What did everyone do on this first day of Spring!

funny.

SD =South Dakota. Yes, long, frigid winters with blizzards and snow on the ground into the spring, but the flip side of that is the long, hot summers. Also the depth of loamy soil (in the Eastern part of the state at least) is a gardener's dream.

Mauryhill did you hail from the midwest at some point? I just saw again the other day online that some of the richest soil in the US is found in the county where I grew up in central MN. Lovely, rich soil. Mulched naturally for hundreds of years by many deciduous leaves. 160 acres for a mere homestead pledge back in the good old days. Today, an acre is selling in the multiple ten thousands. Pity I didn't buy some way back when...

Minnesota soil is probably even better (more trees). Yep you should have bought yourself a homestead! I was actually an inner city kid from Chicago. The soil there is surprisingly pretty good too, where there is a small patch of it between all the concrete and brick. My DH is from way out in rural South Dakota. No electricity or indoor plumbing growing up on a farm, and he went to a little one room schoolhouse. He farmed there with his dad until the late seventies, when they lost almost everything in a series of bad drought years.

This message was edited Apr 15, 2008 9:23 PM

Excuse me? The forest duff is not deep enough for you all? Or did the developers scrape it all away on you too?

From what I have watch get dug into with a back hoe, we all have a good 24-36 inches of the stuff, unless you are on the floodplain were it can be many feet thick.

Yeah, the developers stole ours and left us the B horizon, a mineral soil. Blecch. Good on KC for passing a law requiring developers of new plats to top soil new lots to a minimum of 6 inches. Make for far better growing conditions.

Everyone go look on the Perennials forum for the fern leaf Peony. It's a must see and must have.

That is cool, wonder if it grows here, Ask Heidi working on it.

Yes tills it is a great plant and I have them. heidi

Wahoo Heidi! Adding it to my list for this Sunday's trip! Hugs, Rachel

You have them????? Really????? I'm very interested. Rach, what else is on your list?

Euphorbia rigidus, pow pow barberry, primulus, and anything else that jumps out at me!

This message was edited Apr 20, 2008 8:39 PM

I have a short list:
1. GH
2. warmth

I agree completely Katye! When I have been outside the past few days, freezing, I run into the greenhouse to warm up!

It snowed here today. It's a day that I have to work so I worked outside in the snow :-(. Last I looked out my window I had almost an inch of the crud again. However, even if I had been home, I would've been covering more blooming things from the snow!

You poor little gardening chums - now if all of us blow hard I am sure we can generate enough hot air to blow this weather into seasonability! One, two, three......SOUFFLE!

I'm ready! Let's give it a shot! laurie1....what sort of weather are you getting over your way. Are you crazily cool just as the rest of us?

This message was edited Apr 21, 2008 3:16 AM

I'm soooooo cool - oh, you mean weather?

Ummmm

Its basically cr#p. We are in that one day glorious, next day turgid, next day sodden, next day gloomy with a bit of summer than straight back to winter and a minute of summer followed by yuck. I am not enjoying this one bit. Ick, and double ick. But I did plant out the second crop of broad beans yesterday (you call them FAVA) - and the soil has warmed up for the first lot of lettuce. Has anyone grown Hamburg Parsley - its a first for me, its the root that you grow it for - apparently roasted like parsnips (yum) they have that lovely parsley flavour too. Got some of the plants out for the cutting bed to - I just can't put off getting them out of the green house any longer - its so crowded in there!!

So to answer your question redchic, its about the same as yours.

Well.... at least we're all in this "cr#p" together! I'm sure there's someone else above in the thread that will be better with the veggies and beans than I that will be on be online again before too long! I can't do many vegetables until I build some raised beds since I have big issues with moles, gophers, then deer and elk. i grow carrots exceptionally well! But only because I grow them in pots and the deer usually leave the tops alone. I did get some lettuce going for the first time ever!!! but, I think it died during fridays weather :-( Good luck with yours!

Yep. . .we're all in this together. Laurie is just a PNWer in a parallel dimension. Yesterday was really quite nice here. Partly sunny with occasional bursts of really sunny, but never hot. Think it hit somewhere in the low 50s. Didn't garden, though, worked my dog all day which was good, too. Gave me a day to not stare at the little green babies and see if I could actually notice them growing. They're probably feeling a little paranoid the way I stare at them!

The highest it got here was 48, I believe, but in the driveway it felt fairly warm. I transplanted some Hellebore (from Heidi @ Dragon Fly) from their 4" pots to gallon pots. It felt absolutely wonderful just to be outside doing something that resembled gardening. This morning I went down that same driveway to get the paper and it was 35 very chilly degrees. Not a bit inviting even though the sun was thinking about shining.

Sounds like it's chillier there than here. I didn't notice that it was so terribly cold this morning, but it definitely didn't really warm up at all yesterday, either.

And then there was the thunder and lightning last night - crazy weather systems meeting.

Ahhhh.... who is this heidi@dragonfly? Do they have more to sell or trade? The snow has melted again!!! i hope for the last time and so I'm trudging off to the garden slush.

Heidi's nursery is in Kingston and is one we are all learning to adore! Heidi is not only knowledgeable, but a great deal of fun . . . and a member of DG - you'll see her on the PNW forum frequently (darn, I can't think of her DG name . . . cattledogs, maybe?).

Poochella..... what size of photo (pixels) is that of the gorgeous dahlia and frog? To me, it seems about the perfect size for posting pictures here. the ones that I have posted i either been so large that you have to scroll or so small that they've been blurry. I hope to get some more pictures of what might still be blooming after all of this weather system has passed.

ohhh wow! thanks for the info Murmur. I have some friends that come down from that area occasionally.... sounds like bribing them into stopping there for me would be a great plan!

Yes, Heidi, is cattledogs. She has several. If you go to dragonflyfarmsnursery.com you can download a plant list even.

Slow day at workwork for me today, Kathy. I've been lurking on and off today. Must be the same for you? It'll soon be over for me ~ *sigh* ~

I went into my garden to pull shotweed and was making progress when out of a clear blue sky fairies began to throw their tiny snow balls at me. "to heck with this" I said, and promptly went back inside. They continued until the ground was white then disappeared until about an hour later they repeated their game to make sure I didn't emege again. Will I ever? Saga continues.

You won't be disappointed in anything from Dragon Fly - and I hope you yourself get a chance to visit sometime. A bunch of DGers are going (as a group) this coming Sunday (I can't go due to my husband's illness).

redchic01- that photo is 800x 600 pixels and ~70,000 bytes ( which means absolutely nothing to me) If you have Windows XP you can download the Microsoft Image Resizer for free. Very easy to use. It turns big things into little things but without losing much clarity. Clarity in my photographs is a rarity, but the initial quality doesn't get lost. Photos take up less space, load faster for those on dial-up vs cable or faster.

The photo below is only 36 KB, 380 x 400 or something. Same frog!

It's on the right, about 2/3 of the way down the list of downloads.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

Snow flurries and cold wind here, alternating with nice blue skies. I'm ready for July any time now...

OK - it is cold outside & forced me to retreat inside. A fair amount of weeding got done along with Slug obliteration. Just see what happens when you mow down my Meconopsis!

Pretty day today - went to Wells Medina Nursery at lunch. There was a gentleman on another thread - Tommy - who was looking for Linnaea borrealis. If anyone else was interested, they have it at WM. I can pick up for you - dmail me.

I flew from my icy Montana home to Juneau AK today and after leaving Vancouver Island the sky opened up to beautiful sunshine and arriving in Juneau it was spectacular spring day. I didn't get out until tonight but it was warm and wonderful with a beautiful sunset late this evening. I sat on a large stump in the wood up hill from the clinic and watched the sun go down. I am fortunate. The ocean is wonderful.

thanks Poochella and Murmur. I will definitely visit the next time I'm up that way. would Love to do it this weekend, but for those unfortunate things called work and........ gasoline!

Sofer ~ I must admit to being envious. Warm AND the ocean? What a perfect combination!

Annie - I meant to tell you that I absolutely love your picture of the frog.