Puttering.

Today was a chance to putter around the growing greener yard. Nice, chilly late winter morning.

- After debating for a day, I checked the weather-channel predictions, and planted this Hardy Chicago fig. It was grown from a cutting last Winter. Reading the tag, I started the cutting 1/10/06, from a 2-node cutting (similar to the ones that I started about one week ago). I did add some home made compost to the hole, along with eggshells and soil from a more improved part of the garden, mixing with the soil in the hole. It's mulched with some leaves, but later in the Spring I intend to add some more compost plus a top layer of bark mulch. The top bud is pruned off to encourage branching. I hope that the buds havent swelled to a vulnerable point yet. I'll have to watch the predictions and cover it if a hard freeze is anticipated.

- some of the perrenial tops are pruned and chopped for the composter. The yard looks a bit cleaner. There are more that need trimming.

- 3 more bags of Starbucks grounds are added to the tomato bed.

-Lettuce is "winter sown" in an outdoor container. The lettuce seeds are about 1 year old. They should still be viable (according to one site, lettuce seeds can survive 5 years if stored properly); not much lost if they are not. The container is left exposed on the back (southern exposure) deck. Onion seeds, apparently, last only one year. I threw in some bunching onion seeds which, if they grow, great, but since they are from 1995, they may not. Later, I also winter sowed some radishes and spinach, also 1-2 years old.

At last, a day with a little 'life' to balance 'work'. It's been a hard few months, and I worked without a complete day off for the past 2 weeks straight through, so I took the weekend off. No homework done this weekend either.