Spring gardening

On a perfect spring afternoon, I was able to spend a couple of hours weeding, mulching, and transplanting lettuce, spinach, and radicchio seedlings. Tomorrow, I really need to pay attention to the meadow and perennial border, but the vegetables -- I guess they're pampered. They need attention, after all, being dependent on gardeners.

The tough meadow plants and native perennials in my borders don't need much attention -- just freeing them from the cloak of weedy winter annuals, too many leaves (from my gardening companion's raking efforts), and a bit of final tidying up of last year's stems.

Hmmm, clearly I take the 'don't be too tidy' prescription for good wildlife gardens to heart. My gardening companion says he's going to mow the 'lawn' tomorrow. It's gotten awfully shaggy, and if we didn't have (almost feral) neighborhood cats, we'd definitely have Eastern Cottontail nests in some of those grassy clumps.

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Even more rain

We had an inch and a quarter of rain today, according to the new rain gauge, excellent for catch up and soaking into the soil. I was on an excursion to mid-state South Carolina for a program, and was surprised to learn that they not only weren't still in deficit, but had a surplus of rainfall so far this year. Geez, and I was just cheered up that our drought projection is now strongly in the improved category. But rain is spotty, and regional, and the downpour here is nothing down the road.

Tomorrow is projected as sunny and mild -- perfect gardening weather. There are lots more winter annuals to pull up. They're survivors, for sure. Somehow their seeds can germinate in deep mulch (doesn't matter if it's leaves, hardwood, or pine bark) and their vegetative abundance coats the surface of the soil. In a 'previous life', I studied weed ecology as a researcher -- the take home message is that weedy plants have reproductive strategies that can take advantage of ANY disturbance, and are quick to do so.

I still have some low-growing thymes to plant in the crevices of the front pathway, as well as some knocking back of lawn weeds. My gardening companion is away visiting family, so Mocha and I are on our own this weekend.

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