How I Spent My Weekend, and a Few New Things - March, 2021

 Once the cold mornings wore off, it was a really nice weekend.  I got some things done in the garden.  I also made some new plans, which I always find exciting!

A lazy gardener's Knot Garden!  I have to put cardboard under the edgers to smother the grass, but I just wanted to see if it looked good.  I think it does!  I noticed these edgers are smooth on the ends, the ones you see in the background are notched to fit tighter together.  Or, that's the idea, it doesn't really work.  I have my herb gardens off the deck, so hesitate to put more herbs back here.  

I'm deciding how to build the bed for my Fall Gold raspberries.  A few are sending out leaves, so I need to get them relocated quickly.  I think I'll go with the round topped edgers if I have enough.  I have 57, plus a few around the yard, as well as some grey bricks.

I set the containers I'm going to use for vegetables in place.  Lemon cucumbers grow great in pots, and upside down tomato cages (I bend the ends and hook them together) fit in them perfectly.  The smaller pool is new (thanks to a friend) and the netting behind it on the fence was free with a bunch of things off Craigslist.  I just had to untangle it off stakes.

The red containers are the trash company's old recycling bins.  I have two, mine and one the neighbor didn't want'  They are deep, and already have drainage holes.  They will hold corn this year.  Yes, corn grows in containers!

There's those raspberries, waiting to go!  But, so many of those containers (plus the new beds, and a couple of old beds) are empty!  What will I fill them with?  I HAVE A DELIVERY OF 3 YARDS OF SOIL COMING AT 8:00am FRIDAY!     It's from Biomass One, and is called "Organic Base Blend," and it's 25% each of screened soil, organic compost, dairy manure, and pumice.  

The area I weeded last weekend was seeded with mixed seeds from the Dollar Tree, Calendula from Baker Creek (with a few of my saved seeds), and different color CA poppy seeds (white, purple, red.  I have to come up with a name for this area, so far I have it as "Toss Garden, other side of the fence," and that is just too much!  It's off the lawn, so maybe the Lawn Bed.  I just keep track for my own use, for photos and notes on seeds and plants.

Some of the Wintersown plants are ready to come out of their jugs.  I potted the Persian catmint (although it's hardy and could have taken to the beds right off), and planted some of the pink aster in the Pollinator Garden, where it grew last year.  Persian catmint is one of my favorite things in the garden.

 

I cleaned up around the white dogwood and added some stones.  I still have a seemingly inexhaustible supply of rocks.

 

 After I seeded the... ummm.... Lawn Bed (?) I raked and watered in the seeds.  I found out my nozzle leaks when I ended up soaked.  Since I needed to get a new smoke detector (the old one would only whisper a sick sounding "quack" even with a new battery) anyway, and that's was important, I went to Walmart.  I got the smoke detector (I don't need a carbon monoxide one, I have an all electric house and no fireplace) as well as the nozzle, a  new watering can (old one leaked), and a dianthus.

 

The nozzle.  I got a more expensive one that usual, I usually go cheap, but this one is more metal than not.  

 

 

The watering can.

Oh, well, I should have looked at the top.  Hopefully I can enlarge the hole to fit my hand.  I often reach in to pull out gunk that clogs the spout. 

The Dianthus.  

 

I learned something about Walmart's plants today, or at least about some of the plants, or the plants in my area.  They are grown in WA state, by a company that only supplies to retailers in WA, OR, ID, AK, and western Canada.  I've worked places with garden centers that carry the same supplier's plants, and they are quality.  Nice delivery couple too.  It's a Dianthus plumarius, a garden pink.  Perennial, unlike the huge Sweet William dianthus, with small flowers, unlike the large carnation diantus or clove pink.  I was going to get a Firewitch dianthus at a nursery, but hey, this was there and cheaper!  I may not know what it's named, but it smells just as nice as the others.

I'm glad it's one and off raining today.  I don't feel obligated to go work in the yard!  I'll have enough to do Friday after 8:00am with all that soil to move!