Crazy gardening

I feel like this was a very productive weekend. Yesterday I put 6 coats of poly on our dining room table. I think it may need one or 2 more in order to make it as smooth and shiny as I'd like it to be. But all in all I think it's going to be a lot nicer than it was before I started.

I also went a little crazy with the loppers. We have a little stand of cedars right behind our deck that the kids call the Secret Trees. They like to play secret agent in there and call some parts of it the Sword Room because it has so many sticks on the ground to use as swords. So I decided to clean that out a bit. I took out the little holly sprouts and some of the smaller cedar branches to make it easier to walk around in there without getting scratched. Apparently cedar branches have a lot of tiny dead twigs hanging on them. So in some spots I could just run my hand up the branch and break off a dozen or more little dead twigs. So now there are a lot more swords for the kids to play with and a few more Agent Rooms to go along with that.

The garden is almost in a state that requires me to just wait and see what happens rather than needing to plant or transplant or weed. I'd almost rather have something to do. When I don't have something I NEED to do in the garden I find things to do anyway, which is not always the best thing for the garden. :) So yesterday I decided to divide the rhubarb. I believe that many years ago the rhubarb was one plant, but now it's divided itself into about 11 plants that produce a fair amount of rhubarb. I've been able to make a couple of rhubarb crisps already this spring, but I'd like more. So I broke off 3 of the crowns that were off to the side by themselves and moved them to another spot in the garden. I got a lot of root with them so hopefully they'll do ok. I then proceeded to dig up all of the volunteer strawberries that were in the rows where I'm growing corn and put them into a big planter. About 10 minutes after I'd put them in the new pot they all fell over and looked totally wilted. I watered them, and hopefully they'll perk up, but as of last night it didn't look too promising. I think I should have transplanted the whole root ball filled with dirt into the planter of compost rather than shaking the dirt off of the roots first. The compost is fairly coarse and will have more problems getting all around the roots to deliver water than the dirt they were already in. But we'll see what they do.

I also jumped the gun a bit on planting my pumpkins. We made a 10x10 pumpkin patch next to the big garden and would like to fence it to keep the bunnies and chickens out of it. We have enough fencing to go around 3 sides of the patch and need to get more to finish out the 4th side. I got antsy and decided to plant my starts in there anyway. I had chickens in there with me almost immediately trying to "help" me dig my holes and peck at the rhubarb stalks I'd put in my pocket to take inside. I shooed them away and managed to plant my starts. I then put the plastic fencing over the top of the starts to keep the critters from going back into the bed. I really should have waited until I had enough fencing...but I got antsy. :)

And, Yay! I have someone who's planning to take some of my many extra starts. Actually I have 4 someones. I guess I've talked about them enough that people are feeling sorry for them and will give them a home out of pity. Whatever the reason, they will be going to some good homes and will hopfully grow up to be big strong yummy veggies. It makes me so proud to see my little ones going out into the big wide world. :)