Greenery

Chernobyl Rhubarb anyone?

Despite the generally dreary gray weather things seem to be getting green outside.

Veggies in the mud room seem to be thriving as well.

The tall skinny tomato plant in the middle is a "Sun Gold" tomato. It is supposed to be a fast growing variety tagged as 50 days to maturity but it has a distinct almost pot like smell to it.

Transplants and lawn repairs

Squash seedlings were outgrowing their pudding cups so it was time for a transfer to something bigger. Basil is still small enough to remain in its pudding cup.

Cut down 2 liter juice bottles will do nicely as temporary containers

Tomatoes, peppers, and herbs went in to new store bought pots as the ones we have used for the last ten years a bit long in the tooth. Lettuce went in to a couple of sections of old vinyl rain gutter with wooden end caps.

This way they can be put outside during the day and brought in to the mud room at night when it is cold.

Three or four hours a day of lawn work over the last 4 days. Rake, fertilize, grub insecticide, seed, till the soil, straw, and water. As you can see last weeks repair patch is starting to show some green.

Good chunk of change spent on all of it including 3 bales of straw that was still not enough to do all of it.

And a good luck charm? well two of them actually. Last Sunday we cracked two eggs in a row both with double yolks. How often does that happen?

Seedlings update

Manged to score a nice 10 inch tall Early Girl tomato plant at Wallyworld last week.

It was quite well along and had flower buds on it already

The tag on it indicates 50 days to maturity so in theory we should have tomatoes in a couple of months after it blooms.

Acorn and yellow squash is six inches long by now.

Spinach finally sprouted early this week

Lettuce is 2 inches tall by now. I definitely put way too many seeds in each peat pellet.

Mowed the lawn for the first time this year yesterday. The maples are just stating to bloom. Typical of this time of year, I'm doing trying to restore the salt and frost burned lawn along the edges of the property.

Every year its the same routine. I rake up the dead crab grass and loosen up the soil, spread insecticide, fertilizer and grass seed and cover with straw to keep the soil moist. As you can see I have yet to tackle the far corner where my neighbor's snow blowing dumps an unusual amount of sand and salt.  All the corners on my land seem to get an unusual beating each winter. Trucks run over lawn cutting the corner on the intersection, and the two far corners seem accumulate extraordinary amounts of sand and salt. Might try to vacuum some of the sand off those areas before restoring them. Also thinking about putting a spike strip on the outside corner so they learn to stay off it.

 To give you an idea of what I am going on about this is an aerial shot I took of out property last fall. Ours is the corner lot with the house and the gambrel roofed barn surrounded by the red stockade fence in the middle of the photo.