Spring Cleaning

[sakon76]

Cleaning is therapeutic. Of course, if it was cleaning something useful, that would be even better....

Went through all the kitchen cabinets last night and sorted them and found some peanut-y stuff and tossed it out. Oh, the joy of Skittles melted onto the shelving! And why do (did) we even have a jar labelled "used oil"? But everything's cleaned and scrubbed (and the crystallized honey melted out of its jar through about a half hour of applications of boiling water) and in a more sensible order at this point. Plus I rooted through the garage this morning and found two mismatched gardening gloves (solving two pairs; now I'm only missing one more) and a few gardening tools, including a nozzle that's going to the community garden.

Found out who in the area sells loose bulk compost, for how much, and their hours. Going to churn up the dirt in my plot after work today (and cut some geranium slips) and will probably stop by OSH or Home Depot afterwards to pick up seeds and some potting soil. Started some of the seeds I already have in damp paper towels inside closed ziploc bags this morning; hoping I'll have more luck doing it that way than I've been having in the peat pots. If all goes according to plan, I hope to borrow my father's truck on Saturday morning and get compost, then plant stuff that day. Any thoughts on how thick a layer of compost I should get (it'll be roughly $15 per one-inch depth for the entire plot) and whether I should dig it in or just have it lay across the top of the loosened soil? And should I fertilize (given the weeds, I'm pretty sure the soil is fertile) now, or maybe in a few weeks to a month?

Comments

[racerxmachina.livejournal.com]

Geraniums: I just cut them and leave them in a jar of water for mas~menos two weeks. They figure it out and make roots, or they don't. Let the roots get relatively healthy and branchy before you jam them in dirt. Green ick will result on the jar, so don't use a vase you like.
I suppose you could use rooting hormone, but I don't.

[sakon76.livejournal.com]

Excellent! Thank you. I looked online for instructions briefly and they all said to root them in soil, which confused me because my mother always roots things in a jar of tepid water in the windowsill.

Have jar of tepid water. All set to go!

[mmouse15.livejournal.com]

Gardening thoughts - I envy you today. I've got 4 inches of new snow on the ground. Darn it. I wanted to start cleaning the front yard today.
When I'm doing a new plot, I use 2-3" compost and dig the first 1-2" into the soil, then spread the last inch on top after mixing it with a slow release pellet fertilizer. Then plant, and in a month to 6 weeks, spot fertilize anything that is looking peaked.
Does that help?

[sakon76.livejournal.com]

Snow~~

You have seasons. And can probably grow some things I can't, like lilacs and apples. (On the other hand, there are some things like citrus and avocados that abhor the cold, so I suppose that works out.) Thank you for the advice; it's just what I was looking for. ^_^

[sandpanther.livejournal.com]

I have lilacs and apples... Is the climate that dramatically different 400 miles to the south?

[sakon76.livejournal.com]

Dunno... how much citrus is there in your area? Driving around here, every fifth house in Orange County has a citrus tree peeping over its back fence.

Perhaps I should have said, you can grow lilacs here, and it's even possible to get them to bloom. They just won't have any scent. Has to do with the lack of cold requirement. Apples I'm not as sure about (haven't done as much research), I just haven't seen any around.

[sandpanther.livejournal.com]

Lots of citrus around here. I have a lemon and a tangerine tree in the backyard. Someone down the street has a grapefruit.

Huh. I never realized that cold was required for scent for lilacs. Learn something new every day. I'd offer to send you down some of mine (they're blooming currently), but I'm afraid they'd probably be nasty by the time they got there.