Last week’s heat wave woke everyone up. There was enough breeze to keep the black flies down, and make it possible to work in the unexpected 80 plus degrees heat.

I always start working close to the house. The Herb Bed is protected from the winter winds and the soil drains well.  I weeded the entire length and spread around some rotted horse manure I got from a neighbor’s farm. 

The Red Fire lettuce starts I planted on March 31 have been nipped and bitten by frost, but they finally look like they will make it to the salad bowl soon.  The Bloomsdale Long Standing spinach seeds are up! 

I had a young man help me with digging out an extension of the south Lawn Bed. The sods he took out are now piled in the compost pile by The Potager. I fertilized with greensand, rock phosphate, composted chicken house cleanings and rotted horse manure.  I moved Henry Garnet, Virginia sweetspire, which gotten lost under the weeping birch.  It had sent out four new shrubs. I transplanted two, and potted up the other three for local plant sales. I hope they will all survive.  You can also see one of the daffodils I moved in full flower, but not the grape hyacinths. 

I have moved several clumps of daffodils out of the lawn so that I can mow it better before the Annual Rose Viewing.  Some have gone in the new bed, some around the Miss Willmott white lilac I planted last spring, and some under this old apple at the edge of the lawn. Moving daffs while in full bloom is not ideal, but it is the time I can see them, and the time when I know where I want to move them. Since they are only out of the ground for a few minutes they don’t seem to mind too much. All new transplants get watered well! 

I finally finished weeding the whole Peony Bed and I have been astonished at the growth of the peonies this week. Most of them were barely peeking through the soil last Monday. But the earliest of them (name lost) already has buds. 

The lilacs are also well budded, but I don’t think they will be quite in bloom by next Monday. 

Of course there is the Vegetable Garden. This 15 x 15 foot area has been cultivated for about 5 years: the soil is wonderful, rich and easy to work.  Fedco Sugar Ann Snap peas, Green Ice lettuce, Detroit Dark Red Beets, Mokum carrots, Fiesta broccoli, Diablo Brussels sprouts, as well as Renee’s Garden Neon Glow Chard, French Breakfast radishes, Jewel Toned beets, Catalina spinach flowering sweet peas, and Walla Walla onion sets from the garden center are all planted.  The Brussels sprouts and broccoli that I started from seed just went in with little transplant shock.  

Now that my hip has been replaced and 4 years have gone by, the garden needed enlarging, hence last year’s 10 x 10 foot extension, which has been extended again and is now known as The Potager, about 10 x 22.  More lasagna gardening.  It is laid out with what I hope are adequate paths.  I applaud the Town of Heath for making available a pile of free and public wood chips.  I moved in some red bee balm, and planted more of Renee’s sweet peas on the White Trellis, parts of a metal crib I pulled out of the metal bin at the Transfer Station.  I like white things like milk bottles and lawn chairs around the garden because white things are supposed to keep the deer away. This theory will get a good test since this part of the garden is not fenced. 

The rhubarb in near, but not in, the vegetable garden. Harvest season is not far away.