Busy Little Bee

It's been an awesome weekend!

First, a disclaimer:  clearly I wanted to impress you, dear reader, with my photo and text laden post complete with inept iPhone pictures.  I hope you forgive the crappy angles and shadows and get the gist of what I'm trying to illustrate.

Yay!!  I don't have to go to work tomorrow, so that gave me the drive to get lots accomplished in a few days.  Hubby and I went to the county yard waste management facility and picked up one cubic yard of compost.  I think we got more than that, but it was pretty funny.  Hubby kept telling me I bought too much, but I tried to explain to him how 1 yard was the minimum of what you could purchase.  If we spent $23 on compost at the local big box garden center, it would have gotten us several bags.  This way I got a whole pick up truck full!  It was totally worth it.  I finally got around to filling in the herb circle.  My plan was to fill it up with a soil and compost mix, but we can't afford soil right now so straight up compost is where it's at.  Not sure what will happen, but lots of other crap grows in our soil, so eventually, I think the roots will spread to the soil level.  We shall see.  In the meantime, it was a lot of work to shovel the rest out of the pickup onto the tarp today.  Who needs yoga for toned arms?  I'm doing the farmgirl workout, lol!



I also was able to spread some compost on the back strip I cleared this winter in preparation for the wildflower bed.  I have no idea what's in the seed mix, if it will grow, or anything other than I bought 1 oz of southeastern wildflower mix, tossed it on the compost, stepped on it to pack it in and watered the shit out of it.  My goal is to water 2x a day until I see established seedlings, then taper off to once a day till they get bigger.  The soil back there is a bit better, since I don't think people raked back there, so the quality is a bit more loamy than clay.



I planted out the herbs I started inside in the herb circle.  There's a few horehound plants, since I've been dying to make "Rock and Rye" for "medicinal purposes" and Christmas gifts.  There's one weird lavender plant I grew from seed that looks nothing like lavender but smells like lavender.  I'd like to see what happens to it.  It's got broad leaves and a thick, sturdy stem.  Also, I planted out my alpine strawberry plants I grew from seed and it remains to be seen how they will fare.  And two rhubarb plants.  People say rhubarb does NOT grow here, it's too hot, but for 35 cents, I figured I'd give it a try.  Next, there's some spearmint, I think, and orange mint or something, but I don't remember.  In the next ring of  the circles, I planted some johnny jump ups and pansies, but it remains to be seen how they will do, as it is a bit late for them.  Apparently, they don't do well in the heat, either.  There's some nasturtium seeds that I soaked in the paper-towel-sprouting method experiment, since apparently, they're hard to germinate because of their hard seed coating.  Those will go around the tree out front, as an experiment to see if composting the roots will let things grow there instead of cultivating a pile of pine needles.  



Lastly, I threw some compost by the fence and planted some sweet pea seeds and am praying for them.  I'm sure they won't like the heat, either, but what the hell?   I shall call this "Southern Gardening for Northerners 101, School of Hard Knocks, Charlotte, NC.  I'm sure many have taken this class before me.  The key to passing it is learning from your mistakes, and not getting too discouraged.



There's too much to talk about, so I'm going to post a sequel, complete with MORE crappy iPhone photos :D