What did you do in the garden today?

Have Agastache, ( arcado pink), Celosia ( pink flamingo), Cardinal vine, Passionflower vine, Malva, and cleome growing in the basement right now. Nothing has come up but the Malva, and as much as I love seed starting, I am very impatient. I'm always like, did the seeds die? Are they infertile? Finally they come up, but sometimes I can't wait and dig in the pot only to find the seed was sprouting and now I disturbed it. Starting Peppers, Tomatoes, and stuff soon. Still cold and frozen out there in my zone 5
 
The 7-day forecast says every day after today is going to be well above freezing. That should take care of all the snow in our yard, since we only have about 4". Maybe me and Hubs will be able to get out and start working on our raised block garden. We need to get it done for spring planting. I'm so excited, and can't wait to start working out in the yard again! :wee
Well, so much for their great forecast - instead we got two back-to-back snowfalls, and now we have at least 1' of snow. Ugh. But, it is supposed to be almost 40 degrees for the next several days, so the snow shouldn't last too long. Just hope we don't get any more. I should have known better than to get my hopes up this early. :mad:
 
Today was in the high 40's and very sunny. I spent the whole day out prepping the garden beds I didn't get prepped over the fall/winter. I weeded them and gave them a light till with a garden claw to start any seeds sprouting this week and the next time we get sunny weather in a week or so I'll go out and do it again so that all those baby weed seedlings get ripped to bits.
The biggest problems so far the year are the same as every year; curly dock and ground ivy. Both have awful root systems and are a huge pain to control as they keep cropping up even if you remove them. The dock can grow back from a cut root 1' under the ground so I just gotta keep at it. If I keep killing them they'll will eventually stop coming back (I hope).
The other major weeds in the beds are plantains (plantago, not bananas), clover and dandelions... All of which, frankly, are welcome in my garden. I pull them if they're in the way, but otherwise they're welcome to grow along the edges or whatever. They help with soil erosion and water retention and biodiversity and all that plus the animals love to eat them.
I also pulled a whole lot of the leftover stalks from the frost asters that died back last year. While I was doing so I accidentally ripped out a bunch of grass too... But it's OK because I now have plans to turn that location into a rain garden to help control the overwhelming water levels in my back lawn. I am frequently cited by the city for the asters... They are a native species that is massively important for pollinators like my bees in late summer. They produce a glut of pollen and nectar at the end of summer and through the fall and many pollinating species rely on for their winter stores. So I am going to put some borders around them, mulch them a little and throw in a few other perennial flowers all across where they grow in my lawn and call them my flower beds. :p Take that city inspectors! You can pry my asters from my cold, dead hands. :mad:
 

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