Great Gardening Weekend

We had a beautiful sunny weekend in DC. I'm sure everyone who was in town for the Cherry Blossom Festival appreciated it too. Just to remind myself of  how time passes, exactly one month ago, on March 6, it snowed!

On this sunny weekend I had the windows open in my house each day. It felt so good to have fresh air circulating through the house. The rest of my April weekends will be busy with out of town travel, a crawfish boil, birthday parties, and a going-away party, so I took advantage of the nice weather to get some yard work done on my free weekend.

First, I started some sunflower seeds. (I am so woefully behind on seed starting in general. I only have some onion seedlings sprouting from seeds I started a couple of months ago).  I'm determined not to let the squirrels dig up my sunflower seedlings this year. We'll see who wins that war. I'm growing Teddy Bear sunflowers, Mammoth sunflowers, and Chianti sunflowers.

These are my Queen of the Night tulips. They're growing more every day and I can't wait to see those lovely dark purple blooms. I planted some peach colored alyssum seeds in the spaces between the tulips. I think the color combo of peach and dark purple will look nice.

My big garden task was weed work. Look at how these weeds have almost taken over my onion patch. Now imagine all of that on a 10x10 space. That's about the size of my backyard and it's all full of weeds. It's going to take a while to weed everything.

But for now I managed to liberate my onion patch. This was a lesson learned for me. I will mulch better and/or plant some cover crops next fall to prevent this from happening again.

I also squeezed some shopping in this weekend. I treated myself to these cute pink shorts. I don't think I've ever owned pink shorts in my life. I must have spring fever. I can't wait for the weather to warm up enough to wear them.

Did you get any garden work done this weekend?

Spring Has Arrived!

Spring is here! Although you wouldn't know it from the near-freezing temperatures and snow flurries I saw this morning. There are several signs of spring around my garden, though. I've seen a lot more bird and squirrel activity, and my tulips have sprouted! I planted these Queen of the Night tulips back in November, and on March 10 saw the first signs of them sprouting.

 I took this last picture two days ago, and you can see the tulip leaves starting to unfurl. I can't wait to see these pretty dark purple flowers in my garden. I planted Queen of the Nights a few years ago with some red tulips, but this year I may add a different type of flower to fill in the gaps, maybe in yellow or cream. I  haven't had much time lately to write about my garden plans, I've been busy with work and am probably going to start a new job soon which may mean longer work days for me. I'm aiming for a low-maintenance garden this year, and I also want more flowers in my garden. I think more flowers may attract more pollinators, which could then help the veggie plants.

Has Spring arrived yet where you are?