On Monday, as I waited for it to warm up, I started a headache. I don’t usually have headaches and I waited for it to go away. It didn’t. I managed to get some household chores done and finally decided to try to go outside anyway. It was to be a decent afternoon.
We had a heavy frost on Sunday night.
Most of the flowers were bent over from it. Most of them would recover.
In the afternoon, I got some photos first while I had better light. I finally got one of the quince buds in the Big garden (top photo).
In the New South garden, the first tulips had opened.
In the South Herb garden the chives had buds.
In the Old North garden the daffodils had opened.
Behind them was the first bloodroot flower. I rarely get a decent shot of the bloodroot!
In the swamp the lesser celandine was flowering.
Under the Kousa dogwood, the first dandelions had opened.
The frost had nipped the magnolia flowers, giving them a slightly brown cast.
That done, I got out my gardening stuff and set to work on these 3 shrubs.
The Big rose had a lot of winter kill and I pruned it off. It had started to leaf out. I got it fed, gave it some biochard compost, and remulched it. I did the same to the hibiscus, but we won’t see anything there for 2 more months.
Next was the mountain laurel. There was very little winter kill this year and it’s growing well. It also got fed, compost and re-mulched.
I decided to work my way down the fence line, thereby finishing cleaning out one side of the Small garden perimeter.
When I got to the Anne raspberries, I found they had started to leaf out. So I decided to try to clean out that bed before they got any bigger.
The raspberries got fed, biochar compost, and re-mulched. Now when I look out the windows on this side, there’s one less mess I will see to clean up. It was at this point I realized I no longer had a headache. Gardening as headache cure!
There are 2 projects left here to do: finish the perimeter of this garden and remove the cordwood from inside and plant the flowers from the West Shed. I am growing squash and sprawly plants in here this year and they won’t be planted until June.
I got a call from the local stable and I have more haylofts to clean out for mulch hay. I have to have it done by Sunday night. I’m not sure where Tom is on the truck repair. He and a friend are supposed to mess around with it late Wednesday afternoon.
On Tuesday it’s to rain in the morning and then be cold and cloudy, so no gardens until Wednesday afternoon. It’s to be in the 30’s at night until Thursday, so I will have the cold frame seedlings inside until then and be running the masonry heater each night.