Easter Sunday Work Day

It’s important to schedule work days at home. Our lives are busy enough, so retreat by setting aside concerns and being at home interacting with neighbors, doing chores and working the soil can’t happen often enough.

That was my Easter Sunday—the second work day this month.

It was a perfect day to burn the brush pile. At one point, I had three fires going. My neighbors to the south were also burning theirs. Once the fire got going, I cleared a space to pile mulch until the garden is planted.

I have six garden plots and label them as north or south and then E (East), W (West) or M (Middle). Plot NM is the composting center. There are four peach tree stumps there, and a locust tree—mistakes all. There is also a patch of daylilies. I set the brush pile on top of one peach stump so the coals would burn the remainder away. Mission accomplished. One is below the boxed in compost pile and the other two will be a project for once the mulch is moved to the garden.

Plot SW was covered with grass clippings last year. Having been fallow, I plan to put some of my favorites here. I removed all of the clippings with a fork and moved them to Plot NM for storage. Then I raked the surface, and worked enough soil to put in two rows of Napoli F1 Early Carrots. I haven’t finalized the plan for this plot, but it should be fertile soil.

Plot SM has the early lettuce and turnips I planted on March 20. I removed the fencing and put in a row of last year’s Emperor F1 savoyed spinach seeds. The space where the lettuce, turnips and spinach are will be second planted, and I considered putting in peas next to expand the second planting area. I need to get the peas in the ground before it gets too warm.

I ended the gardening by getting the hose out of storage and watering the seeded areas.

There are always household chores and I cleaned the outside glass on the French door so we could see something through it besides spider webs. We hang a bird feeder there and I filled it with seed.

I swept up the remaining sand from the street in front of our house filling a bucket kept in the garage for next winter. It’s free and it looks nice once it’s removed. There is plenty around the subdivision, but I only take what I need. I used two buckets last winter and the inventory is five.

The kale seeds planted April 2 have germinated and soon I’ll remove the clear plastic cover from the tray. The pepper seeds planted March 21 are beginning to germinate and they will stay under a cover until all of them do. All of the indoor seedlings are growing nicely.

After finishing up chores, I prepared a pasta dinner and read a book. The next work session is scheduled on Tuesday.