Monday--April 17

Not much to say today. I filled the hummingbird feeders and found the spiral planter we hang on one of the shepherd's hooks. Swept up the patio to clean up the dirt I dropped filling the pockets of the soft shoe rack and the altered vinegar jars planters I have planted with the bare-root strawberries. Almost all are doing well so far.

Tuesday--April 18

Happy Tax Day. I saw a little article yesterday which said that Americans are procrastinating longer in sending their taxes. The culprit: electronic filing. Now we can wait until 11:59pm on filing day to hit the send button and many of us are.

Wednesday--April 19

The lovely weather continues though it is supposed to change today with scattered thunderstorms. Maybe I will have dry periods when I can get the plants we got yesterday into the containers. We found a lovely clematis for one of the trellises, a beautiful red anemone and a couple of peppers and several of the herbs.

I have the clematis and anemone transplanted. I think they will look very nice there. This has been a strange year for gardening in general and starting seeds in particular. Right now it looks like the key limes have decided not to survive as has one of the lemon plants. I am not sure why. The moisture in the soil is good--unless it was too much to begin with. But most of my marigolds failed  as well. I will have to think about this a bit more.

I started a new batch of sourdough starter--mostly from frustration with our local grocery stores. I wanted some new yeast. All of mine failed when I proofed it. I can't really complain there because I had a large jar (not the original 4 oz. jars) which I filled from a supply I got at our favorite tea/spice shop. I had worked my way through it but the last two or three loaves didn't rise as well as I expected and were more like cake than bread. They were palatable so we ate them anyway. But our supermarkets here are only carrying the 4 oz. jars of "bread machine" yeast which I don't wan't and won't use. I don't use bread machines--don't even own one. So we picked up some of the small packets of regular yeast.

We are getting a good rain now but I have the clematis, anemone, sage and lavender planted. No more planting today.