A Very Productive Sunday

I awoke to yet another sunny day! While this dry mild weather is terrific for getting outdoor chores done, it is certainly confusing to both the plants and the animals. Case in point, look in this tree! Turkey Vultures! We last saw our venue of turkey vultures this Fall as they congregated and left for the big trip down south. Now suddenly today, we have six circling in our sky. I guess the question is, have they come back a few months early or did they never leave? Either way it certainly is strange having them flying high in our January sky.

The first task on my "to-do" list today was planting the various bulbs that we purchased back in October at the Hardy Pant Group meeting. Our speaker that night was Steve Vinisky, owner of Cherry Creek Daffodils. After giving a great talk Steve held court at a sales table where he offer choice bulbs for sale. Of course, we couldn't resist! We ended up buying:

• 1 bulb of "Snipe" a solid white Cyclamineus Daffodil
• 6 bulbs of "Kokopelli" a yellow Jonquilla Daffodil , floriferous with a light fragrance
• 1 bulb of "Sabrosa" a yellow Jonquilla Daffodil, small fragrant pale yellow blossoms
• 4 bulbs of "Rolf Fiedler" Ipheion Peregrinans, a star flower with striking blue blooms

Fortunately, as Fall was slipping away, we put our purchases in the bottom of the refrigerator. When I took them out today the bulbs seemed just fine. With the exception on "Snipe" all of the bulbs had small green shoots. Pictured above, a sprouting bulb of "Kokopelli". They were more than ready to be planted!

Her are the 4 small bulbs of "Rolf Fielder" . Their size and shape reminded me of grape hyacinth bulbs. I got everything planted and marked with a stake so now we can sit back and - fingers crossed - enjoy the show this Spring.

My second project of the day was attacking my kitchen garden. This past Fall I got everything cleaned up with the exception of the seven tomato plants and the two Morning Glory towers. I also planted a row of garlic in October. All late Fall and early Winter, someone/something has been digging in the kitchen garden, leaving small holes behind. By best guess is it's the chipmunks. Regardless, they have exposed some of my garlic bulbs so today I added soil to the raised row and made sure everything was properly covered with dirt. Then I covered the whole row with a tunnel covered in Remay. This should give the garlic row some added protection from both the weather and the critters.

I was truly surprised to see that almost my entire row of garlic-all three varieties- have already sprouted! Since this is my first attempt at growing my own garlic I don't know if this is normal or not. Perhaps this mild weather is playing games with the garlic too! It certainly made my clean-up task much more pleasant. After a couple hours of hard work, the kitchen garden bed was bare, ready for the 2012 garden.