At last

I confess that I am a procrastinator. I always have been. This habit began in middle school. Projects would be due, we were given plenty of notice, and I’d wait until the last moment to get them completed. I think waiting makes it all the more special in the end. Or so I tell myself.
As an adult, I still tend to procrastinate, but in different ways. Recently, hubby’s and my garden has fallen victim to this foul tendency of mine. We had all fall to prepare the soil for spring planting, though we never once touched it. Then we had all winter to play catch up – prepare, amend, enrich the soil, start planning the garden, start pulling out dead plantings and weeds from last year’s garden. We still avoided doing any of this. The veggie garden looks like a ghost town, tumbleweeds and all.
Together, hubby and I are exponentially delayed when it comes to stuff like this. So sure enough, leave it to us to wait until the official last weekend of winter (the 1st day of spring is March 20) to begin to fool with the garden.
We visited Lowe’s this past rainy weekend and spent an hour picking out seeds, a peat pellet greenhouse system, a few potted plants, and some other random items (like paint swatches for the nursery). As a side note, it is impossible for me to go to a home improvement store and not pick out paint swatches, even when there is nothing to paint.

The greenhouse pallet we purchased had 72 peat “stations.” These little dry soil pellets begin the size of a 3 stacked quarters and grow to the size of a shot glass when hot water is added to the tray beneath them. The resulting soil cups are the perfect size for seedling growth. I added annual and perennial seeds to about 30 of the 72 pellets while hubby added vegetables to the rest.

We planted Shirley Poppy, Zinnia, Nasturtium, Hollyhock, Sweet Pea, cucumber, lettuce, zucchini, brussel sprouts, and 3 types of tomatoes. The seeds should become seedlings just in time for us to transfer them to the garden after the last frost.

Our potted plants replaced what used to be candles surrounded by glass globes.

A potted ivy was in need of a much cooler container.
We went to Everything But Grannies Panties,
an antique store on Guess Road,
and found this lovely ceramic chamber pot.

I also pleaded for a birdfeeder. Our yard is often visited by cardinals, blue jays, robins, chickadees, finches, and crows, though the last bird is far from a welcome guest. We got the cheapest feeder, the cheapest birdseed, and the cheapest shepherd’s hook we could find. I stationed the feeder in the backyard directly beside the sunroom and have yet to see a bird visit it. Hubby promises it is because of the rain.