Sunshine!

And warmth! It's absolutely gorgeous outside! There are rainbows dancing all through my front hall, stairs, and kitchen (from the sun refracting in the bevelled glass of my front door.) In about half an hour, when I get Piet up, I'm going to throw on some clothes, grab a stool and some sort of large mixing implement (I'm woefully under-supplied when it comes to gardening tools) and a jug of water, and I'll prepare the soil in my urn to receive seeds. If there's enough soil and it looks good enough to me, I'll plant my first two swiss chard seeds. The rainbow ones haven't arrived yet, but I have some plain white ones that will do for the first two plants.

I'm going to be watching that urn the way eight-year-olds watch styrofoam cups full of dirt and a pumpkin seed.

Hopefully by next Saturday, my rainbow chard seeds will have arrived, so I can follow the advice on the packet and plant the seeds a week or so apart, thereby ensuring continuous supply all summer. And I have to remember to leave room for the cress seeds I ordered. I'm going to plant those around the rim.

After six years in this house, I'm finally planting something!

Garden stuff

sassy_fae and I took a look at my back garden. The prevalence of moss and the lines of the massive old tree in a neighbour's yard convinced both of us that only deep-shade plants will manage there. However, there is a hosta there that migrated from the backyard next door, set up shop, and is now (according to Jenn) reading to be divided into six or seven smaller hostas. Can anyone tell me if I should do that now, or wait until fall, or at some other time? I'm thinking a bag or two of topsoil, a few hours with a shovel, and the expertise of a friend, and I should have an entire row of pretty green hostas in my backyard.

There's also enough sun along the edge of the garage, at least in the spring before the tree fills out, to plant a strip of spring bulbs. I desperately want some spring bulbs next year - maybe even enough to get me off my duff in October to plant the darn things. :) I want daffodils and hyacinths and crocuses. I've already got lilies - they're growing along the back fence, untouched and loving it for as long as we've been here. I've also got a good-looking Rose of Sharon that just needs some pruning. Again, advice - do I prune it now, or wait until fall?

My composter needs some attention. I've never turned compost before, and don't really know how to go about it, but there's probably some black gold at the bottom of it from all the grass clippings Piet's put in there over the years. The top layer is corn husks from last summer. What do I do with this stuff?