A gardener's spring staycation

I decided to celebrate my birthday this year by taking a few days off. We talked about taking a short road trip, but then I saw the weather forecast: highs in the 60s and almost no wind. Hello, gardening staycation! I have spent the last 5 days digging, planting, shoveling, and pruning. Only a gardener would consider that a vacation.

So what do I have to show for the last 5 days?  

• The pit in front of my house is now a little deeper. This pit will eventually become a pond, assuming my back doesn’t completely give out before I get it dug. Impressively ugly, isn’t it? A side note: never take garden pictures at midday. The light makes everything look like a postapocalyptic wasteland, My yard isn’t really this ugly, even with the icky pond pit.

• I planted a bunch of stuff--pansies I overwintered in a sheltered corner, delphiniums I started from seed last summer, stargazer lily bulbs, phlox and daylilies bought bareroot from Big Lots, blackberries (‘Navaho’ - thornless and they don’t need supports - woo hoo) bought bareroot from Sam’s Club, and Rudbeckia and milkweed (also bareroot from Sam’s Club).
• We have 2 new raised beds in the kitchen garden we started building last fall. This afternoon’s task: unload the truckload of topsoil/manure mix and start filling them.
• We set 2 more fence posts to finish the fence around the aforementioned kitchen garden.
• I pruned a bunch of trees and shrubs.
• I did the first outdoor seed sowing of the year--beets and radishes. Now if I can just keep them watered till they germinate and get tall enough to mulch, I might actually have something to harvest.
• And speaking of watering, I’m learning how to install drip irrigation. Without it, watering my high desert oasis will be a full-time job. I think I’m figuring it out, but installing each t-connector and elbow seems to involve a lot of swearing.
• And finally, I scored some cool garden art for very cheap at a yard sale, including the perfect piece to disguise an ugly metal pole. Said pole used to hold a satellite dish and is inconveniently located in my new kitchen garden. Soon it will be covered with a cool wrought iron piece and a bunch of morning glories. I’ll post pix of that piece soon. In the meantime, here’s a cute frog from the same sale. It cost me all of $1. The husband says it looks like Boss Hogg from the Dukes of Hazzard. I think it looks more like Jabba the Hutt on vacation in Florida. Boss Jabba will grace the shore of the pond--if I ever get the damn hole dug.  

Being home for several days in a row has given me a chance to watch the subtle changes from day to day as spring starts to take hold here in the Arizona highlands. Some of the crocuses are blooming, and I’ve watched the daffodils go from barely peeking through the soil to a few inches high. One is almost ready to bloom. Last year’s bargain basement mums from Wal-Mart are mostly coming back too. The green onions growing on my front porch in containers have sprung back from their winter pout (heck, I’d pout too if I were covered with a foot of snow for 3 weeks), and my bee balm is trying to take over an entire half whiskey barrel.

And no, you’re not drunk; that barrel in the back of the container grouping really is crooked (or if the barrel looks straight, then you are drunk).

Tomorrow the fun ends for a few days, because it’s time for me to go back to work. But the days are getting longer, the nights are getting warmer, and spring is springing. Hooray!