Goldfinch eating last year's wild evening primrose seeds

Neat!  Glad I left them in place over the winter.

Cold, rainy, windy April!

Sheesh, what a month.  Hardly any sun.  Almost all cloud, rain, cold, and ugh this never-ending wind $%^&*.  Oh, and it snowed yesterday!

Tomatoes round 2 into PT

Just Big Tofu Plus and Tofu Steak, to have a few more since some of round 1 look wonky.

Peas into ground

6 peat flats.  Placed them all along the north side of the 3-pole vertical stretch.  No innoculant, no soil amendments at all.

Forget-me-nots into ground

4 plants from last year's best plant.  All placed into the front bed -- one grouping of 3, and one on its own.  While roots were nice and obvious, they didn't look rootbound unlike last year, so hopefully good timing.

Tomatoes (4 kinds) started in Pt

4 seeds of each kind (thinking 2 for me and 1 to give):

- Scotia

- Tofu Steak

- Big Tofu

- Jasper (cherry)

Beets into ground

 From PT into ground.  

Beets started in PT

^^^

Chards, parsley, and celery transplanted

Several chards, all of the parsley, and several of the celery will share a nice tulled section in the west bed.  These were all started inside and have been living outside full time for the last week or so other than coming in on some cold nights.

More chard to come still, as a few are still hardening, and there's also the winter sowed chards which are still in their containters.

Carrots (bolero) started in bed and in grey pots

The bed is definitely not the best, as it's where patio stones were last year so the soil is questionable, plus TBD how the water will drain from the overhang, so it remains to be seen how they grow there...  but we'll give it a try.

Also sowed in two of the three nice deep grey pots, alternating rows of 3 and 2.

Dropped 2-3ish seeds into each hole.

Coming into some rain over the next few days so I figured it was a good time to get them going!

Have been hardening all of the cold hardies

For the last week or two most of the cold hardies (chard, parsley, celery, piracicaba broccoli) that I started inside have been hardening off, now just coming in on the coldest nights.  Should be ready to transplant soon.

Basil, peas, and zinnias started in PT/bowl

New-to-me type of basil that's supposed to be downy mildew resistant, started in PT.

Zinnias of various sorts started in PT.

Peas (x80) soaking in a bowl, to start inside tomorrow until germinated.

Installed cedar edging

 2" x 6" x various lengths of rough/raw cedar, from Ottawa Cedar.  Didn't coat them with linseed or anything, will see how long they last.

Lettuce started in PT: Tennis Ball (new), Ruby Leaf, and Black-Seeded Simpson

Got the Tennis Ball seeds for free last year. Why not give them a try.

I meant to start these all sooner, but didn't get around to it.

Cardinal (f) at tray feeder, ate nutrisaff and millet! then on ground for a while

Yay yay yay!  I finally put back the feeders a week or two ago.  Hadn't seen much action other than some shell peanuts mysteriously disappearing.  Then today, a female cardinal partook of some nutrisaff and, surprisingly to me, millet too.  Maybe had some of the other items too, couldn't tell.  (Also in the tray are peanut pieces and shelled sunflowers/pieces.)

Then she hopped around the ground for a few minutes.  Then she went and rested on the ground of the north wall, by some of the rocks.

Fun!

Bird bath set out (with heater due to cold weather)

I had brought it into the basement many months ago when I needed to remove the feeders.  Figured it was time to set it out again, what with the song sparrow coming by, and hopefully more birds on the way.

Minus 15 tonight (!!), tomorrow/day after the highs will be in the negatives, so put the heater in.

Song sparrow ate millet from light tray! Only occasionally singing in tree (roaming?)

I was glad to see that he was comfortable being on the screening part of the tray.

Snow all gone from west and north beds

The only reason there's still snow in the central bed is because that's where I've been piling up the snow dug from the paths during the winter.

WS-potted up sprouted chard and round 2 Waltham broccoli

So, for the Waltham broccoli, there is round 1 indoors which continues to all look horrible (while the indoor piracicaba still looks all great) -- and now this PT-sprouted-then-directly-potted-up-for-WS round 2.

When more of the chard sprouts I'll do up some for indoors.

WS-potted up sprouted kale: White Russian & Premier Forge

Now that they all sprouted in PT, transferred them all into various WS jugs.  Will keep them inside overnight when it goes down below zero (eg tonight and tomorrow night), but daytime temps this coming week are in the +3 to +14 range so should be good to be outside.

Also potted up 3 White Russian kales for inside, to see how they do inside since it's a new-to-me variety.