A living wall? I can dig it!!

How fitting it's from Raintree Nursery...

And so I shall, tomorrow.  Rain or shine (and, unfortunately, it looks like rain).  One of my favorite nurseries had a great sale and I bought three more willow bushes with which to buffer the onslaught of the road traffic, dust, noise, ad nauseum.  I did not make this decision lightly, as it means digging a sizable hole for each bush.  There is a good reason that our area is filled with gravel mines.

They look like nice,healthy plants and I am looking forward to my Wall o' Willows.

I also ordered a new variety of Alpine strawberries to complete my little patch.  Thanks to much hovering and covering/uncovering/covering of my new plants during the endless freeze, it looks like they've all survived. 

Alpines in their raincoat.

I have taken a Mental Health Day tomorrow which is almost as fully planned as Chicken Mama's Day Off (hahahahaha - choke, sob - if my day off was that packed with to-do's, I'd never get out of bed!)  Mine is comparatively mundane - cat rassling (the Boyz have their annual check up), digging, digging, schlepping manure, digging and more digging, planting, and dinner prep. 



Three healthy plants!

 I am planting my basil, parsley, lemon balm (in a pot), and a blueberry bush (another damn hole!), after I finish clearing out the herb bed.  I am planning on taking full advantage of this long weekend even though, oddly enough, it is also filled with social-type things.  Another reason I have to plant all these seedlings is that I need to clear out the laundry room space for...my incubator!  Having had no luck finding keets, I successfully bid for a clutch of eggs on eBay.  It was reasonable enough that I won't throw myself in the river if they don't hatch.  Of course, I am also going to the one final poultry tailgate of the spring on Sunday.  This should guarantee that they are up to their elbows in keets.  I look at it like wearing both suspenders and a belt.  A trait I do NOT find attractive in a man, by the way.  Fickle me.



My coldframe is perking away, which always gives me hope when I pass by.  I've already harvested some arugula, the radishes are growing, and the lettuces are just popping up through the soil.  It's hard to think of it as May - even though the days are getting gloriously longer.  With this grey, cold, weather, it just seems weird.


Arugula and row of radishes.

 So, what kind of mischief are you all digging up this weekend?

Me vs. The Mint

Who, in their right mind, would actually SELL mint?  Come to think of it, who would actually BUY it?  Me, apparently.  Dumb as a stump comes to mind.  I put mint on one side of my herb bed and yarrow on the other.  Make that:  me = doesn't have the sense God gave a turnip.

Because of this lack of judgement, I have been battling mint-take-over from the left and yarrow-take-over from the right for at least two years.  This year, the gloves came off (oh, wait!  They went on!) and I have been ripping, digging, hoeing during odd bits of free time.  I am happy to say that I am making gains!


I can actually find my lovage and chives!



The 'trimmings', putting it nicely.  Which it ain't.

Now that we've finally gotten some rain, I will tackle the remaining half - Me vs. The Yarrow.   The rain, by the way, was part of a violent nor'easter that has, thankfully, just dumped rain and some blustery winds on us, and not the gale-force winds and heavy snows that some spots received.  Seems as though that is how our weather is now.  Every change is ushered in violently.  Sometimes it just makes you want to crawl back under your quilt and wait until Ma Nature comes back to her senses.

I am very thankful that I was able to pretty much finish my cold frame.  I still have to work out a better/easier cover than these three separate pieces of glass, but it does the job.  The arugula was from a seedling, and the radishes are coming up nicely.  The lettuce is coming as well, but it's still tiny and hard to see.  I always feel better when something is growing.