Bird Feeding Tips: Beyond what most folks tell you

I like to feed wild birds. It's like having a giant aquarium, with aerial battles and better sound effects than an aquarium pump and bubbler. I haven't fed wild birds in a long time. Setting up my feeders reminded me of a bunch of stuff:

When you start out, don't expect a lot of birds, even if you see them all over the place. They not only need to find the feeder, but learn to trust it. If you think about it, a bird feeder is a very weird, unnatural thing. Give them time to figure it out and learn that it's not evil or some sort of bizarre trap.

When you first put out the bird feeder, don't fill it all the way, and prepare yourself for the possibility that the seed may go bad before enough birds come in to finish it. Always clean out the feeder if seeds have gotten moldy inside, and dry it out with a hairdryer before putting in more seed, or the mold will just come back and spoil seed that might have lasted much longer if you'd cleaned out the feeder well in the first place. Not only will birds avoid spoiled seed, but if they're desperate enough to eat it, they can get sick, possibly die, and it can cause problems that prevent them from raising chicks, or kill chicks that they're trying to keep fed. Anyway, unless you have someone else close by who is also feeding birds, the local birds may visit it only sporadically while they figure out if this is going to be okay and safe. Braver, bully birds may be your main customers early on. Plan for that, and increase the amounts you place in the feeder only when there are enough birds to finish it before it goes bad.

About millet: Although a lot of birds love millet, a ton of it ends up on the ground, which gives it a bad reputation among bird lovers. If you watch the birds feeding, you'll find there's usually a good explanation. In my experience the main reason millet ends up all over the ground is because they're part of a mix and jays are sweeping through the tray with their beaks to get to the sunflower seeds. Juncos and other birds that like feeding from the ground can do an all right job of picking up these sweepings off the ground, but the jays can be so messy that they simply can't keep up. My solution? I rarely buy mixed seed. In my experience, if you feed mixed seed then the birds will always keep dumping stuff to get to the stuff they see just out of reach through the feeding port. My chickens are the same way. I feed them a uniform layer pellet in their feeder, and mixed seed (the scratch) is distributed only on clean ground or in small enough amounts in a heavy pan that it'll be all gone in a few minutes. To attract different birds, I put thistle in one feeder, sunflower in another, and peanuts in the shell in a feeder that's a bit tough to get them out of to keep my jays busy and entertained. Seed is relatively cheap, but why waste money by feeding stuff that mostly ends up on the ground?

Speaking of stuff on the ground: it will happen. There are parts of the seed, usually hulls but also bits of seed that escape the birds when they sit and crack them before swallowing, that will end up all over under the feeder. Birds also poop while they eat. Even the mixes that have been shelled will not have pristine ground underneath. If you're fastidious, you don't want a deck feeder, nor do you want a feeder stuck to a window with a suction cup with your favorite lawn chair sitting underneath. I recommend siting your feeder in a sweet spot where you can both see the feeder, but where the debris will serve a valuable service: namely, fertilizer and mulch. I have feeders on and among a grove of deciduous trees beside my house. The trees were struggling along until we came along and pruned off dead and crossing branches, and set up a feeding area under them. To us, those small birds don't seem to produce significant amounts of fertilizer, but that little bit made a huge difference to our trees. The hulls and broken bits of seed provide valuable mulch, contain organics that help loosen and condition soil, and the whole mix of debris attracts earthworms and other organisms that enrich the soil. Alas, it's not worth it to plant pretty flowers around the base of a feeder unless it's a big enough one that they're somewhat protected from all the falling stuff. But, if you have a moveable feeder, you might consider changing the placement by a few feet each year and plant annuals where the feeder was before. Turn what a lot of people consider a disadvantage into an advantage!

A special note about hummingbirds: sugar water can spoil rapidly in warm weather, which will harm the little jeweled jerks. My answer is to feed in fall and spring, when flowers are scarce, and wean them off when the garden begins to flourish through the summer. I have a lot of plants that are great for keeping our hummingbirds well-supplied with nectar, and natural nectar is better for them anyway. Yes, it's nice to have them humming around your window where you can enjoy them, but you can also plant something like a honeysuckle, train it over an arch set over a bench, and voila! Perfect place to read in summer. Not as convenient, yes, but these days we need all the excuses we can get to go outside.

Another note about hummingbirds: they are fast but unfortunately cats can catch hummingbirds. When planting for hummingbirds or when feeding them, consider height. You can't control all the predation that goes on. Cats will get the adorable little hummingbirds and it's sad, but not technically your fault. To keep yourself as guilt-free as possible, place hummingbird feeders very high and prune up plants that produce attractive flowers, or put plants meant for hummingbirds in hanging baskets or in tall containers. The death zone for hummers can be quite high for a skilled cat that has decided that hummingbirds are favorite prey, but it seems to me the worst area for them is at ground level up to about three feet. At that height range even a cat that's not that into birds may be tempted to give it a go. To be safe, try to get feeders and plants up above five feet whenever possible. Lastly, although male hummingbirds will sometimes make attractive nests quite high up, often the females, after choosing that male to be their beloved, will nest much lower and that's where they'll raise their chicks. In fact, many birds nest much lower than you'd expect. So be careful when you're gardening!

There are lots and lots of reasons why you want to do your main pruning, plant moving, etc. in late winter or mid-to-late fall, but one of them is that you may inadvertently destroy a nest full of chicks, or expose them to the weather and predators. Also, beware of disposing of debris piles that have sat around a long time. A random summer day may not be the best time to light that baby up. Quite a few birds like nesting in what they see as a nice, undisturbed debris pile where large predators will have a hard time finding them, if they even bother to look in such a place. The birds don't know it's slated for burning at your next convenience. Thank you for checking or simply waiting until after the nesting season before you dispose of that loose pile of branches from the wind storm a while back. Conversely, if you want to create an odd but often attractive nesting site for birds that like to nest close to ground level, you can build a debris pile for them, and make it quite attractive with complementary plantings and found art. They may or may not use it, and eventually decay will make it flat, but a debris pile can be attractive for quite some time and if you do get some nesting birds there, it's super fun to watch them dash back and forth while they're raising their babies.

Thank you for reading!

My Garden and Two Spiders

A couple of things about spiders ....

I'm an arachnophobe. It took decades for me to be able to be around them whilst remaining somewhat rational. I was even afraid of killing them. I'm generally averse to killing things just because I don't like them or because I'm afraid of them, but I was also so physically revolted and terrified of them that their deaths and dead bodies were just as bad as the living things.

Years later, through education and working on being around them and observing, I'm now able to garden with them. It's not easy. They have to be 'my' spiders, the spiders that live outside in my garden and who generally leave me alone and if they happened to hitch a ride on me by accident, they're as eager to get away from me as I am to have them off of me.

I want to mention a couple in particular today.

The first is the so-called common garden spider, which I've found to be somewhat uncommon in my area.

I love these spiders. They're huge, which makes them somewhat easy to spot (so I can keep my distance) and they tend to make their webs in or around very tall grass, at least in my garden, so they've never once (so far) stretched their webs across one of my paths and nailed me in the face.

They're also artists. They weave something down the middle of their orb web to look like something an insect might want to land on, or that at least blends in a bit with the wheat and other grasses they prefer.

The other kind, although I garden with them side-by-side all the time (not by choice, they're extremely profuse) I'm not so fond of. They lurk on pale flowers and kill bees. Now, if it was a bee here and a bee there, I wouldn't mind so much. But these are first-rate bee killers, and they don't seem to have an off switch. I've seen one kill a bee when it had several dead ones already, and I can't imagine a spider that size needing that much food. But, what do I know? Maybe they lay a single egg on each one or something like that. I call them white crab spiders, but I'm not sure what they're really called. This time of year most of the ones I found were tiny. In spring, when I have my first flush of rose blossoms, they're all over the white roses, and the cream and apricot ones, and they also lurk near the pale pollen on my giant tree peonies.

I won't go on an active campaign to destroy them all, but I also don't care for them and given half of an excuse to mush one, I will. I also snip flowers that are the least bit faded that have them on them and put them in the compost. I'm sure that doesn't do much to them, but maybe, on their way to find a new pale flower, they'll be eaten by the heaps of jumping spiders and other hunting-style spiders that roam through the grass.

Happy gardening!

Brrrr

Like a lot of people, we're in the teens (F) with snow coming down. It's a good day for hot brandy and writing with a dog curled up close by. Not so good for going out and covering roses that should have been covered all along (oops) but my DH and I did that too.

This is how mean I am. I make my DH smoke outside, even in this weather.

I hope everyone is warm and safe and well-fed. Keep your pets close, and don't forget ... in about ten days you can start some veggies from seed, provided that you have a plant light combined with a sunny window or sliding door area (the combination really helps) and that you're willing to pot your plants up at least twice. Herbs, tomatoes, eggplants and peppers are all worthwhile starting right now. And if you like hanging baskets, if you start them in March they should be huge by the time it's warm enough to put them outside! Just remember about that light requirement. They need a lot of light, and a good spectrum. I like using 4' aquarium lights in a shop fixture next to a window. I have my lights on a timer. Right now they're over my orange trees. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I start my veggies, aside from make my annual mess when I rearrange everything.

Also next month, if you took your fuschias and geraniums into the garage, find a spot to hang them in the house where they'll get some light, start watering them, and prune them. The warmth, moisture and light will stimulate growth, and they should be in peak form by Mother's Day.

Weird things Kamis do

Kamis are notorious for doing weird things.

This morning, this Kami got up at 6am so she could take down the hummingbird feeder (which she forgot to take in last night), thaw it, and fill it with fresh, warm nectar. She was very happy when the hummingbird showed up about an hour later to tank up.

Then she decided to take a look at her African violet seed pod. It was ripe! She danced a little happy dance, picked it, and then took a picture of it. This is what they look like:

African violet seed pod

 She's really looking forward to planting the seeds and raising them up to be new african violets. She has a bunch. This one was probably fertilized by a fly. Since then, she's hand-fertilized several other blooms, and once again her plants are pregnant. It takes months for the pods to develop and ripen.

This may not seem all that weird until you realize that this Kami already has lots and lots of African violets. Yet she wants to make more. She will probably have to start giving some away.

Kamis have also been known to go out in their robe and slippers into the snow to take pictures of their cats:

Wizard in the snow with cute paw prints

Kamis also take delight when their chickens do weird things, like lay miniature eggs:

Tiny chicken egg, laid 2/2/2014

They'll even take pictures of said weird eggs early in the morning for a blog post. It's a good thing when Kamis have others, especially Rorys, take care of them because they may be too silly and weird to survive on their own.

Yay Chickens! And Seeds!

We've had some progress in our flock combining efforts. Well, efforts may be a strong word. Ever since they were out of quarantine, we've let them do whatever they want, and whatever they want has meant pretty much that they avoid each other.

Until now!

My DH has been feeding them at the same time every day, which has encouraged Sophie and Beatrice to come down to the coop because the new chickens get fed before them. And voila! They still don't roost in the same place, but I'm hoping that will change soon.

And then ....

The rooster finally started crowing the other day. He's so proud of himself! So I'm hoping that we'll have fertilized eggs come spring, and maybe even a batch of chicks if the little black hen gets broody. That would be so awesome.

In other news, I finally made my seed order from Territorial Seeds. Here are the veggies:

Armenian Cucumbers, Cherry Buzz Tomato, Chinese Pac Choi, Cube of Butter Squash, Flash Collards, Gold Nugget Winter Squash, Helda Pole Beans, Improved Dwarf Siberian Kale, Lemon Cucumbers, Planet Peppers, Kosmic Kale, Red Ace Beets, Stupice Tomatoes (from the former Czechoslovakia!), and Winter Luxury Pumpkins.

In the flower department I have:

Cheyenne Spirit Echinacea mix, Mow-No-More Flower Mix, Rosa Romantica California Poppies, Sunseed Sunflowers, and Unwin's Striped Butterfly Sweet Peas.

Whew! I'll probably pick up some fava beans from our favorite Middle Eastern grocery store, and nasturtiums and some main-season tomatoes from BiMart. Beyond that, I'm set!

Except.

The deer fence isn't around the garden yet.

Argh! I can just imagine them foraging their way through my lovely garden again this year, slaying my plantings with large-eyed, big-eared, adorable glee. I told my DH what I'd like him to do for the next stage, and the next time the weather is good and he has some time, he will make it so. Thankfully, realistically, it will be late May or early June before I dare put most of my treasures in the ground. The pac choi, collards, kale, and possibly some of the flowers are the exception. Everyone else will have to wait until the soil is nice and warm.  Sometime mid-February, I'll put tomatoes and peppers into seed trays, and maybe start some flower seeds to, and we'll go from there.

It's all very exciting. I think this is going to be a good year. Of course I always think that when I start planning, but I'm getting better at this every year. Here's to hoping!

Seeds of Spring

The seed catalogue arrived last week, and seedling growing supplies are in at the stores. Here's a summary of what I've found over the years of starting vegetable gardens on the west side of the Cascades in the Pacific NW:

Despite fears of 'starting too soon' (and ending up with spindly plants in root-bound containers) I always start late. So I'm going to order my seeds this week.
I can never start tomatoes or peppers too early. One year I ended up potting all the way up to gallon containers and they were gorgeous! We had a really good year that year.
I've tried starting squash/pumpkins indoors. Really uneven results. Direct seeding seems to work the best.
Even when starting indoors, early varieties of tomatoes work out the best. In particular I've had good results from Stupice, Legend, and pretty much every cherry/grape/etc. tomato I've tried. Main season tomatoes have always been a disappointment. Even when they get ripe in time, often the tomatoes succumb to various diseases.
Want to try an odd variety? More and more nurseries are offering Indigo Rose and other rare or unusual varieties that I've only managed previously to find in catalogues. Rather than fuss with a seed packet, buy a single plant. It costs more, sure, but there's far less labor, and it takes up less space in your garden (one plant vs. a whole row of something that may or may not work.)
Yes, you can make the soil in your garden too fertile. Guilty as charged. I have to set aside some space for plants that like impoverished or average soils to do well. Not all plants are heavy feeders. Blame my love of tomatoes for wanting to make the entire plot tomato-friendly.
You gotta develop a strategy of weed suppression that works for you. Not a weed-pulling schedule. Those fall apart, and not just because of time constraints. As your veggies get bigger and their roots spread, it gets harder and harder to work among them without causing excessive damage to them. For me, I mulch with weeds and compost. That may have to change this year (due to the rich soil issue) to mulching with straw, chips, plastic, newspapers ... I'll figure something out.
Row covers are your friend, not just to protect the young plants from unpredictable weather, but it also foils a lot of pests. Commercial farmers use it, and you can benefit from that because producers of the material keep the price attractively low so that the commercial farmers can afford to cover a whole field with the stuff and still make a profit on their veggies. Shop around before you buy, and do some research on the various types. I like the white, very thin stuff ... but you have to have every weed off the ground because when you go to pull it up, it'll tear and snag. So good housekeeping will allow you to use the same material year after year.
There's no such thing as too much shed and shelf and potting bench space. Now is the time to get organized. Pick a dry weather day, get out there in the freezing cold and mud and make sure you've got your duckies in a row.
Weeds grow year 'round here. Go get 'em!

I'll be ordering my seeds soon. I'll post my seed order when I make it. Happy gardening!

Rose Rosette Disease

Rose Rosette Disease.

I've been out of the horticulture world for a while. I garden a lot, I learned a bit of plant taxonomy, took classes in plant propagation, helped build a greenhouse, toured nurseries around the northwest corner of Oregon, and drove my husband crazy by collecting plant samples and drying them in weird places in the house and spewing Latin names as we drove through neighborhoods while studying for exams.

This disease was never mentioned in class. It snuck up on me.

Part of the reason is because it hasn't officially blipped on the radar in this area. Part of it is because thanks to a newly-developed test and the devastating loss of some important rose gardens, in 2011 RRD and the rose rosette virus have gained new attention.

It has no cure. Roses that have the disease have to be destroyed, and no new rose may be planted in its place, as the roots remaining in the ground may transmit the virus to the new rose. This disease has destroyed a huge number of wild roses, and many healthy wild roses are destroyed in an effort to restrict the spread of this disease.

The primary vector appears to be a particular sort of wingless mite that doesn't appear to live in this area, and so it may be that my other roses won't be affected, but it may also be true that they're already infected, and I'll lose them all. As symptoms arise, I'll destroy plants, and in their place put lavender and rosemary and peonies and try not to think about how much I loved the scent of all those blossoms in the early morning as I walked down my favorite paths.

I suspect that the rose was infected when I bought it, probably through root stock or a graft purchased from a nursery in an infected region. Last fall, the rose sent up a bizarre shoot. I thought it might be just a weird sport, and wondered if it would bloom. It did, beautifully. The stem remained red, as did all the leaves, and the stem was covered almost completely in thorns. It grew so tall and thick and fast that it easily broke in the next strong wind. Very short side shoots developed, with more rose buds, and one more bloomed. None of the side stems grew more than a couple of inches--unusual for a knocked down branch that bothers to grow side shoots.

In the spring, my husband accidentally mowed it where it lay. The grass had covered it up. I snipped it and forgot about it.

While surfing I ran across an article about the disease, and my heart sank. The stem covered in thorns, the red foliage that didn't mature to green, the very lush, brittle growth ... I had everything except the witch's brooms, elongated and twisted leaves and short stems growing in profusion from a single node, eventually forming 'brooms'. The next morning I went out. That weird stem was long gone, of course, but I had the rest of the plant to look at. It looked normal, except ... the red leaves at the growing tips looked twisted and puckered. No more stems covered in thorns, but .... I emailed our county master gardener program. They concurred with my assessment. Dig it up, burn it. Don't wait for more symptoms. Even if the rest of the rose isn't blaring signs of the disease, even though those leaves might be twisting for other reasons, even though the leaves may eventually turn green, because the rose was probably infected via a graft or root stock, because there's no cure ... there wasn't much point in waiting to see if the rose might not be okay. It wouldn't be.

I may have unwittingly spread the disease. I didn't disinfect the clippers after I clipped off what I thought was a weird sport. I don't have a lot of problems with powdery mildew, and black spot is endemic ... all my roses have at least a little black spot, and so I don't worry about making that worse.

That lack of foresight and basic sanitary practice may have cost me my rose garden. There are always diseases, known and unknown, ready to arise in all our gardens that could kill living things that we prize and that rely on us for their survival. Sloppiness, laziness ... it's easy, but it's risky. I gambled. We'll see how much I lost. Maybe nothing. Maybe just the one rose, a rose I didn't infect, a rose that came infected, that was dying, though neither of us knew it. I surely hope so. Because I have some great roses, and I'd like them to stick around a long, long time.

Long Grass

Lack of gardening continues unabated.

It's been wet, cold and rainy, so gardening amounts to walking through during a break in the rain so I can evaluate what's going on, and applying slug bait.

These are actually really important things to do. I have seedlings hanging out waiting for a spot to open up. If a zucchini is destroyed by slugs (happened) or if a tomato is broken off by wind (might happen today--wowza is the wind rockin' and rollin'!) I can replace them without having my garden set back. It might not be the same sort of plant (tomato it will be--in the case of the zucchini, I'm going to stick a cucumber in its place) but the space won't be empty. Which reminds me--those seedlings need to come inside today, not because it's too cold, but too windy for them.

Slug baiting right now is super important, with frequent re-applications needed. This is prime crawling, eating and breeding time for slugs, and newborn baby slugs are really hungry. They also have this nasty habit of eating their way down into the crown of a plant and destroying it beyond any hope of recovery without ever being exposed to future applications of slug bait or pesticides. So, best not to let them have the opportunity. Early and often, folks. Early and often.

BTW if you haven't pruned off spent peony heads, do that now. Don't take any leaves off. The more stem and leaf you leave on, the better. Next year's blooms will thank you for it, and you'll take some weight off of the plant so that spring storms aren't as likely to snap off a stem or twig and make you cry.

I guess there's stuff to do in the garden after all.

Waiting for the next break in the rain, while the grass grows longer and longer ....

It's that tender root time of year

I've got almost my whole garden planted. It's really hard to say what the growing season will look like, but so far it looks promising. I'm a little worried that the tomatoes aren't growing lots of new green yet. That's probably due to the temperatures. We've had some low lows (one night below 40 degrees, very chilly for tropicals) and it may have set the tomatoes back. Once they're set back, they don't like to get going again.

But, they're still alive.

Also, there's a lot going on with plants that we can't see, mainly, root development. It's easy to focus on the leaves. Why aren't my leaves bigger? Why isn't the plant taller and more full? What are all those yellow spots and purple patches? Oh noes, there are little holes in the leaves! But these things, though they may signal something like flea beetle damage, aren't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. As long as the plant has enough surface area on the leaves to get sugar to the roots which can then fuel the development of new healthy leaves, ultimately the plant can be okay. It's much harder for the plant to recover from bad stuff going on with the roots.

For best root health:

Drainage, drainage and drainage. Here in the Pac NW it's easy for plants to get cold and waterlogged from chilly spring rains.

Mulch. It brings good soil organisms closer to the surface where they'll help aerate and fertilize soil that's closest to those young seedlings whose roots don't go very deep. Also, it keeps competing weeds down and helps warm the soil from the previously mentioned shivery rains.

Don't go too crazy with pulling weeds, especially if you use tools. You may be inadvertently damaging your plant's roots. Especially when the plant is very young and vulnerable, it's better to snip weeds that are growing very close to your plant, and to gently rub out tiny seedlings rather than using a hand rake on them.

Happy gardening!

More Garden Geekery

Did something today I haven't done in a long time. I cut flowers for my table.

Also, I was very bad and bought a tree peony, Golden Experience. They say I can hybridize using the pollen from this plant. I'm not sure if the other peonies I have are able to do this, but hey, it's worth a try, right? I have two other tree peonies that I'd love love love to cross with this beautiful plant. And who knows? I might help create an incredible new peony. That would really be something. Of course I won't find out what the offspring will look like for ten years or more after planting the seeds ....

Which makes me want to play with roses, which have a similar seed-to-flower span.

Yes, it's a long time for payoff. But people who do this sort of stuff don't think like that. They don't think about payoff so much as love. I didn't raise my children for a payoff. There's no time at which point I'll feel like I've gotten something in return for my time and effort.

I can plant a seed, and help it grow. I can appreciate what it becomes. The pollen, seeds, plants--they do the actual work. I provide a nurturing environment and occasional guidance. That's it.

So, maybe if I remember, this year it'll be roses. Next year, peonies. It'll be a whole new adventure.

If you would like to give it a go, do some reading first to save yourself some trouble. First of all, not all blossoms have viable pollen and seed production capacity. Second, to control pollination, bag the blossoms before they open (careful to make sure there aren't any bugs first) and then mingle the pollens after the stamens after the flower has opened into full bloom. To prevent fungal issues do this only in dry weather and use paper bags. To figure out when the buds have opened into full bloom, mark buds on the same bush that are at the same stage as the ones you're using. Mark on the bag who the daddy is. And keep records someplace easy to find--on your computer is okay, but it's actually better to have a easy-to-find gardening book that you make entries into on a regular basis.

Of all the gardening things I do, it sounds easy-peasy compared to digging out new beds or weeding!

Baby Roots

Sorry about the long break between posts.

I came home yesterday from work with the intention to go working out. I just had to do one thing 'real quick' in the garden.

Two hours later I had my 'real quick' thing done. The pumpkin and squash starts that absolutely, positively had to go in the ground or else went in. There were several that probably won't make it, or will be so stunted that it wasn't worth starting them in advance.

The thing about squashes, pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchinis, melons, etc. is that they hate having their roots messed with, especially when they're wee. Retailers sell them at nurseries and grocery stores but honestly, I would save my money. Except, that we're in a short season area for them. Long season for just about everything else. It's just that for crops that really need hot weather to get going, we don't get that hot weather, not for long. So although my roses are in full bloom and happy, the tomatoes are still shivering.

If you must buy pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchinis, melons, etc. at the store and take them home to plant, this is what I'd do if I was doing as I say instead of as I do (which is plant my own in peat pots and then wait too long):

Don't buy any where the root is coming out the bottom. At all. Peat pots are better than the plastic.
Plant them ASAP, preferably as soon as you get them home.
When you do plant them:
Prepare your area very carefully first. Weed, dig around to make the dirt soft, and make a little hole that's almost exactly the right size. Just make the hole a bit deeper (1/2 inch to an inch, depending on the size of the starter pot.) Use the pot to make sure the hole is the right size. Stick it in the ground, gently compress the dirt around it so that the hole doesn't collapse, and pull the pot back out. Don't worry if it does collapse, you'll be fine if you made it deep enough that a little extra in the bottom won't matter. Get scissors and (very carefully!) cut an x in the bottom of the pot--

Unless it's a peat pot!

Just trim the peat pot (with scissors, don't tear because you might tear down to the roots) down to the soil level if there's a rim, which there usually is. Put some water in the bottom of the hole and then plant the peat pot. (Make a shallow well around the plant and make sure the whole peat pot is covered.)

If it's not a peat pot, proceed to cut from the x up onto the sides a little bit so that you have a guide. Set the pot in the hole you made, make sure again that it's deep enough, and add water. Then cut down the sides down to the lines you cut on the bottom. Gently, gradually remove the pot from the plant, cutting wherever necessary, filling in and gently compressing the dirt as you go so the roots are disturbed as little as possible. Make a shallow well so that water will tend to pool around the plant, but dirt doesn't drift toward the stem when you do water.

You're done!

Sadly I've been too busy to deal with my starts so about half of them had roots poking out the bottom. Sigh. But, I also planted seeds directly in the ground a few days ago. With a little luck, between the two I should have something to show for my trouble come autumn. I will say that although it's a lot of trouble, it's very worth it to grow your own vining broadleaf hot weather plants. Try using them as ornamentals, and even the heavy-fruited ones can climb, though I wouldn't let a pumpkin climb up enough that its fruit won't touch the ground or have some support when it develops past the 10" size.

Garden hour(s)

I got a whole bunch of gardening stuff done today.

It's too early to plant tomatoes, and definitely too early for peppers, but I did it anyway. We've had unusually good weather, and it's very close to tomato time here (Mother's Day for the lower elevations, June 1 for me) so I went for it. I'm holding back my main tomato plants, though. I mulched heavily on the tomato and pepper rows this time, which will hopefully generate a lot of heat and keep those plant roots warm. This is the origin of the term hot bed. Farmers would lay down partially rotted compost with a layer of mulch and heat up the soil for tender seedlings. It is possible to make it so hot that it will kill the seedlings and seeds, so it's not a place/method in which to put your one prize (fill in name of special plant.) These are sacrificial plants that, if they survive, provide a jump on the season and yet aren't a catastrophic loss if they all die or are set back so far that you may as well have planted them at the proper time.

Planted my fuschia starts in their hanging baskets. It's easy to develop feelings of inadequacy when I see the huge baskets of blooming fuschias for sale at most stores right now, but I take comfort in the fact that I didn't spend $60 on the three of them. Having said that, yes, I did buy two hanging baskets, one for sun, and one for shade, to cheer things up in the garden. They were part one of my Mother's Day gift, gotten early and enjoyed fully in the meantime.

Against my better judgement I transplanted two orchids that were in full bloom. I couldn't handle seeing them crammed in their thimble-sized plastic cups with the roots bound tightly around a couple of teaspoons worth of icky old moss. Hopefully they won't keel over from the stress. I got them very inexpensively, which is usually a red flag when buying plants, but Mother's Day is coming up ... the nicer one will go to my mommy, and the smaller one will stay with me as my Mother's Day part II.

Also against my better judgement, I transplanted a poinsettia a friend of mine gave me when she was done with it oh, around mid-January. It's producing new leaves and is still technically in bloom. It would have been better to wait until we were at the other side of summer, but I already had all my transplanting stuff out, and ... yeah. I'll fess up if it dies so y'all will know not to do as I do, only as I say.

I planted out my Mother's Day part III gift, a You Me Forever hydrangea in pale lavender with green tones. It's in a spot that I'll be able to see it from the house, and where I'll be passing it every day that I go out to garden. The You Me Forever series of hydrangeas are exquisite. If you do well with them and have an open spot, I highly, highly recommend them.

My boxwood and chamaecyprus (I'm sure I just butchered the spelling) cuttings appear to be taking root. It will probably be fall before I put them out, but they'll need to be potted up in the meantime, probably in about a month, maybe sooner if I see roots starting to poke out the bottoms of the trays.

Geraniums went in the ground. Geraniums really, really don't like even the slightest cold weather. Mine are in a very sheltered spot, and I'll run out and cover them if the weather report warms me of a cold night in time. I should have waited, but the warm weather makes me dumb like that.

I put chicken wire around the new plantings and a purple rose that would make me cry if the deer ate it before it bloomed.

And lastly (actually, I did this firstly) I switched our back outdoor faucet into growing season mode. It now has a four-way split on it with a little gizmo that prevents water from siphoning back into the house from the icky hoses.

No hard physical labor today, but I'm pooped. I'm glad I had help from my daughter.  And now, bed.

After I set up to plant seeds tomorrow.
Because I'm crazy and I'll garden until after midnight.

What seeds, you ask?
Pumpkins, winter squashes, cantaloupe, cucumber and corn.
Yes, I know. I'm both too late, and too early. But not really. All these items detest transplantation, and need warm soil. By giving the pumpkin, cuke and squash seeds a head-start in the house, and planting in peat pots, if they make it I'll be ahead of the game. I'm also direct seeding all of these later on. As for the corn ... I've failed and failed and failed and finally I think I'm going to try to start them in trays and plant them out when they're really gotten going. Knee high by July is my goal.

I think that's everything for today. Tomorrow is another gardening day!

A neat patch amid the chaos

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming, the cats are lounging around on the deck with their eyes half-open ....
And I have to mow the grass. A lot.
I love this weather. Yesterday, drivers zooming by had the dubious privilege of seeing me in spandex wearing a Celtic knotwork silk scarf and a white headband (this would have been a lot more awesome if I was in decent shape) pushing a lawn mower back and forth across a lot of grass. At one point while I was messing around with the lawnmower (this was before I got it actually running) our garbage truck driver pulled up and commented on the gorgeous sunshine.
"Yeah, if I can get this lawnmower started, it's the perfect time to get this mowing done." I gestured to the orchard and the field beside it.
"You're going to do all that with that little push mower?" He laughed good-naturedly and stared with disbelief at the half-acre or whatever the heck it is.
I had to laugh too. "Yeah, well, our ride-on lawnmower isn't working, and probably won't have a chance of working for at least two weeks, so this has to get done."
He shook his head and drove off. I got the lawnmower started not long after that.
And you know, I don't pay our son enough for that damned job. Holy crud. My DH offered to pay me $20 for it. I think I'm going to keep my day job. Of course, it only took about two hours. It was just a really, really long two hours. In fact, I'm still feeling that two hours in my shoulders, hands and legs. When I woke up this morning, my thumb and pointer finger were twitching.
Fortunately, the rest of the grass is in smaller patches and not as important to get done. I have paths to where I need to get without getting soaked up to the knees on those early, dewy mornings. "But Kami, it won't look nice with all that long grass ...."
Um, yeah, I know, but considering the state of my garden ... no one is going to notice the really long grass. Trust me. It's everywhere. Having a tidy lawn-looking thing here would be a lot like having a tiny patch of lawn in the middle of a corn field. No one's gonna notice, trust me. Or, if they do, they'll have a little laugh like our garbage truck driver did.
The boy is coming over today to help me out over the weekend. I think I'm going to have him do some more mowing.  :-)

Time for Tomatoes?

I planted my tomato seeds yesterday. That's really, really late. I don't know how it'll go, but I guess I'll find out!

They're already selling tomato starts around town. If you decide you can't resist, here are some tips:

Pick ones with well-developed roots. A lot of times they'll have big, fat, beautiful tops (growers encourage that any way they can through fertilizers, etc. because big tops sell better) but almost no roots. No matter how pretty they look, trust me: you do not want those tomatoes. Shop around and hold out for the good ones. How do you know? First, see if any roots are poking out of the bottom. Do a small, random sample of the rack. Zero roots showing on three or four plants means that it's very likely that the roots haven't even gotten to the bottom of the containers on any of them. Second (please don't do this to more than once--the plants will probably all be the same-ish) you can cup your hand over the container with the tomato gently supported between your fingers, turn it sideways (or upside-down if the dirt doesn't start falling off right away) and pull the container off partway to see if there are roots out to the sides. if there are no roots, as a courtesy buy the plant if the dirt all falls off and repot the plant at home to grow it out, but don't buy any others. If there are enough roots to hold the dirt together, that's a good buy and you should buy as many as you want of that variety of tomato. Bear in mind different varieties of tomato develop at different speeds, so the Early Girls may all be fine, while the Mortgage Lifters may be meh.

When you get them home, don't put them outside, even in a sheltered area. They can go in one of two places: in a greenhouse sturdy enough to withstand the weather (those inexpensive kit ones you can get at most stores are great, but they must be tied down and protected from heavy rain/hail/snow because they crush easily) or in your home.  In the home, you can set them up just about anywhere as long as they get enough light. Sunlight through the window is not enough light. Get them an aquarium light or a plant light and set it just above the leaves, as in an inch or two away. Sunlight through a window is great too, as a bonus. Make it a warm-ish area, but not in line with a heater vent as they'll dry out too fast. It helps to put a fan on them for an hour every other day or so. The very still air in a house makes tomatoes grow lazy. The stress of wind on their stems helps both the roots and stems grow stronger. Don't blow them over, but give them something to resist.

If they have nice, big root systems, pot them up to a bigger size.

Fertilize them on a schedule, but don't over-fertilize. If you luck out and don't burn them, you'll still have issues. They'll grow lots of big leaves, but often the roots become underdeveloped and it's actually the roots you'll really need to grow good tomatoes.

Waaaaaiiiit to put them outside! People say any time after Mother's Day is fine. Well, not for me. I've always regretted putting them out that early. You can ... if you protect them. But I think it's better to just hold off for at least two more weeks, or if the weather is really lousy, until June. In the meantime, keep potting them up. You'll love how big and strong and beautiful they get. Plus, on nice days, they can go for walkies outside. Just don't put them out in full sun on the first sunny day. They will burn to a crisp. Which leads me to ....

Harden them off before you plant them in the actual garden.  Lots of people have lots of different methods. I'd go crazy trying to put them out for a certain time each day, and then putting them back in. Instead, I have this spot under my porch that gets about an hour of sunlight and then is in shade the rest of the day. Perfect. They're also protected from hail that way. Generally speaking, you can put them anywhere sheltered (shade is necessary, cover from elements is optional) for a week or two until they get used to the elements. Dappled shade is even better than full shade. If you haven't fanned them, tied them to supports. It doesn't take much of a gust of wind to knock them flat and potentially break the stem.

Watch out for bugs! It's really easy for plants to get buggy when they're young, and it doesn't take much to set them back or stop growth altogether. Their most vulnerable times are in the house when they're kept moist--perfect environment for fungi--and when they're first outside in warm weather and all the bugs in the universe are looking for an easy, succulent meal. Be careful when applying pesticides. Remember, this is a food plant and you don't want to use anything that isn't rated for food plants. Also, young plants can be damaged by some pesticides. Be gentle!

And last, but not least, when you repot, consider planting the tomato a little deeper than the original soil line. If you look at mature tomato plants, the whole main stem, and often the larger side stems, start to develop roots. If permitted to crawl along the ground, tomatoes will add more and more roots, which will develop a larger, more robust root system, and hopefully more and faster-ripening tomatoes. You can help your tomato get more roots by taking advantage of this. Just don't plant them too deep--never deeper than the bottom-most leaves--and hold off on watering a bit. Don't let them dry out, but you don't want the soil around the freshly-buried stem bit soggy until the plant has gotten accustomed to the new reality. The stem can rot or develop fungal problems. And, when you plant them outside, consider planting them at an angle instead of straight up and down so that more stem is in contact with the soil, or, again, plant them a big deeper than the soil line.

I'm really looking forward to the growing season. I just hope I get the deer fence finished in time!

The Voices, They Are Stupid

I've been working out again. As always, I've rediscovered that it's absolutely true that you end up with more energy, not less, when you work out on a regular basis.

And the voices in my head--man, they know just what to say. What's with that? Everything from a whining "I don't wanna!" to "I really don't have time to work out" to "It's my day off, I don't want to spend my day off at the gym," and everything in-between. A stupid one yesterday: "It's almost lunchtime, so I'll be hungry by the time I get there, and if I go work out now then I'll have a really late lunch if I have one at all, and if I eat before I'll be too full to work out."  Really? As if I'm afraid of being hungry for an hour or two. Anyone who's seen me knows that I'm in no danger of starvation any time soon.

The voices in my head have no logic. That's probably a good thing, otherwise I might cave in to them (more often).

The voices in my head are not who I am, nor are the voices in anyone's head who any of us really are. They are, generally speaking (at least in my case) a vocal minority expressing my fears that goad me into laziness, and are mainly concerned with maintaining my comfort level. That includes my success or lack thereof. To these voices, success is scary. It's not just fear of failure, which these voices also have. What if I succeed? Then (OMG) people might see me, might notice, and that puts me in danger. What kind of danger, the voices can't really specify other than a vague unease and the notion that people will mock me if they, for example, read my books. Regardless of what might or might not happen, it's change and we're safe right now without the change. We're safe and nothing bad is happening and if there's change then there's all this bad stuff that might happen.

What bad stuff, they can't always delineate. Even if they did, it probably wouldn't make much sense. (See previous mention of the lunch logic.)

The main leverage that the voices have is that I've been embarrassed and I've failed and I've struggled, and just thinking about some of those moments makes my gut knot up tight. So their vague threats do have teeth. Take, for example, my garden. I've spent a lot of money and time and effort on my veggie garden. Last year, I had almost nothing to show for it. The deer ate my tomato plants and most of the broccoli. They even ate the zucchini plants. The thought of all that loss makes me feel horrible. I wasted money, and I ended up looking stupid. The time spent I don't mind so much--I love gardening, and it keeps me in shape. Still ...  And I have this project where I'm going to fence the whole darned thing in to keep the deer out. In fact, I'm going to work on it today. So why am I here, typing (and playing Bejeweled) when I should dash out there right now and get to work?

Because of the voices. And when I press them past the "I don't wanna, it's my day off and it's cold and dreary outside" (although the sun is peeking out right now, yay!!) the best that they can come up with is "what if you don't have enough materials to finish and we can't afford to buy new and if you buy stuff we'll be short and lose the house or worse, what if you finish and the deer still get in and then we'll have lost the house and we'll be starving for nothing or worst of all, what if the deer stay out and the garden still fails? Then you'll be a gardening total failure because you can't even blame the deer and we'll have no food and no house and we'll all die and it's all your fault and your husband and kids won't blame you because they're so nice but you'll see their large, tear-filled eyes and know you are to blame for their total destruction."

This is, seriously, the best the voices can do.

Why do I listen to them? Why do any of us listen to the voices in our heads?

Right now I can't think of a damned reason why. I'm going to go out and work on my garden. Type atch'y'all next time!

The Wind, She's a Blowin'

The wind, she's a blowin'.

Around here, the wind gets going pretty good.  The land makes a natural funnel, channeling cold desert winds into a breath-stealing, icy howler that makes me wonder things.  Like, how do the sparrows not turn into little feathered popsicles, much less fly?  Is the wind really blowing through my lined leather jacket or is it my imagination?  And most compelling of all ... how are there still leaves in the trees beside my house?  I have plans for those leaves, evil raking into flowerbeds to kill the weeds plans.  The wind shouldn't have to blow harder to get those things off.  I mean, my glasses are in danger of being blown off my face when I go out to the truck to drive to work.  A little leaf shouldn't be a problem.

Not that I'm super-excited about raking leaves in the wind.  I think that's a joke, or country wisdom, or maybe one of Aesop's tales.  Don't rake leaves in the wind.

But I hope to get those beds full of free mulch, bugs and all because the bugs are better than the weeds at this point.  Maybe the bugs will eat the weeds.

Nah.  That's just asking too much.

I pin the leaves down with branches, of which I also have plenty around the yard for free.  Those branches don't have leaves on them, which I think may be some sort of tree conspiracy.  If they still had the leaves attached, I wouldn't have to rake so many into the flowerbeds.

But I digress.

We have a really, really big branch up in the bigleaf maple still.  The plan is to get it down out of there tomorrow.  Will the wind still be blowing, or will it be rain?  Maybe we'll luck out and have both at the same time.  Then I could justify having a big hot chocolate with toffee whiskey in it.  Maybe even have one before and then one after.  Yeah!  I could get good and liquored up and do something super dangerous in inclement weather.

Okay, maybe not.

Hey, maybe the wind will blow that big branch right out of the tree!

Consider what it's done with the leaves, I'm thinking I have a better chance of winning the Powerball.  But I have my ticket, and you never know.  Because the wind, she's a blowin'.

Tomatoes Forever

I'm still having issues logging in from home, which makes posting super-extra irregular.

The growing season is extra long this year, with unusually warm (and, unfortunately, dry) weather.  This means that even though I started my tomatoes kinda late, I'll have some ripe ones this year.  Yay!  One of my customers at work has already harvested about a five gallon bucket worth out of his garden.

I think this is the first year in three years (or more) that I've had ripe tomatoes.  Cold, wet springs have done them in.  The last time I had ripe tomatoes I kept the seedlings in my greenhouse practically forever, potting them up all the way up into gallon pots before I set them in the ground.  And they were fantastic that year.

Which makes me want to build a permanent greenhouse even more, one big enough to safely house a small propane heater to keep them toasty at night.  Because life is too short to go without home-grown tomatoes with the exception of an occasional good year here or there.

My DH and I have been making tasty lettuce-free salads a lot lately.  Here's one of my favorite variations:

Chop into bite-sized pieces: two tomatoes.  Place in a medium/large bowl, drizzle with about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste, and stir.
Chop up/slice:  one cucumber, two sticks of celery, half a green pepper, half a cup of black olives, half a cup of green olives, and 1-2 tablespoons (or more if you like heat) pepperoncinis.  Place ingredients as you chop them on top of the tomatoes but don't stir until the end of the recipe.

Add a pinch of salt, pepper to taste, two tablespoons of pepperoncini juice, 1 tablespoon of olive juice, and a pinch of dill.  Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of crumbled feta cheese and 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar.  Toss salad, taking care to make sure the tomatoes are all mixed in well, and serve immediately.

The Case of the Deadly Paintbrush

I'm having trouble posting from home again.  Oh well.

I'm trying a new product in my garden.  It's vine and stump killer.

I normally don't use much in the way of chemicals of any sort.  I try to spray the peach and cherry trees at least once in spring.  I don't always get around to it, and sometimes the leaves curl up and drop off in protest of all the fungal diseases even when I do spray.  But everything else, from black-spotted roses to zucchinis dusted with powdery mildew is on its own.  I think that we have the yummiest worm-ridden chemical-free apples in Clark County.

I think something snapped when I faced round three (this year) of cutting back blackberries out of my largest garden bed.  And we're not talking some unsightly runners.  I'm talking monster canes, some of which verge on an inch thick.  I cut these bastards down to the ground not two months ago and they're back and just as huge.  When I look at the stumps, the new cane comes out of the side of the old one just under the cut and just as wide as the original vine.

It's totally, totally evil.  I kinda have to admire it, though.  I wish all my roses were this vigorous.

So I went to the stinky aisle at our store and got this stuff.  You cut the vine and then use a paint brush to brush it on the end.  I've been dabbing it on the leaves too whenever there are some left below the cut.

The stuff didn't have a nasty smell, or make the vine blacken or instantly shrivel or anything.  Mostly it just made it wet.  I'm juggling an open container of poison and a toxic paintbrush around plants I love, cutting a few vines at a time, switching the brush to my other hand, wetting it, and dabbing the cut ends before I lose track of what I've done and not done ... and of course I'm halfway through this before I remember someone recommending adding food coloring so that I can see what's been done and not done.  A couple of times I felt something brush my off hand, only to see a valued plant, and I'm scanning the leaves looking for wet spots in case I have to prune off the poisoned region right away.  Not fun.  And once I almost fell over and that could have meant poison splashing everywhere.

But I'm determined.  I'm going to make this work.  I've done my job (mostly--I have a long way to go) and now it's the poison's turn.  Justify my labor and make my time and worries worth it.  Kill 'em, kill 'em all, down to the root.  Let's have a beautiful, blackberry vine free spring next year.  Or if not free of all those little guys I'll probably miss, let's at least not have to deal with MegaBramble.

Don't let me down or I swear I'll never, ever buy you again, you nasty, nasty chemical you.  Deal?  Deal.

Weeds, Tea and Soup

The garden is growing really, really well.  Too well, in some cases.  Can you have too much bok choi? Apparently so.  Sadly, the goats don't like it, which I find weird, but useful in that the deer haven't bothered it at all.  I guess I have to eat faster.  Something to think about--bok choi, when cooked, forms a nice, not-too-thick gel.  It might be a good ingredient for soups.  If an experiment comes out all right along those lines, I'll post about it.

Anyway, I noticed something that produced a duh moment for me.

I have areas in my garden where not just the plants, but the weeds are positively huge.  It made me realize that the places that have small weeds are under-fertilized.  Sooo ... when I put the beds to sleep (heh) in the fall, when I put down my homemade fertilizer and cover things over, I can put extra in the places where the weeds are really pitiful, and less where they're gargantuan.

Not that I'll have weeds, of course.  Everything will be perfectly manicured and weeded by then.

But if I did have weeds, I could totally use them as a gauge for how much fertilizer to put down.  Aaaand, the beauty part, if I overdo it in the fall, its not going to burn my veggies because I won't have any in the ground at the time.  It'll have time to mellow for many months before I plant again.  Remember, though, if you add amendments in the fall, if they're super water soluble, they'll just wash away into the soil too deep for the plants to reach them in spring, so either protect against rain or just wait until after your seedlings sprout in the spring.  Don't fertilize when you plant seeds.  It messes them up when they germinate.  If you must, scratch the fertilizer in at least six inches, preferably farther, away from your seed line.

Speaking of fertilizer, I have a scary bucket of chicken poo waiting by.  I haven't decided what to do with it.  It's super hot, and only partially composted.  I'm tempted to spread it between the smallest of my zucchini plants and maybe make tea with some of it to water with around the fruit trees.  Chicken poo is awesome fertilizer, but you have to be careful.  It burns, baby, burns!  There's really no way to measure how hot it is, so I'll have to guess.  In cases like that, it's good to remember that you can always add, but you can't take away the damage from too much once it's done.  It's not like too much salt in your soup, where you can stick in a couple of celery stalks or add potatoes to fix it.

Soup again.  I must be craving it.  I think I'll make soup for dinner tonight.

Watch out for the weather.  Stay hydrated in hot spots, and look out for lightning.  We had an incredible lightning storm just east of us.  It sounded like fireworks show off in the distance, and for a while I thought that's exactly what it was, a post-4rth show, until I looked out the window.  Often there were multiple flashes at once.  We don't usually get that kind of weather around here.  I was very, very glad I could appreciate it at a distance instead of being directly under it.  It must have been terrifying.  Here's the weather report for it.  Photos here.  BTW, it takes three to four hours for me to drive from my home to the worst-hit areas of the storm, but I saw the closest edge of it quite well from our deck.

Blood, Sweat and Seeds

When I got home I had two M&Ms cookies with a cone of whipped cream on top, and then I went to work.  You'd think after a full day at the day job I'd want to put my feet up, or maybe at least cook some dinner and watch a movie or something.

That would be far too sensible.

We had rain in the local forecast, and I remembered I had all these old seeds I hadn't gotten around to planting.  Bags and bags of them.  And I thought, I'll just scatter them around and the rain will soak them in and what comes up, comes up.

But of course it's never that simple.

First I planted some ancient marigold seeds out in the veggie garden, and then I checked out the area I had planned for my mass old seed dumping ground.  It's about sixty feet long and ten to twenty feet wide, depending on the section.  The kids had, as instructed, dug out the majority of the blackberry roots, so I figured I'd just toss the seeds on the bare ground and go inside and have dinner.  I grabbed a rake (big mistake) and went to break the crust on the soil.

Hard as a rock.  Seriously.  I felt so betrayed!  Normally the soil under blackberries is quite soft.  They form their own sort of (evil) duff that keeps the soil moist and suppresses weeds.  And a few of the areas were like that, but way too much of it felt like baked clay so hard that I understood why even the grass hadn't started to take root there (yet.)  First I debated attacking the areas with a hoe.  Couldn't find one.  Then I considered  a shovel.  Mind you, this is after work, and I knew it would get dark soon, and breaking up rock hard dirt with a shovel is no light, quick task.

The impending darkness settled it for me.  I would get the big rototiller.

One sweaty, sore, throat-sore-from-suppressed-cussing half-hour later I had the whole section tilled.  I scattered the seeds, keeping particular kinds more or less together, raked the now (mostly) soft dirt to roughly cover at least some of the seeds in case they needed to be covered to sprout, and went home.  I had just enough time to gather eggs from the coup and close the chickens in for the night before the dark swooped in.  I had to turn on lights when I came in so that I could find my way around the house.

So now I'm thinking (I'm crazy that way) that I'd just put a whole lot of work into seeding an area that may or may not have viable seeds scattered on it.  So sometime this week I'm going to do yet another ridiculous thing.  I'm going to get a bunch of fresh seeds of something tall, bomb-proof and pretty, like cosmos or baby's breath or bachelor buttons (or maybe all of the above), and mix it with a big bag of potting soil and scatter that around the area as well.

That should fix it up real nice.

And then I'll be done.

Except for putting in the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and other stuff.

Oh, and I have a few more discounted bulbs to put in.

But then I'll be done.

Really.

Mostly done, anyway.