Garden Report: February 28

It's been a while since our last post, because nothing much has been happening here.

We're still waiting for the parlour wall to dry out, and there's a mystery water leak we're chasing to that end.

In the meantime, back to Spring. It's been raining. Here's my not-accurate rain gauge, which says we got about six inches of rain in the last few weeks. The dogs say that rain is delicious; they keep drinking out of the pot.

All over the yard, bulbs have been coming up. Here are some tulips and crocus. The tulips always come on very short stalks and then bloom, but I've decided to be philosophical about it. Not every tulip can be perfect.

I do have somewhat higher expectations of the tulips planted in the planters out front. Of course, I don't expect them to come back next year.

A few weeks ago I dashed outside and planted a bunch of bulbs I'd had chilling, including some species daffodils. They almost immediately started emerging. So procrastination doesn't seem to have caused any lasting harm.

And more amusing, in the fall I planted a bunch of bulbs around the pathways, but since then I forgot what I planted where (I knew what I planted, and where I planted things, but the connection between the two went missing). So now I keep seeing pretty little bulbs emerging along the pathways and among other plants.

Two old favourites are the Babianas:

And the anemones:

But a new addition is the Japanese anemone I planted by the side path. I admit I expected it to get taller, but it's very pretty as is, and a nice surprise as you look down while going through the gate.

Out front, the hydrangeas are leafing out, which is pretty funny looking. And yet, some of them bloomed before they even got this far leafed out, so they must be either incredibly stressed or really happy.

I'm looking forward to this Felicia elongata in the orchard opening those flower buds. It got a lot larger than I had expected this winter, so it should give a nice show.

Oh, and I had a question about my thyme 'Minus'. It is doing very nicely, indeed, spreading like mad. This patch started as an eighth of a 4" pot, and is now moving on to colonize other parts of the garden. I would say that whatever I'm doing (which is nothing at all) is working. This plant gets no supplemental water (that tube there goes to a dripper on another plant), has never gotten any supplemental organic material, and was essentially covered by an overhanging plant much of the last summer. It's much happier to have that plant cut back, but it was doing fine even so.

And last of all, from the garden at least, the nectarines and peaches are blooming. We're still in early days, with just a few flowers open. But in a week or so the trees will be covered.

So that's spring for the ornamentals. Inside, we have the massive seed-starting undertaking of the spring. Lots and lots of plants to be started, most of them ornamentals, but some of them food plants. I direct-sowed carrots, peas, squashes, and so forth out in the garden already.

And then the other day I sowed my seed potatoes.

I'd had them inside chitting for weeks, and finally decided they weren't going to get any more started than they already were. This is what a chitted potato looks like:

Except maybe it should not look quite so wrinkly as the one in the back there.

And the best photo of this large batch of photos is this: a freshly-planted potato bed. How much more exciting does it get than bare earth with some straw?

Technorati Tags: bulbs, flowers, fruit, gardening, hydrangea, plants, potatoes, seeds, springtime, trees, urban farming, vegetables

posted by ayse on 02/28/09