Helllllooooo Ladies!

The new roses have arrived! I had a nice little package on the stoop when I got home today-it was like Christmas all over again! They were all neatly packed in damp newspaper and arrived in great condition. I'm going to Syracuse later this week where my friend Renee has a freezer full of fish heads and guts that she'll give me to put under the roses. My lovely husband thinks I'm nuts.

I decided to take the plunge with Winter Sowing after some encouraging words from Catherine at gardnerprogress. I read up on how the whole thing works and figured it might not be too late to do a little this year. I got a bunch of milk jugs that I was saving for the Early Tomato Experiment (that's kind of gone by the wayside) and 2 plastic tubs from BigLots. Drilled holes, made labels, got some more soil at HD. I went with Alyssum, Foxgloves, Cosmos, sunflower, chamomile, nigella and coleus. I also finally got the delphinum pots out of the tupperware container in the fridge and put them in a milk jug. Everything is sitting out on the back deck. I wrapped the heck out of everything with tape-we've got psycho squirrels in the neighborhood and I didn't want to give them an easy target. I did all of this on Saturday-by Monday the Alyssum was starting to sprout-CRAZY!

I also started on my trenching project on Saturday. I got a nice flat, square shovel from Bristol's Nursery- it's a Fiskar's "the Best Shovel Ever" or something like that (late Birthday present from DH). I have to say it's quite nifty. The Y shaped handle is very comfortable and there are little treds on the top of the shovel part for me to jump on to get it to go deeper in the soil. I had read somewhere that Victorian Trenches are very labor intensive and not for the faint of heart... blah blah blah. Whoever wrote that was kind of a whiner. It's really not that bad. I did the beds on the West and South side of the house in a few hours. I think the key is to do it when the soil is nice and damp but not frozen. I can't imagine it would be a lot of fun to do in July when the ground is hard as a rock. Or in January when it is hard as a rock for a different reason.

Tomato Update: I think97 is the final count for the tomato plants. I'm sending out emails to friends asking them if they want any. I sent some down to my SIL in MD along with some Grandpa Otts Morning Glories that I started from seed saved from my house in NC and a rose bush that I propagated from a cutting last summer. I need to take it easy with the tomatoes next year.

I saw a tulip this week- woo hoo!