Springing up all over

The past week or so, the weather was rainy and cold, and then the sun came out and things have been heating up. Everything is growing so fast you can watch the sprouts coming up. I have been outside at least a bit every day cleaning up and organizing. It is too early to do much planting, but not too early to get everything ready.
The absence of a roof on the shed resulted in a large collection of pots, buckets and other containers of varying sizes filling up with snow, which has now all melted. I realized that through lack of planning, I had inadvertently accumulated a bunch of rain barrels to empty on all my sprouts in the garden once the initial mud left from the snow melt began to dry up. This was particularly useful because the manifold we use to attach all our outdoor hoses has sprung some serious leaks and is not functional yet. Repairing it is on Josh's to do list today.

I spent a busy few days emptying and distributing water, and noting what needs doing where. We still had a pile of unused flat paving stones on one side of the house, and areas of high traffic that were churned up into mud outside the shed, between the shed and the house, and on other transitional spots. I redistributed the pile of stones and made them much more useful and neat while eliminating yet another slug breeding ground near the lilacs.

Once the stones were set, I noticed that the garlic we so carefully planted in rows exactly where we wanted had not come up quite that way. Possibly some had shifted, and others were surprises (an entire head of garlic missed during harvest, and springing up as a cluster in a very inconvenient spot, like right in front of the compost bin). I spent some time uprooting and replanting garlic to rescue it from being crushed.

Given that in the past, I am working a 9-5 job as well as teaching a course at night in April, I have rarely had much time this early in spring to spend time outdoors. This year, I am teaching part time at Vanier, and my students at UQAM have been on strike since mid-March, resulting in my having at least the equivalent of a full day or more per week, in bits and pieces, that I can dedicate to the garden. I have learned that it is infinitely easier to weed in April when the ground is soft and still moist from the snow melt, and the weeds have not established themselves well. Hopefully this will lead to less problems later.

My spring flowers have been coming out day by day. This week, the hyacinths all bloomed, and I had enough this year that we can smell their fragrance as we walk in and out of the front door. The two lonely Siberian squills were up and blooming, but have not spread at all, surprisingly. I had two daffodils bloom this year, though squirrels bit the head off of one, as well as one of the hyacinths. A volunteer I used to work with suggested to me putting out bowls of water in the spring for the squirrels, based on the theory that squirrels bite the heads off spring flowers and use the stems as straws to drink, and putting out water will reduce this behaviour. I have no idea if is true, but I put water out in a bowl in my front garden and since then, no other flowers have been mutilated.

I have loads of little sprouts popping up where we had poppies and calendulas last year. I looked up images on line of what the sprouts look like for both types of flowers to be able to guess which they were.The images look identical at first, and differentiate only later on, so I have no idea which are growing or if they are both. Josh's dad picked up a container of poppy seeds at Bulk Barn, and despite my believing that the poppy seeds you buy for baking are irradiated or treated in some way to prevent them from being viable to grow opium plants (yes, those are opium seeds on your bagel), our garden guru Alex says that this is not the case, and you can grow them. The purpose is strictly for the flowers in my garden. They are beautiful. Josh has decided to guerilla garden the ones we don't use, and has been carrying them in his pocket wherever he goes.

Today we hope to figure out how to distribute the huge hay roll in the back yard. Josh wants to cut it in half, or 1/3 and 2/3 chunks, using part as a unit to plant tomatoes, broccoli and basil like we did on the bales last year. I am requesting a "lower profile" for the hay, after having to deal with bales collapsing and warping under my tomato cages last year, I want a much more stable structure. Josh also bought some blue spray paint to make our shed a bit less "special" if not less colourful.

Enough with writing, I need to get out there and lay down the soaker hoses, and enjoy the gorgeous summer-like weather while it lasts!