i worked lots in the garden today. i went up early, perhaps 10:30, and just now got back to the house. I finally tackled the last section of weeds in the butterfly garden. it was very muddy... had three wheelbarrows full of weeds.

went up to highland garden center, and spent $10 on: 5lb of espoma fertilizer, 1 lb of grass seeed (blend of rye, fescue, and ky blue), and 4 peppers: 2 banana and 1 jalapeno and 1 cayenne.

we had some space to fill in the spot between the deck and medicinal herb patch. I went into the woods and i pulled a small patch of daffodil, when i seperated it there were about 15 bulbs, which got transplant planted into two groups (with bonemeal of course).

I also planted all the houseplants i was looking to get rid of. I know they'll only last a season, but i had stopped watering them a month ago. i just get tired of some plants-- i think i had the spider plant for 6 years.

i also looked in the woods for some fern but i couldnt find any.

we may need to purchase more lupine & painted daisy & maybe black eye susan.

Yesterday, I went to the garden near sunset after the rain. i was just there to look around, because I like the way it looks after a rain, extra lush and green, and the sedlines contrast better with the soil, so its easier to see whats coming up.

I saw a new critter sighting to add to the zoology of the honors garden. It was a skunk. It stuck around for quite some time. i saw it in near the same area where aaron and I saw the kingsnake a few weeks ago.

Today, I planted the sunflower seedlings. I planted them in two rows, staggered, 18 inches apart and 18 inches inbetween plants, marked with popcicle sticks. I think i planted 21. Eight were 'evening sun', with four planted on each end. The remaining 13 were 'valentine'. There are four seedlings left as replacements should we need it. Each planting hole got a trowel full of compost and a trowel full of peat moss and a half tablespoon of bonemeal.

Peppers and tomatoes will definitely be ready for planting next weekend. No bean or pea sprouts yet.

Today i removed the butterfly weed from the fridge and soaked them so they can germinate.

Somebody's been eating their spinach.

Wow! That was one big rock Jim uncovered! I tried to move it and almost pulled my back out. How he got it out of the ground I don't know, unless he got one of those adrenaline bursts of the type that allow mothers to save their children from burning automobiles.

I'll admit it. It hit 75 today and I think it's too hot to garden. I did go out earlier in the day and noticed a few sprouts in the lupine plots, which means I must have done something right with the seeds (the package suggested soaking in warm water for 24 hours due to their hard outer shell, which I dutifully did--the seeds, not me). I'll water everything in the ground (flower beds and bean/pea poles) before I leave today. Looks like we have a good chance of rain until the weekend, which if I recall is our last weekend of total focus on the flowers before we have to start working on the veggie plot. If we can get the butterfly garden edged on the far side, mark off where the walking path will be, and finish weeding in the upper right corner, we should be in pretty good shape. The butterfly weed I think can go in as early as 2 weeks from Saturday (May 17), unless Jim wants to wait until the 25th.

I found out during our blogger woes that the free version does not support embedded images, so when I finally get some pictures together we'll have a link from the main page to those.

Aaron and I continued to clear space in the butterfly garden today. After he left, I got crazy and ended up finally removing the giant rock that had been annoying us for so long. I didn't break the shovel either!
I was on the Garden Web Tomato Forums and someone had posted that a company was selling heirloom tomatoes for 8 for $35. Jeez! That means when we were selling our plants 4 for $1 a few years ago, we were ripping ourselves off! The site commiting the robbery on the tomatoes is Cushman's . I know i've seen their offerings in airline magazines before. More than $4 a tomato!
Maybe this reaction explains why i buy gardening books with the title "The Frugal Gardener" ?

I think this is a cool idea. The program is 30 years old, but today's the first day I was conscious of it:
National Wildlife Federation's Back Yard Habitat

Ah, spring. the last two days have been beautiful, and Aaron and I have been quite busy in the garden. Aaron finished up another patch for planting wild flowers, a crescent of painted daisies. That plan is going to be really, really cool when it gets finished. By next spring, its going to look terrific. It will take that long for the perrenials to establish themselves.
We turned the compost today. In 2 weeks it should be ready -- just in time for use in the vegetable garden. We poured the leachate on the strawberries.
I fixed the strawberry patch by creating a edge to the bed. I only needed to do about 10 feet, it took an hour.
We did an experiment. I read on botanical.com that Sunflowers are quite high in potassium (30-40% i think it said). If burned the potassium is better released in the ash. So we used the grill and burned the left over stalks. We plan on using it when we do our transplanting - a half tablespoon or so mixed in the soil of the transplant hole along with the bone meal. I'm thinking of picking up some bloodmeal this year and mixing that 50/50 with bone meal, and now the wood ash... should make a decent organic fertilizer.
We planted the peas and beans yesterday. Aaron put up 2 pyramids to grow our peas and beans on this year. We used inexpensive (98 cents) 1x2x8 to construct them. They are far more interesting looking than the fences we grew them on last year.