The real hard gardening work is in the spring. Now we reap the benefits. I pulled up my garlic. It's a little early in the season but the garlic I planted sprouted last fall, grew a good 6 or 7 inches and stayed green all winter long. The stalks had fallen over they were so waterlogged and were brown 3/4ths up. You're supposed to harvest when they are brown 2/3rds up. Which is supposed to happen in the middle of July or in August.

One half of a store bought garlic yielded 8 plump heads. A great return.

Another thing. I've got two rather small vases. I'd like to have them filled with pretty flowers at all times. And also still have flowers outside. I just don't know how to go about doing that. Here is the vase I filled today:



The other vase remains empty.

The daisies in the pot no longer have full blown blooms. There are buds getting ready but no flowers this minute. So outside the daisies are just a bunch of green leaves. The celosia in the vase are the ones that fell over under their own weight. I think, like the garlic, all this water is weakening the stems. The dahlias have plenty of flowers. The orange ones anyway. The purple and red ones have spent flowers and budding flowers.

I need super flowers that give enough blooms so that I don't feel bad cutting enough for two vases while leaving some for outside show. And I do feel bad cutting the flowers off. I'm dumb that way.

I know a supervisor of mine who's gonna be disappointed. Or blame Clinton. Or think it's a great idea. Probably think it's a great idea.

http://www.reuters.com/article/sarahPalin/idUSTRE5624VW20090703