No Spring Chicken..

I have finally come to terms with this aging process thing. I have had the realization that I cannot do what I am used to doing.  In the past, if something needed tending, I did it..no questions asked.  Now, the joints creak, the muscles ache and I move a bit slower at times. I am no spring chicken! This said, I am far from giving up what I like to do!  I am still bound and determined to garden even if it means moaning and groaning the day after spading up the ground.  It is nice that I have Michael here to do most of the heavier work like hauling the sacks of fertilizer from the driveway around to the back of the house where the garden is situated.  He hoists those sacks like nobody's business!   This makes life easier for me!

Speaking of making life easier, he did just such thing recently.  Last year, he built me a coldframe or hotbed.  I was happy!  This year, I am happier!  The coldframe has been elevated to a decent height so I do not have to be on my hands and knees to work in it.  Michael lifted the entire thing up off the ground, put a bottom in it and stuck it on posts.  Now it is at just above table-height and is much easier to reach.  This was actually done because ants and mice found the coldframe to be a nice place to spend the winter when it was flat on the ground.  Most of my seeds and tiny seedlings were eaten by the critters far before they were large enough to plant in the garden rows.  The coldframe will serve as a long planter after the seedlings have been transplanted.  Herbs should grow well in the eight inch deep soil that the coldframe holds.  He lined the bottom with a garden liner so with reasonable watering, the plants should not dry out quickly.

With the weather warming, I probably did not need to plant the seeds in the coldframe at all. Still it was nice not having to crouch down to sow the minuscule herb seeds.  With the high winds of the past few weeks, those seeds would have most likely wound up in the Bayou!  The herb seeds themselves were a gift from my daughter and son-in-law.  Elizabeth and Robbie sent the packets of seeds for my recent birthday.  Most were in the familiar little packets of about a hundred seeds but one was umm...quite large!  I had mentioned that I was going to plant catnip if I could find seeds.  She beat me to it and sent some!  The pack contained five thousand seeds!  What am I going to do with five thousand catnip plants?  Hopefully, some of my neighbors will want a few plants..or a bunch of plants!  Otherwise, Ms. Put, the Bayou Cat sure better like catnip!