The Crocuses are up!

We've had a nice string of dry, warm days. The backyard is no longer a swamp. The crocuses are up and blooming. I saw some snowdrops on my way to work the other day. Brandywine and Green Zebra are finally up. I still have quite a few that haven't emerged. If they aren't up by the weekend I may try to sprout in baggies. I went out after work yesterday and moved some of the choppedup leaves off of the flower gardens on the south side of the house. Things are coming along...

Things are growing!

Tomato Update: Black Zebra, Cowlick's Brandywine, Purple Dog Creek, Reifs Red Heart, Box Car Willie, Super Sioux and the 2nd Tomatillo Verde decided to join the party. I checked my wintersown containers and the Bachelor's Buttons are coming up. I dodged the raindrops today and moved some shredded leaf mulch around the flower beds and found all sorts of exciting things going on- Columbines are pushing through, daylillies, nigella, hollyhocks too. I have to look around and see if I mapped the flower beds because some things are coming up and I'm not sure what they are- ergynium maybe? I checked out some of the roses and they appear to have tiny leaf buds! The first bloom of the season is in sight: a purple crocus is up and should be blooming within the next day or two!

A flower!

Yay! My first flower of the season. Friday was a beautiful, sunny, warm day and the crocuses came out! Today was equally as nice, I dug up a quadrant of the garden and planted the peas. I really need to come up with a better plan for the pea fence, the one I have is chicken wire on two poles. It keeps trying to roll back up. It looks jacked up.

The seeds are coming along nicely. I potted up most of the tomatoes this week. I planted flax seeds (the ones that I grind up and put in my yogurt) they sprouted really quickly and seem to be chugging along. I'll start cucumbers and lettuce tomorrow.

I got some more roses with my birthday money. I got them from Countryside Roses: Ghislaine de Feligonde, Russelliana, Cornelia, Fantin Latour and climbing Clotilde Soupert. It really is a sickness, I have no idea where I'll put them! I have 9 others in the sunroom (from cuttings) I don't know where those are going either. I'm plotting out another bed on the Southeast side of the house by the gate. I think I'll put Ghislaine on the wall outside the sunroom.

I'm looking for a trenching iron, I have decided to go for Victorian trenches around the beds. I know it's a lot of work but I'm cheap and refuse to buy (1) plastic anything or (2) something else that grass will end up growing through the cracks. At my old house I used bricks and that pesky grass always got through. I have discovered it's hard to find a trenching iron around here. One with a Y or T handle would be nice, I have only been able to find one with a regular straight handle.

I went around the yard today and took tons of pictures of everything that is poking through the soil and budding out-it's very exciting! The delphinium that I thought Bodie clobbered last year is coming back up. So has a random poppy that I planted-it's blood red-it doesn't match anything else in the garden (I usually don't do reds) but I love deep red poppies and I had a heck of a time trying to find the right shade (I got it at Baker's Acres outside of Ithaca last July when I was down there for the rose class). Usually the reds have a orangey or magenta undertone. This one is supposed to have an almost bluish undertone. Fingers are crossed. My Thor rose is also a deep, deep red, I don't know where that one is going to go...