Zinnias -  What would we do without them?  I like a flower that is not demanding, but puts on a big colorful show.  I'm always looking for low upkeep in the flower garden.  I've found that I'm a very  enthusiastic gardener in the spring, but lose interest quickly as soon as the weather gets hot.  Some deadheading and a little weeding are about all I'm willing to do after mid-July.

I got a good start on my zinnias this year, made some pretty cute little newspaper pots and planted my seeds indoors in late April.  Zinnias are not known as being easy to transplant, they prefer to be seeded directly in the ground after the soil has warmed up.  I've not had much luck seeding them in my beds because of the snails.  The tiny zinnias haven't a chance.   So this year I'm trying the newspaper pots, thinking that they can be transplanted pot and all with little disturbance to the plants.

I found several varieties of zinnia that I wanted to try and ended up with 4 trays of plants.  I started them indoors, then moved them to our little greenhouse/cold frame.  They have done quite well despite the cool wet weather.  For the past couple of weeks I've been working on moving them to my flower beds in between rain storms.  One morning last week I discovered that my zinnias had been raided. It seems that one marauding snail finally slimed his way into a tray of tender baby zinnias. He, or she, had quite a feast. You can be sure that I put a stop to that - and expedited my transplanting efforts.  I now have zinnia plants marching around my yard in three separate gardens.  They seem to have survived the transplant and our latest deluge.  I have surrounded them with slug bait and judging from the number of snail carcuses I'm collecting, it seems to be working. I'm looking forward to a yard filled with lovely big showy zinnias.Keep your fingers crossed.

Another beautiful Sunday in the Willamette Valley.  It seems like we haven't really had much of a winter this year. (Easy for me to say today, not so easy last week.) Oh, yes, it's been cold, and it's been rainy, but we haven't had many of our usual protracted gray, damp, cold, and dreary days, weeks, or often, months. In the past week we experienced three of those days which resulted in an entire city of grumpy, depressed people.  How quickly we forget.

It was  34 degrees when I walked Ollie this morning, but it warmed up quickly.  I enjoyed a nice long run along the mill race and Willamette River.  The flowering trees are in bloom, the woodland bushes are putting out their fresh green leaves, and the water fowl are very active.  I expect to see baby ducks and geese any day. I truly appreciate living near miles and miles of running and biking trails. It was a great day to be outside. 

Ollie joined us outside for a little garden work.  He napped while I cleaned out and weeded another bed.  It certainly looks better, but I have a number of Hebe plants that suffered during our bit of cold weather.  I'm waiting to see if they'll come back.  It's not looking good.

Reyn's cold-frame is working beautifully.  It was 84 degrees under the frame shortly before noon today.  It is steamy in there and the plants are all loving it.  He started new lettuce seeds last week and chose today to transplant his first starts into the garden.  As always, he was surprised to find out exactly how many little plants he had propogated.  After giving starts to the neighbors, he tucked in his progeny wherever space and good soil could be found.  We now have several kinds of lettuce, spinach, and chard growing in and around much of the garden - under the blueberries, between the rhubarb, next to the asparagus.  When the plants get a little larger we'll have beautiful edible borders all around the yard.  I'm thinking about those salads already.

Garden Notes:  3/12 - planted radishes and Merida carrots.  Carrots overwinter, 240 days to maturity.

                           3/14 - lettuce, spinach, and swiss chard transplanted to garden

Time to trasnplant -  Reyn's seedlings are continuing to thrive, they are strong and healthy, and are producing secondary leaves. He is no longer bringing them inside during the night. The plants are now staying in the cold frame both day and night.  The first night outside is always worrisome, the seedlings seem like such fragile little things and we've had a few cold nights lately.  The protection of the cold frame has most certainly assisted the transition.

Reyn has added two more support ribs to the cold frame and covered it with plastic sheeting.  That gives us essentially a 4' x 8' mini-greenhouse.  He has planted another round of lettuce, this time using freshly purchased seeds.  In less than a week the new seeds have germinated and are looking good.  If all goes well, we'll soon have more lettuce than we can eat.  I'm so looking forward to our own salad greens again.

I've been working in my herb garden this week.  I have once again learned the lesson offered by the Oregano-with-a mind-of-it's-own.  I do like oregano.  I cook with it and enjoy the foliage and summer flowers, but why can't it just mind it's own business?  I dug an entire 5 gallon bucket of baby oregano plants out of my garden.  I think that I got it all out, but I also remain certain that enough will show up to meet my needs for the herb.

Garden notes: Transplanted pepper grass into herb garden

                                      Rhubarb coming up

                                      Seedlings moved to cold-frame

                                      Magnolia, crocus, hyacinth, primroses, violets, daphne, and plum tree all in bloom

                                      Pesky squirrels digging holes around newly planted peas

                                      Worried about deer munching on tasty plum tree