Six on Saturday

1. Planted more vegetables, including leeks, onions, red mustard, broccoli raab, beets, radicchio. They were sprouted inside under grow lights, then hardened off in the (much worse for wear) mini greenhouse, then finally, last Sunday, planted out in the now more open vegetable/herb bed. I have read about companion planting, but have failed to commit the list of compatibles/incompatibles to memory. Instead, I have derived a much-simplified lesson: don’t plant vegetables of the same family together and protect vulnerable plants with others that insects find aversive. So, in keeping with this reductive theory, I isolated beets from chard and I scattered the leeks, onions, and some dessicated garlic among the other vegetables.

How have they fared, almost a week later?

2. Tools. I recently added a dibbler and widger to my collection of garden tools. The widger has so far proven its worth by faciliating the removal of seedlings, unscathed, from sectional pots. I am confident that the dibbler will also find justification when seed planting is come again.

3. Fuschia flowered gooseberry. Looking quite lovely with all the rain. And below, melianthus major, which has grown a good deal this winter.

4.. Bird feeding continues. This year, I have set up a feeder with mixed seeds and one with black oil sunflower seeds, as well as a suet cage. We continue to see chickadees, scrub jays, mourning doves, and others. The goldinches continue to partake of the abundance of the evening primrose seed pods.

5. Houseplants. I am going to begin featuring one per SOS when possible, as they afford great joy in the home, particularly when smoke/rain/cold/dark makes outdoor gardening impracticable. This week, the staghorn fern, which is positioned above the kitchen sink for additonal humidity. The moss fell from trees in wind and rain and was harvested on my walks.

6. Native strawberries. These have thrived and spread. I will be propagating them shortly. I love the way their red stems weave over the soul’s surface and their dainty yet remarkably hardy leaves punctuate the web at tasteful intervals. I am impressed by anything that can thrive in the soil of the verge, which is compacted and full of gravel that someone saw fit to distribute liberally over the entire stretch, apparently in a vain effort to deter all living things.