dragonlady7

It is sunny. It is brisk (I turned the heat off yesterday and forgot to make sure it was back on last night-- flipping the button isn't enough). It is lovely outside. I am up, my first load of laundry is almost done, and then... then... I am going to...

Er, I'm not sure. I won't jinx it by saying I'm going to clean because I was going to yesterday and my motivation faded. I just don't have the strength at the moment to force myself to embark on any ambitious projects. I may have to content myself with going out and buying things instead, while I have access to the car.

I did IM with my mom last night and confirm with her that it is definitely too early to plant annuals. Except pansies. Pansies like cold. if I put them someplace cool and shady they might flower through the summer, but only if they're obsessively deadheaded. They don't like heat and can withstand frost. Good, because frost is coming Monday night.
Annuals should be started indoors now if I'm going to, and anything that's going outside should be planted mid-May.
So, we haven't waited too long, and that gives us a bit more time to prepare the beds. There hasn't been a vegetable garden here in some years, though Matilda and Heinrichs used to grow quite a bit here. (The Latvian couple, dave's gram's foster-sister and her husband, who bought this house when Dave's grandma bought the house where his mom lives now. Matilda still owns this house, but is blind and crippled and in a nursing home. In case I haven't explained that.)

Dave's been cleaning out the place behind the garage where the peppers and tomatoes grow best. We're thinking of doing a whole row all along the back fence. I think that'd be lovely, if only we can get the yard drained enough that we can actually cut the sod. I'm also considering buying a bit more topsoil, as we're reusing the cut sod to fix the hole in the lawn on the front yard, and the sod's taking the best of the topsoil with it. Bags of topsoil are relatively cheap. I always feel a bit funny buying dirt or rocks, but then, I grew up on 50 acres of dirt and rocks and was never aware of how hard my mother had to work to improve the soil. (Clay drains poorly and is very basic. She's spent thirty years throwing compost and ashes and horse manure at the garden to help it be more acidic. I will say this: keeping horses for a few years did wonders for the garden. But I cannot keep a pony in 25x25 feet. There would be no room for the garden.)