Spring blooms!

 2 sunny daffodils, on the far side of the house, far back corner.

I didn't even notice them until I went back there looking for something else!

There may be some tulips coming in the same spot, too.

I think this may be Western spring beauty, which (if it is) is a Washington state native wildflower. 

There's just this one up on the slope by the big aspen tree, and 2 more in front by our mailbox.

It's about 3 inches high, and the flowers have blue stripes down the middle of each petal.

Even though they are few in number I am grateful to see some flowers again!

By this time next year there should be more to see, if I have my way this fall.

Pruning and Planting

We had a gorgeous, sunny day yesterday, so we spent all afternoon outside working on garden stuff. Hooray!

One little chore we got done was pruning the raspberry bushes. There were quite a few dead canes, some of them hollow in the middle--bug hotels. Some pieces of the crowns even came right out of the ground with just a tug. I noticed quite a few carpenter ants as I cleaned up the canes, leaves, and other debris around the base of the plants. I hope a little better housekeeping will mean fewer homes for those ants right next to our house. Last year the berries we got were very small--I'm also hoping this pruning will encourage production of bigger berries.

I had also purchased 12 daylily bulbs from Costco last week when we were there, so we got those planted. 3 each of: Doublicious (orange with a double flower), Condilla (yellow with a double flower), + 3 each of Fire and Fog (red with yellow border), and On My Own ? (yellow, single flower).   I'm not sure if they'll make it or not--the one package seemed too wet, and several of the leaves were slimy. The other one seemed too dry, and they didn't really even seem alive.  Oh well. We'll see how they do and if it was worth it. I usually try to avoid purchasing anything alive at Costco.  I put them around the base of the biggest aspen on the slope back there.

We also raked out quite a bit of dead grass from around the aspen tree where we wanted to plant.  This hillside will become beautiful! I'm determined to make it so.  I can't handle the "dead bunch grass" look. Even it was green and alive, I see so much more potential for that slope.  We kept running into thin pieces of pebbly cement sort of half-buried, I assume to help hold up the soil or something. I pulled them out whenever I found them.

Next up: blueberry bushes, if I can figure out where to put them!

The Ways of Seedlings

I haven't planted very many things from seed. So I have been fascinated to see how these different plants grow. You saw the beans last post. Here's the other half of that seedling tray:

 L-R: violas, Marigold Mars, and Marigold Bonanza mix

The violas, from such a tiny seed, start out with those 2 round seed leaves, then begin adding more leaves from the juncture of the leaves, one at a time, the same round type.

As you can see, the marigold 'Mars' is a dud. I haven't had a single one germinate! I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, or if I ought to call the seed company and have them send me out another package.

The other marigolds, though, are going strong in all the trays. They start with the long slender seed leaves on a short stem. Then first put out the two larger toothed leaves you see there. It's kind of hard to tell, but after those first two, the leaves grow in groups of 4, with 2 pairs, each coming below the bigger main leaf.

This tray, L-R: hollyhocks, violas, cosmos, basil

So the hollyhocks' seed leaves are big and round in shape, then their new leaves come one at a time, also round, growing from the juncture of the seed leaves.

Cosmos resemble marigolds at first, with the 2 long, slender seed leaves, but their stems are all about 4 inches tall. Then the true leaves, as you can see, are very finely cut, coming out in pairs close to the seed leaves.

The basil has been very interesting to watch, too. The seed leaves are those larger, spade-shaped leaves. They originally were so close together they looked like one leaf, with two little eyes in the middle. Now they are growing apart and the true leaves are appearing, so far in pairs, right from the middle.

By the time the trays are at this point, you don't need to check your paper anymore for what's what. It's very obvious by their growth.  I have really enjoyed this learning process so far!

Transplanting the beans

 As you can see, the beans had outgrown these little trays.

The roots were already coming out the bottom holes.

Luckily, we've been eating a lot of yogurt lately!

I poked holes in the bottoms of the yogurt cups with a nail, then filled them with a mixture of the seed-starting soil plus regular potting soil.

They are fighting for windowsill space now, but all seem to be growing taller.

Beans grow fast enough that I'm sure I could have just waited and planted them outside this summer, but it has been fun for the kiddos to see them growing so big and tall. Fun for me too, especially with this cooler spring than we're used to.

Once we got the beans moved, we filled up the spaces again with more seed-starting mix.
This time we did: 2 'Baby Boo' miniature white pumpkins, 2 'Jack Be Little' miniature orange pumpkins, (one of each type in Jacob's and in mine), 1 delphinium in Jacob's, some delphiniums in mine (don't remember how many). I also put some borage in mine. Didn't write down which was which this time, so I guess we'll get a surprise.  So far the pumpkins in mine are just starting to poke through.

It has been a little harder this time to keep the dirt moist for the seedlings, since I can't cover the whole tray. This might be another reason to do all of one type of seed in the same tray. That way, they would all be ready to pot up at once, and then the whole tray could be used again.