Mulchapalooza

I have a huge pile of wood chips!

This is great news. Also the cause of many aching muscles, but the Wheelbarrow Fitness Program will have all sorts of benefits. I got the idea of using wood chips to solve (or at least mitigate) my invasive weed problem back in the spring when two things happened: one, we had to take down a small tree (a dying holly) and made a deal with an arborist that (I thought) included us getting the chips. It didn't - he took them away with the promise of bringing a load later, and never did despite a reminder.

Secondly, I'd been turned on to the promise of wood chip mulch by The Garden Professors after joining their Facebook group (look under The Garden Professors Blog). Linda Chalker-Scott, who has a great Horticultural Myths website, is the biggest proponent of using wood chips as a weed-control mulch that degrades slowly into rich soil, absorbs water much better than bark-based mulches, and can cost practically nothing. (If you're going to object based on ideas about nitrogen snatching, acidification, or other purported issues with fresh wood chips, read the link first.)

So I just had to get the chips. I ended up signing up with ChipDrop, which is an online service that links customers who want chips with arborists who want to get rid of them. Read all the information about how it works if you're interested - it's not going to be perfect for everybody. You won't necessarily be notified before a drop - I got an email a few hours ahead, but that's not guaranteed - so you need to have your dump spot accessible all the time. And it will likely be a LOT of chips. You can also end up waiting a long time. The first time I signed up I waited three weeks with no drop, took myself off the list for a while, and then jumped back on when we had a storm go through - figured there'd finally be some trees down, and yes, I only had to wait a few days that time. I paid $40 because that gave me a better chance of getting a drop, but you can also pay less or nothing at all.

I've been mowing and otherwise clearing out areas in the Way Back infested with Japanese stilt grass and various vines, and lugging loads of chips for dumping in a thick layer. I may have to get another load in the spring, and I'm sure I won't eliminate all the problems, but this is a good way to get a fresh(ish) start. After the chips degrade I can put down grass seed (probably next fall); planting shrubs, trees, and perennials can happen as early as the spring. And though many perennial weeds will erupt even through six inches or more of mulch, at least they'll be easy to spot. Annual weed seeds should be well-smothered. I'm hoping the effect will be worth the small fee and the arm, leg, and core toning.
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Half-acre update: infrastructure edition

Last year's changes in the Way Back are bearing fruit this year (literally, in some places!) and we are making progress on taming the wilderness that's left. This is largely thanks to my son Nick, who is in charge of hardscape and heavy lifting (I just do plants). Here are some of the things he's created in the last year or so:

Edging for beds, here as a continuation of the patio just behind the house (also his work). This is not part of the Way Back, but I wanted to point it out since it's extremely useful in defining what's planting bed and what's "lawn" (I put that in quotes advisedly; we'll work on having more grass among the weeds in the fall). So far just two beds have been edged with pavers, but we'll have stone or something else around all of them eventually.

Edging by the parking area. We put down a new load of gravel so it all looks very tidy for now.

Retaining wall in back of the parking area, and herb spiral just below, behind the shed. This marks the entrance to the former vegetable garden, now unfenced and planted with herbs, fruit, and whatever the hell else I want. There's a path running just below the wall, which needs to be finished up, and on the other side we'll have a formal paved entrance to the less-formal garden. With a mosaic!

New compost bin, built out of the Trex boards that made up our old deck. Eventually it'll have a top to keep animals out.

Fence around the black raspberries. The planting is in a T shape, with simple (non-supportive) fencing on both sides so the plants can grow between and not need to be constantly tied up. I still need to prune regularly of course. I was going to cover this all with bird netting, but I think instead I'll just tie up shiny streamers to see if that deters the birds at all, since netting is such a major pain. The blueberry hedge in the front yard has a Micromesh covering over it this year, which looks weird but is so far keeping the birds out (and it can be taken off easily once the fruiting is done).

Nick working hard on moving soil! Between digging out for the patio, for the retaining wall, and to remove the mixed gravel and soil that made up our parking area, he created some huge piles in the messy areas of the Way Back, which are currently being reorganized into a berm that I'll be able to plant on. Photos to come when it actually looks like something. And I'll put up some photos of what's already planted in the more organized areas, as well. I am doing a lot with free and cheap plants. And learning what will immediately be devoured by deer, groundhogs, rabbits, and birds, what can be temporarily protected and then left to fend on its own, and what they don't seem to like at all. A learning experience, hopefully leading to a productive and pretty garden.

Current state of the Food Forest Thing

And other Half-Acre projects - coming along slowly but making progress.

Let's start with the prettiest photo, which shows the first couple of what will be tree and underplanting groupings.

To the far right of the photo just above the chives is a young crabapple tree; there are also two pretty much invisible stick-like figs (one new, and one that I thought was dead until I bought the new one). Also lots of herbs, some bush cherries, some rhubarb, and raspberries (some in pots) that will be moved.

Pulling back:

you can see what's going to be a path and some more planting area - this is just upslope of what turned out to be a T-shaped planting of black raspberries developed from the old parallel lines plus jungle. Transitioning from squares and rectangles and straight lines into curves and ovals, both in imagination and reality, is one of the hardest things about this project, especially when some of the straight lines have to stay in place.

Up by the green shed there is Nick's retaining wall project:

which will include an herb spiral and will be glorious but is now extremely transitional. We have piles of carefully-sorted soil and gravel all over the Way Back.

Which is fine because most of it was weeds. Wall blocks and other materials coming soon. Done in a few weeks I hope!

I have new currants and jostaberries that I didn't photograph, and also some beach plums that are inside a fence for deer protection:

Everything is so tiny and hard to get photos of just now. The fencing is temporary and inconvenient, and I'm going to replace it with something attractive since it'll have to stay there a while. You can see some of the black raspberries to the right, which also need fencing. Wood, decent-looking, painted. By fall. The beach plums are hard to spot in the photo, but you can see the squash plants I stuck in there, and also the wee little seedless che tree:

Looking down the hill - we took out huge amounts of weeds along the neighbors' barn and put in sod:

It's another straight line but at least it's neat, and the top part wants to live.

On the other side of the Way Back, above the former playhouse (now pot shed, no not that kind of pot), I planted a dwarf weeping mulberry:

I have fond childhood memories of such a tree and want to recreate them for any child who might someday play in our yard. When it gets big I'll tame the surrounding mess of lemon balm, mountain mint, motherwort and other vigorous plants, and create a suitable fairy landscape.

My kiwis are still alive! I had terrible doubts after the desiccating wind incident, but they leafed out again.

No fruit this year, but I will take living plants. Beyond this, on the driveway side where we took out the privet hedge (which is what made the kiwis subject to wind damage), I've put in six more blueberries:

though they are pretty hard to see in that photo, and yes, we desperately need to tidy up the beds. Nick is helping me with that, too - see bed in back with nice edging:

Any plant-related chaos will be tidied later, but edging helps me pretend it's coherent.

There is much more to be done in other areas, but here's one I'm thinking about:

This tunnel of darkness is what happened when we got serious about pulling out invading vines and spreading forsythia and pruning the holly, and now it's a nice grotto that unfortunately opens onto the driveway and allows people passing on the other side to see right through to our hot tub and garbage area. I am thinking organic screen made of branches installed in the ground, or a hobbit hole door, or something like that. Good project for a hot summer week.

New beginnings and food forest visions

Oops! Haven't posted here at Rogue Eggplant in a good long while - even on Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, since for the last couple of months the 15th hasn't worked out for me (same will be true this month).

Also, our summer has been taken up by a much-too-lengthy porch and deck construction project - lovely results, and I hope it will finally be over with the last electrical work tomorrow, but it's limited the amount of gardening that I could do in the immediate vicinity, in the areas taken over by piles of construction materials and stuff moved out of the way, and really in most of the yard during the time that the workers were there. Plus, a wet early summer has been followed by a horribly hot and dry later summer, and I was ill for a while, so aside from watering and a bit of weeding... I just haven't done much except in the community garden (which has been producing quite well). Therefore, not much to write about, and the yard is a mess.

However, the end of the summer (and a bit of cooler weather) has brought some new inspiration. I've barely dared to look at the Way Back in recent months - here it is, not looking too awful since I'd just mowed it:

but ALL of that grassy area is now Japanese stilt grass (an aggressive invader and not desirable as lawn). I think if we keep it mowed, we may be able to stop it spreading, since it's an annual that spreads by seed. (It's now in all the forest areas around here, where there was little or no ground cover before. And it grows equally well in sun.) If we wish, we could treat in the spring with pre-emergent herbicide, and then seed later with better grass and hope it takes.

Anyway, since my attitude toward lawn is usually "it's green, who cares," that's a minor issue compared with the condition of the former vegetable garden. Its sorry history: after a long period of increasing groundhog incursions, we put up a really good fence to keep out all critters including deer, and expanded the garden in the process - which would have been great if a) I'd been energetic about developing the expanded area in the first year; b) we didn't have such an incredible weed seed reservoir, rootstocks of elderberry and pokeweed, and fertile soil; c) we'd realized that the trees nearest the garden were getting tall enough to shade it. I gave it up for vegetables when the shade got too much, moved those operations to the community garden, and started planting fruit - but then couldn't keep up with the weeds. I have actually cleared weeds inside half to two-thirds of the fenced area three times this year, and it's still a horrible mess. Here's the worst part:

It would have been a possible project, if I'd had more time, energy, and mulch, but it's just a frustrating mess. And, poking around yet again yanking weeds and pulling morning glory off the fence, I came to the sudden realization that the fence is the problem.

Well, not the only problem, obviously - but it has become its own weed zone, with intractable roots and lots of nooks in between the three layers of fencing for seeds to germinate and grow. It also makes movement of plant materials, people, and hoses difficult - there's a water source inside the fence, but right now I can't get the hose attached to it outside the fence to water trees and so forth. And now that I'm not growing vegetables in there, I really don't need the fence as much, since individual fruit plants can be temporarily fenced until they're big enough to withstand deer browsing, and a deer fence doesn't keep out birds and squirrels anyway. (It also isn't keeping the groundhogs out at the moment, and I don't have the energy to figure out one more time where they're getting in.)

So: I'm taking it down over the course of this fall. (Actually I'm hoping that my able assistants will do this while I'm away the next couple of weeks, but we'll see. They have other projects, of which more later.) I've already put small fences around some of the plants that will be exposed as a result:

And my long-term goal for this whole Way Back area is to apply some permaculture principles to it, turning it into a combination of food forest and native plant garden. This means that, for example, I can let the damn elderberry grow in most of the areas it wants to, because I won't have to think "no elderberry inside the fence." I can try to maintain the existing black raspberry plantation, but if it ends up going wild I'll just learn to prune it with a weed whacker. I'll plant things that can take some shade under the trees that are already in place, and will put in some additional small trees and shrubs, plus perennials and ground covers, both food-bearing and non-. There will be a lot of experimentation to see what our animal friends snack on and how I can urge them away - some interesting hints in this book - and probably some heartbreak as plants are eaten or otherwise fail. I don't think it'll be easy, but it can't be harder than it has been.

Also cheering: in the middle of the weedy and neglected "fruit patch," even though some plants are doing poorly, others are thriving, especially the currants:

(Especially once I'd pulled the morning glory off them.) They really do like the shady conditions I have them in, and seem to like the soil. So definitely planting more of those (I hope they don't all get munched by deer). And the red and yellow raspberries didn't actually die, at least not most of them, and with the rethinking I now have a perfect place for the poor little fig tree that's been dragged around from pot to spot-now-under-new-deck to pot again. I'll wrap it up this winter and cross my fingers it survives, but it does have sun and a windbreak and room to grow now, so there's hope.

Many updates to come, with any luck.

Mid-December update

No flowers to share for GBBD this month (though we do have shockingly-colored shiny balls in the magnolia branches) but it is the time to start going through the seed catalogs that are quickly accumulating, and this year instead of putting lots of sticky notes on the pages I'm trying out a preliminary wishlist on my Pinterest page, with links to seed company web pages; I've been through three catalogs so far. (Note: I got the Pinterest account as a place to stash images related to my novels, and am not entirely caught up on doing that, but the "Gardening" board that should have lots of stuff in it has practically nothing. Someday it will, but I think I function better as a collector in specific categories than as a general noter-of-cool-things.)

You may note that there are about twenty zillion kinds of radishes listed there. I'm not going to grow them all (even though I have two gardens to work with) but I've been enjoying colorful radishes and finding them delicious roasted, and would like to expand my repertoire a bit. And the idea of the wishlist is to get all the possibilities down in one place.

Other things to do, aside from look through more catalogs, and take inventory of the seeds I already have:

• Soil test for the community garden plot (probably should do one for the oh-so-pathetic fruit garden too)
• Finish cleaning up the fruit garden area, which got very weedy this summer
• Decide, with some nod to reality, how much I can actually do with the weed- and black raspberry-choked back part of that fenced area
• And ditto, with the rest of the "way back"

Of course, a lot of that depends on weather, but we usually have some decent non-snowy periods to work outside in. We'll see.

The new opposite-the-blueberries bed, and other things

This is what I spent a good part of Sunday on:

The area to the left is where three raised beds of herbs used to be. Except for one large sage that's there in the back, I've moved everything that was still alive to the fruit garden area in the back. The blueberries (to the right) were hard to reach along the narrow stone path, so I got some more stones and widened it. Here's another view:

The orange flowers are coreopsis 'Creme Caramel.' In front are some Stokes's asters that I grew from seed and have now moved three times. It was not the right time to transplant them, but I think they'll survive, especially after last night's soaking rain. There are also some zinnias and a borage plant tucked in there, and golden thyme between the stones. I still have to edge the bed, mulch, and add some more plants, but I think it'll look nice and work much better in context.

Also should move the birdbath, because a) I never remember to fill it tucked away in there, and b) too many cat hiding places in the vicinity.

And the blueberries are ripening!

While I'm out there:

This is what the purple ninebark flowers turn into - little "fruits," I guess, that produce the seeds. Just overall a few attractive plant.

Also, have a very pink leaf on Mr. Kolomikta Kiwi:

And my 'Winterthur' viburnums are growing up and looking fine:

I'll try to document the progress of some other plants this week. Lovely time of year.

The end of spring song

Have not been updating because oh so busy, but I've now given my Purple Carrot People talk at the MG state annual training day, and spent all of last weekend outside doing garden and yard care, and today I have hit the wall several times (it's not even hot; I'm just bushed. Or maybe shrubbed). So have some photos.

Front corner with ninebark, magnolia, rose and juniper.

Closeup of one of the last ninebark blooms.

Closeup of the Bonica rose.

Blueberries - ripe in a couple of weeks!

The Japanese painted fern, again.

Spiderwort.

Siberian iris.

Some of the many tasks that need accomplishing right now (just the outdoor ones):

• Dismantle the three raised beds I've been using for herbs in the front yard for the last ten years or so. They are too close to the blueberries, and the plants are all pretty antiquated anyway. I'm done moving two of them; viable herbs have been replanted in the fruit garden. Still have to get the last one out (I think the huge sage growing there stays), move the soil, and decide how to arrange the space - maybe widen the flagstone path and plant something on the other side of it.
• Finish cleaning up and mulching the fruit garden (the former vegetable garden that now has afternoon shade in half of it - which is where the currants go). I'm about two-thirds done with the front half, the part before the black raspberries. After giving away oodles of black raspberry plants, I think I'm at the point where I'll just mow down the rest of the shady side ones. The sunny side ones, which I'm keeping, have been neatened up and are close to fruiting, but still need more mulching. Everything in back of them is a jungle. The relatively tidy section has raspberries, blueberries, currants, a Nanking cherry, strawberries, a gooseberry, and a goji berry.
• Try not to think about how awful the rest of the "way back" area is. Someday I will get it under control and stop the constant seeding of invasive weeds everywhere.
• Tidy up the various planted beds everywhere else - actually going pretty well, though I still have to throw mulch around to keep the weeds (and excessively enthusiastic other plants) I've pulled from coming back immediately. If I can get everything to the point where I can stand to look at it, then I might be able to get somewhere with actual design, instead of just stuffing plants where there's room.
• Get some control over the more wild areas that are not in the way back, like the gravel driveway full of weeds, the slope down to the fenced fruit garden, the area around the fence, the perimeter of the driveway, etc.

You may hear a theme here, the same one I sing out every year - gain control before it's too late! And with the amount of rain we've had lately, and the temperatures settling into something like summer range, there isn't much time to get ahead of the weeds anywhere. I'll fail to do so in most places, but maybe succeed in a few. A lot's been done so far, and it's only… oh damn, it's almost June...

Spring, flying visit of

The pretty pictures first! I have a daffodil:

I also have more crocuses blooming (they weren't open yet when I went out to take photos earlier, and I'm too lazy to try again) and the Iris histroides I-think-'George':

I'm sure spring will be sprung upon us all at once in the next couple of weeks, once it gets over this maybe-I'm-gonna-snow-again-just-watch-me! nonsense. It's chilly today, but yesterday was gorgeous, and I took advantage of that to dump manure on the community garden plot and put in a few hardy seeds that may or may not decide to come up (spinach, peas, mache, fenugreek). And then I came home and finished the Whack the Black Raspberries project, in which more than half of them (the originally planted ones that are now in the shade, and the plants that exist because I didn't keep up with pruning and let the canes root themselves all over) got pruned back to 12-18 inches high so they can be dug up and moved to someone else's new fruit plantation, and the rest got pruned to a few feet high so they can be organized onto their fence again. I have a lot of plans for the space that used to be the vegetable garden, but the most important thing is to devise ways to keep it from becoming a mass of weeds again.

My arms looked like this when the pruning was done:

but it was worth it. (That was the worst of it, really; I didn't suffer too much. And it was my fault for wearing a short-sleeved shirt - but how glorious to be able to! I'm so sick of my winter wardrobe.)

I need to do an inventory of seed-starting, but suffice to say I have lots of wee peppers and tomatoes and greens and other things coming up (a few still with aphids, but they are slowly being conquered), and I am thinking of ordering one of those fancy self-ventilating cold frames, or maybe two, instead of a greenhouse. More on that later.

Also, have a dahlia

This is Bishop's Children at the demo garden, and yes, it really does glow that much against the dark leaves. We also have some in magenta, but the orange ones get more attention because they're with the ornamental millet:

and there used to be some dark red sunflowers in back, but the timing wasn't right to keep them around. But hey, I did a design thing on purpose and it worked!

Must remember to dig up the dahlia tubers and store them. Although the ones not dug up have been surviving winters of late.

In which I don't really say much about oca

(which autocorrect wants me to agree is "ova." No. Really no.)

Oca is one in the great list of Andean tubers, and you can read all about it here (it's William Woys Weaver! You know you want to). I ordered some tubers this spring, got them when it was too cold to plant them outside, forgot about them until well after the summer-vacation-that-happened-right-after-a-frost, and finally planted them (well-sprouted) in a planter. Where they are doing fine:

As you can see, they are an oxalis, related to common wood sorrel and also that gorgeous redwood sorrel we became acquainted with in California (and I nibbled on, mostly to show off).

Anyway, they are daylength-sensitive, and don't start forming their tubers until probably late October-early November (I checked today, and nope, no tubers), so this is going to be interesting. I guess I will cover the planter with some plastic braced up on... something, and hope I can keep them from getting frost-bitten until it's time for harvest.

I was thinking of taking the planter along to the Harvest Festival this weekend, but I don't think I want to explain all of that to anyone who asks. So maybe next year, if I manage to grow them out successfully this year. I'll keep you posted.

Bulbs!

Ah, I forgot what today was: the day I really needed to order bulbs before it got ridiculously too late. So I did.

When you create a new bed, as I did in the spring (curving between the mock orange and the pagoda tree, along the edge of the driveway), you're supposed to put in shrubs and trees first (three viburnums went in, check) and then (because they have to be dug in deep) bulbs, and then perennials after that. Because I'm getting organized so late, that's the only place I plan to plant bulbs this fall ("plan" being the operative word; I may find other spaces that require bulbs, but I'll likely be shopping locally for those).

I'd thought I'd be searching through the John Scheepers website and settling for what was left, but actually a lot is left, so I had to make choices. I got 50 Valerie Finnis muscari (the pale blue ones) for the inner edge, where I won't be able to dig deep because there's so much gravel, and 60 assorted narcissi for the rest. And that was as far as I got; I guess I'll fill in the summer bloom with low-growing perennials.

Jonquilla narcissus 'Curlew' from John Scheepers

Also I quickly solved the "so many daffodils how can I ever decide" problem by (some people who know why will laugh here) choosing the ones named after birds, so I have ten each of Quail, Curlew, Jack Snipe, Dickcissel, Falconet, and Pheasant's Eye. I hope they go well together, because that's it and I am moving on to the next thing.

*dusts hands*

Where are the headlines of yesteryear?

It's not every day you spend a couple of hours starting a new garden bed with newspapers from the Bush administration.

(Neighbors' cat is bonus cat.)  And yes, I am a packrat, but finally I am at the bottom of the pile!  There were athletes from the Beijing Olympics, there was "Lost" speculation, there was "Clinton wins Pennsylvania," there was trouble at Bear Sterns.  Lots of it was good to bury.

Here's another shot, from down below:

I wasn't quite finished there; the shape was originally supposed to be a gentle arc and ended up more like a triangle, because I decided to incorporate a patch of daffodils that's been there since at least the Clinton administration (when we used to have a fence; since the fence went away it's been sitting in the middle of the lawn making itself difficult).  The purpose of the bed (besides making room to put plants in) is to connect up the pagoda tree space with the mock orange space.  It will require stepping stones.

The theory here (which I have successfully applied before) is that you mow the grass short, then layer newspaper or cardboard in the desired shape, then put down compost and/or materials that will compost, and eventually get something you can plant in.  For now I've plopped down some fresh wood chips (more than in these photos) from another neighbor's tree removal, mostly just to weigh down the paper so it doesn't all blow away.  I'll add materials as I acquire them, and edge the bed so we can mow around it.  For right now all I'm going to plant are three Winterthur viburnums that have been in pots for a year and a half (big pots; they actually look great) and that I have been flailing about because I couldn't remember where I meant to put them, really, but this is as good a place as any.  I'll move the newspapers and chips out of the way to dig those holes.  In the fall, some bulbs, and then small shrubs or perennials as I acquire them.

It will be fun, but right now my back hurts and my knee hurts and I wish the chip pile wasn't way at the bottom of the hill, but so it goes.  At least I have free chips.

I had a Brandywine viburnum too, which has gone into the bed by the driveway:

Said bed is (like most of mine, unfortunately) solidly in the Evolving stage.  I need another evergreen shrub to form a screen, since the viburnum is deciduous.

Bonus photo of Japanese painted fern in the middle of sweet woodruff, an accidentally stunning combination:

We have a hell of a lot of sweet woodruff now.  I suppose we had better make May wine.

Itching

I was very amused this morning to read articles in the Washington Post by the two Thursday garden columnists, Adrian Higgins and Barbara Damrosch, which start out respectively:

If you are itching to get into the garden on a mild winter’s day, you might want to grab a good pair of hand pruners and some sharp loppers and go in search of a shrub to prune.

and

If you’ve got the gardening itch and it’s too early to scratch it, try growing some microgreens.

I think we can agree that everyone is a little itchy, and possibly irritable and testy and skin-crawly and hot under the collar, and if it's not the flu it may be the gardening bug.  I tend to scratch the itch by getting some soilless mix under my fingernails and starting seeds.  Photos soon ETA: photo of some of my baby plants:

Here's the list of what I've started so far.

Greens for demo garden: kale (Lacinato, Lark's Tongue), mustard (Southern Giant Curled and Red Giant), Chinese cabbage, komatsuna, purple pak choi, broccoli raab, collards (Green Glaze), kohlrabi (green and purple), cabbage (Early Jersey Wakefield and Red Acre), and gai lan (Chinese broccoli).  I may be a little early on some of these, but it gets so hot so fast and a lot of them bolt, so better to get them planted early and offer temperature protection if needed.

Peppers (mostly for me): Fish (no luck with germination, but I have just acquired some new seeds), Antioch (an Armenian heirloom, mildly hot), Red Cheese, Sweet Banana, and Romeo (these are to go with Juliet tomatoes, yes I am geeky).  Also some yellow bells and Italian frying peppers that have not germinated.

Other: cardoons (also on second germination try and succeeding this time), sorrel (more old seed, dunno if it'll work but I do want more plants), parsley, celeriac.

I wish I had room for microgreens.  As it is Older Son is going to have to share his room with some seedlings on his visit home.

Some of the many things I need to do outside when we do have a mild day and I have time in it:

Pruning, yes, thank you Adrian.

Setting up the tunnel I got PVC pipe and fastened brackets onto a raised bed for several years ago and have never actually used.  I'm not going to grow anything in the bed, but I do need some outdoor space for hardening off seedlings, and after the demise of my "mini-greenhouse" thing with the shelves and the zippered cover that broke the first year, all I have is a small shelf on the deck and row cover, and that is not enough for the vast number of seedlings in pots that are soon going to be requiring space that currently does not exist.  Existential crisis!  Metaphysics!  Tunnel of intermediate size to the rescue!

Getting over to the community garden plot and making the soil ready for planting.  I can actually direct-seed some hardy things right away once I get that done.  Real soil under the fingernails!