Composting and seedlings

Another glorious clear and breezy day with sounds of construction, neighbors, planes and... occasional bird. I would rather it be breeze through trees, more birds than neighbors and no pounding.  The weather is going to hold with this trend for a few more days at least which is fine by me.

Piles of dirt and obvious signs of gopher movement below. Which, given the movement yesterday not surprised really. I completely filled the scrap container because I decided to try my hand again with salsa verde which involved a lot of tomatillos and their husks along with garlic and onion skins joined the container to fill it up. Oh yeah, and some cilantro that went bad.

So lots of stuff and I didn't even bother to cover it up. I didn't put anything particularly repulsive in today, at least for them. Oh wait, yes there was some chopped onion that had gone seriously rank in a container so that was in there. Should have made sure that was in the holes, oh well. Not going to dig through garbage to do that.

 

The cilantro may look okay but what's underneath are black and soggy leaves. Wasn't going to sift through that in the kitchen. Need to find some seeds for that and get planting. Speaking of planting....

And once again very bad photos of the line of lettuce seedlings coming up. Very difficult with my poor phone to get pictures of what is obvious to the naked eye. That garlic though... needs a lot more sun for sure. Crossing fingers the lettuce survives. If not and if I get soil this weekend planting will happen in a safer and sunnier location.

I am now picking up my grandsons from school three days a week and there is a very overgrown rose bush in front of one house. The flower looks vaguely familiar from pictures I've seen so doing a quick LeafSnap search:

Either Alpine Rose or Sweetbriar Rose. Neither of which is very common at all and given the age of the neighborhood and the house has to be at least 50 years old it was likely planted back then and possibly brought from somewhere from the original owners.

The issue is both those varieties seem to be single forms, a single layer of five petals and this one definitely has two. Will be getting a picture of maybe the hips or other flowers and try again. I didn't check the fragrance as these rarely have any. One thing of note is, it already has mildew on the new buds there's white on the bud at the base of my thumb. 

It's very unusual to come across a rose like this in suburban homes. They are 85% hybrid tea with the other 10% being shrubs, floribundas and climbers and the other 5% being 'other. That's a guess on my part but most certainly it is a very low percentage of unusual or antique roses.

Depends on the neighborhood but after seeing so many rose varieties for so many years at the nursery that's a good percentage guess of what we were selling.

In my humble gardening experience and opinion, roses and flowers should be spread between backyard for your enjoyment and front yard for everyone's enjoyment. My yard would have roses, gladiolas, dahlias, freesias, and depending on where the yard is in the country, peonies. I'm leaving out all the other bulbs I would plant and the seasonal ones. I would have a dedicated vegetable garden and large numbers of beds for flowers. 

Cutting and fragrance for sure would be a priority but there are a few that are just pretty on their own without fragrance but like many gardeners they are very few. Annuals like pansies might be sprinkled in there along with violas and little violets that would reseed themselves. Putting out plants every year just to have them die off in a few months is too much labor. Leave that to the 'professional' or 'commercial' gardeners that have the money and time. Flowers and veggies that either reseed or regrow are what makes a garden work on its own. 

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it.