Seedy Saturday - Dahlia Tubers and Seed Catalogs

Someone has forgotten to tell the powers-that-be it's late fall, almost winter. Temperatures have been in the 60's and low 70's all week. And zero rain...sigh.

Seed catalogs are starting to arrive. Which makes me want to order EVERYTHING! It's sad. My catalogs look like a kid's at Christmas with a toy catalog. Just about everything is circled that I just have to have.

However, I have promised myself I would only plant what I like to eat and not because it's there to grow. So no broccoli, squash or other 'miscellaneous' vegetables. It will be beans, peas, tomatoes for the most part.

And I have a ton of flower seeds, so I will only add a couple of 'new' flowers and herbs.

In starting to clean up my two 4x4 beds in the front yard, I dug up my dahlia tubers. I have only grown them a couple of years (some of these dahlia were grown from seed) and have normally left them in the pot. This past summer I had them in the ground. 

Since I want these two beds to be herbs and early lettuces, I dug up the dahlias and will store for a month or so before replanting outside in a flower bed.

Yesterday I bought 4 bags of cedar mulch, 2 bags of mushroom compost and 1 big bag of potting soil. The mulch went around the 4x4 beds. And I need 4 more bags to finish that off. But since I don't want to fight the Saturday crowd at Lowe's, it will wait until I come home from work on Monday.

The mushroom compost I put in the 4x4 beds. I have also taken out herbs which were in pots and planted into the beds. Today I will plant some lettuce, spinach and kale in the remainder of the beds. I am actually waiting to see what sprouts from self-sowing Nicotiana alba. 

I also think I need to put a low barrier of twine to keep Mr. Slider out of the beds. He did go through and pull out the herbs I had transplanted Thursday afternoon. Stupid dog. 

Besides more cedar mulch, I want another bag of mushroom compost to add to a couple of the tubs where I want to plant some sweet peas - vegetable and flower.

The bag of potting soil will be used to set up my winter sowing. There I will start a lot of my flowers for the garden. Tomatoes will come later.

There are a lot of other garden 'chores'. I need to finish upending the spent tomato buckets on to the area where I will have my in-ground garden this year. And then I need to put leaves from my neighbor on that ex-tomato area. 

So hopefully, I will be spending time outside today. We are still expecting warm temperatures for the next few days, with a nice possibility of rain on Wednesday. So I want to get some yard things done today, to be prepared for the rain later in the week.

It might be winter, but gardening never stops. Which reminds me I need to water my indoor plants today!