Random Thoughts

Random thoughts on a Sunday night. The Princess tells me we have a bumper seed germination of Lemon Cilantro. This is very good news except I don’t like cilantro. I may have to learn.

Installed a high-pressure sodium grow light in basement. 150 watts and it burns your eyes if you look directly at it. I have it shielded by aluminum foil so the light doesn’t hit you when you walk toward the bench – but it does shine directly down on the plants. Hope it’s enough to grow our seedlings but at the rate the Princess is laying in the seeds I hae me doots. We only have one shelf under the light at this time (an old door) so we can grow a few pots but not as many as Mayo wants. Ah well.

Been digging and dividing like mad – a half dozen plants at lunch every day. Trying to clean out the main bed so I can add some peat and top soil to raise it up a few inches. Given I don’t have any real soil there, anything is an improvement. I do think I transplanted a volunteer raspberry instead of the nearby shrub rose. Ah well, if true, it won’t be the first mistake I’ll make this gardening season. (although I have to say this is a particularly dumb one). The problem is that rabbits ate the canes to the ground and I’m guessing where it was and making decisions based on small twigs sticking up.

I told the Princess we could plant some of her old-fashioned plants between the developing perennials in the holding bed so we could grow them out for seed collecting. I’m a hero for sharing my perennial space but I figure it will make the garden area look like a cottage garden – I’ll take some pics.

Have sown 2-300 daylily seed in this bed so we’ll see how many germinate.

Planted the 2010 AARS Rose winner on the weekend but I can’t tell you about it yet (we’ve been asked to hold the pics etc until June) But my goodness it sounds sweet and I can hardly wait to see it in its full bloom. Rose wasn’t happy to come to this cold weather but it’s hanging in (or at least it’s not dying yet)

Local Home Depot had a sale on Cedars on the weekend – picked up twenty 4-5 foot tall cedar trees to start laying in the visual barrier between the road and the house. Walked the property and identified all the site lines I had to block, got enough cedar to do them all. Going to call Nole with the backhoe tomorrow and see if i can get him to dig those holes and the other 20 holes I’m going to need for the laneway and some other trees. Hint, in landscaping always do the trees, hardscape, and big stuff first before flowers. They take the money to be sure but they also take the time to grow.

Had I paid attention to this, I wouldn’t be digging up the perennials now to lay in the raised beds. I should have made the raised beds first and then done the planting but who listens to his own advice. Chalk this one up to last year’s mistake and rush to get plants in the ground – fixing your own mistakes is so damn discouraging when you know better.

Speaking of Home Depot. I was glad to see only organic controls on the pest-control shelves. If they would only have stuck with Tony instead of Joey, it would be a good company. (Nascar alert)

And still speaking of Home Depot, turns out I’m doing a talk at the HD in Little Italy in Toronto (don’t ask me the address, the p.r. folks are driving) and I think it’s planned for 1pm on May 3. More later when I get an address.

Taught Mayo how to make a pea-fence the old-fashioned way (you grow your garden peas on it) using nothing but old twigs and branches from old Christmas trees. How come hers looks way better than mine ever did? Essentially, you lay down a bunch of branches over top of your sown peas and the peas grow up through them – makes it easy to harvest the peas. To clean up, you just pull up the branches and twigs.

It looks like the variegated ginger made it through the winter again. That’s “great” but it hasn’t flowered in about 5 years and it’s coming to the end of it’s welcome here. This could be the year it gets to try and see if it can overwinter outside (not likely but calling it an experiment saves having to actually toss them out)

Haven’t seen our deer herd this spring yet but with 20 nursery-fresh cedar sitting beside the tulip bed, I figure that’s candy waiting to be unwrapped. Just sprayed Liquid Fence on them all. Good grief that stuff stinks – it smells like something dead this way comes (which considering its purpose is a good thing I suppose). It worked last winter and the deer didn’t eat the cedars at the house so …. Mind you, I’m about to chainsaw these cedars because they really are ugly and too big for their location.

Big landscaping changes coming now that I got the right trailer hitch ball for my trailer; I can go and get stuff now. If the boy can’t have a truck, he better have a honkin’ big trailer. Neighbor told us we could have a load of manure; gotta go get it but hey – me, the tractor and trailer – can gardening life get any “sweeter”.

Busy week ahead – lots of writing projects to get going. Was asked to write something for a getting ready for wearing a bikini website (seriously!) I’m not wearing one (not even an advanced speedo) but the editors think there’s weight training possibilities in gardening (and there are) I’ll tell you about it after I write it. Readers who make snide comments about gardening and bikinis will earn negative brownie points.

Sunday night – it must be spring because hockey is still on the tube. The light is still good at 7pm and I’m going to take a walk to smell the clean lake air rolling over my lovely Amherst Island. Can life get any better?