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I brought the table and chairs up onto the deck yesterday to use as a potting workshop. I repotted all the pepper seedlings, which were still in their individual starting cells. Late in the afternoon, I transferred the tomatoes up to the greenhouse. The peppers will stay inside a day or two so they don't get double-shocked (transplanting and getting cold at night).
While I was transplanting, I brought the geranium that I overwintered out onto the deck to slowly adjust it to brighter conditions - it is really happy that the seasons are changing:
The repotting took longer than I thought it would, so the only other thing I got done was cleaning out the two flower gardens between the yard and the driveway.
WS and Jim took down 4 trees that were dead; two of them in the center of the driveway, one by the shade garden (it will be a bit less shady now) and one further back toward the house. He also got most of the wood transported to the behind the dog pen for storage before cutting and splitting for firewood.
After that, we both just kind of piddled around and started feeling our sunburns (not too bad - we both used sunscreen). Oh, another sign that spring is here - I hung clothes out on the line to dry both Friday and Saturday.
Next to come - black fly season (nasty buggers!).
Last Saturday evenening,after I got home from work, WS was painting the ceiling to the living room and hallway. This is something he had promised to do when I painted the walls of those areas while I was laid off in 2001. It took him a little time, but he got it done. You should be able to see the difference in color in this pic (the ceiling was originally white when it was painted eons ago):
Anyway, it was really nice out so I went out and cleaned up some of the flower beds. Several of the beds still had good-sized piles of snow so I couldn't do anything with them, but I cleaned up what I could. The clean up included cutting back the roses in front of the house and pulling up all the old stalks and leaves from the humongous hosta. Then I pulled stalks and dead leaves from the lillies around the fence (thank goodness I had pulled most of the stalks last fall, otherwise I would still be out there). I also cleaned up the flower boxes below the fence, whcih mainly consisted of cutting back most stuff.
I couldn't clean up any more because of the snow. Sunday iwe had a mix of snow and rain (mostly rain), but none of the snow stuck. During the week, the temps warmed up in a nice graduation; 40's, 50's, 60's then 70's. Yesterday it was actually 82 at 1:30 in Manchester (don't think it got nearly that warm here - but it did get in the mid 70's).
As a consequence, most of the snow is gone (still a couple of small piles in the front yard and by the deck, and the shade garden is still completely covered, but the trend has been et and I think there will be nothing but meltage from now on.
Yesterday, before I left to do a whole bunch of running around in the city, I pulled the straw away from the potted plants that wintered over in the rugosa bed and at the side of the house by the oil tank. Everything seems to be in good shape and still frozen (good - means I didn't wait too long before pulling the straw away).
Tuesday (or Wednesday) evening, WS set up the greenhouse. Sunday I will transfer everything that has taken over the house out there. "Why Sunday?" you ask. Glad you popped the question, because I was going to tell you anyway - Sunday it is supposed to cool off a bit and be cloudy. If I wait until then, there is less risk of sunburning and baking the poor plants before they get used to full strenght sun instead of grow lights.
Today WS and Jimmy will be taking down a couple of dead trees. I will be out cleaning up a couple more of the exposed flower gardens.
Spring seems to be officially here. And under the fold are a couple of pics to prove it:
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