Gardening is Better Than a Gym Membership

 I have been working in the yard daily for the past four or five days. Reaching, lifting, stretching, bending, digging. I'm out there four to seven hours each day, never working hard but always in motion. (Okay, digging holes can reach "working hard.")

I've noticed that I feel better. There is a new spring in my step and greater flexibility. I go to bed tired and I sleep well. There must be something to this fresh air and sunshine thing! :)

I know my boys enjoy having me outside. Randall, the gray tuxedo cat, is always with me. If I'm not careful, he will wrap himself around my feet and trip me. His favorite thing, however, is to lay down right where I'm pulling weeds, roll on his back and then to demand a belly rub. Who can resist that?



Loki, the black tuxedo kitten, is far too busy to do more than pass by as I weed raised beds. He bounces by, does a nose-nose with Randall, and is off again.  Lonesome, my orange and white boy, likes to be around, but not too close to Randall. Whenever they get within hissing distance, they start jockeying for Top Cat.

Sigh. I do hope they get it out of their system.


Today's project was to finish the strawberry bed and start the allium bed. I shredded four brown paper sacks of paper and newsprint last night to make this much mulch. A fifth bag could have been put to good use, but I need to shred more first. Cyprus mulch is prettier. I might buy some bags of it later on, but the good thing about paper is it is biodegradable and doing this keeps it out of a landfill.

Viola! The allium bed. The yellow onions and elephant garlic wintered over nicely. I've cleared the rest of the squares. My daughter Jen loves red onions, so I planted three squares of onions for her. After that I moved the chives from another bed to their new home. I broke up the root mass and turned one big clump into six smaller clusters. I hope they like having toe room!

There are 12 squares available in this bed, so the chives and green onions from the house now live here, too. Next I want to find some leeks to grow. If there is room, I may start a square of Egyptian bunching onions. (Not sure about that one.)

Over the winter I've has a small pot of chives inside. I also did the recycled garden trick with green onions. What is the recycled garden trick? That's where you save the roots from a plant -- in this case green onions -- and replant them as soon as you have used the plant for cooking. I had lettuce, regular onions, and green onions growing. Only the green onions made it. I think the cats were helping me water the lettuce. (I wonder why it didn't survive?)

There was something about that lettuce tub on the floor that attracted all the animals. Brooklyn hid her bone in that bucket, too!

Alliums

Gnome and chives

I like alliums: onions, leeks, garlic, chives, wild garlic, wild onion... It doesn't matter what they are or where they grow. They have cheerful flowers and many of them taste good. (We won't address the mild allergy to garlic...)  This year wild garlic was prolific in the shade of the wooden dog pen. I felt guilty digging it up to put in the new raised bed for the cantaloupe and watermelon. Ah, but there are others in my garden. Chives wintered over again and are growing enthusiastically. The garlic that I planted as an afterthought last fall produced nicely.

Dried onions from 2009

Drying onions, 2012

The onions that I planted with my tomatoes last year got away from me. The tops died and I only found about half of them when I harvested. As usual, they were tiny: about the size of golf balls. This spring, all those missing onions sprouted and kept growing. When they went to seed, I enjoyed the balls of flower on the ends too much to harvest them. A few days ago, I broke down, dug them and braided their tops to dry. They are huge! Do onions need two years to make? Was it the organic fertilizer I used this spring that they liked? I know that you aren't supposed to harvest alliums after they go to seed, but what the hey? They were lost last year. Maybe they will be worth something this year. If not? Well, there is always the compost pile.

Leeks in bloom 2012

The leeks got away from me, too. I don't even care. They are so pretty! I enjoy going to the garden and watching the pollen gatherers at work. There are always honey bees working the leek blossoms. Wasps visit, and twice I have seen bumblebees at work. It gives me a charge to see the honey bees. My dad was a bee keeper. He had three or four hives in the garden, not to far from where I have my blackberries. When the hive would swarm, he would have to catch the new queen and her helpers to start a new hive. Who knows? Perhaps the bees working my garden escaped from Dad's hives.