A Day of Hookie

I played hookie from work today and took advantage of the nice weather to get a bit more done. As usual, I started with a drive to the stable to pick up a few more garbage bags full of composted horse manure. The last couple of days have been dry so the job was easier. Much lighter bags!

Once home, I finished up the pansy planting and then started toying with the idea of putting a few heat loving plants in the garden. The forecast is for temps 65-70 for the next four days with rain. Nights are the concern though, they still are forecast for around 45-55. I ended up putting Cosmonaut Volkov tomato in a wall-o-water. My dilema is that I'm not only running out of room in the coldframe, but the plants are growing so fast now that it's either pot up or plant out. C.Volkov originates from Ukraine, is should love cool weather right?

Once started, I kept going. I put San Marzano and Siletz unprotected in a bed against the brick garage wall. I'm hoping the brick keeps them warm enough. Hole preparation wasn't exactly as I had hoped. Hubby thru out my eggshells that I had been collecting to add to the tomato holes. He was cleaning and didn't know what they were for. I had some shrimp shells handy that I thought about adding for the calcium but decided they would be too stinky and to tempting for varmits. So the first few tomatoes set out might be a little calcium deprived.

In this picture, the white blob in the back bed is the new row cover over the lettuce. It's ugly but oh my gosh it keeps the marauding deer and chipmunks away and stuff grows under it really fast. I'll use this stuff again, ugly or not! I'm a fan!

The balcony lettuce needs thinning but I'm being stubborn with it. I want enough thinnings for a salad. That means another week or so. Plus I like the way it looks with the crab petals scattered on it. I gave it a drink of worm tea this morning so hopefully that speeds it up.

The yard smells so great today, the lilacs are in bloom. I'm going to take a big bunch to work tomorrow. They make me sneeze like crazy but I don't care. It's worth it! Hey , maybe they'll send me home sick and I'll get another day off. heh.

I spent the rest of my garden time kind of wandering around, doing sporadic weeding here and there while at the same time trying to decide what was next to get done. It's the berm bed. It's about a hundred feet long, 15 feet wide and the whole thing needs to be weeded, cleaned up and top dressed with compost. That should kill some time before it's time to put the rest of the veggies out.

Today I also had my first garden harvest. Green onions and chives for the spring rolls with dinner. Yum!