Sunday, April 12, 2015

Unearthing

Today was a fine sunny day, and the perfect one to get digging in the garden.  That being said, spring bulbs are some of my favorite things because they're up and blooming already, and I haven't had to do a thing!


My grandmother had a green thumb, and always had Crocuses and Snow Glories in the yard.  Last year, on a spring farm visit, I saw a few Snow Glories had made it outside of the yard fence.  I took the opportunity to dig them up and transplant them to my garden.  Lo and behold, here they are, doing well in a bed of Angelina Sedum with some Wild Strawberries mixed in.  


I did get a lot of actual work done in the backyard, though.  Over the winter, Justin built me cedar frames for my two vegetable and herb beds.  I use these to follow the square foot method of gardening.  There are sixteen squares in each frame, and you plan and plant each square separately.  I got about one third of the squares planted this afternoon, mostly with lettuce and radishes, but also some basil and cilantro.  

You can see that one square is already occupied by a small chives plant that overwintered successfully.  What you can't see is that one square where I had planted Red Orach last year (a funky pinky red salad green) managed to reseed itself, so I'm already ahead of the game there.  My cold frame is to the rear - I planted that today with a lettuce mix.


In other plant news, I'm fortunate to have a MIL that shares her fabulous plant collections with me.  We visited over Easter, and I came home with several different succulents.  The photo above shows a type of Gasterhaworthia - a cross between Gasteria and Haworthia that has a pinkish hue.  


And this is one of her large beds of Scillia, another type of spring bulb.  They are very similar to Snow Glories, except that the flowers are nodding, or downward-facing.




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