Front paged at My Left Wing
Good morning, and it's alive! Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.
Oh, such lovely weather here in Denver — well, if you discount the wind (stupid wind). High temperatures have crept up into the 60s; lows have hovered around freezing. The last of the pre-Christmas snow is melting (still have a small pile in the back yard, and ice in the alley behind the fence), and the veggie patch may be dry enough to till by next week — well, after I clean up the detritus from last year. By Monday, we're looking at forecast highs in the low 70s.
I also got an early birthday present (well, I purchased it myself, with my birthday as an excuse) — a macro lens for the fancy-schmancy camera. I am stunned; I never realized how frilly the stamens of crocus were. Damn but I'm gonna have fun.
And as to what is alive — well, two things, actually. First, as pictured, the lilac I planted next to the porch survived its first winter and is showing buds. Like the first ultrasound of a fetus, it doesn't look like much, but damned if it isn't exciting to see.
Second — the columbine are alive! And large crowns are showing growth. Could it be that I've finally broken Frankenoid's Curse of the Columbine? I'm especially encouraged by the size of the crowns: I've had small crowns survive a winter before, only to crap out and die without blooming in the second year. And if I have living columbine, can Finn's blueberries be far behind?
I haven't really gotten to work outside much, though. On Wednesday, the weather was very good, but I knew I really needed to get moving on starting seeds. And, since my procrastination motivation was that the seed-starting lights were still in the basement, I decided to skip that part. Instead, I potted eggplant, tomato and snap pea seed, and stashed the flats in various and sundry parts of the house — the snap peas where it's fairly cool, and the eggplant and tomatoes where it's warm. The eggplant and tomatoes don't really need light before they sprout, and by the time they do, I'll have the lights up from the basement. The snap peas never go under the lights — as soon as they sprout, they go to the front porch, to come in only if temperatures dip below the mid-twenties over night.
In addition to getting the lights up from the basement, and starting the "regular" yard and garden clean up, the melting of the snow revealed a 2' deep, 2' wide sinkhole behind the back fence I'll have to attend to. We're not sure what is rotting out or collapsing back there — it could be stumps from all the trash trees we removed when we moved in, or it could be old clay pipes from the original plumbing. Doesn't really matter, the hole has to be filled.
However, we also need to shave the parking strip (now filled with weeds) down to sidewalk level. So I'm thinking I'll haul a few wheelbarrow loads from the front, to the hole in the back, and solve at least part of the problem of what to do with the excess soil. Eventually we want to install planters filled with xeric plants in the parking strip, surrounded by lava landscaping rock, so we'll not have to worry about watering or weeding.
And we need to get someone hired to re-build the retaining walls for the back flower beds and veggie patch, and install the walkway around the grass patch. I swore last year, and the year before, that the walkway would get done. And it's still not done. This year is, indeed, the year — I can't stand having it unfinished for another season. The only way it's gonna get done is to hire someone. Now the problem is to find someone reliable — and who can tolerate having Stray Cat Strut, our alpha cat, supervising (and rubbing and bumping and begging for attention; he is the world's most loving kitty).
So that's what's happening here. What's happening in your gardens?