Procrastination & Rain

Procrastination and rain conspired to make me miss a week in my garden photos. But! I did some more playing in the dirt this weekend, and have an updated set of pictures from the short time today when the sun actually came out.

We brought back a ladder from the maintenance yard so I could work on the feeders again. I have two brackets mounted, and two different sized arms to go into the brackets. I've been experimenting with the arrangement that works best. With the addition of our squirrel baffle, I think I finally got it about right. Now the birds can get the seed, the squirrels can't, and I can fill everything up without needing to climb up on rickety plastic garden chairs.

We've had quite a lot of birdy action in our yard, too. Our regular visitors of nuthatches, chickadees, gold finches, red-winged black birds, and titmouses (titmice?) have been supplemented by tons of sparrows, the rose-breasted grosbeaks who seem to be sticking around, and cardinals who are usually shy. The downy woodpeckers and hair woodpeckers are getting more brave about coming to the feeder when the dogs are in the yard. The ruby throated hummingbird has emptied my feeder once already, and visits many times a day for a snack. We had a magnolia warbler and a ruby crowned kinglet in our scraggly trees this morning, too. Both of those were life birds for me. Supah-sweet!

The sun finally broke through, so I sat in the yard and did my correcting for the weekend. I made myself finish all of it (and I do mean ALL) before I had lunch and then dug in the dirt. Sara and I went to Lowes and to get ice cream the other night, and we split a flat of these marigolds that are a creamy white and almost look like daisies. I got three tomato plants that night, too. Yesterday with Heather I picked up two red poppies to put in my red bed to fill it in a little bit. All of that needed planting, plus my replacement green wizard rudbeckia were patiently waiting to be planted, too. I discovered that my master plan for a tomato bed along the house was not going to happen--it's all packed down cobbles used to support the house. Dar! So part of my strawberry bed will be tomatoes. I replanted my impatiens from the porch bed into the front bed, and there, magically, was enough room for our tomatoes.

Here's the latest pictures. I swear I weeded the butterfly bushes at least twice. Maybe I need to just get over it and mulch there.




The front bed with the replanted impatiens:





The rose bed is just kind of keeping on. Only one of my roses has woken up yet--the double delight is tentatively putting out tiny leaves.




Here's my re-arranged tomato-berry bed, with three strawberries I got at Lowes because I'm afraid my replacements never will really get here. You can almost see the single tomato cage I've got in. I need four more. Near my shovel is the tiny spare basil that Sara gave me earlier today.





Here's the stump with the pretty marigolds, and a second view showing the poppy plants.