Pink season

It's just about time for the peonies to open up this far north.

I love peonies.

Let me rephrase that:

I looooooooooooooooooove peonies. 

If you want them to last in a vase, here's a little tip for you...

..cut them when they are still fat buds with the outer leaves just starting to open.

Admire them, take them home, settle in a vase and wait a couple days.

Mine will look like these from last summer, pure pink cotton candy sweetness... 

*tapping foot impatiently*

Next stop: Sarah Beth's garden.

It is never ending...

The battle against weeds, that is.

Presently my allotment is yellow. Blasted dandelions..

The soil is hard clay, so pulling them out with all their roots intact is hard work.

Now what?

I have a bucket full of weeds I can't throw in the compost heap as most of the weeds on my allotment are those nasty ones that only need a teeny bit of root to come back to life.

Enter black garbage bag.

Stick those pesky weeds in there, leave in full sun all summer and come spring again, you have killed their will to live and they can be added to the compost heap. Luckily I can have mine behind the storage chest, so it's not visible.

Oh yes, much better!

There will always be some for bees.

If you don't feel like digging up those dandelions, you can actually use the leaves and any other grass cuttings to benefit your veggies.  I cut all these up along with some grass. Just make sure you don't get any grass that's gone to seed or those dandelion puffs.

 Chop, chop, chop.

In no time at all, you'll have a bucketful of green bits.

Use it to mulch your plants!

Water first, then add the cuttings (about 2 inches/10 cm high) and they will help retain moisture as well as nourish the plant. Once it goes brownish in about two weeks, you can add more. It'll be time to cut those weeds again anyway.

It's so nice when I get help, today Niina watered my herbs and strawberries.

My niece and nephew also visited for a while.

Why are they running?

Because on a hot day, not only plants get watered!

In fact I see a lot of watering ahead as we are having a very dry May.

Now click onward on our blog circle to see what Christine is up to!

It's almost April...

..and that means it's time to get the allotment planned for this season!

This is how it looked this weekend, the snow is almost gone and I walked around planning where the eight new raised beds will go.

Yes, eight!

But as I can't yet plant anything, I decided to try out making some seed tape. I figured it might make life a bit easier planting carrots and lettuce.

What you need is strips of newspaper. I read that you shouldn't have colored ink on it, and found out just how much color a newspaper has! But I managed... no color ink on the obituary pages.. my sense of humor was tickled :)

The goop, as we will here forth call this, is regular wheat flour mixed with some water.

Read from your seed package the recommended growing distance of your produce and drop small amounts of the goop at those intervals.

Drop 2-3 seeds per goop drop.

Sometimes more go on there, it's OK, just go with the flow.

I wrote the seed type on the end of the strips, just so I'd know what I will be planting.

Once completely dry, the next day, roll up and store someplace dry and sheltered from the sun.

This growing season I'll be part of a blog circle of all sorts of garden goodness.

*happy dance*

So do get yourself a nice cup of tea (or coffee.. or wine, who am I to say..), sit back and clickclick through.

You can start by heading out to Audrey's garden.