Gardening Day One

 Today the March snows have melted and the sun was shining.  It was the perfect day to spray the apple trees with dormant oil to take care of any creepy crawlies.  They will soon be budding out.  I pruned them quite hard last spring and they have put on a lot of new growth.  You can see below that there are many upright water sprouts in this one tree that need to come out.  That could be a sign of over pruning, but the tree did well otherwise.  Maybe it is due to last summer's drought stress.  This tree is in the drier of the two spots. The Gala sapling I planted last spring survived the winter well and looks like it will be the first tree to push new leaves.

The spring flowers are doing their best to brighten things up and there are even a few honey bees out and about.  I spread Milorganite fertilizer on all of the crocuses to discourage the deer.

Crocuses

Winter Aconite

This past Saturday I started some seeds indoors under grow lights.  Normally I would have been sowing peas, lettuce and carrots out in the raised beds this past week.  As part of my lower stress plan this year I am putting that off until April, which was just as well because last week was snowy and blowy and nothing like spring gardening weather.  But it is time to get the peppers started and it would be a good idea to have some lettuce transplants ready to go out.  To fill out the pepper tray I am trying some Celosia and Coleus.  I will also be seeding Celosia and Coleus out in the could frame next month along with the Marigolds and other annuals but I want to see if I can get some further along than I did last year.

First Flame Celosia and Tomb Thumb butterhead lettuce babies were awake this morning

Twenty years ago last Wednesday (beware the Ides of March) I moved into this shabby old farmhouse.  This extra chair was in the attic then, and there it stayed for lo these many years.  Baking away in the extremes of the attic, it had become as dry as an old chicken bone.   Knowing it was up there in its ruined state actually bothered me more than that one ugly chair we had at the table.  I feared if something wasn't done with it, the next people would maybe just throw it on a burn pile.

Someone must have tried to stand on it many years ago because it has a lot less wear and tear on it than the others do.  I don't know how long ago the previous owners had purchased these seven chairs.  It could have been sitting up there a mere ten years before I got here, or it could have been up there thirty years or more.  Either way, it needed a bath and it needed a lot of furniture polish.

Even if it has only been up there twenty five, thirty years or so, that's a few thousand less sittings than the others have endured.  Thus it is really in pristine condition.  Today it is almost ready to rejoin its mates.  Happy Anniversary olde chair.

Tomorrow I may get to tying it off and putting the finishing strip on it.

And then I'll see how it sits!