Gardening Hard

Yesterday was one of the warmer days we've seen this spring. Mike and I had to do our grocery shopping first. We got there early and were home by 10:30 a.m. Another cup of coffee, and we were off to do our worst in the garden.

First, we were confronted by this rat bastard. I gave him (or her) an extra shake of my fist before we went to work doing other things.

Our goal for the day was to weed and tame the culinary herb garden. This garden has been in the ground for around 15 years. Herbs come and go, but some stay forever...and become huge. Last year, I whacked back the sage plant to about 1/4 its previous size. This year, I heard a rumor that the three lavender plants had elected their own government, written their own Constitution, and were planning to stage a coup to take over the world. We had to launch a pre-emptory strike to quash their rebellion. Now they are all cut back to a more manageable size. They're not looking so menacing now, are they?

They were so large, they'd inundated all the chive plants. The chives have not recovered, although I hope they will by next year. Also, I have two little pots of chives to plant here in some of the open areas. 

What you see here starting at the top of the picture is some thyme, and some sorrel (hiding behind one of the lavender plants), Some of the smaller things are chives, parsley, and oregano. In the middle is a huge sage plant. The two large plants toward the bottom of the image are two more lavender plants. Just poking in from the right side of the image is some rosemary. Most often the rosemary dies off in the winter, and I have to replant it. This one has been going strong for several years. 

Mike helped with the whacking. I did the weeding, and the culinary herb garden looks a whole lot better now than it did in its "before" picture. And, frankly, it was such a mess I was too embarrassed to take a "before" picture. It wasn't an unpleasant job. The lavender was fragrant to cut, even without any flowers. And I was weeding out the invasive mint...also very fragrant as I pulled it up. 

We were both pretty tired (and hot) by then. I went back inside, took a shower, and then spent the rest of the afternoon sewing together the 48 flying geese blocks. Today I'll get busy sewing them together to make the middle border for I Believe in Snowmen. When I have that finished, I can sew all three borders to the quilt, and I'll have myself a finished quilt top.

With all those cut-off corners, I'm making good progress on the next quilt in my "trashy" series.

It was getting too late in the day to start anything else, and so I went back outside and took a picture of some of the blooming things. These yellow tulips are the final tulips for this year. They share a whiskey barrel with the mint. I've been worried the mint didn't survive the ice storm, but it's starting to come back now.

One of the rhodies is opening. It should be covered in flowers sometime within the next week.

Same goes for the azaleas.

The Andromeda is beautiful right now. Often, I marvel at how one plant can put on such a show.

Here's the whole bush. Mike has been trimming the top off once it finishes its spring bloom. I believe it's actually enjoying the process.

Finally, I know y'all are waiting on tenterhooks wondering what happened with the little melon sprouts. Three have broken the surface of the soil. I'm only showing one here since it was the easiest to see. It occurs to me that I should take them out of the proofing box now and put them under the grow light. There are a couple more seeds still wrapped in wet paper towels. I expect those have germinated by now too.

Tomorrow's post will be The Endeavourers reveal for the "Color Theory" challenge. Here's one of the peeks I gave you as I was making it.

Tomorrow, you'll see the whole thing, and read about the process of making it. There's a story behind it.

It's cloudy and cool again today. I expect to spend the day in the sewing room, but I have some housekeeping to do too. I skipped my slow-stitching yesterday to give my thumb a rest. Today I'll get back to that as well. Spending the day fast and slow stitching seems like a great way to spend a Friday.