Spring is Starting...

March. It was cold, it was warm, it was cold again. It snowed, it warmed up a bit, it snowed... and then spring came back and hopefully is sticking around this time. I'm ready. 

Spring this year represents so much. The hope that I can worry less about winter germs, COVID, our health issues. The hope that things are getting better for real. The hope that Matt's allergy shots start working and he has a better spring than last year. I want to clean up and rebuild the backyard oasis so we can enjoy it. I want warm weather and sunshine. I want flowers in mulched beds by a sparkling pool and comfortable patio furniture ready for relaxing. And then the time to relax. 

I started my seeds last weekend. There are 3 trays of tomatoes and flowers. One tray of tomatoes and a few flowers went under the grow light after they sprouted, the rest go out to the greenhouse. This worked out so well last year that I've added a second tray of flowers for the greenhouse. 

There are 8 tomatoes: Early Girl, Sweet 100s Cherry, Sweet Millions Cherry, Roma Paste, Triple L Crop (new, climbing tomato), Bushsteak Hybrid, Black Krim and Tappy's Heritage (new heirloom). I'm skipping Yellow Pear this year because the blight kills it every year and it never does very well. Hopefully I can bring it back into the rotation next year or the year after.

Flowers for the raised cutting garden bed: Pink lemonade cosmos (2), Globe Amaranth Strawberry Fields (1), Rocket Hybrid Snapdragons and possibly Chantilly Bronze. There was a seed accident with my Chantilly Bronze seeds spilling and there might be 1 or 2 seedlings... or not. I planted extra rocket snapdragons to make up for it. There's also a morning glory vine (it did badly last year but amazing the year before), a giant sunflower and marigolds for the garden beds. 

I'm trying to pre-start herbs in the greenhouse too - calendula, sage, chamomile, dill. An experiment that can be righted with direct sowing if it doesn't work out. There are also flowers for elsewhere in the yard including cosmic mix cosmos (yellow and orange), snapdragon twinny apple blossom (too small for the cutting garden, but too pretty to skip), a few purple sunflowers and two kinds of poppies - falling in love that I did last year (and hopefully self-sowed in the yard, we'll see) and a new giant rattle poppy (another heirloom seed find). 

I have two new coral zinnias varieties for the raised bed garden. I'll do a carnival mix for some extra color along with the surprises from the rocket hybrid snapdragon mix. Then the dahlia bed will have the same lineup as last year - American Dawn, Labyrinth, Babylon Bronze, Daisy Duke, Fairway Spur, Apricot Desire, Belle of Barmera, Wynn's Moonlight Sonata. My favorite cutting dahlias. 

I had A LOT of dahlias pre-started. I'm pretty maxed out on space in the greenhouse right now... but that's the perk of having a greenhouse - all the things I can start early! I will cover every inch in here with plants!!! This is why I save every plant container!!! The shelves behind the crates are filled too!

I ran out of dirt this year instead of containers (I went through 1.5 of the BIG bags) so my little dalinovas had to share 3 larger plastic pots. Since they will move into the yard in a matter of weeks, I think they will be okay. This is just to get them pre-started for a longer blooming season. 

We have a packed yardwork schedule this spring. Lots to do in what I hope is a short span because I want to spend the warm weather enjoying the garden and yard (and backyard pool) instead of working on it. 

We don't want mulching to stretch into June again so we are ordering it early. But we can't order mulch until we have gravel delivered for our improved pool base (with a low retaining wall on the little hill so we don't have any spillage accidents this year). And a nice circular gravel patio will double as a big circular fire pit area in the fall/winter.  Win-win. BUT we can't have gravel delivered until we setup the base with a big ring of paver blocks in a perfect 20ft circle to hold all the pea gravel and sand in. So it's a lot to do in rapid succession. The materials for the ring have been purchased and we started construction - I will share the whole thing when it's done.  And I have to finish the spring yard cleanup - I left a few plants up all winter for wildlife and "winter interest" but it's about time to make way for spring growth. 

It's a tall list when we throw in work, 3 sports schedules for 2 kids (baseball season is upon us), school and all the health/wellness stuff we are constantly dealing with.