Good morning, and the weather is still weird. Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.
Denver's weather ran 5° to 10° cooler than normal for most of the week; we had lots of clouds, and a little rain during the first half of the week — we've officially gotten over an inch of moisture this month, although it's still very, very dry.
On Thursday and Friday we finally got some clear skies and warm temperatures — it got to the upper 70s around my house.
And now, just in time for the weekend, another storm system is moving in — we may even get some snow showers. But I don't care — as long as it's wet. Damned but we need wet.
Besides, the revolving weather systems created some wonderful light; I took this shot Wednesday evening.
On Wednesday, my usual mid-week day off, I really would have loved to have been outside finishing up with sifting compost; or mowing the lawn; or plugging gladiolus bulbs into the ground.
Alas, it was too icky out. Instead, I shaved the cat.
Well, not really shaved the cat. Zasu Pitts Pootie has very fine, feathery fur and gets horrible hair mats.
I do my best to keep her combed, but she hates it. This time of year the mats are forming so fast and furious I sometimes can't keep up within the little blocks of time she'll tolerate being combed. So she ended up with a huge mat on her right flank. It took most of Wednesday afternoon for me to gradually get it buzzed away with hair clippers — and poor Zasu strapped in a harness and tied to a towel bar. And I learned another trick — cheap letter openers are great for splitting apart smaller mats before they get to pootie-and-person threatening size.
Thursday, however, the weather was beautiful — and the BossMan agreed that since we weren't busy, I could leave and tend to my garden.
I did a quick swing by the nursery, where I found 24 packs of creeping thyme on sale for $20. And the rest of the world apparently has caught up with me, as they are now selling roman chamomile 4-packs as ground cover. I also picked up a few odds and ends — some strawberry plants to try as ground cover in the front beds (it's now too shady now where I used to have strawberries in the back yard); some lemon and lime thyme to fill in where I had a lot of die off over the winter in the front beds; some pretty little dianthus; a red achillea for the planter boxes.
When I got home, I didn't even unload the car — after I dropped my back pack inside the house and changed clothes, I simply popped the hatch back, dug holes for the new plants, took them directly from the car and shoved them in the ground. While I was at it, I tucked a few kohlrabi, Cheddar cauliflower and romanesco broccoli into the front beds. Why use ornamental cabbage when I can have ornamental food?
I then moved on to a fast dead-heading of the daffodils, hyacinth and tulips, and confirmed my suspicion that much of my poor showing of spring bulbs this year was due to lack of moisture. The majority of the early tulips didn't even open — there desiccated bud-nubs nestled deep inside brown-edged foliage. A lot of daffodils also had unopened, dried out buds. Next time we have a March with so little moisture I'll know to get a couple of inches of water on the bulb beds to avoid another disappointing year.
After finishing in the front, I moved to the back yard where I finished sifting last year's compost; mowed the grass and chopped garden debris; refilled the compost tumbler; and plugged about half the thyme and roman chamomile into the grass patch.
I was also fortunate to get off work early enough yesterday to be able to finish with the thyme and chamomile, and start planting the nanas gladiolas before the wind started whipping up, bringing the next storm system in.
So now I'm in pretty good shape for the next gardening event — mid-May and planting out the warm weather crops. Well, except my tomato seedlings have really been a bust this year — another first. The first problem was a fungus that grew on the soil surface. It didn't bother the other plants, but the tomatoes hated it. Then was the trip down to the too-cool basement under the metal halide lights. The tomatoes are struggling to stay alive and have hardly grown. So this year I'll have to rely on whatever varieties of tomato plants I can find at the nursery.
This weekend I'll start the cucurbit seeds — zucchetta, cucumbers and melons — and the sweet corn. But I think I'll bake the potting mix to sterilize it before planting in it; I'm 99% sure that's where the Fungus that Ate the Tomatoes came from.
That's what's happening here. What's going on in your garden?