A Gardener's Diary

[Monksdream]

Feb. 27-The new asparagus spears I noticed reminded of a line from a Dylan Thomas poem: the force that through the green fuse drives the flower. I took out a hoe and started removing the ground up asphalt and tore up a couple of buds just under the surface. At that point, I quit. I'll let Nature do the work.

This morning I spied some Cherokee Purple tomato seedlings poking through the potting soil in their plastic mini greenhouses. I counted six. They will go the greenhouse tomorrow morning. Here they come.

I'm up to 120 lettuce plants, plus another row of Paris Market carrot and Burpee Golden beet. I even spotted a couple of tiny Danvers Half Long carrot seedlings in the first row I sowed. But no America spinach. To be on the safe side, I'm bringing the other packet, never opened, to the farm tomorrow morning.

I'm making more seed cups from newspaper strips to get ready for the pepper seed I bought from Chileplants.com. I will need 100, maybe more.

And, tomorrow morning I will take one the empty plastic containers on the window sill and sow an Italian heirloom tomato called Giant Syrian. I didn't grow them last season, but I saved the unused seeds in a drawer. They should still be genetically viable.

And, tomorrow I intend to switch up my routine. Instead or putting lettuce plants and seed I'll first work on the watermelon hills and moving soil from the slope to a raised bed. I'm getting more behind on those two projects with three weeks until the vernal equinox.

I finished spreading soil from the ledge onto a raised bed on the patio where I plan to raise the Cipollini onions. Trouble is, Sissy Boy, the wimped out tomcat likes to roll in it.