Busy Day

 After a trip to town for some herbicide and whiskey barrels, I returned home to get a little gardening done today. It was a cold day, especially since we had temps in the 80-90's last week. The first thing was some clean up on the back deck. This is where I like to grow my herbs. After a few years of annually buying plastic planters, I decided it was time to go ahead and invest in the whiskey barrels. I might get a couple of years out of $15 plastic pots, but the one whiskey barrel that I have is about 7 years old and still holding strong. So out with the plastic and in with burned out oak. They smell really good too!

So I filled the barrels, first with the old potting soil from the plastic pots and them with some sand. On top of that I put potting soil and and garden soil. Then I mixed up the soil and sowed some herbs: Genovese and sweet basil, chives, flat-leaf parsley, and dill.

 We had more clean up to do in the yard. We once again had leaves to rake. By we, I mean Elijah. Now I will be able to spray the weeds and mow.

One thing that I hadn't planned on needing to clean was the inside of the car. Next time I need soil and whiskey barrels, I'll use the truck.

We also have a few new critters around. Our neighbors have a new nanny and kid. baby goats are so cute! We found the snakes, by we I of course mean Jeff, while raking leaves. They were so cold they could barely move. Now they are in the house in our old lizard tank. I think they like the warming rock.

After cleaning out the old whiskey barrel, I sowed the lemon-lime basil seeds from what had been growing last year. The plants in the green pots are my lemons and lime trees. I tried my best to freeze them out last fall, but they are budding back out. Unfortunately, they did take a step back.

Here are some of the plants that didn't make it into the ground today. The broccoli will go in Thursday, hopefully and the rosemary I will pot then as well. The strawberries will go in as soon as we rework the strawberry patch.