Our insane wood pile after tree removal
I received a large box in the mail on Friday, the kind of box that could only house… plants! Fedco. Of course they had to arrive on the busiest weekend since last Summer. Of course I wasn’t ready…
So after our Earth Day Celebration I stuck almost all of ’em in pots. Tere were some herb plants like Good King Henry, Asclepias tuberosa, Butterfly Weed, Lavender, Marshmallow, Arnica,  Black Cohosh (or Black Snakeroot), and Valerian. There were also 2 pieces (?) of Canadian Wild Ginger and I couldn’t even tell what was the top and what the bottom, or where vis-a-vis the soil line it had to go. And 1 Purple Coneflower – of the 12 seeds I put in downstairs, only 1 germinated, so I have high hopes for this plant. Last but not least there was the Elecampane. What an interesting, fat, huge root. It reminded me of the mandrake in Pan’s Labyrinth. This one I put in the herb bed up front, which gets a lot more sun now that the trees are gone.
Then there were some bushes. I put the Red Pearl and  the Regal Lingonberry in pots. But I planted the Belle Poitevine Rose in the East bed, next to our “official” (not our mudroom) front door. What a robust plant. Prickly too! And the two Bluebell Grapes I planted next to the kiwi vine that went in last Spring and that is, to my great relief, budding. (So are all the other bushes I planted last year.)
The 50 strawberries crowns are still in my fridge. They’ll go in tomorrow, along with lots of vegetable seedlings.  We have many more bushes and vines coming, I really need to start prepping the place. I’m afraid I filled  up all my large pots today!
In other gardening news, we received our hoop bender from Lost Creek and we’ll be moving and rebuilding the hoop house next weekend if we can persuade some friends to help. It’ll be good to be able to get all the seedlings out of the living room. And out of the basement too: the mice are going wild down there! They went through my lobelia like a grass mower, and they’ve ruined all the wormwood seedlings (luckily the wormwood I grew and transplanted out last ear survived the winter and is growing again) . They’ve dug up lots of other seeds. And I’ve caught  not a one. The glue traps are obviously not working either.
There is lots of mycelium growing in the mushroom bed (didn’t have many mushrooms last year but might this year) and… a few days ago we ate our first lettuce from the garden (the hotbox). Yum!
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