huddle inside

We're having one of those see-saw events: very cold today, with a promise of a very warm weekend ahead. I like that! I need time to huddle inside and finish my planting maps. 

I'm thinking that I went about it the wrong way. I purchased plants I wanted to see in the garden in more or less quantities I could accommodate. I didn't think too much about what would go where. It always sort of works out. But the quantities turned out to be, well, not small and I did not want to be overwhelmed so I decided to do these flower bed maps. This may have been a good idea if I remembered every single plant that I'd already put in. I can't say that this is the case. At least not to the centimeter, or to the meter. Where are the old plants, where are the gaps?? And of course, I lose about 5% of last year's growth but I don't know yet which 5%. All this means that drawing maps is only easy for empty beds. I only have one empty bed. (Lookin' at you, bed number 11!)  The rest? My maps are an exercise in inexactitude.

Compounding the difficulties, I no longer remember why I thought, for example, that buying a 3 pack of Pyncnanthemum Verticillatum var. Pilosum from the Prairie Moon Nursery was a good idea. Moreover, this is the first time that I am working with that nursery (I'm trying very hard to introduce even more plants that will be compatible with the bugs and birds that live in south central Wisconsin), so I do not know if I can count on their, for example Blephilia Ciliata to spread as advertised. You have to know your growers and I don't know these growers yet.

So, on this cool day, this very cool day, I huddle inside and give my very best effort to the job of placing every new plant in a farmette flower field. At least on paper.

After breakfast of course.

The urgency here is obvious. Planting will start exactly three weeks from today. And in these three weeks, I have to keep up with weeds and here's another thing -- I have to draw out a tree plan! What tree plan? Well, I'm easily influenced by upbeat articles about planting beneficials and today, I read the piece in the NYTimes on how everyone should plant acorns and encourage oak trees to grow in their back yard. Now, this is a silly proposition, because oaks just never stop growing: they are huge! What suburban garden can accommodate a massive oak? And of course, it is just a short leap from there to my next thought: we should go back to our tree planting project! 

Ed is on board. And so some time in the afternoon, we list the trees we want to grow Maples, chestnuts, hickory, walnut, pecans. About 100 of them. Maybe more. Only now I'm dealing with a different gardener: Ed. He doesn't first buy, then adjust the purchases to the land. He plans. And does research. And reads everything. And so we have my quick to act style mixing in with his slow to decide demeanor and we have ourselves an interesting afternoon.

And speaking of growing things, out of the millions (or so) of tulips I planted, I now have almost none left. The groundhog did his job well, returning to the crime scene last night, before we had a chance to spray anything with habanero peppers. But, today the pack of peppers arrived in the mail and we set to work, grinding them up with water, milk, and oil. In the cold, cold evening, we spray all the tips that the groundhog left behind. 

A full enough day, you say? Oh, we also dealt with the chicks. I told Ed their room was beginning to smell of... chickens, so we dumped out old wood shavings and refreshed their box with new stuff. (We let them run wild during the cleaning process.)

(And gave them a treat: parsley.)

The day's not done. I must now produce a plan of our tree planting project. Ed will not go through with the tree purchase (we're talking saplings, less than a foot tall, at about a dollar or two a shot) before I produce a planting plan. 

Huddling inside never felt so... busy!

(And the daffodils keep on blooming and they're lovely.)

(And Dance finds a new place to find comfort inside.)