My weeds in the turf are blushingly green, the hated Bermuda grass is brown and dormant. We've had a winter of broccoli and cauliflower humming along in the back garden, along with onions and garlic. It's past time already for planting the "root" veggies, carrots and such. Beans should go in now. I've been so busy indoors with a writing assignment that I haven't gotten outside to mulch, and to dig the trench for a waterline that will run from the creek to the new pump in the garage. But that will all happen in the next couple of months.

I'm moving my veggie garden to a better location, so it gets full morning sun. The current location gets what counts as full, but it isn't the best, it's mid-morning to late-afternoon.

This year I'm not going to dig that bed, I'm going to put down newspaper and heavy mulch, after a good sprinkling of a cocktail of agricultural corn meal (corn gluten meal is even better, but I'll use this stuff up first), dried molasses, lava sand and green sand. I plan to use a variety of organic pest controls as the season progresses to hopefully prevent the cucubit slaughter that happened last year. Neem and garlic pepper spray and orange oil and such. Vinegar is a great tool in the garden once it warms up--kills the foliage it hits, so is a benign way to gradually kill off grass and such. Doesn't kill roots, but is often times enough to discourage encroachment.

My iris reemerged last fall. Beautiful palmate fans of leaves. Not much sign of the daffodils planted last fall, patiently waiting until the soil was cool enough. I am crossing my fingers that soon some of the 50 or so bulbs I planted will make their presence known. Columbine and day lily are happy out front, salvia Greggi ready to burst into color when the days are long enough. I am probably going to dig up and transplant the cannas--they're kind of big and sloppy in the place where the former owners placed them.

I dug up some yucca in the wild land across the road from me, and I plan to go back later for more, and for an attractive native recumbent small lobed prickly pear. That's for the desert portion of the yard, where I want stuff growing there, but not so dense that drivers can't see through it (we're at a curve in the road).

We have a few weeks to go until we pass the last date for heavy frost.

SRS