Oh, it's been a difficult week, for sure

Hello again. I come to you much subdued, physically, in a very bad fibromyalgia flare. Exactly nothing has happened in the way of physical gardening over the past week, although I am happy to tell you that I will soon have to update the seed inventory. I have orders in with Wild Garden Seeds and Baker Creek Seeds, both, and can't wait to get the seeds into my hands! Worked around the dreaded "out of stock" and the even MORE dreaded "out of money" to get more peas, lots of greens, zucchini, and watermelon seeds!

Greenhouse flooring continues to accumulate. I finally have a way to reuse frozen food boxes!! You can't recycle them, you know, because they're waxed. But they can be an underlayer for the greenhouse floor! At this point the squirrels are still ignoring the greenhouse and I am heartily cheered by that. It's beginning to look like a second (bigger!) greenhouse is definitely in the works for us, so I'm accumulating all the cardboard I can. And while we are in limbo, I keep plottin' and plannin' what to do next. 

My favorite daydream right now is a dozen 20" pots lined up along the wheelchair ramp, beans closest to the ramp, squashes or melons or tomatoes in the center of the pots, herbs at the front edge. Haven't decided whether to use hardware cloth or bird netting to keep the squirrels out. I just know that the idea of fresh green beans dangling over the inside of the railings tickles me enormously--and melons! I ordered a variety called Tigger, little half pound stripey melons, and it would be a kick to have them dangling over the railings!!

Inside the greenhouse, I have pea sproutage. It's very slow, just the tiniest green tips at soil level, but I think every warm day will see them stretch a little more into the light. The one day I was able to check on them, I noticed the green house was noticeably warmer than the outside temp, so the cover really does work--probably not least because it cuts off the wind. It's supposed to hit 60F here Wednesday, so I'll take a watering can out. Right now I'd rather use a watering can than the hose--I can make the water room temp, which will help germination.

The top of the fridge is home to my slowly growing accumulation of toilet paper cores. I have one deli chicken container filled with them and ready for soil (when I'm up to mixing it), and a few more cores waiting to be cut for the next container. My big experiment is to wrap the tops and bottoms of the cores with masking tape, to see if it helps them hold together longer. When I've used them in the past they've fallen apart as I tried to lift them out of their containers for transplanting, which leaves the roots truly vulnerable and sets the plants back. We'll see whether masking tape is my secret ingredient this year.

As far as big melons, like watermelons, we have a driveway which runs through the back yard. Most of it is covered with dirt and plants, but the part which gets the strongest western sun exposure is still bare. I want to plant watermelons on either side and let them run rampant on the concrete. My aim is twofold: reduce the heat the driveway throws into the yard (because those huge leaves will shade it), and give the melons someplace clean and hot to grow upon. It might be that year by year, foot by foot, I'll reclaim the concrete for gardening purposes. Always have loved container gardening, and letting vines spill out onto clean concrete speaks to my soul.

Most of the usual gardening suspects are out of the question for us. Food allergies dictate that we not grow corn, broccoli, eggplant, cabbage, so many veggies... better to focus on what we can grow, I think. Gryph, although sensitive to tomatoes, is willing to try them on a very limited basis. We haven't figured out where to plant asparagus and it might very well go into the middle of some of the wheelchair-ramp-pots, since like the tomatoes we can only handle it in limited amounts. I'm seriously considering getting an indoor light set-up to grow baby salad greens until the greenhouse is warm enough (it's unheated), but the question there is how to keep Cleo (the cat) from digging in the trays... maybe bird netting will discourage her the way it discourages squirrels... the trouble is, it also discourages me!

Which reminds me, some gardening did happen--I pulled the netting out of the way and pruned the raspberry canes in the giant stump planter out front. The general rule is to cut them back to 12" in January, and this year I remembered! Also pruned the grape vine pretty severely. I didn't get either task done in January of 2020 and was startled how poorly the plants did compared to the years when I've remembered. Got my fingers crossed I'll be well enough in March to fertilize them all on time.

And that brings up a neglected subject. I've been reluctant to spend money on fertilizers, especially organic fertilizers, but now it's money-where-your-mouth-is time. I have to adjust my thinking from "omg that's shockingly expensive!" to "okay, yes, this is a necessary expenditure." You do get what you pay for, and you certainly can't get organic fertilizers from the dollar store. If our bodies do better when we eat organic food--and Gryph and I have experimented enough over the years to be certain this is true for us--then we need to get organic fertilizer.

I think the tide has turned for me, and my trips to Michaels or JoAnn Fabrics have lost their luster. Now I very much want to spend every spare cent on pots, soil, seeds, fertilizer, and whatever it takes to keep my garden safe from squirrels--be that another greenhouse, hardware cloth, or bird netting. Time for me to reclaim this great love of my heart and rebuild my yard into the paradise I've always wanted it to be, one pot at a time.