Notes for March 31, 2009

It rained Sunday evening and I emptied 0.2" from the rain gauge on Monday.

I started my tomato and pepper seeds last night. I put the pepper starters on top of the electric grow mat I got for Christmas. It says on the mat that it is only designed to be about 10 degrees warmer than the ambient temperature. So it should work nicely.

I need a couple of nice days off to get caught up. I have piles of leaves to clean up and a garden to till to plant radish and spinach. Saturday looks to be a nice day but Sunday looks to be a full schedule with no time to the garden or the yard.

Notes for March 29, 2009

The weather fore-casted for this weekend said that nothing outside was going to get accomplished. But instead, life interrupted and I got done very little. On Saturday it was damp, dreary, dismal and drizzly. But at least I did get some seed starting soil mix in hopes to get some seeds started today (Sunday). I would have got more done but I spent most of the day getting a car exhaust repaired.

Sunday morning I did a bunch of things before church so maximize my time at the seed starting bench but life interrupted again and instead, all I got done was some household weekly chores. I will try again each night this week to get my tomatoes and peppers started. And to top it off, the afternoon was beautiful. The sun is out, its in the 60's and muggy. Thunderstorms are expected this evening. So in preparation, I did set out my rain gauge and so my blog will keep track of it.

My onions haven't sprouted yet, but we did get some light rain this week. the daffodils in the yard are in full bloom and there is a nice line along the back fence.

Notes for March 23, 2009

All right! Things have started! I finally got out in the yard yesterday and did something. I planted onions (yellow and purple). To prepare the onion bed, I added leaf mulch, bone meal and wood ashes and then turned the soil. After leveling it off, I added a little more wood ash and bone meal and then scratched it in before planting the onions.

Then I started working on the wind blown leaf piles in my yard. The first one I took care of was the one against the house by the back door. Since our back door is two steps below grade, the door well gets leaves and then the leaves get tracked into the house. Then I cleaned out the leaves along the back fence where the daffodils are coming up .

Not bad for two hours of work.

Notes for March 12, 2009

I finally got my seed/plant orders off. I ordered the usual as well as some new things. I ordered some ferns, some Hosta, an orange Iris and a red Iris, a pink dogwood and a magnolia.

My local garden center has onion sets in but they aren't open on weekends yet, so I am asking the wife to stop by. Hopefully I will plant them this weekend.

I stopped at the Aunt and Uncle's house on my way home from work yesterday and picked up a five gallon bucket of wood ashes that they saved from their wood burrning stove. They have another one nearly full and are still using the stove, so I am probably going to drop off another empty bucket maybe next week. I also picked up a small bag of bone meal this past weekend and will prepare the onion patch with the bone meal, some wood ashes and a healthy layer of ground up leaves before planting. Then I will get to the piles of wind drifted leaves around the yard.

Notes for March 4, 2009

Well I haven't made my seed order yet and I am feeling guilty. It doesn't help when you get 10" of snow either. I was hoping to clear the leaves off the daffodils soon.

Notes for February 24, 2009

I haven't made my seed orders yet but I think I am close to finalizing what I am going to order.

We haven't had a warm day since my last entry and I have been itching to get out in the yard. Especially since I noticed some daffodils near the house breaking ground. So that reminded me that I have daffodils in the backyard that I transplanted two years ago all along my back fence. Well all those daffs are buried under leaves that have blown in so I would really like to get those leaves mulched and into my compost piles (not to mention all my other perennial flower beds along the fences are buried too).

I broke down and bought some squirrel baffles. I have two suet feeders that the squirrels have been at this year. They haven't bothered them in years past but this year I think there were more squireels wintering around my yard. I have been averaging six when in years past I have seen mostly three. I bought the kind of baffle that hangs above the feeder and so far so good.

I have been looking around the stores recently looking for onion sets. I plant them as soon as I can in March. Every place either doesn't carry them or the doesn't have them in yet. I will also probably get a 30 pound bag of bone meal as well to add it to the soil when I turn it under in the onion patch and the rest of the veggie garden.

I think I might prepare my veggie garden a little different this year. In years past I have run the mower over the leaves that have fallen in the garden over the winter. I am still going to do that but this year I think I will bag them and place them back. I think last year I noticed that alot of what I mowed/mulched just blew out of the garden and into the grass. So I think I will bag it then dump it in the grass and mow it over again to get it finer and then dump/spread it in the veggie garden along with some additional leaves from the compost pile and then till it under mixing in some bone meal and wood ashes (from a relatives wood burning stove).

Notes for February 8, 2009

It was in the low 60's today and I took advantage of it. After I finally took down the Christmas lights, I picked up the fallen branches from the winter storms and I finally cleaned out the veggie patch of all the dead tomato and pepper plants.