Six on Saturday: April 21

  A welcome day of warmth yesterday resulted in lots of changes and some accomplishments.  The major goal was getting the 370 violas planted along the edges of the potager’s central paths.  It may not look impressive to you, but seeing those ribbons of green is a delight for me.  Along with the bands of garlic, this season’s design is beginning to take shape.  There is also a trickle-down effect.  Getting all those plants in the ground freed up space.  All the first-round plants were moved out of the greenhouse onto the outdoor benching so that flats from the basement were moved into the greenhouse.  In addition, finally getting numerous plants in the ground freed up pots, so no more had to be purchased.  A quick rinse in bleach water and they were ready to fill again.  Consequently, hundreds of babies were moved from seedling flats into pots.  This also allowed a new round of seeding!  And, the green chairs have been moved out of the Lady Cottage for the season which gave me a lovely place to rest between tasks.  That included setting up 4 more sections of pea fence in anticipation of more plantings and more potatoes planted in pots increasing the total to 10 so far.  Progress!    Secondly, recently I ventured to northern Indiana to visit Indiana Berry Farm.  It’s an impressive place with blueberry fields and broad rows of strawberries.  They propagate and sell an amazing list of berry plants.  I picked up four black currant bushes, something I’ve been wanting for years after falling in love with black currant tea in England.  Until recently black currants were not allowed because of their part in the cycle of the dreaded white pine rust, however now there are resistant varieties.   The two I selected were “Consort,” developed by Agricultural Canada which is immune to white pine rust.  It’s self-fertile and ripens mid-season, whenever that is!  “Blackdown” is an English variety reported to be very disease resistant with heavy crops of large berries that are even tasty fresh.  I’ve never tried black currants fresh, only in jellies, syrups, and dried in teas so this will be interesting.  Three:  The other “off-farm” venture recently was being a vendor at the Herb Society of Central Indiana’s spring symposium.  Here is the pile of inventory, just unloaded off the truck.   And only 3 1/2 hours later, it looked like this:    If you look carefully, you can see copies of my books and the hand-painted umbrellas.  Far left there is a basket of shallots.  I’m really getting too old for all this truck loading and unloading though, so my “show” days are coming to an end soon.    Four is indicative of our spring so far, daffodils that are horizontal as a result of too many heavy snows and battering winds.  However, they still make a lovely bouquet.  I picked these for dinner guests this evening.   Finally having enough daffodils to pick is a happy number Five!  Lastly, one of the plants I truly love are these very miniature true irises that my friend Margaret gave me years and years ago.  They are only about 3″ tall, and 2 of those inches are the bloom!  They love the very dry conditions right along the sidewalk of the Deck Garden, and that’s a good place because since they are so small, they could be easily missed, which would be very sad.  I think they are perfect for fairy gardens as well.    So that’s my “Six on Saturday.” Please visit The Propagator for many more contributions from around the globe.

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