Glorious Day for Gardening

When I woke up this morning, I had my furry pal next to me, purring away.  He is sooooooo much better.  He might be a little lethargic still, but he's eating again, and he was my garden companion this morning while I was out cleaning up the herb garden.

It was a perfect day to be out in the garden.  The sun was shining, and a nice breeze was blowing.  It was just slightly chilly, and so I had on long sleeves.  It's good for me because I need to protect my skin from the sun.  I was also wearing a hat.  

We stopped off first in the greenhouse to see if things are looking any better in there.  Mike watered all the tomatoes with liquid fertilizer again this past weekend.  We've been fertilizing them like crazy because they keep looking so yellow and because they just aren't growing.  Finally, they are starting to look a little better.  There is new growth, not plagued with signs of insects, and I'm feeling optimistic that these will be the plants that will produce tomatoes for us this summer.

Even the smallest of them are looking much better.  I had one that had never even produced its true leaves, but that one now has new growth.  It looks as if everything is going to survive.

I started over with the dill, and that has come up now.

This is the basil I planted originally, and it too is finally starting to grow.

The butter lettuce is looking good, but the red leaf lettuce still has not germinated.  As I said in an earlier post, I used a pelletized seed for the red leaf.  It makes those teensy lettuce seeds easier to work with, but it does take a lot longer to sprout.  I'll give it until this weekend, and then I may replant with traditional seeds.

Having satisfied myself about things in the greenhouse, I turned my attention to my sad little herb garden.  Oh my goodness, what a mess!  Here's how it looked when I started.  There are a lot of weeds, and just dead sticks from last year's growth...all winter kill now.

Here's how it looked when I was finished.  We like to call this kind of gardening slash and burn gardening.  Mainly it consists of ripping out dead stuff and weeds with little regard for the plant itself.  Once the dead stuff is pulled out, the living plant underneath reveals itself.

So what's growing here?  Two kinds of thyme.  Silver thyme on the left and, um, not silver thyme on the right.  It's just traditional thyme, like what you find in the grocery store.  I had a lemon thyme plant too, but it was more dead than alive, and I pulled the whole thing out.  Its leaves are not as sturdy as the other two, and I rarely used it.  It might sprout again from any roots it might still have below ground.  And I might replace it. We'll see.

I have three lavender plants.  I don't use these for anything, but I love lavender.  I love how it looks.  I love how it smells.  And, I take back that I don't use it for anything.  I do use it to make the Bees Knees Cocktail.  Yum.

This is sorrel.  It will take over the whole garden, and so we have to whack it back a couple of times every summer.  It grows so well, I keep it in the garden, but I've never used it for anything.  I have a recipe for sorrel pesto and for a sorrel soup, but I haven't ever tried either.  Maybe this year I will.

My chives have really taken off this year and there are more little ones coming.  Erik told me that the chives would take over, but mine have been slower than that.  It took them quite a while to act as if they would survive.  These are getting ready to bloom, which means I'll be making chive blossom vinegar soon.  I still have a little left over from last year, but that's okay.  It will keep almost forever, and it makes a pretty gift.  And I'm so happy to see these thriving because we are having steaks and baked potato for dinner.  I have plenty of chives to serve with the bakers.  Yum.  ("Yum" is the word of the day.)

This is purple sage, which is no different from green sage, except that its leaves are purple.  Clever, huh?

Here's its green cousin, and more chives on the left.

This is marjoram.

This is mint.  I think this variety is spearmint, and I also have some Kentucky Colonel mint.  Beware if you get the idea to grow mint in your garden.  It will absolutely take over whatever space you put it in.  We finally dug ours up, so tenacious were the runners, and planted it in a pot buried to ground level.  That fixed its little red wagon.  Occasionally, it will put up runners outside the pot, but we can control it more easily now.  I use it all the time in the summer.

I always wonder if the tarragon has survived the winter, and it always appears faithfully each year.  It's still a little small, but it will grow quickly.

Our winter was relatively mild this year, except for the killer frost we had.  Still, my rosemary plant has survived, and that is something of a miracle.  We've been in this house since 2002, and I've replanted it every year.  I think this might be the first plant to survive into the next growing season.  It's getting ready to bloom, so it must be a happy camper.

Here's some more lavender.  This particular plant was more dead than alive, and I ended up pulling out most of it.  It will fill in soon enough.

This is oregano.  It's almost as bad as the mint about putting out runners, but not quite as prolific.  It's easier to control.

And these are some wild strawberries I put in just as a ground cover.  I literally dug them out of the field with the heel of my boot and planted them, also using the heel of my boot.  They too put up runners and would take over if I let them.  They are easy enough to control if one takes the time.  These are starting to bloom.  The wild strawberries are very small, and they aren't good for much other than picking them off the vine and popping them in your mouth...which is a pretty good deal in and of itself.  That "rock" beside them is actually a piece of garden art...a duck we got to keep the bird bath from blowing away.  It didn't work very well for that function since the duck was usually face down in the water.  It was humiliating for him.  We replaced him with a clay turtle.  The turtle likes being face down.

Here's a strawberry runner that has managed to establish itself between the cracks in the sidewalk.  I think it might have some weed killer in its future.  So sorry.

Here's the pile I pulled out of the herb bed.  I left the rake there for scale, but its still hard to tell.  The pile is about 3 feet deep and five feet across.  Mike will come by and pick it up with the bucket of the tractor.

Smitty and I cruised around the rest of the yard to see what was up there.

The first azalea blossoms are starting to open.  We have a poor white one that rarely gets a chance to bloom.  The deer eat all of its blossoms.  They don't bother the others.  Whereas they are not fond of the vanilla tulips, they do seem to enjoy the vanilla azaleas.  And what's up with that anyway?  Tulips are tender shoots.  But azaleas?  Woody stems.  I don't get it.

The clematis is starting to open too.  Now here's the thing:  I always thought it was pronounced cle-MATT-is. But Mike heard an expert on the radio one day who asserted that the correct pronunciation is CLEM-uh-tis.    But who cares what he thinks, right?

Here are some more blossoms starting to open.  I love this when it is completely in bloom.  So pretty.  The previous owner planted it, and so it was a delightful surprise to us.

A single red tulip missed by the squirrels last year.  Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

After that, I came inside and stripped off my dirty clothes, sat down with a tasty refreshing beverage, and read my email.

We've picked out our carpet and all the work is set up to commence during the week of May 13th.  Here's the carpet we picked...for as accurate as the color can be in a photograph.  Still it gives you an idea.  I wanted something light, something neutral, and something speckled that wouldn't show dirt and threads.  (Threads.  Now who leaves those around?)

To my monitor, the color looks pretty true.  And I pulled back the nap so that you can see that the threads are twisted with two colors, kind of like baker's twine.

We're carpeting in the living room and dining room where we have wood floors currently.  I know.  Don't fall over dead at the idea of carpeting over wood.  I have always hated the wood.  Besides, it hurts my tender feet to walk on it.  I'm looking forward to having nice cushy carpet that I can vacuum instead of mopping.  Which I hate doing--mopping, I mean.  We're leaving the wood in the kitchen and the entry way, but it is going to be refinished.  They'll refinish the floors on Monday, and then I'm told we will be able to carpet on Thursday.  Hopefully, it will all go smoothly.

Finally, I finished the dog house for the Gardener's Journal quilt.  Yahoo!  It took me forever to do the two stitcheries I've been working on, although the dog house was quick.

And now, I'm off to do some sewing.  My day is going great.  I hope yours is too.