My husband got me this great Christmas present which were these two books. One was to write recipes in and the other to keep track of what I’m doing in the garden. Both are things I am guilty of not keeping track of.

I have a bad habit of cooking stuff without a recipe and it tastes really good ….only I never write down what I did. Similarly, in the garden I am famous for planting things and forgetting what it’s called or where I planted i! So I am trying to keep track especially of what’s going into the garden now. The more layers I add the greater the chance is I forget. And I don’t want the kind of garden where I have lots of little plastic sticks sticking up with names of things on it. Then it looks like I’m growing plastic sticks.

The gardening journal has some pages of tips that I found interesting and I am including a screenshot above of one of the pages that I liked especially.

Last night we did have a freeze and when I covered up my plants it looks like a homeless plant encampment. I gathered as many plants as I could on the front porch that were in pots that I had just planted. Plus some other perennials that aren’t quite ready to go out into the garden. everything looks like it did OK. The jury is still out on my French tarragon because it’s looking a little annoyed and droopy.

I am still waiting on some plants but have plenty of work to do. Our son helped me put wood chips down in the back and I am almost finished putting wood chips down in the large shade bed in front of the woods. I was waiting for more plants to emerge so I could put the chips down around them.

The bleeding hearts are up and the old-fashioned original one is already blooming! It’s very pretty!

The hostas are popping up all over so I am glad I have sprayed for deer. But I will have to remain vigilant until they remember once again they’re not supposed to be in my garden. Sometimes it works better than others!

The ferns are all starting to unfurl and I’m really liking that. It is so pretty to watch ferns emerge day after day. First you have the little fiddleheads and then slowly they unfurl.

Now is also the season that I have to be careful when I’m weeding that I’m not digging up perennials as well. I did that to a feverfew plant, and realized what it was and had to replant it.

I have some planters that have perennials in them. Hostas and daylilies. They are all coming up so now I will be able to see where they are so I can put some little annuals in around them.

People don’t realize that you can do your perennials in pots as well, and as a matter fact you can plant almost anything in a pot. I like doing that because with the larger pots they are anchored somewhat and then I plant around them. That way I don’t have to deal with it from scratch every spring.

And most of my large planters are a resin composite or heavy plastic. I don’t have any of the giant cement pots like my parents had anchoring the corners of their porches years ago. The resin and plastic pots have come along way and you can find good looking ones that you don’t really realize what they are until you tap the sides.

Every garden is an evolution and things just take time. You add things at different times, you move things around, you remove things and gift them to other gardeners. You’re never going to have the instant garden where everything is perfect. And I like to think that a garden is perfect in its imperfections.

Things are growing nicely right now, so I am happy. And I think thanks to COVID-19 a.k.a. coronavirus, we have all been blessed with extra time to spend in the garden. And for some people they’ve never gardened before and I hope they’re enjoying it!

Well that’s all for me today. Happy gardening!