willowdancer's Blog

first sprouts of the season
Feb 6, 2010 | 11:53 AM PST

The house is beginning to settle down after helping some friends move in with us temporarily until they can find a new home. I was actually able to get my hoop out and jam a bit in the living room since a lot of the boxes and stuff have been cleared away and we have done some laundry and the kitchen is clean. Hazel, our dog, is actually tolerating their dog chance, which is not like her, being part chow and very aggressive towards other dogs. The cat hates us now though...

well, to the topic on hand: one of my mammoth sunflower seeds have poked through the soil and I think there are many to follow. My dwarf sunflowers are sprouting as well, but none of them have really gotten going yet the way the big sunflowers have. Still no signs of life from the catnip, moon flowers, or marigolds, but I will force myself to be patient... still waiting on spring.

Of groundhogs and seedlings
Feb 2, 2010 | 11:28 AM PST

well, six more weeks of winter. whoopdeefriggindo. oh well, we have indian summers here just about every year with nice warm weather lasting well into November, so I can't complain. Yesterday I planted all my seeds into flats in hopes of not having to buy so many flowers this year. An entire flat is devoted to marigolds, though I am not sure how well they will grow because I used seeds that I harvested from my purchased marigold plants last year. I figure worst case scenario I will give the seeds a try and if none of them grow or do well then I will just go out and buy a flat of marigolds from Plant City when they get set up. I also planted a third generation of moon flower seeds: only three seeds were produced by our plant last year and I planted each one in its own little pot so I wont have to thin them and waste the seeds. I also planted some catnip, and three varieties of sun flower, two of which are dwarf varieties and the third is a mammoth sunflower variety, the kind that produces tasty seeds. Today, which making my purchase at Michingan bulbs, I decided to save $60 and a lot of work and just not do the shade garden this year. I think adding one flower bed a year will be reasonable and in order to do the raised flower bed for the shade garden we are going to have to get a lot of dirt and a ton of stones from the river, which is just going to be more work and money spent, so I think I will stick to just one new flower bed this year. Speaking of the new flower bed, I did the initial tilling about a week ago, turning all the grass and weeds under with a shovel and a few days later I went through with the hoe and a hand cultivator and took out some of the larger chunks of plants and roots. It is already lined with stones *swiped some extra ones from the first flower bed* and looks like it only needs a few more going-overs with the hoe and rake before it will be ready to plant.

Stinkin groundhog. I am ready for spring :-P