April Garden Update

I know, I know.  It's April.  In Nebraska.  What sort of update can I possibly have?  Well, let me tell you that I managed to do some things outside today and I'm pretty happy about it.  It wasn't what I'd call a gorgeous spring day. But, it was rather pleasant for most of the afternoon.

I planted some stuff today: 

• Peas (Sugar Snap).  
• Carrots (Nantes...something).  
• Beets (Detroit Dark Red...I wanted Bull's Blood but I couldn't find any seed) 
• Swiss chard (Bright Lights) 
• Leaf lettuce (Black Seeded Simpson) 
• Radishes (Giant Globe...mostly because they grow quickly and give some speedy gardening gratification) 

If I hadn't left my camera in the city when I came home yesterday, I'd have some pictures of the seeds being planted or something.


But I don't.  I might even have uploaded a nice picture of my rhododendron that looks fantastic already this year. 

Rats.

I also raked and raked and raked leaves.  I raked until my shoulder and the wind decided I shouldn't rake anymore and then I called for a cease-rake and put it all away.  Three huge bags went into the big pile o' bags in the back garden.

Mulch and compost in potentia.

Actually, it was no mean feat this leaf gathering.  After the spate of wet snow we had earlier this week, all those leaves were wet enough to clog up the mower chute and some of the piles were still frozen in places.  But that's okay.  They'll rot a little faster with some moisture in those bags.

I also started some marigold seeds and some more hot peppers (okay, admittedly that was last week, but it's too late to do a March garden update).  The first batch of pepper seeds I planted didn't germinate.  Every year it seems there is one thing or another that just won't grow for me.  Last year it was beans.  This year it seems it could be peppers.  At least I could go buy pepper seedlings if I wanted to.

The tomatoes I started a couple weeks ago haven't sprouted yet either.  The sad thing is I will have roughly 5,000,000 volunteer tomatoes in the garden once spring is well and truly underway.  I'll be uprooting and discarding them all summer long.

I also uprooted and transplanted, to pots this time, a fair whack of yarrow plants.  They didn't really seem to actually be rooted to anything.  They were more or less just sitting on top of the soil like they knew I was coming to take them away and they wanted to be ready.  I can't begin to fool myself into thinking that I got all of them and that bed will be yarrow-free anytime soon. 

Some people have complained to me that mint is the most invasive and difficult to eradicate plant they've ever grown.  Clearly they've never grown yarrow.  Or comfrey.  I thought I'd never get it out!  I do wish comfrey was more attractive.  I hear it has some interesting qualities in the garden and that some gardeners grow it to make comfrey tea to put on their plants and beds.  Here's a link to an article about comfrey in the garden.  After reading that again, I may have to find an out-of-the-way spot for more comfrey.

We've been monitoring the temperature in the greenhouse with a remote thermometer for several weeks now.  A few weeks ago, we put a small, oil-filled heater in the greenhouse and I've determined that it seems to keep things above freezing at least.  So, I moved my seedlings from the kitchen window where they were starting to get leggy and light-starved to the table in the greenhouse where they will receive ample sunlight.  Keeping fingers crossed that all goes well there.  The tomatoes I started are out in the greenhouse and I'm wondering if maybe the temperature just isn't consistent enough for germination.  They may have to come inside for a few days to get going.

I just don't know.

I do know that I'm fixing to run out of planting room in a hurry.  So much growing, so little space...

Feeling the Heat

Summer is well and truly here, folks.  The highs have been in the 90's for the last several days and the humidity is just stupidly high.  Still, I can't seem to wipe this smile off my face.

*sigh*

Why do I love this weather?  It's hot, it makes my t-shirt stick to my back and the mosquitoes.  Oh my God the mosquitoes.  They don't usually like me, but I figure this year there must be so many of them that they take whoever they can find.

Lucky me.

But it also makes my garden grow like mad.  With the rain we've had and then the sun we've had, things are getting rather jungle like in the south 40.

Me and the insanely huge honeysuckle.

But I've been feeling the heat in other ways as well.  Work is ramping up to get super busy pretty soon.  The projects at home have more or less been on hold since we got back from vacation almost a month ago.  I'm so far behind on things in my life that I've taken a week off next week just to try to catch up. Here are  some of the things that I've been missing lately:

I found this little dragonfly resting on an onion.  He was there most of the day.  I'm hoping I get a chance to rest a bit as well.

I'm rather proud of my marigolds this year.  Here we find the French Dwarf marigolds in my backyard.  I like to plant marigolds in amongst my vegetable plants.  I hear they repel harmful insects.

This is a tiny hosta called 'Mouse Ears.'  I planted it near the new hardy kiwi plants in the 'wishing well' planter in the backyard.  They truly are tiny.  This plant is no more than 6 inches tall including the flowers.

I have developed quite a liking for clematis.  This purple one, the name of which escapes me at the moment, is gracing the new fence that my hubby built on the west side of the property.  Since I took this picture, I have added three others to this section of fence.  One is white and the other two are also different shades of purple.  They were supposed to be pink.  Dangit.  We still have a Sweet Autumn Clematis waiting impatiently in its pot for the fence on which it will grow to be built.  It is growing like mad in that little pot.

This little stunner is a gourd flower.  For some reason all of my gourd flowers are white this year.  The gourds I grew last year all had yellow flowers.  So, I turned to my little friend, Google.  Turns out that there are two different gourd genuses (genii?) one of which has yellow flowers and the other has white.  The ones with yellow flowers are all related to squash and melons which also have yellow flowers.  I have somehow managed to grow all of one genus last year and all of the other this year.  What a coincidence!