Monday, May 13, 2013

Gardening and Then Some

After absolutely nothing to do in the cold, rainy winter, I've reached the point of more than I can do in a weekend in spring. My last post was about finally getting the community plot rototilled in time for a Mother's Day plant sale so big that it requires the cops to direct traffic around the site. We went to the garden around 7 pm on Saturday and got a few plants and a lot of onions planted. I didn't take any photos, thought we'd go back on Sunday.

By Sunday it was raining, same as today, so no more garden plot planting. This is ok because the onions took up more room than I'd planned and I spent some time re-doing my plan on Smart Gardener.  I wanted to use it today because the layout is on a grid so I can see the dimension of what goes where. They've updated it recently so you can make a list of veggies then drag and drop the symbols onto the plan, each symbol is sized so I don't have to figure out spacing. It's free and pretty easy to figure out.

Over the weekend I got the drain plugs removed from my railing planters and each planted about 3/4 full with lettuce and chard. Of course I need to plant the rest so that it will be balanced on the railing. I've got radish and nasturtium seeds started and will transplant those into each container.




Sunday even the offer of free champagne could not lure me to Monticello Antique Marketplace on a holiday. I also avoided one of my favorite nurseries, which we drove past on our way to Wildlife Botanical Gardens in Brush Prairie, WA. I came across their website a year or two ago and am now kicking myself for not going sooner.

It isn't anything elaborate, but it is a series of educational garden 'rooms' to show people how to encourage more birds and wildlife into your back yard. There were a wide variety of plants, many in bloom, and the best part (to me) was the plant id markers in place. This is a great spot for me to learn botanical names of plants I recognize and can rarely name. I took a lot of photos and think I may do a couple of posts later since it was a lot to take in.

Here's one of my favorite trees:


Very cool cones

Cool plant id marker that let me know who the cones belong to


No comments:

Post a Comment