!Por Fin!

Or for those of you who do not know two words of Spanish - "At last!"

Last week we laid out the new garden bed in front. Very simple really, just Holland pavers laid in a curved bed, and staggered brick style. No mortar, no real prep, other than pulling a flat spot out with the hoe. But that's as far as we'd gotten. Cold days and a bug sidetracked me all last week, but the weather has warmed and I feel better, so time to get to work. :)

Day before yesterday I dug out the gardening tools, plant trays, starting pots and greenhouse cover. All these were scrubbed and bleached to kill any lingering pathogens, and then left to dry overnight.

Yesterday morning I set up the table on the deck, went through my seeds and selected those I wanted to start in the greenhouse now. This means tomatoes, peppers, red onions and leeks. If I tell the truth I planted half a dozen pots of leeks, the same of onions and 30 pots of tomatoes.

I planted a mix of small "cherry" types, Mosaic Mix (three different colours), Gardener's Delight, Tumbler F1, and one I've never tried before, Chocolate Cherry.

Then for large tomatoes I planted Starfire which is always a reliable producer for me, Purple Prince a dark intensely-flavored medium-sized tomato, Red Brandywine a large, high-shouldered tomato which has a great flavour, and a mix of several colours of Brandywines, Zebra striped which is green striped, Yellow, Yellow and White. This bunch is an experiment, as I've never tried these colour variants before.

Then today we unloaded the bags of soil mix I bought last week and filled the new bed in front. I moved the Coral Bells Heuchera from the back, where it has sulked in a too-shady spot for two years. I planted the pansies and Autumn Joy Sedum I bought a few days ago, and dug up and replanted the cranesbill, catnip, heather, hen and chicks and mint that were growing in the bed before. I also had a silver and green foliage plant which I planted in one of my annual baskets last spring, and which has survived and thrived. So I popped it into the bed. It is a low-growing spreader, which should make a good ground cover for the slope coming off the new bed into the rest of the garden.

This basically means I am pooped, but I still took my new video camera and went out to film the whole thing. The Helleborus Niger Easter Rose is putting on an extravagant show with 24 blossoms! The grape hyacinths are just beginning to open.



You hear our neighbour Randy, who came out to chat while I was filming. And as I watched this afterward I remembered the phrase from Robbie Burns' poem, To a Louse; "O would some power the gift to give us, to see ourselves as others see us."

Apparently this is exactly what today's video camera allows. Having filmed only three or four short videos I realize I have a very annoying habit of whistling under my breath all the time. Okay, I listen to a lot of classical music and there's always a concert going on in my head. I can kick in on a bar of any of 100 different pieces and hear (and apparently whistle) it right through to the end. Dear dear. I know where I got this habit. My Dad whistled non-stop. I guess I am my Father's daughter. But I think I will try to keep the music in my head from now on. I'm sure friends and family will be thrilled. LOL