Daffodils!

First blooms of the year, and chives have also begun their iron-fisted rule of the raised veg-bed. I'm out of town, and will probably miss my tulips opening, but was supposed to be pleasantly surprised when I returned to find the unused dog-run turned into another raised veg-bed; unfortunately the surprise was ruined by the fact that edibles + treated wood = no-no. Better a project begun and some work to do, anyway. Now to learn which vegs will do best in part/filtered sun...

I've been getting outside as much as possible for the past few weeks; nothing very glamorous, just cleaning up leaves (this will take many weekends, as an hour is usually all I can spare per day) and yanking up some weeds that I let pass for flowers for the last two years. They were unfamiliar enough that no one knew until a botanist came along. I am now too ashamed to let them be. So, the halo surrounding Mountain Ash of the Front Yard is now clear of as many of the rhizomes as I could yank, and received a sprinkling of bellflower seeds. Later, I also decided to add some hyacinth bulbs that I could never figure out what to do with. That's what I get for impulse shopping at Costco: hundreds of bulbs and nowhere to put 'em.

Race to the finish line

In the greenhouse, all my seed varieties have done something, even the curse-worthy petunias. They are by far trailing the pack with one microscopic sprout, followed closely by the silly oregano, whose microscopic sprouts don't seem to be growing at all since they emerged some time ago. The mystery grab-bag hot peppers (salvaged from grocery produce) emerged from last place with two fast-growing contenders.

The success of my pumpkins began to frighten me, so I was able to secure a home for one or two of the plants with my aunt & cousin, who have much greener thumbs than I do, but who have never manually pollinated a flower. I described the process in detail, twice. It was fairly amusing. The birds and the bees and now the squash, too.