It was such nice weather the last few days! After a week of mourning for my sweet cat Jack I needed something cheerful around the house, flowers in the garden! Last Sunday I went to the garden center early in the morning to get some violets, primula and seeds. I hardly go out on a shopping spree anymore, but in the garden center I still love to do some good ol’fashion shopping.
I also wanted to buy a nice perennial to put on Jack’s grave, I didn’t have a clue which kind yet but I was sure I would make up my mind while looking around in the garden center. Lately I sometimes see an image of Jack lying in a sunny meadow, among dandelions and butterflies. Coat shining, eyes bright, his old buddies Billy, Sam and Tommy near him. I hope that image is true, that he is in a good place. I believe he is, I sure want to believe that. So when my eyes fell on a shelf with butterfly bushes, I knew I found my choice. I picked a beautiful blue one and put it on his grave to honour him. The bees and butterflies will also be happy with it, and they sure can use some help.
I wanted to start sowing vegetables so I checked some online sowing calendars to see what is possible this time of year. Well, it seems there are plenty of crops that can be sowed halfway through March! I will have to be careful with night frost but the weather is so good now, I’ll take my chances. I bought some peas because I have such good childhood memories about them. My parents had a huge ecological vegetable garden when I was little, and the peas from that garden were simply delicious! I didn’t like a lot of vegetables back then, but those peas were so nice and tender, I had no trouble eating those. I remember that we also had a truckload of bell peppers, I didn’t like those quite as much. It was a fairly large garden, with a glass greenhouse and a tunnel greenhouse. My parents gave me a little piece of garden to take care of, surrounded by a low fence. Not that I was very good at gardening, I love it but to say I have green fingers… nope. The important thing is to have fun with it, right? ;)
Besides peas I also bought broad beans, seeds of spinach, palm cabbage, radish, yellow mustard, lettuce, marigold and East Indian cherry. Monique gave me some carrot seed the other day and I read that it is a good idea to sow radish next to it. First, I needed to weed out the garden patches, put some new and fertile garden soil in them and then I was ready to sow. Wow that looks so much better! I bought a couple of baskets for the porch and put strawberries, violets, primula and mint in them. That’s gonna give the porch a cheery look! I still hadn’t put the tiny fir tree Jennifer gave me for Christmas in the ground yet, it was high time to do that as well. But where to put it.. I don’t have a lot of plants around the house yet, besides grass, so it kind of looks silly to plant just one little tree. I put it beside the wood chip path to my house. I think it’s a fine spot for it, I hope it will survive.
I got two new plants for my helophyte filter as well, two of the plants in it didn’t make it through winter unfortunately. I still have to figure something out for catching the grease from the kitchen drain, now it ends up in the filter and that’s not good. I wipe most of the grease off with a paper towel or let excess grease drip in a spare container, but some of it always disappears through the drain regardless. I wonder how other people have solved that. So I changed some of the soil for new soil, and put the new plants in it. I hope they will grow nicely. Oh how I love being outdoors in the sun, doing little chores like these! The weather forecast predicts that the weather will remain this nice for the rest of the week, though I’ll have to get back to work as well of course. I can take a break every once in a while though, sit outside on the porch for a couple of minutes. Have some tea, soak in vitamin D. Enjoy this lovely spring weather dear readers! Even though you work in an office building, take a walk outside during lunchbreaks. It will do you good, break loose for a while. You will have some new energy to go at it afterwards. Have a great time!
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