Blog: I garden to save lives and sanity

I doubt I can recall each day. And I further doubt I can be faithful to posting more than once in a while. But this is the date that I planted the first set of seedlings. Within a week the cucumber, zucchini, and exactly 1 bean had sprouted. Only 1 bean out of about 6. And so far (March 21st) still no sign of other beans. I’m thinking that the seeds were not truly viable. Adrian came over and spent many hours helping me. We pulled weeds from the from circle, and also cleaned out almost all of the small black pots that still had dead pepper and tomato remnants in them. So they should be ready for this year. I have made an honest effort not to go over board this year and need so many pots for the season. I also got to clean up and inspect the echinecea, bergamont, and other herbs by the patio. Since the echinecea and bergamont are new I was intrigued to see they had returned with such force. Also neither one flowered last year, I hope this means they are more mature. I will have to do some research on that. I also did some big time pruning to the rosemary the day before. All of the rain lately has caused it to die off a bit. There was just too much over-growth. It has crowded out the rose bush and hyacinths (which bloomed and left without us noticing) and were certainly leaving no room for this year’s zinnia. For several days now I have been moving many of the seedlings into peat pots from the big seed tray. Some have even graduated to plastic pots where they will stay until going outside into the greenhouse. Today (20th) we have built and put into place the second raised bed! I’m so ecited! I was looking forward to marking that item off my garden todo list. But I can’t find the dang list!! Oh well. The basil seeds are being stubborn. i planted lemon grass seeds because I liked the test plants from last year, but I see no evidence that they survived the winter. Happily the seeds seem to all have sprouted. I planted 2 types of heirloom tomatoes and snapdragons. Progress is slow, but there is progress. If I continue this plant thing, I may have to invest in better grow lights. we shall see. I’ve been doing as mush as I can in the garden, whenever I can. I will try to relate much of what has happened. Today Dad and I moved the eucalyptus plant. It’s about the size of a small bush by now. but it’s unkept. So it is now in a whiskey barrel type pot and placed over by the yarrow. It looks good but we shall have to see if it survives the move. I finally got some cherry tomato seeds to germinate but not a peep from basil , jalapeno, or beef steak. I don’t know why the seeds are all so poopy this year. We got the last bit of dirt into the raised beds today. good thing to. Dad’s back (neck area) has been hurting. Losing cartilegde, which we do as elderly parents, but I am trying to ask as little of him physically as possible. I may start to separate the roma tomato seedlings today to encourage strng stems and see which ones will go in the garden and which will be given away. Still need to do some major pruning to the rosemary, but not sure when that will happen.