[gardeners] Tuesday in the garden

George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Tue, 06 Mar 2001 18:57:02 -0600

After an uneventful morning and early afternoon, mostly spent getting monthly
blood work done and sitting in a conference with a client until my butt went to
sleep, I got out to wander around the garden. It was an eventful afternoon
though, my mayhaw tree has teensy mayhaws on it and the new Bruce plum has one
plum showing. The tomato starts are all up in their little pots and I got to see
the Burbank, Yellow Bell, Hungarian Paste, and Heatwave II 'maters starting out
in life. Hopefully they will produce an abundance of 'maters in a few months.
Finally got my Pinetree seeds today. Don't know what the delay was as they were
ordered over the internet on February 2nd. Burpee was late sending their seeds
out too. Now I've got Sweet Million cherry tomatoes to plant, think I'll do them
direct. 

Burpee sent the rose impatien seed to me today and they will go into a pot.
Thirty seeds for 4.95! Expensive but when you consider I can sell each
individual plant for a buck at our April plant sale it's not too bad. Folks down
here go nuts over the rose impatiens and we're rather fond of them too. Packet
says annual but we have some over a year old out in the greenhouse so we'll see
if they really are. I like them because they can take full shade and still bloom
well.

I'm harvesting about a quart of calendula blossoms each day to use in medicinal
salves so they're doing well too. May have to plant more next year though.

The big rosemary plant is blooming with pretty purple blossoms up and down the
major limbs. The Tuscan Blue rosemary has never bloomed for me yet but I think I
see some starting on that one. The Ponderosa Lemon has many (MANY) buds so
expect another big crop this year. 

We're still moving ginger plants to the east side of the house where a bed that
generally grows a zillion cleome plants is being turned into a ginger bed. Five
varieties so far including the Boswell Hidden Ginger. The white bearded iris
have about quit blooming and the Louisiana iris have buds, at least the purples
and yellows do. Another bearded iris is showing signs of setting buds and Miz
Anne seems to think it is a deep purple that she swapped for.

All in all, I think spring has sprung regardless of the light frost on the car
windows this morning.

Life is good.

George