Friday, May 15, 2020

Spring Bliss or Gardening with a stick

Warning, this blog will probably be all over the place.......


I had to laugh when I found this. This is in the new raised bed, it's obviously a bulb, and marked with a stick. I know myself well enough to know that when I stuck in that stick, I had said to myself that I would know exactly what this was in the spring. I would remember for sure, maybe I even wrote it down in one of my numerous gardening diary's. I'm looking at it now completely clueless. Wait and see, like I have a choice. Surprise.   

The new raised bed was created kinda last minute at the end of a miserable gardening season, 2019. I had built it and my neighbor saw it and said, do you want that filled? Yes please! I had been given a trunk load of strawberry plants, had the wood, would find the dirt. If you build it.... ha ha. I didn't get to putting in all the strawberries, as I said, last year was a miserable year. They sat in their 4x4 pots on the ground all winter, for the most part under several feet of snow. Still Alive! Woo Hoo. I love strawberries but refuse to buy them due to pesticide use, now I'll have all I can eat. It will be nice to share them with my neighbors as well. :)

Why I hang onto my pots for a couple of years.
Yes, starting from seed is painstaking, tedious, and not for the impatient. Aah but the rewards. I had sunk a couple of pots into the new raised bed, and they were slated to be composted this spring. I had no expectations.



I am very pleased (tickled right pink, beside myself even) to see that I have growth in the pots. Some aquilegias from seed exchanges that I had my fingers crossed on. Arnica cordifolia has germinated, one I really want to get established in the yard. On the Arnica, I live fairly close to several large colonies of this wonderous plant but I would really like it in the yard to harvest for ointment. I infused arnica flowers in coconut oil last year and it really does work for aches and pains.

One of the perks of living here is that when spring arrives, IT ARRIVES.  Everything wakes up very quickly, it has to, we have such a short season.  It can be difficult to keep up with it, this year is different.  I'm enjoying having all this time in the garden. ;)