Let's try this again....

Good heavens, life just ROLLS along! I think I'll just say one thing here: Don't assume the unexpected will be what you expect. Things are okay.

Let's try this again....

More gardening

Yesterday, we went out to Jerry's and picked up 4 more faux terra cotta pots, and a couple large bags of potting soil, and some more tomato plants, and a blueberry bush. Turns out the pots were slightly smaller than the ones we already had, so I just put one tomato plant in each one. We had a pair of dill plants that hadn't fit in anything (which is why we'd gone to buy more pots in the first place) and they went into two of the 1-gallon pots left over from the tomato plants. And then I planted nasturtium seeds in a bunch of the barrels and pots (there's always room for more nasturtiums) and created starts with a package of Velvet Queen sunflower seeds and "Sparky" French marigolds.

Jewel nasturtiums

Velvet Queen sunflowers

"Sparky" French marigolds

I looked closely at the plants yesterday and today and everyone seems happy. Most of the plants are showing new leaves, there are additional flower buds on a couple of the big tomatoes, the fuschias have larger flower buds, and the nemesia and dill are spreading out vigorously.

More gardening

A day of gardening

I announced to The Babe this morning that I had a PLAN. (She made a disparaging comment; she's a hard woman.) This plan involved going to Jerry's and picking up bedding plants for the barrels and pots in the backyard, grout cleaner and sealers to deal with a grouting problem in the shower, and concrete to erect three trellis we've been waiting for warm weather to put up.  

This was an acceptable plan, so off we truddled. (Yeah, it's a word; deal with it!) We ended up buying about $200 of bedding plants, flowers and vegies both. Lots more flowers because there is always room for more flowers and vegies for the barrels. Last year's attempt to put the barrels in the back had not been successful because we didn't put drainage holes in them and they turned into aquaculture tubs. We bought a spade bit a few weeks ago and drilled holes in the barrels (which drained prodigiously) and they've been okay since then. So this time for sure (in my best Bullwinkle voice.) I got a lot of tomatoes, including Sweet 100s, the first cherry tomato I grew in 1979, the very first year Patricia and I started gardening, Seattle's best, an heirloom tomato popular in the Puget Sound, and Better Boy VFN. There's also a Sweet Pea clustering cherry tomato that I'm not familiar with, but wotthehell?  I also got two sweet red peppers--Red Knight--and two serrano peppers, a lot of sweet basil, and yellow and patty pan squashes. All of this is My Kinda Garden Produce.  

The Babe and I hadn't communicated about how many barrels were going to be used for what, so she ended up buying a lot of very nice flowers--brachysome, some yummy begonias with coleus-like leaves, nemesia, trailing lobelia, white geraniums, and half a dozen other flowers--that she'd thought were going into the same barrels and pots.  

We managed to get most of the flowers and all the vegies into the barrels and pots that we've got, but I need to buy several more 2-gallon plastic pots tomorrow for some of the oddments.  Things are well-fertilized with a Miracle-Gro slow-release fertilizer, so I think we should be okay.  36" apart?  Pfui! They'll live with 6" or so. The Babe also planted large numbers of flowers out front to fill in spaces that didn't have quite enough flowers. 

I'm feeling a bit creaky, but all the plants are looking good this evening and showing no signs of transplant shock. I'll go downstairs and soak several packets of nasturtium, sunflower, and marigold seeds for planting in starter packs tomorrow.  And I may make a drink.  A drink would be good. 

(BTW, I'm finally making use of post labels. In my copious free time, I hope to slowly work through past posts here and there and add labels to them for easier searching and cross-referencing. If naught else, just remembering to add them to new posts will be a step forward.)

A day of gardening