Working At Home Today- Plus Vegetable Gardening Tips

Working seems to be my only activity.  How did that happen?

The front porch is starting to look like a miniature nursery operation.  Seedlings Inc.  So many things out there and all looking happy.  My dahlia tubers are coming up.  And the tuberous begonias are over a foot tall.  Tomato and peppers seedlings are getting taller by the day.  Some are still only a few inches tall--the ones I started from seeds in the milk jugs.

I would like to get the onions into the ground today.  And I really need to haul bags of compost from the storage area over into the garden area and dump them into beds if my raised beds ever hope to look like the ones in the top photo (and I might get G to go with me in the truck to buy a half yard of compost).  And I think the beds in the photo have some sort of watering device attached to the tops of the hoops.  Why did I never notice that before?????

I also bought seed potatoes and want to grow potatoes this summer.  I waited too long last year and missed out.  If you want to grow potatoes--NO cow manure in your soil profile.  NONE.  Chicken poo is what they want.

I had pruned my blueberry bushes (very hard) a few weeks or months ago and they responded with a heavy load of berry flowers.  Which is a "very good" thing.  I need to feed them with Holly Tone. I also need to put on a heavy canvas coat and go into the blackberry thicket and prune that really HARD.  I am reminded of the thorns ripping the skin on my ankles bloody last summer as I picked berries.

I top coated my rhubarb plants with a heavy coat of blue crystals of Miracle Grow and they responded with a massive growth spurt.  Rhubarb LOVES fertilizer.  Yes, I heavily sprinkle the tiny plants with crystals and then walk away.  Rain and night dew melts the stuff into the plants and they go nuts and grow big fat stems and leaves.  Now--they grow while we wait for the June strawberry season and the sale table along the road to my house.  Just a card table, umbrella and a few ladies.  It's what Maine is really all about.

I am hoping to get my beet seeds into the ground today.  I "stole" some shims from the stockpile in the construction zone--how can I actually be stealing something I paid for?-- and split them to make long thin plant markers.  I think it will make the garden look "sharp". And remind me of what I planted--where.

The Herb Bed is now empty except for two lavender plants and a bunch of sage plants (all the mint has been removed to the front bed under the crab tree as ground cover).  The thyme my friend gave me as a gift is dry.  Dry equals dead. I am not replacing it because--truth be told--I don't like the taste of thyme in my food.  Once I add some additional soils I can try and make a "design" in the bed.  Like divisions or squares.  For parsley, dill, calendula, violets, lavender, sage, marigolds (red ones), chives, and a herb I purchased--and have thriving--but have forgotten what it is exactly. (*winter savory)  It's something you add to spiced nuts.  Oh, and I am forgetting the tarragon and marjoram on the back steps.  Still in pots from overwintering.  And the rosemary and bay leaves in clay pots. I also need to plant some basil.  Six squares by two squares.

ACK!!!!! So much to do--so little actual time to do it.  But ONCE it's done--I can just water, weed and pick.  Just.............laughing is better than crying.