Gardening Day and In My Mind

My SO is home. What a relief! I felt like I didn't have a minute last week, didn't realize how much he does around here until he was gone. Yesterday I was able to spend three whole hours tinkering in the greenhouse and around the yard. It was glorious.

There are little seedlings in abundance out there. At this rate, I'm going to have to give away plants. We weeded and tilled the garden space, and put up the new composter. Previously, we had only a ring of wire he had banded together, but amazingly there was compost at the bottom, even being so neglected as that little pile has been. We spread the bit of compost out on the garden before he ran the tiller. Then he went in to shower and I continued to tinker. I think I need a shredder. I had to snip up the yard cuttings with my pruning shears. But it would all compost better if it were shredded. Plus, we're about to be awash in live oak leaves again. Oak leaves just don't break down quickly, so if I want to use any at all as compost, I'll need a shredder.

I guess it's a leftover from the nursery days in San Marcos, but I find piddling with plants calming, and just a really good way for me to relax my mind. There's such pleasure in watching inert seeds you've planted sprout into a living thing. Every Early Girl tomato seeds have come up. The scalloped squash seeds saved from last year's crop are stout and healthy. The new Burpee green and yellow squash seeds are beginning to break ground. So are Daddy's seedless tomatoes, planted just last Sunday! Pepper seed won't germinate until the soil warms up, or so I've been told. I don't like the seed mix I planted them in, though, and wish I could begin again with my latest discovery -- that African Violet Mix is an excellent seed starting mix. I sprinkled a teensy bit of the organic fertilizer for seedlings that Burpee sent along with my order. But I sure do wish I had been saving empty 6-pack planters all this time. I must've thrown away dozens since we've been here. I've been using egg cartons with the tops removed and a drain hole poked through the bottom with an ice pick. They seem to be working quite well. We'll see how they do once it's time to transplant into the garden.

My SO also dug a little circular garden around a dead peach tree stump. He wants a Four O'Clock bed because he's always had one in places he has lived. I understand. I am trying to recreate, in spirit, the daylily bed I had at my last house -- the transition, live-alone house. I planted daylillies right after I moved in there, and two and half years later, the bed was spectacular. I have a larger space for them here, and I keep adding more varieties. I think the lily is my favorite flower. Must've inherited that from my mother. She loved Easter Lillies, and every year when garden centers and grocery stores put them on sale after the holiday, she would buy them up by the dozen. The year she died was probably the most amazing bloom year she'd had with those Easter lilies. Sad that she wasn't alive to witness the fruits of her labor.

Got my Texas gardening magazine a few days ago. It struck me as I was reading it, that here is another venue for me to submit a freelance piece. I could write about having a backyard greenhouse. This is the second small greenhouse I've had, so I do have tips and experiences I could share. As I was reading the articles and checking the various writers' credentials, I realized I probably have enough, by accident, to qualify myself as a valid contributor, having co-owned a growing nursery, having worked as a salesman for a two wholesale nurseries, having managed a foilage greenhouse for a garden center. Don't have the fancy horticultural degree but do have the hands-on experience. I'm going to pursue this. I'll get their writing guidelines for a start.

Wish I could get as much writing done in reality as I do in my mind.

Onward ....