What I Did Today

I really got into a cleaning up mood today. I decided to make some of the beds ready for plants. I started out working on the little bed that we made for Catherine last year as a Mother's Day present. She likes Irises so last year she dug some up out of our nice neighbor's garden and planted them along with some annuals and other goodies. Irises are pretty hard to kill and sure enough they are looking pretty good right now and should have some nice flowers before long. As I was cleaning up the bed, I noticed that our Lantana's were coming back with little bits of green right at the ground. Also some Petunia's decided to go ahead and live through the winter so they should be nice also. After all was said and done, I thought the little bed cleaned up nicely. Now it's ready for something but I'm not sure what.

Another bed I cleaned out was one that I made almost four years ago. This bed has not really had much going on in it. I really like strawberries, and I wanted to grow some in this bed. I have tried every year to grow them and finally realized that it is probably too hot here for them to live through the summer so I think I'm going to give up on that. There are a few from last year that survived and are still alive although they don't look very healthy. Maybe they will come around and produce a few berries that we can enjoy. I'm not sure what I will put here. I might could put some tomato plants and maybe they would provide enough shade to protect the strawberries once they finished producing.

And finally I started working on the bed that I showed in my last posting that has been overun with weeds. I can already tell, this is going to be a tough one to maintain this year, but I am going to try to stay on it. As I was cleaning, I noticed that my crocuses were coming up. These make pretty little purple flowers but they haven't produced very well in this bed. We will see what happens this time.

Not yet! Wait!

It's all happening way to fast. I need a vacation so I can get some things done. Since I am a teacher, I will certainly enjoy the summer off, but I almost wish we had a late winter vacation so I could do some outdoor work. Right now the days are getting longer but by the time I get home from work, the sun is going down and I really don't have that much time to devote to outside chores. A perfect example is a little flower bed right beside our back porch. This was a bed that I created a couple of years ago. I put some daffodil and crocus bulbs and that's about it. Last Summer, I kind of just let it go and I have plans to clean it out this year and put some of my new little plants that are sprouting in the milk jugs. Well, I better hurry because my bulbs have begun to leaf out. I will probably just have to work around them the best that I can. I hope to do this bed in the next couple of weeks and then post some "after" pictures. The weather here lately has been just beautiful. We did have a close call a couple of nights ago when a strong storm came through very quickly. We didn't have any damage, but several people lost their lives in a little town by the name of Lone Grove OK. That's really not that far from us. It's just across the border and west just a bit. Our hearts and prayers go out to those people because they are really hurting right now. But, we do live in tornado alley and we expect this type of weather, just not usually this early in the spring.

Sprouts!

Well, I tried my hand at overwintering this year. I used my sisters tip about using milk jugs to create little greenhouses for planting seeds. I used 8 jugs and planting a different plant in each one.

I found a little area of the yard and also next to the house that seemed like a good place to put them. I followed my sisters tips as much as I could. I guess I did alright because I checked them yesterday and was surprised to see sprouts! Boy, now what?! I wasn't really ready for plants yet because I really don't have any place to put them. I guess what I will do is wait until they get a little bigger then transplant them to little pots. Fortunately, they are not all sprouting at the same time, so I won't have to do them all at once. That will give me some time I guess. The four that have sprouted are Coreopsis, Campanula Bellflower, Delphinium and Scabiosa. I was able to stick my camera up to the spout of the jug and get some pretty decent shots of the plants.

Here are pics of the little sprouts.
Grow little plants and pretend you don't depend on me for survival.