Cruiser comes in from the yard with muddy feet from digging and as I wipe off his muddy paws, I think for spring he has reverted to being a dog.
First I get crocus, then the forsythia,
Forsythia is meant to grow wild looking, do not trim your forsythia into pod shapes, it will not get many flowers. Kurt has a few that he trimmed into pod shapes last fall and they have half as many flowers and are not good for much other than the birds love sitting on them.
With all of the rain, I have not been able to finish setting up my vegetable garden, but it is sunny this morning and I hope to get it done today. I did start seeds indoors. I am now educating myself on vegetable gardening and am amazed at what I do not know. My friends all know these things and I am reminded I am still a city girl. Do you know about companion planting? Hardening seedlings? Wide row planting?
I started seeds indoors. I started herbs and sweet peas. Those herb seeds are tough, you can hardly see them they are so tiny. Did that seed go in the dirt? Or is it still stuck on my finger? Is what is under my fingernail dirt? Or is that the seed, too? I bought some trays and some soil especially for starting seedlings. I can plant seedlings after danger of frost, here the average last day of frost is May 5, but I have to harden them first. That means introducing them to being outside, but bringing them in at night, so they get used to being outside gradually.
Some plants do not like each other and some grow better together. Plant chives with your roses and the chives will keep the aphids away. (Chives keep aphids away, oh, that is why Sarah has so many chives all over the yard, I thought Sarah really liked chives.) Cucumbers like corn, peas, radishes, beans and sunflowers. Cucumbers dislike aromatic herbs and potatoes. Lettuce grows especially well with onions and strawberries, carrots, radishes and cucumbers also are friends. Onions seem to be the biggest offender and I am not planting onions this year. I finally printed out the companion planting list and I can now see why you need to really plan your vegetable garden.
Wide-row gardening means grouping several rows together, rather than planting in single rows. This reduces the amount of walking room between rows, and saves space, saves time, increases yield and makes harvesting easier. It looks more like a random mix rather than the tidy rows I imagine vegetable gardens should be, but seems like a good idea for a garden that is only 4' by 4'. I like messy gardens over formal ones anyway.
All of the vegetable garden information I found on Ed Hume seeds,
http://www.humeseeds.com/ehndx.htm
For my birthday I received a letter from the IRS. Seems like I should have saved opening it until after my birthday, but it appears I have now paid off my taxes for 2008 and am now working on 2009. Almost three years of payments and applying two refunds and I am on to paying for 2009. Feels like slow progress, like trudging.
My birthday dinner was really fun. My friends are really funny and it seemed like an eclectic group, especially for Idaho. I was talking about women artists coming into their own after 40/50 and it turns out my friend lived in New Mexico and knew Georgia O'Keefe's houseboy. That's the guy 50 years younger that she married just before she died, so he inherited everything she had. This is the same friend that gave me flowers and then her fortune said that a friend would enjoy flowers tomorrow. I need those flowers back, I need to give them to someone else tomorrow. I told her I would be sure to enjoy them tomorrow, I'm not giving them back. Margo brought appetizers, penguins made with olives with carrot slice feet and chicks made with hard boiled eggs. She had trouble with the eggs, they were like deviled eggs made with 3/4 of the egg white as the body and the other 1/4 as a hat. The shell kept sticking to the white and she had to eat the egg and start over. (Did you know old eggs peel better?) She arrived at dinner full of hard boiled egg.
The friend that gave me the flowers told a story about St. Michael creating Idaho. God is creating the world and he creates everything in balance, good and bad. St. Michael (now, really, is their a St. Michael yet?) wants to try and he creates Idaho. St. Michael says, God, look what I created, beautiful mountains and streams and fertile land, and God says great, but where is the balance? St. Michael says, here, I also created the Idaho legislature! They really are a bunch of dopes, fortunately the legislative session is short.
Today is my daughter's 24th birthday. Happy birthday to you. In honor of her birthday, I will leave off with the lyrics of a song that always makes me think of her and cry,
10000 Maniacs - How You've Grown
"My, how you've grown."
I remember that phrase from my childhood days too.
"Just wait and see."
I remember those words and how they chided me,
when patient was the hardest thing to be.
Because we can't make up for the time that we've lost,
I must let these memories provide.
No little girl can stop her world to wait for me.
I should have known.
At your age, in a string of days
the year is gone.
But in that space of time,
it takes so long.
Because we can't make up for the time
that we've lost,
I must let those memories provide.
No little girl can stop her world to wait for me.
Every time we say goodbye
you're frozen in my mind
as the child that you never will be,
you never will be again.
I'll never be more to you
than a stranger could be.
Every time we say goodbye
you're frozen in my mind as a child that
you never will be, will be again.
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