God states the obvious. Are you listening?
I split my worm bin today to prepare for worm poop harvest. Basically this means all of the worm poop and old bedding was moved to one side of the bin and fresh bedding was put on the other side with new food. I’ve had the bin for about a month now and wow, do they eat fast. This is so exciting!
For the past month or so, I’ve been watching a mysterious plant growing in my garden. Hans and I thought it might be a weed, but I thought it also might not be a weed. It was at the same spot last year and grew to be only about 6 or 7 inches high. It didn’t have flowers and I really thought it might be a weed, but I wasn’t sure. This year, it grew to about 2 feet! Then it started growing a flower head. A couple days ago, I took some pictures of the flowers after some of the buds had opened up. It was quite pretty, but I still didn’t know what it was.
Today, I solved the mystery. I looked at it again and each individual flower looked like it could be a campanula. Sure enough, I looked up campanula and found a list of different types of campanula. Thankfully for pictures, I have come to the conclusion that my campanula is a campanula glomerata. Yay! Mystery solved.
This morning, Donna came by to share a batch of worms with me! Hans had helped me prepare the bin for them last weekend. Now they’re in there and possibly chomping on some apple bits and veggie trimmings. Maybe I’ll post photos later. Welcome home, worms!
So I forgot to mention in the last post that even the Japanese Painted Fern that Hans got last year is coming back up! How exciting. Also, the bleeding heart that I got at the end of the season last year (which looked so past its prime when I bought it) is much larger and tiny buds are forming.
The Lily of the Valley out front are also forming buds. Last year, they did not really have many flowers. I hope this year there are more.
There are SO MANY bugs and critters outside in the back yard. It’s like an insect jungle. Some of them are not so pretty, but I’m sure they do good things for the soil and stuff.
April showers bring May flowers, and this April, there have been so many showers. Our tiny little garden out back has been seriously inundated with water. The first year we were here, we had drain tile installed and I wonder if it’s doing its job. Granted, our garden area isn’t REALLY flooded, but there’s definitely a pool of water welling up underneath our fence.
As a short update on our garden, last week, Hans and I planted four clematis plants (Snow Queen and Red Cardinal). They were purchased in a bag from Costco, so we’ll see if they’ll take. Just today, I moved a tiny giant hosta from the front to the back and also brought two little lily of the valley plants out to the back too. I didn’t want to bring too many of the lily of the valley out back since they tend to multiply quickly. I just wanted to see if it will flower more in the back than the front.
Hopefully, in the near future, I’ll be able to find time to dig out the lambs ear and split it and give away a few clumps. We’ve got about 5 or 6 lambs ear and they’re getting quite large.
Also, the alliums that I thought didn’t make it actually did! The five planted on the right were just slower to sprout. The five on the left have buds now and the five on the right are starting to catch up. They may have a little less sun or something, not sure. I took some photos, but will have to post them some other time.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
-Mark 13-31
This earth is impermanant. Even HEAVEN will pass away. But God is ETERNAL. Praise the Lord!
Some time between Wednesday and today, the dwarf puffer committed suicide. We found him dried up on the table next to the betta’s tank. Why did he jump? I’m so sad.
Here’s a picture of our succulents. They’re by our bedroom window since there is no more room by the patio windows for any more plants. I think we need to move to a greenhouse. This aonium was a gift from Hans’ mom. She brought it over from California in an airplane barf bag maybe about two years ago? Last summer we left it out on the porch and it grew babies! How cool! Thanks Mom!
aonium and other succulents
In the back, the bulbs were from the Botanic Garden Bulb Bazarre. You can see some of the bulbs sprouting, though I can’t quite remember which bulbs are what. I planted a lot more than what’s growing, though. I hope that more grow (and that they didn’t rot). Hopefully they’ll grow big and strong so I can give you picture updates later with true identities.
Last Wednesday after work I just couldn’t stand looking at the garbage in our back yard (and out front) any longer. I took some plastic bags out to the front and picked up all the trash revealed since the snow has finally gone. It was great to find that some bulbs are growing! I’m quite excited. The tulips were free from the Garfield Conservatory spring giveaway last summer and are located in the front of the house. The flowerheads were already gone when these were planted, so it will be a surprise to see what pops up!
