Bumping Up the Seedlings, and Other Goings On

We are having some pretty glorious spring weather this weekend in North Georgia, so Joe and I have spent a lot of today outside. We did our usual couple of hours of work on the farm (out on Dallas Highway) this morning, ran a few errands and ate at a Chinese place, but the rest of our day has been out of doors at home. This is some of what I worked on:

I had a lot of veggie-babies that needed to be moved to larger pots. There are still a few left for tomorrow, but I am very happy with the progress of my plants so far. Some plants had been started a couple of weeks earlier than usual, because I wanted to be able to show people at a seed-starting class what the seedlings would look like, and as a result I have some pretty big plants. Usually, I have more smaller plants now, and no big ones. The trio of tomatoes that got bumped up to the one-gallon containers is an especial surprise to me.

I know people who ALWAYS have big plants to set out in April, but that is not typically the case for me. I can only hope that I am able to keep those plants happy for the next few weeks! Most of them won’t be planted out to the yard until mid-April. That leaves a lot of “indoor time” left.

Veggies aren’t the only plants in my yard. I have been enjoying this pot of pansies all winter long, and soon it will have more color for me to enjoy.

When I was putting in the pansies, I put in a few bulbs first. I had been wondering when I would see them, and I finally have an answer! A couple of hyacinth are coming up now.

The under-planted bulbs in the pot of pansies are a great addition to my yard. If I hadn’t been giving talks on container plants last fall, I wouldn’t have been motivated enough to make it happen, but I am Very Happy that I took the time to make this happen.

It will be great to see more flowers.

The leaves and flower stalks are on their way. Right now, the flower stalk is just a little nub, but it will be stretching up above the pansies in the next several days.

Something else we worked on today was beginning to clear some space for some Tree Removal Guys to come and take down a loblolly pine tree. Joe cut down a couple of small trees, and I helped trim and stack the branches so that they would be easy for the city workers to take away to be made into mulch.

The Loblolly pine is coming down because it is infested with black turpentine beetles. The tree had had an earlier infestation, but this year there are  enough visible pitch tubes on the lower portion of the tree-trunk that I am getting a little concerned about the tree’s viability.

Turpentine beetles don’t kill a tree with the same speed or certainty as Southern Pine Beetles, but if there are enough beetles the tree can be girdled.

The picture to the right shows the abundance of the pitch tubes. The photo below shows some up close:

And this last photo shows the height of the tree. The guy who came to give us a cost-estimate for the removal of the tree said that this is a big tree. He guessed that it is at least 110 feet high, maybe 115 or more.

Needless to say, the tree’s removal won’t be cheap, but my front garden will, at least, be getting a little more sun this summer.

We have a little more work to do to get ready for the big tree removal, but we also have some weeding and planting to do in the veggie garden.

The potatoes are in, as are most of the peas, but there is still another patch of peas to go in. That will be part of tomorrow’s work.

Hope everyone elses’s weekend is going well!

Home gardening can provide a lot of good food for families and communities. It’s also some work, but I love it. This blog is about the garden and yard where I “grow my own,” NW of Atlanta, Georgia.