Today in the Garden - April 21

When the end of the day rolls around my CLO (Chief Logistics Officer - Roger) and I start to wonder if we have really accomplished anything. Not a lot of things on our to-do list seem to get crossed off. So today we decided to work really hard and figured maybe we could get a few more things scratched off that darn list.

1. Plant new rhubarb starts.

 Of course that meant we had to dig up the purple coneflowers that were right next to where the rhubarb was to go, pull up the plastic that was smothering the weeds in the rhubarb bed, and lay out some landscape fabric. And as long as the fabric was out, why not lay some down by the raspberry bushes. And that meant that first the grass had to be mowed short. I needed my tape measure to figure out how far apart to dig the holes for the rhubarb. Since it was down in the greenhouse I decided to check out the newly planted corn while I was there and also see how warm it was getting in the hoop house. Glad I checked it out -it was like a sauna in there! I had to open it up and hang the deer netting over the doors so the deer didn't go in and sample my "salad bar" of plants in there.

(Add to tomorrows list:

1.      pot-up coneflowers
2. put wood chips on landscape fabric
3. mow around rest of garden

 

Heading back to the garden I noticed that Chickadees were moving into the birdhouses in the front yard. They left tell-tale grass hanging out their front door.

Add “4. fill bird feeders"

I also noticed that Roger's truck was covered in pollen -

guess we need to add

"5. wash truck"

Back in the garden I thought about the fact that it hadn't rained much in the last 2 days and, since it was pretty warm out, the new Walla Walla onion transplants were demanding water. We haven't needed any irrigation equipment yet this year, so that means everything was still hanging up in the shop. But before we could run the hoses from the well to the garden we had to find and dig out the PVC pipe that we thread the hose through under the driveway. Winter rains had filled the ends with sand and it needed to be washed out. Then all we had to do was hook up the hose, turn it on and water.

It was getting down right hot out in the new rhubarb bed. We had measured, dug some holes and added compost. Time to sit in the shade for a few minutes and stay hydrated. Don't want to over-do it on the first "over 70 degree day this year".  Ahhh. While we were resting, a very pregnant deer ambled by us - maybe 30 feet away. She didn't seem to be bothered by us - what harm could a couple of old codgers do anyway?

 Okay, enough lazing around...back to work. The rhubarb plants were soon tucked into their new home and watered in. All we had left to do was clean up and put our tools away.

Roger figured he even had time to make one swipe of the lawn mower down the grassy strip in the middle of the driveway. An hour later he was still riding the mower back and forth in the pasture. The grass was really too long there for the lawn mower. Tomorrow he'll do it right.

6. hook up mower deck to tractor
7. mow rest of pasture

At the end of the day, all we got to cross off our 5 item to-do list was

"plant rhubarb".


We accomplished only 20% of our goals today. A pretty low score.

But, satisfaction with our life - that's another story. It's pretty high.
 It's 100%