It's All Up To Mother Nature, Now

I finished my garden this evening. I got it fenced in yesterday afternoon, and got half of it planted. Got my bean plants in and planted a couple extra seeds of both regular beans and limas - my seedlings had been in plastic cups indoors for too long, they were tall but spindly, and all but one plant of each type ended up breaking. So there is one seedling of each in the ground, and two more of each kind of seed planted. Those are near the east (back) fence, which is shared with the yard. Along the fence on the south side, I planted zucchini, pickling cucumber, and cucumber seeds. Along the north fence, which is the chainlink fence at the south end of the patio, I planted moonflower seeds, and along the west (front) side I planted flowers - cosmos and bush-type morning glories.

This afternoon, I transplanted 6 little tomato plants. I hope they make it. I'm going to buy a couple of small potted tomato plants, just for insurance. I also planted 2 eggplant seedlings and one sugarbaby watermelon seedling in the same area. I did another area with just peppers - habaneros, jalapenos, yellow banana peppers, and a "carnival" mix of sweet peppers. There are 5 colors of peppers in the carnival mix - red, yellow, orange, pale green-white, and purple. I only had room for 8 of them, I hope I'll get at least one plant of each color. Of all the pepper seedlings, the habaneros are the sturdiest; they're only about 3" tall, but they already have several sets of leaves and look like miniature pepper plants. I had a couple of good yellow pepper seedlings left over, I planted both of them in a large planter and put that in front of the garage. In another area of the garden I planted lettuce and carrot seeds. So that's the vegetable garden, except for the pumpkin seeds. I'm still trying to decide whether to plant them up front, outside the garden fence, or to plant them out back in the leaf pile. There are 10 seeds, that'll make 4 hills (two with 3 seeds/vines, two with 2 seeds/vines), so maybe I'll plant two hills in front and two hills in back.

I also transplanted my baby impatiens seedlings. These are the "butterfly" mix - pastels with deeper colored throats. I had enough seedlings for one large planter (6 seedlings) and two 6-inch pots (3 seedlings each); after they've had a couple of days to get settled into their new homes I'll move them out to the patio with the rest of the non-hanging impatiens. I'm going to bungee-cord the larger planter to the middle post of the patio roof, so it doesn't get knocked over by dogs or cats. My sis had gotten a pot of moonflowers from her MIL for me; she told me to separate them, not to plant them all in the same place, so I split them into three deep, 8-inch pots and put those pots on the north side of the fence, outside the yard. If they make it, they should grow up the fence and give me a little privacy screening in that corner.

The wire crate I kept the seedlings in is empty now; if I get a second wind I'll get it cleaned up and taken down tonight, otherwise I'll do it in the morning. It'll be nice not to have it up on my dining table any more! I still have a couple of little plants in paper cups on my bedroom windowsill, I'll get those planted out in the yard tomorrow. If I plant them along the south side of the pole barn they'll be inside the yard, but the dogs aren't bothering the daylilies there so hopefully they won't bother these other little plants either. I'm going to plant some catnip there, too, and more out in back of the yard. I still have some perennial herb seeds to plant. I decided today to plant lemon balm and peppermint in the flower bed on the south side of the house along the bedroom wall, there isn't much there now and it'll be nice to have the lemon balm under the bedroom windows, it's got such a fresh, lemony scent. I'll do that tomorrow, too.

It's all up to Mother Nature now - all I can do from this point on is weed, fertilize, and water! Now I can turn my attention back to the lawn. *sigh* I'm not going to try to cut it all at once, I'll just do a little every day until it's done, wait a week, and start over again.

I found my stash of lye, so I got the soap made for Weim Rescue today, too. By tomorrow afternoon I'll be able to unmold and slice it, and I'll take it down to Chris on Sunday - I'm going down for the monthly open house - and it can finish curing at her house. It smells good in here - lavender and lemongrass. Yum. I'll get at least a couple of soap balls out of it, from the trimmings, they'll smell great in a guest soap dish in the bathroom.

I'm behind on housework, and I've still got some unpacking and organizing to do, but now that I don't need to be outside working on getting the gardens set up, I'll have more time to work inside. This week's projects are to get the living room, dining room, and kitchen carpets steam-vacced, get some blocks made to raise the foot of my bed and then move it back to the outside wall, and get my summer and winter clothes swapped out of and into storage bins. The printer cartridge I ordered should be here soon, maybe tomorrow, and I'll get to work on advertising flyers for obedience classes to start in July.

I think I'm going to put clean sheets on the bed, take a shower to get the garden dirt off, then have a nice soak in a tub full of hot water and scented bath salts. Then I think I'll have a cocktail or two. I've earned an evening's pampering.