Geting Things Done?

This is how today feels.

I got to the garden center and bought thirty bags of peat/shrimp/manure compost (6th bag free so only paid for 25!) and it'll all be delivered Monday. I wanted it this weekend but I obviously wasn't proactive enough.

Had lunch out with Meg and John then came home with the intention of bundling sticks til dark and moving bedroom furniture to preferred arrangement after dark.... Got home and had a nap til 5pm instead. At that point I decided against bothering for the last hour of daylight and for doing it tomorrow.

I hope to one day change which graph represents me best.

Bundles of Fun

I was making bundles of sticks when the wind kicked it up a notch and snow started to blow in my eyes. That on top of oncoming night made me decide to call it a day.I managed to get six bundles done but there's still about 2/3 of the pile left... It's going to be a long weekend.

I'm really hoping the forecast is correct this time.

I've finally located a garden center that carries the amendments I want to buy (Canadian Tire thinks it's too early to bother with that stuff yet) and I'm going to go get them tomorrow. They don't have a website but the lady on the phone was super helpful in getting me pricing info. We're looking at $100-$150 worth of soil amendments, but we need it considering the current state of the dirt out back.

Procrastination and Progress

As  you can see from the Garden Planner page... I'm tending to drift. :)

The day's I've been planting the seeds were supposed to be exactly a week apart (every Tuesday) I just got this Tuesday's batch planted today (Friday). I think I'm going to start planting the Sunday before because I'm just to lazy after work.

Even though I've been a bit lax in my discipline, the sprouts seem to be doing mostly well.

The first Seedling pack is doing very well. (Broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower)

I've even up-potted some broccoli that were getting too big for those little slots.

In this pack left & center column parsley, right column top to bottom: lavender, echinacea, lavender. I think the top left and bottom right seeds rotted instead of sprouting. :(

And last but not least, This pack has a cabbage sprout and the four seeds from today.

Last weekend, John and I got the wood from the tree cutting out of the garden and all the small stuff cut to bundle length. We forgot to get twine so it's been sitting on the patio all week waiting to get bundled up.(Planning to get that done tomorrow)

From this...

To this!

The beds have been roughly marked out by the carpet paths we lay down last weekend. Each bed will get turned over, sifted and mixed with manure etc this weekend.

Since the ground never really had a chance to freeze deep this winter, the soil's been loose and dig-able every time the temps go up to 10°C so the high of 15° on Sunday should be perfect.

First Planting of the Season

First seeds of the season planted and in the windowsill.

For info on what's being planted when, check out the handy-dandy planner I've set up here.

The trays and vermiculite are from Ontario Growers Supply. The potting soil I mixed with the vermiculite was from an old planter that's been sitting in our carport all fall/winter. (Don't worry, no car exhaust to be absorbed.) I mixed the vermiculite with the old soil about 50/50 to get a nice light seed starting medium... and noticed something:

Seed mix compared to back yard dirt.

Our back yard is going to need a lot more help than I thought. That is one of the buckets I had used to sprout the dollarstore seeds. No wonder the poor things never got established. We won't be fixing it yet because the back yard still looks like this:

Free firewood anyone?

My main thoughts are to box off the beds and dig in topsoil, manure, and vermiculite to give the garden a fighting chance. That may be too expensive and we'll wind up going the topsoil & manure only route with no bed edging. I wouldn't have thought covering the ground with plastic for a few years would result in such anemic dirt... but here's the proof. We won't have our own compost to add til Autumn 2013 so this is going to be interesting.

Spawning Season

Love is in the air... well... at least mating pheromones are in the air. The squirrels are chattering away claiming territory, and even the fish are getting in the swing of things.

I know the glare makes it really hard to see but if you zoom in...

there's a gazillion fish!

We haven't really had a proper winter this year so I'm a bit concerned the critters may be getting a bit of a head start. Hopefully this unseasonable season doesn't throw off too much.