![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillI was supposed to be taking it easy today. Oh well.
The first major thing to do today was to make dinner for tomorrow night's Doctor Who viewing. I wanted to do lasagne, but given the various sensitivities and preferences of the people involved, it morphed into a chicken-noodle casserole with a touch of pesto. We'll see how it goes over. It took two hours to make, though, since I had to make the sauce from scratch, cook the chicken and shred it, etc.
Next was to pot up some plants, as I had brought them home naked as newborn babes yesterday, and cold moist weather can only do so much to sustain plants without soil. Fortunately, meadowsweet and feverfew are tough, and even the calendula managed without griping. The calendula and feverfew went into small pots to be taken to their eventual destinations far from here, and the meadowsweet (which likes wet conditions, I'm told) got put out front where I had originally envisioned catnip and ginger, to screen the potted plants from the street somewhat. There's plenty of available water there, and they grow tall and pretty and fragrant; they're also quite potent, and their listed medicinal qualities are ones I could use on many occasions.
As for the catnip, I dug up the brave little clump (it had tiny sprouts, even in freezing weather) and put it in a broad, shallow pot near the winter garden, where it will get some of the sprinkler there. I then put a wire cage over it, and put a 4' cylinder of wire fence around that, using wire stakes to anchor it to the ground. I expect that should keep it from being molested by raccoons for a while, and give it a chance to recover.
I scouted the layout of the front irrigation pipes (it's been a while) to figure out what I need for the next project; splitting the irrigation out there in half, and adding another valve. That should keep up good water pressure even if I have to open more bubblers, which I expect to do as I keep putting new plants out there. (The need will go down again after a while.)
Last, I tore away enough of the lily-of-the-valley vine to have a good look at the two potted roses that have been sorely neglected for years while I worked to find spots for them. The Whiskey Mac doesn't seem to have rooted below the pot, oddly enough, and yet it's still pretty healthy; that variety is tough, and I love it for that. It almost makes up for the excessive thorns. :) The Climbing Altissimo has been blooming out there for years, and it has put roots through to the soil below, but I can demolish the old plastic pot and cut it off at soil level to get a good rootball for transplant. What surprised me rather more was its size: the crown is a sphere about a foot across, and a couple of the canes are 1.5 inches at the base. Vigorous, boy howdy. I have to trust that the Climbing Iceberg will be able to match it in the quest to make a rose-hedge that spans the seventy feet between the driveways out front.
I still have to make a pie -- or at least pie crust -- but I feel reasonably well accomplished, having checked off even a couple of longer-term items on my list.
The first major thing to do today was to make dinner for tomorrow night's Doctor Who viewing. I wanted to do lasagne, but given the various sensitivities and preferences of the people involved, it morphed into a chicken-noodle casserole with a touch of pesto. We'll see how it goes over. It took two hours to make, though, since I had to make the sauce from scratch, cook the chicken and shred it, etc.
Next was to pot up some plants, as I had brought them home naked as newborn babes yesterday, and cold moist weather can only do so much to sustain plants without soil. Fortunately, meadowsweet and feverfew are tough, and even the calendula managed without griping. The calendula and feverfew went into small pots to be taken to their eventual destinations far from here, and the meadowsweet (which likes wet conditions, I'm told) got put out front where I had originally envisioned catnip and ginger, to screen the potted plants from the street somewhat. There's plenty of available water there, and they grow tall and pretty and fragrant; they're also quite potent, and their listed medicinal qualities are ones I could use on many occasions.
As for the catnip, I dug up the brave little clump (it had tiny sprouts, even in freezing weather) and put it in a broad, shallow pot near the winter garden, where it will get some of the sprinkler there. I then put a wire cage over it, and put a 4' cylinder of wire fence around that, using wire stakes to anchor it to the ground. I expect that should keep it from being molested by raccoons for a while, and give it a chance to recover.
I scouted the layout of the front irrigation pipes (it's been a while) to figure out what I need for the next project; splitting the irrigation out there in half, and adding another valve. That should keep up good water pressure even if I have to open more bubblers, which I expect to do as I keep putting new plants out there. (The need will go down again after a while.)
Last, I tore away enough of the lily-of-the-valley vine to have a good look at the two potted roses that have been sorely neglected for years while I worked to find spots for them. The Whiskey Mac doesn't seem to have rooted below the pot, oddly enough, and yet it's still pretty healthy; that variety is tough, and I love it for that. It almost makes up for the excessive thorns. :) The Climbing Altissimo has been blooming out there for years, and it has put roots through to the soil below, but I can demolish the old plastic pot and cut it off at soil level to get a good rootball for transplant. What surprised me rather more was its size: the crown is a sphere about a foot across, and a couple of the canes are 1.5 inches at the base. Vigorous, boy howdy. I have to trust that the Climbing Iceberg will be able to match it in the quest to make a rose-hedge that spans the seventy feet between the driveways out front.
I still have to make a pie -- or at least pie crust -- but I feel reasonably well accomplished, having checked off even a couple of longer-term items on my list.
