This week should bring more progress with the garden prep. Today is the day, once the sun comes up, that I will begin to "harden off" the begonias. I have four mother plants and two trays of young cuttings, and they will all spend a couple of hours on the sunroom porch this afternoon. The plan is to set them out each day this week and then move them to the greenhouse next weekend. I will keep a close eye on the weather forecast for our nighttime lows to make sure that can happen. The greenhouse isn't heated so I'll drape an extra sheet over them at night if necessary.
Getting the begonias moved out is really a necessity. I need the shelf space to get a few more seeds started. Yesterday, I transplanted the Beefsteak tomato seedlings into cups, keeping only the larger seedlings with true tomato leaves showing, which means I only kept half of what sprouted. It was painful to discard twelve little plants and keep only twelve. I'd love to grow them all, but this is not a big tomato year for me. If I change my mind and want to can more sauce, I'll go to the local farm markets and purchase tomatoes.
One project that kept me garden prepping over these last few rainy days was finalizing the planting chart for the Greenstalk. I used the trusty old MS Publisher program to keep it neat and tidy. With the begonias moved to the greenhouse, I can start the seeds for a few things that will go in the Greenstalk such as the calendula.
Getting the Greenstalk situated for the year was interesting. My garden spot is on a slight slope. Hell, everything here is on a slope! The Greenstalk needed to be level and none of the available bases for it would accomplish that, so I needed to get creative. An old galvanized washtub provided the solution. I put a couple shovelfuls of the clean crush run we keep on hand for the lane in the washtub and worked the bottom row of the Greenstalk until it set level in the gravel. I used a level to check it, too. I think that was a great way to use what I already had on hand to get the job done.
Dawn is finally happening, and it's time to take Deuce for his second trip outside. I may go wander around my garden spot and build visions of how it may look in a few short weeks while he does what he needs to do. It's a fine warm dawning, so yeah. That's my plan.
The Lady of The Hideaway
Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, gardening, begonias, black Labrador Retriever, rural living, country lifestyle, MS Publisher, garden diagrams, Greenstalk, repurposing, a writer's life, contemporary romance author
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