Spring Project Time

It's that time of year when I get all excited about things to try in my yard, plans for building stuff out there, painting another wall in my house, revamping things in my piano studio, cleaning stuff out...Yikes! And the energy to tackle any one of those projects waxes and wanes with the spring weather. When it's lovely outside then I'm ready get right up and jump in. But thanks to the weather this week I'm back to feeling a bit sluggish. I don't complain too loudly about the snowshowers this time of year because my gardener heart reminds me that's watering I don't have to do for my peas (got them planted last week, March 18. Hoped to have them in on St. Patrick's Day, but didn't quite get there). And I keep telling myself that chilly weather helps me tackle the indoor projects that need doing too. So today is piano studio revamping and updating day. And I have another hour to get something accomplished.

Almost Daily Ag Report
In spite of a vicious unprovoked attack by a hormone-crazed animal the peppers have been making progress. Out of a possible 50 sprouts I have 32 now. Take off at least 8 (fatalities from the hormone-crazed animal) from the grand total, and I'm showing a pretty good success rate for what's left. So far no thunbergia have shown their little heads, and I'm starting to get peeved. I've also had less than 50% success rate with the dahlias too. Maybe I'm not meant to grow flowers.

My mother was telling me about a cool way to jumpstart peas. It involves soaking them in lukewarm water for about eight hours, and then giving them several baths and rinses in lukewarm water until they start to sprout little roots. Then you can plant them and they pop through the soil more quickly. Or something like this. I'm going to get the details from her again and try this with some older pea seeds that I want to plant in flower beds. Maybe it will even work for flowering peas (which I had no success with whatsoever last year...possibly I'm just not meant to grow things that are decorative.).