Thursday, April 16, 2009

Operation Landscaping, part two of infinity

EvilDucky snagged me a big chunk of hosta starts from one of her coworkers, and they've been sitting in a bucket in the kitchen ever since:


Today I finally had a day off with nice weather, so I wanted to get the hostas in the ground before they gave up and died. It's best to put the plants in after the landscaping fabric is down, so that meant I had to finish pulling the rocks and covering the beds.

It's sort of like performing surgery.

I couldn't find the trowel, so I improvised with a tiki torch stake and an old slotted spoon. It worked out surprisingly well.

Good God, he looks pathetic.


I spent the whole afternoon outside -- with the exception of the hour I used to take Indy to the vet for his yearly exam -- and it payed off big time. Just as the sun was setting, I got the last of the fabric pinned down and the last two hostas planted:


I didn't get rocks onto the last 12 feet of the bed, but it's supposed to be nice again tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes. In the meantime, I wish I had remembered to ask MB to take a picture of my rad and super classy wifebeater burn lines (hey, I'm a redhead. I don't tan.), cuz they are SEX-AY.


While we're here, let's do a seedling check. I wasn't very happy with the way the peat pots were working out. They didn't maintain moisture well at all, and the outsides of the pots were growing funky blue-green mold. The onion sprouts in the plastic cookie tub were doing much better than the ones in the peat pots, go figure. I pulled the seedlings out of the peat pots and replanted them in two windowbox planters that I already had, but didn't really expect them to survive the transplant.

They are still alive, though they still look pretty spindly:




Not very many basil and catnip sprouts came up, but the ones that did are doing really well:



I'm starting to get impatient for the start of the real garden, too. The weather has been going back and forth from nice to chilly, but I'm hoping it'll settle in soon. I'm anxious to get the veggies growing!

2 comments:

EvilDucky77 said...

those basils are looking nice!

Anonymous said...

Your seedlings totally win; my incredibly bad cat peed on mine, kicked them off their sunshine-getting perch, and dug all the roots out.

I'll be starting again with nursery-grown seedlings in about a week, but damn, do I ever envy your basil and onion right now. :P