Spring in Full Swing

 We have a hot dry spring under way.  It has been nice to have the warm weather and sunshine, but I can't help thinking that I might almost prefer gloomy and rainy.  I have been having to water regularly just to get things going.

I filled my deck planters with pansies.  Home Depot had a great selection of the citrus blend which was exactly what I was in the mood for.  It is always hard for me to choose pansies because there is such a wide color palette and I love them all.  They were always the first plants to flower in our greenhouse, and the stems were perfect for little hands to pick.  Thus, I spent a lot of time picking pansies.  I just need to top off the mulch now that its settled.

The first two plantings of peas are up (planted March 15 and 29th) and the third planting is seeded.  I seeded leftover lettuce seed from last year down each side to act as living mulch but nothing has germinated yet.

I bought two packs of cabbage at the nursery.  I will still wait a week or two before setting out my cauliflower seedlings.  This time of year I had planned to use the frost blanket weight of row cover because it holds up well to snow and hard freezes.  But instead I grabbed a short length of summer weight floating row cover.  I was glad I did because the day after I transplanted these I came home to air temperatures of 86+ in the garden

The cabbages didn't seem to mind.

I seeded carrots a week or more ago.  Carrot seeds can be a real bugger to keep warm and damp and I get impatient because they end up not germinating until June.  I considered covering them with burlap but the draw back to burlap is the little leaves will push up into the weave and you can pull everything up when you remove it.  It does best when you can elevate it half an inch above the soil.  And I couldn't figure out how to do that in container (without using up all of my grow-thru grids) and still keep it secured so instead I'm trying bubble wrap.

This week we are expecting more seasonable weather of mid-50s and rain.  This is the perfect time of year to mulch the landscape beds because the plants are small and the lawn is soft enough to edge.  So its time to get busy!  I have dug up the perennials that I want to move and pried up any dandelions. Finally I will apply Milorganite fertilizer to everything then the mulching will begin.