Saturday was spent weeding – yes, the weeds are poking through already! Followed by mulching the flower beds around the house as well as the herb garden. Seems that we had a great opportunity to get this done much earlier than in past years, and just in time for Spring to arrive. Actually had to double check when the first day of Spring happens in the Mid Atlantic region – found the answer on the Farmer’s Almanac website. It happens at 12:30 am on March 20th, 2016.
We planted Morning Glories along one side of the greenhouse and tied bailer twine from ground anchors to the top of the greenhouse roof. The plants just found their way – and once they reached the top, they grew downwards.
Since we installed the greenhouse in the middle of the herb garden last fall, the former layout of the garden was completely off center. This weekend, we finally too some time to re-do the herb garden paths so they actually lead to the greenhouse door. It took quite some digging and moving dirt, but the end result was worth it! We now have much broader paths to reach the greenhouse, and still plenty of space for herbs.
By the way, the very cold winter did kill some of the more tender herbs, like the large rosemary we had for three years. But we already planted new rosemary, and replenished the parsley (curly and flat).
We also added the old tractor part as “yard art” to the herb garden. We found this in one of our fence rows during spring cleaning and had to move it with the tractor – since it is so heavy. It sort of resembles an over sized bundt cake pan! We placed it on an old tree stump and will fill it with colorful summer flowers once it gets warmer!
Lars and Jeff spent the day building benches for inside the greenhouse, so that we can start moving plants, grape cuttings and vegetable seedlings outside.
The assembly had to take place inside the greenhouse, since the door is rather narrow – the challenge of course was the fact that they were surrounded by glass 🙂 Nothing happened though, they did great.
Each bench is over 11 ft. long, and has two levels, plus space underneath. So far, the only plants we moved out were our geraniums, which we overwintered in the cellar (all 50+ survived)
What else is there to do when a late winter storm dumps 7 inches of snow? “Play in the greenhouse of course!” Jeff spent a good part of this afternoon filling our paper tubes with potting soil, which is specially formulated for starting seeds and plants. Getting ready to start some grapes from cuttings … any day now.
