Kristen's thread on Super Fund is pretty humorous. I get to lie on the sofa watching the dust bunnies multiplying. It isn't so bad when I can be outside all day and only come inside to make more messes and eat--and pretty much ignore things in the house. But, when I have to look at it all day, it is not amusing. Yesterday, I ventured outside because I just have to know what is going on, and I can't stand being cooped up inside. Today is Day 4; and, I see full mobility in my crystal ball...soon, very soon.

Anyway, I started the thread because I am curious how your solo wedding went LizaLily.

Again, let's enjoy our moments in the sun.............

It is me, Mrs. Crazy-pants. I haven't been posting anything much, becuase I have been so busy trying to get my plants (and kids)watered and fed and kept from freezing. I sure do get why everyone told me to only grow a few varieties of flowers. Trying to keep track of all of their needs is daunting and overwhelming. Of course that didn't stop me from growing about twenty varieties anyway. My mother in law's teenym pop-up cabana-esque greenhouse is actually great. I will need a real greenhouse next year, but so far we have had a pretty mild spring and I have had room for everything. I got a dumptruck load of beautiful 4 year old manure on Saturday and realize I will need one more. Tryin got turn my quackgrass/dandelion/hawkweed backyard into a plot of flowers is proving to be a bit hairy. Of course it has been rainy and so everything is moving forward at a snails pace. I don't know how soon I will be able to plant. Jeanne told me to try and get it all done by the first week in June. I am shooting for that, but it may be the second or thrid week! I want to be as organic as possible in the future, but decided I had to round-up the whole damn area, as quackgrass is just too invasive and would easily take over as it has tried to do in the pea patch. Anyway, I sprayed it on Thursday and it still looks pretty alive. Ugh. It better DIE!! MWA HA HA HA HA!!! I can't wait until next spring when I can get this started earlier, but I said this would be my year to learn and boy is it ever.

Waiting for the weeds to die,

Katiepoo

I did get all my strawflower plugs planted in between our rainstorms, am using lightweight weedcloth to plant through them...we'll see how it works. I hope to get lots more done soon...the weeds are growing way too fast!
Wendy

I'm also trying to find a helper...weeder/harvester, but so far no luck.

Now that the swelling is going down, I'm even more sure that nothing is broken, but cartilage and ligaments, possibly bones, are all badly bruised. There might be some damage to the right knee - it sounds and feels like Rice Krispies if I put weight on it when bent. Sometimes that happens anyway from the arthritis, so who knows whether there will be any long-term effects. For now it's just slowing me way down. Not that I could be doing much outside - it's raining constantly, never stops, just speeds up and slows down - but I could be cleaning house! (a fate worse than death that I'd rather avoid anyway). I got some sunflower trays seeded and into the greenhouse for germination today, very slowly.

I think we've caught up on our rain. The whole world out there is sodden and dripping and has been for days. It feels like a real North Idaho spring, cold and very, very wet. The whole world out there is about 3,000 shades of green, and lush. That's how very lush, green places get that way - it rains all the time! I can't even walk out into the aisles of my field - even the well-trod paths are sink-in mud. Come to think of it, if I had to get hurt, this is a fairly good time. More rain forecast for the next few days, then I should be up and at 'em again.

Jeanne

Now darn it, try to keep your feet under you and slow down! You sound too much like me and I can feel it in my joints just reading about it!

I started it on a clay bank 5 years ago and it always gets neglected when I run out of time. Unfortunately the moon never shines down on it even when full as the moon is always behind it, not in front! Live and learn!

To all of you folks injuring yourself, I have one thing to say, STOP IT!!! It's hard enough on our bodies without adding insult to inury. Seriously, I hope you all mend well and stay clear of any more catastrophes.

Now I have a love/hate relationship with the rain. I love it that it is soaking in all those new shrubs, but now I can't do a second tilling and planting of suns until it dries out, which doesn't look like it's gonna be until the weekend. I do have some flats of perrenials I can transplant into cells to keep me busy though, and the tractor could use an oil change, and the garage could be cleaned and the mower blades could be sharpened and.......

Work is calling me,

Take care and happy growing,

Steve

well, my tulips are all gone, and I made a whopping fifty bucks or so off them ... just like last year. at this rate I think it will take me a decade just to pay off the bulbs I bought 2 years ago. obviously I didn't do much research before I bought-- most of the varieties are small and ugly. i'm grouchy about tulips today.

and now I have no more flowers for several weeks. good thing i've got a greenhouse filled with 1,500 tomato plants to keep me busy. transplanted the last of those yesterday as well as my 70 or so dahlias (what was I thinking) and I still have a few lilies and glads to get in the ground and I haven't even STARTED transplanting.

i'm so tired.

Kristen

Daughter fit in another hour working on clean up and my Moon Garden has a BIG EMPTY SPACE just waitng for neat things to go into it....Ooooohhhhhhhhhhh!

Planted some tritelia and ixias in a bed today by pulling back the 6" of straw and throwing them on the dirt with some osmocote, then putting the straw back. Will see how that works. Sure speeds it up! I am hoping they will pull themselves down to whatever level they want to be at. If not, the straw will turn into dirt by fall. Finished planting my Costco glads (Well, the fancy ones. Now I Have about 6 bags of mixed border glads from them to plant.

My Black JAcks were 1/3 moldy and squishy. OF course I did buy these in Feb and they have been in the garage since but the others all seem to be fine.

Will see if I can get my son out working planting glads tomorrow since I need to rest for a couple of days after the cortisone shots. THought I better get them before the wedding this Sat. I see a new Dr this time so hope she is skilled!

At my parteners place (I guess in the past years he did veggies at a Sat market and thought he would like to get into cut flowers - we are teeming up. We'll both plant and he'll take care of them, and I'll help pick and sell.) We started a 120 foot row of perennials and planted about 1000 suns. When the weather cooperates we'll plant out the zins and celosia.

This week I helped my daughter plant her colorful flower garden- mostly wintersown plants and my son plant his black and white garden. His is on year two with black tulips and iris popping out of the ground right now. We planted white corncockle, penny black, black columbine, mulon rouge suns, black hollyhock, dianthus sooty, black bachlor buttons, black and white poppys and for his twig trellis moon flower and white hyantnth(sp)bean vine. I am waiting patiently for my "work flowers" to take off, if it ever warms up! But I cant wait for these two gardens to develope.

On Friday I am having a garage/plant sale. I need some dough right about now and since the market hasn't started yet and none of my flowers have bloomed, this seems to be the way to go. I have some herbs, veggies, grass, perenials, and some lilys (oh yeah, I planted 200 lilys in the garden). I hope they sell well.

Wow what a long post. I'm Not usually so long winded, Maybe if I post every week I won't have to be.

Patty

TOmorrow I start picking for the wedding. And I will pick and pick and pick...if I can find enough to do. I also have both Delinda's stand and mine to keep supplied with flowers over the weekend (Next two weekends) while she is on her cruise. I have lots of English roses opening and a fair number of iris and my laides mantle is just right. Not much else...an occassional foxglove and some early blue violet delphinium, as well as purple sensation alliums. IT is not †he big strong spikes of delphinium, more wimpy but plentiful. THe bride's bouquet is going to be lavender calla lilies and blue heron tulips which we grew in pots in our greenhouses. Delinda is making it up tonight before she leaves early tomorrow. THen we will pray for it to last! I think it will be OK in the fridge. Will share photos if Poochella will be my agent!

The beds in our primary field are now amended, walkways mulched. I'm still planting, planting, planting. In this week: 500 more glads, 300 lilies (the last). To get in the ground this weekend without fail: 50 dahlia tubers, direct-sown sunflowers. I think my eyes were bigger than my constitution when placing my Spring orders! I'm not going to buy any more bulbs/corms/tubers this season. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not... except, I do have one extra row I could put more dahlias in....

After a very wet early Spring, we seem to be in a mini-drought. Tomorrow brings rain, thank goodness.

The first series of glads are about 4-6 inches tall--I go look at them every night when I get home from work. I just love seeing young plants coming up! The Dauricum White Asiatic lily shoots are about 3 inches tall.

Kim, someone reported good success with very rapid thrip eradication using BullsEye bioinsecticide from Gardens Alive (sorry, can't recall who). It also treats aphids, doesn't harm beneficials, so GA's blurb says. I've bought some, but haven't used it yet.

Flowerfarmer and Lizalily, I hope you're recovering from those injuries!

Cheers,

Valerie

Days when the soil can be worked aren't frequent now, when it's raining almost every day. Cool and wet weather is our normal for now. The weather folks call it "showers" but many of the showers are gully-washers, so everything stays dripping wet and the soil is too sodden to mess with.

I have to go pick up my dog. He got deathly ill very fast, going from apparently perfectly healthy to 3/4 dead over 24 hours, with bacterial hepatitis. His survival was doubtful as of last night, but he did one of his miraculous turnarounds (he has done this before, with pancreatitis) and will be coming home today. The vet thought he'd be keeping the dog for several nights before he'd be strong enough to come home, but it's only been one night and he's coming home! Not bad, for an 11-year-old (elderly by big-dog standards) big dog. Even the vet was amazed. I spent a very bad night wondering whether I had seen our sweet, beloved old dog alive for the last time. We don't have children, so we tend to get overly attached to our dogs and cat. And Barkley is such a sweet, smart old dog, with the I-love-everybody sort of personality that so many retriever-type dogs have, it's easy to love him. Almost everybody who has visited us here has offered to give Barkley a home if we can't take care of him for some reason, but we'd both have to be dying before we'd give him away.

Time to go get my old dog.
Jeanne

Just got done with my Solo wedding...WHEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! THey professed to be totally satisfied...I am so tired I can no longer tell how things looked. Will send some photos via our Poochella. SO nice of her to pass them on . I am totally brain dead. Only slept about 4 hours last night.

I must say we are proud of our brides bouquet for which we grew the callas and tulips in our greenhouses and got them to flower at the right time! Came out just like the photo the bride gave us of what she wanted!

Then I remembered my 6' Diablo Ninebark sitting in its pot at the back of the MoonGArden and a new bridalwreath. Got help from Hubby planting them. We still didn't get my little TIGER SUmac planted but he has gone off to mow his dog-walking paths (He finds it good entertainment and exercise... LOL). I am SO HAPPY to get my plants into the ground where they atleast have a chance! Still gotta find a place for my HEss blue doug fir, but I know where I want it and it will have to be fenced in to protect it until it gets some good growth on it. I want to plant it where I will view it against some cinnamon-barked madrones from my office window.

My little Korean Firs that I started from seed about 8 years ago are growing nicely. I think they will hit 5' tall this year atleast and at last!I Adopted 2 Korean daughters so have to adopt all interesting Korean plants too!

Well, got my stands going again today with the left overs from the wedding. About all we have now are the first peonies about to pop and the iris that weren't picked for the wedding and the early roses. Am doing both stands while Delinda is on vacation. Will go down and check on them (Actually bring home any flowers left and close them) after I have rested a bit.

Jeanne, I'm so glad Barkley is okay. I dearly love my animals. Like Liza wrote, can't keep a good dog down! I'm also glad at least one of your knees is coming along. I realized after my last post, I had your horror story "assigned" to LizaLily (because of her knee injections). THAT story hurt just reading it!

Very tired. So much for that energy. Who knew quintupling the plant volume would do this?

Valerie, who's still gonna buy more dahlias, even though she shouldn't!

Let me add my best wishes to Barkley, I love dogs too and get overly attached to them. My DH complains I show the dog more affection than him, LOL.

We FINALLY jumped in and planted some of our bulbs on Saturday- about 1000 Callas, a few Eucharis, few Eremurus (please grow!!) and some tuberose. As some of the Callas are for my niece's wedding, we had Nicole and her fiancé, his mother, my nephew, and my parents to help DH and I. Wow, what a difference than planting everything ourselves! We had a lot of fun and good weather too. Yeah, my knee was giving me trouble too, as I crawled along the row setting bulbs in as my niece covered. Locks up and then pain! But I'm getting too old to do the bending over- or maybe too out of shape, the hamstrings can't take it!
Anyhow, waiting for more of the field to be plowed so we can plant the rest!