A little gardening squeezed in.

Today was the last day of spring break for my kids.  I promised them after the last school break, in which we worked on our front yard most of the time, that this break would be more about fun and not garden or house projects.  In between bowling, playdates, sleepovers, swimming lessons, lacrosse practices and a trip to the zoo I still managed to find a little time out in the garden here and there.  I've also decided I need a new attitude about our less than spring like weather, that if it's not raining I should still go out and garden even if I need a coat.  It could be a long time for perfect garden weather to show up, so I might as well just make the most of what we've got.

 This was my first year using grow lights to start seeds and something I learned was how quickly the soil dries out, just trying to stay on top of the watering has been quite the job.  This is why most of my indoor plants don't live long.  I was able to pot up the pumpkin, zucchini, pattypan squash and butternut squash seedlings.  I also repotted the white miniature rose my husband gave me for Valentine's Day.  I plan to let it stay outside once I get it acclimated to the temperature.

 Plants that I ordered from Bluestone Perennials back in January were delivered and are waiting to be planted along with more new Violas.  Almost all of the wintersowing (in the covered containers) have germinated.

 A cute new garden angel from my sister.

 The pond pump died on Friday evening after 8 years of running continuously.  What I thought would be a quick swap of pumps turned into a 3 hour project.  The new pump cord didn't fit through the conduit underground (it goes under the gravel path to the outlet) so the old one had to be dug up and a new bigger one buried.  Then the new pump didn't fit into the biological filter box so I had to do a little work converting the new pump to work the way the old one did.  Now that the new pump is in I can see how much power the old one had lost.  I'm thankful this didn't happen during the middle of winter when it really would've been a tough job.

 We went to a flea market called 2nd Saturdayz after Sweet Pea's lacrosse game and found a couple of garden things including this washtub.  It was a really nice indoor flea market with lots of great things for sale, a lot of which could be used in the garden or for outdoor decor.  It was different from flea markets I'd gone to when I lived in San Francisco which were huge and outdoors with everything you could imagine for sale.

 Another neat old watering can was bought there too.  Golden Mock Orange (Philadelphus) has leafed out and I've been trying to peer between the leaves to see if there are flower buds in there.  I love how it smells when it blooms.

 I found this fun booklet for sale at the flea market.  It was an ad for Lydia E. Pinkham's vegetable compound that had garden ideas mixed in.  From what I found online about it, it was written in the 1920's.  I love these old ads for medication that claimed to cure everything.

 This is one of my favorite pages showing how to create low cost gardens.  There was another page on garden pools (watergardens) and rock gardens.  If you enlarge this you can read the ad about this vegetable compound curing cramps, backaches and "nerves".

 Tulips in the shed garden finally bloomed.  Inside the shed I hung some shelves on a day earlier in the week.  I impressed myself by pre-drilling holes and using the level.  Usually I get impatient and just throw things together rather than taking my time and doing it the right way.  The shelves are really sturdy and have given me more space inside.

 Today I found these cute bulbs Glory of the Snow (Chionodoxa) blooming.  I had forgotten I even planted them last fall.

 I'm so glad I was able to get some gardening things done this week, just getting out for a short while here and there helps.  It's always surprising how much can get accomplished in a short time of being outside.
All words and photos in this post are property of A Gardener in Progress.