Hearts and Flowers

The internet was down for a while this morning. Mike did what he could, but the problem seemed to be with our provider. Thank goodness, it wasn't gone for long. We were considering calling in the National Guard to deal with this disaster. Fortunately, it wasn't necessary. For now, we have them on standby.

Everything seemed to take longer than I thought it would yesterday, and so it didn't leave a lot of time for sewing. I drove into town because a produce market had hanging baskets available at a very reasonable price. Ordinarily, I plant these myself, but the price was so good, I doubt I could have done it myself for any less. Besides, mine would have been puny in comparison. Feast your eyes:

These are hanging on either side of our greenhouse window. It always feels as if spring has officially arrived with the hanging of the baskets each year. The purple petunias are very fragrant, and the hummingbirds love them.

While one of my errands was to get some potting soil, the baskets took up pretty much the whole cargo hold of my Jeep Wrangler, and so I'll get the potting soil another day. Still, I had room to pick up some annuals. These will be planted in the large pots that line our sidewalk. There are marigolds, cyclamen, and some purple pincushion sort of flowers I haven't seen before. I was looking for some shade lovers, and those were shade tolerant. I'll give them a try and plant some of those itty bitties around them.

Also, some geraniums. I used to plant petunias along the sidewalk, but the squirrels eat them. They are much less fond of the stinky geraniums. Love the flowers. Really not fond of their fragrance.

Toward the back of the image above is a Sun Gold cherry tomato. The one we planted last year was amazingly prolific, once it recovered from being eaten down to a bloody stump.

Below are six Super Marzanos. I was looking for Romas, but they didn't have any. The Super Marzanos are another sauce tomato, and so they'll do just fine. We generally get bulk tomatoes from our farmers during canning season, but I still like growing some in our greenhouse. We're growing fewer plants this year. We've come to the conclusion that they are too overcrowded in the greenhouse, and we're getting less yield because of it. When I look between the plants, it is dark. They shade one another, and so we'll give them a little more room to spread out this year and see how they do.

It was 2:30 by the time I arrived home. After I had everything unloaded, it seemed a little too late to get started planting any seeds, and so I'll do that today. I have enough potting soil to get me started, and so I'll plant sunflowers, lettuce, and zucchini, and get that going to be transplanted later. If there's time left, I'll plant the annuals as well. There are still more annuals to plant in the three pots on our patio. The clay pots have cracked and broken after many years of use, and so I'll need to replace them before I'm ready for planting. I looked for pots yesterday, but couldn't find three that matched. Enter Amazon.com (my favorite shopping mall), and they should arrive tomorrow.

So with that all done, I got back to the Pansy Mosaic. It's pretty slow going just now, but I sewed together two more 4 x 4 sections. Each section takes about half an hour, and with 40 sections, this will take many hours to complete. They're fun to do, however, and I can listen to a book while I work.

With the internet down this morning, I had a little extra time for my slow-stitching. May's heart is finished now.

Tomorrow I'll get started of June's heart.

That's about it from me for today. Time to get out and plant those seeds. I imagine I'll have company in the greenhouse, but the kitties are suspicious about that place. Usually, they'll only go in when I'm not there. Then, they'll fly out like rockets as I approach. Clearly, they are up to no good, but they'll keep any furry critters away.