I hosting an auction here on the blog. If you missed it, you can find it HERE. It ends today at noon central time. If you’re looking for sewing machine attachments for your vintage machines, this is the sale you’ve been looking for.
When I woke up on Saturday I was bound and determined to accomplish something. Do you ever go from day to day, busy the whole time, yet feel like you continually accomplish nothing? My days have seemed like that.
I decided it was garden day. I’ve been debating and debating over the last while if I should mask up and head out to the garden center or let Karl do it. I’m really trying to limit leaving but there comes a time when some errands are a little hard.
You all who plant a garden know how it goes. I like to plant Roma tomatoes for salsa making. If they don’t have Roma’s I know to check for Amish Paste. Karl doesn’t know that.
So, I decided that I would mask up and get the plants….I changed out of my home clothes and when I was in upstairs, I saw this….UGH.
It’s all the “stuff” from my sewing room that needs a home….a home with someone else than me. Being I was going out, I decided I would drop off local things.
I had a friend who messaged me and said if I was sorting fabric and ran across some eye spy type novelty fabrics, she’s love for me share…so I shared some the fabric you all have sent me. She has a little grandson that I think is going to be getting a new quilt.
A lady from my church works making quilts for Lutheran World Relief. She also works with a group of her friends making quilts for benefits and charities. She got lots of goodies dropped off at her house. I sorted through my strip boxes and she got a lot!!
All of this went to the Cresco ladies….That I didn’t drop off. They came and picked up this.
WOW…Getting this all to the places it needs to go was WONDERFUL for me. I was finally feeling like I was accomplishing something.
When I dropped off the fabric the gal gave me a scoop full of newly sprouted cabbages and newly sprouted kohlrabi..yahoo. That was two less things to purchase.
I continued on my journey and headed to the garden center. On the way I was thinking about what I was going to get. I always get impatiens to go along my sidewalk and in the planters along my porch. I had gotten pink last year and the year before. I did red one year. Kalissa suggested white. I was thinking I’d go with red this year.
I was also trying to figure out a way to cut a little on the expenses. I decided that I’d cut back on flowers a bit….I thought I would just get the plants and plant my own hanging baskets.
So with mask on..off I went.
I was really disappointed in the local nursery I go to. They didn’t have many veggie plants at all. I could quickly see it was good that I went to get the plants.
I ended up only getting my flowers but no veggies there. That meant I had to make another stop. It’s not what I wanted to do as I said, I’m really trying to stay home…but I really want a veggie garden.
Once home, I started in planting my impatiens. Do you want to hear something funny?? I had fretted all the way to the nursery trying to decide what color to get. Well when I got there it was already decided for me. The only impatiens they had left were a mix pack variety. When I saw that, I laughed.
At first I wasn’t very happy with that but now, I’m really excited. It’s going to look so pretty…and not all of the other plants are going to match as I can have every color from pinks to reds to corals and fushia color as well as white as that’s all the colors that were included in the impatiens packs.
Can you believe I planted 120 of the little plants?? They went all the was along the sidewalk in the photo above and in all the planters on the porch. That’s a lot of plants.
I did plant my own hanging baskets. They don’t look fabulous now but I’m hopeful that in a couple weeks they will be catching up.
Something else I did this year was with my two planters outside the back door. Rather than buy the 6 geraniums I usually buy, I decided to plant a cherry tomato in the my planters and then I bought one pack of trailing petunias and one other filler plant. I know it’s not going to be amazingly wonderful but I’m okay with it.  
Just changing out and planting my own hanging baskets and not buying the geraniums saved me about $60. That was a good compromise I can live with.
After the flowers were planted, I moved on to the garden. Happily, Karl jumped in and helped.
We were scrambling as the rain clouds were moving in. I didn’t get the front part, which is flower garden weeded before the rain came in but I’m completely content knowing all of the garden is planted and on it’s way to making us some food. I so love this time of year. I’m so happy Karl is excited about gardening.
As the rain started, I realized I forgot to plant my zinnia seeds. Well that will have to wait a couple days but I really do want to plant them. I bought them last year and never did get them planted. The seeds likely aren’t the best but I’m just going to plant them anyway. At least they’ll get used up.
I have to say these Wonder Grip Nicely Nimble gardening gloves have changed my life.
When Kramer died last year friends of ours gave me a gift certificate to the local nursery to buy something in memory of Kramer. I ended up getting a wind chime. Well there was about $10 left of the gift certificate so I ended up picking up these gardening gloves. In the past I’ve had cheap canvas type gloves. The dirt would sift through them and my hands would still be a mess. When I take these off, my hand are perfectly clean. I’ve used them for almost a full year and I’m sure they will last many more. These have really made a gardening a much more enjoyable task. I’ve also found if I wear them when I’m raking leaves in the fall, I don’t get blisters either. They are fabulous.
You can find them HERE on Amazon. I’ll add the link on my Jo Recommends page that is at the top of this blog page.
What a wonderful day to finally feel like I accomplished something. YAHOO!! The garden is in and most of the fabric is delivered to charity quilters. YAHOO!! Today I’m off to visit Lilly…my newest little grand daughter. I can’t wait to see her.
While you were debating the colors of the impatients in your post I was thinking about which color I thought would be prettiest with your house. I couldn’t decide but I was thinking the pink. But after seeing what you planted I’d like to change my answer. That mix of the colors is definitely gorgeous. You get the best of all the colors.
I’ve always wanted to plant a garden. I’ve never been successful with anything I’ve tried so far. I’m in zone 9. When I have more time when my daughter is in school full time I’ll try again. I’m always shocked at how much you’re able to get out of your garden, especially all the salsa jars you’ve made in the past.
Your flowers will be beautiful! What a god job done and much to look forward to – harvesting. I hope you have an enjoyable visit with Lily.
OH Helen, you’re in a wonderful zone for growing food!
https://www.ufseeds.com/learning/planting-schedules/Zone-9-Planting-Calendar
Just in case you haven’t heard this, in the South, at the end of the season, we can shake those plants before we pull them out and they will distribute a lot of dried seed. The following Spring, we only have to uncover the soil, rake your fingers over the soul and leave them alone. They will sprout and soon you will have lots of little impatiens. Also, I winter over my geraniums in my garage. As long as you give them a little water to keep them alive, you can take them out when it gets warm and give them fertilizer and water and they will be big before you know it.
Oh I like all the good advice about gardening. Your garden is lovely. And I like your plant combinations
Impatiens are so pretty and so reliable. This is all going to look great! I agree about those gloves—such a nice fit and great gripping action for weeding. Love ‘em!
I think the mixed flowers will be super cute, it made me smile when you said it was all they had left, lol
I have never been big on gardening and I look forward to see what you harvest this year. I do like to plant a few tomatoes in large pots, they taste so good on BLT. You accomplished a lot for one day.
Nice job on the gardening and charity delivery (and pick-up!) Those gloves? They work for machine quilting on you DSM, too. Enjoy your visit with Lilly!
Thank you Elle! What a wonderful resource that website is.
Bought the gloves…thanks for the recommendation
My Extension Master Gardeners Association sells Atlas gloves similar to the ones you have…but ours are only $5.00! This type of gloves really does make gardening easier.
Congratulations on getting your gardens in! I loved this time of year when we had a home in IN. A lot of work but so worth it. And your flowers will be beautiful!
Love and prayers
I would love to have a garden but that requires effort on my part and someone else’s effort. And that is not happening. We have a seciton in our back yard that could become a garden with little effort but it is all shady so maybe not a good place. Love seeing what you do.
I went to our local nursery on Saturday – I think things are a little picked over because so many ‘new’ people are putting gardens in, people who have been home, had time to think about how nice it would be to have a garden plus some time to work on it! I wish I had been a little more aggressive about planting on Saturday afternoon, I thought I would wait as they were talking about getting maybe about an inch of rain – it has been so dry here in SE MN that I figured it would be an advantage to wait and plant maybe tomorrow. However, we ended up getting over 3 + inches of rain, now I will likely have to wait a little longer to plant! Best laid plans…. It was good to get rain though, and the seeds that I had planted a couple of weeks ago – lettuce, kale, spinach and onion sets – they look fabulous today, it looks like they grew a couple of inches! Your impatiens and planters look great!
You are really going to laugh! Those are the gloves I wear when I use my long arm quilting machine to do ruler quilting and such! I love them! So glad to know they work for gardening too.