowdrops are bent on world domination. They were decimated a bit when I dug the colt’s foot out of them. But it won’t faze them.
I worked from 1PM to 4:30 PM. My intern’s sister arrived and helped with the grass along the edging and removing the concrete the construction people had dumped by the faucet.
I had called the wood guy about getting the rest of the wood into the shed and to find out when he’d be coming to split up the piles of wood. He sent his son out and he got the pile under the blue tarp moved and we hung the tarp on the clothesline. It’s to rain in the next day and it will wash it cleaner.
The next garden not touched since 2019 is this New North garden. But being a north garden it is still very wet, too wet to work yet. It doesn’t get the sun and it is also cold back there. I will wait for a very warm day to do this one.
This is the West Shed garden and it was cleaned out in recent years though you’d never tell to look at it. It only has 4 or 5 things in it: daylilies along the shed, white iris along in front of them, a hollyhock, catnip, and bulbs. It’s just overrun by crab grass. This will be the one I tackle on Friday afternoon.
Moonrise at sunset when I went up to do the cats at the barn.
I was supposed to have an amendment delivery to a local business as it required a forklift. But apparently it never showed up before the business closed. I hoping it will come in the morning on Thursday before it rains.
On Thursday it will be too cold to go out in the morning and it’s to start raining around lunch time when it would be warm enough to go outside. I had hoped to get mulch hay on Thursday morning but my helper may not be available, and the truck is not running again.
I have plenty of inside projects to do. One of them is to make the corned beef and cabbage dinner. I started the corning of the beef at the first of the month. I just need to figure out how to get to the store for the cabbage.
The contractor is coming on Thursday afternoon and I hope we can finish one of the projects he’s started.