STUCK ON YOU!

 I've been doing one of my favorite things (or not)....digging post holes for yet another arbor in the garden. This is expanding clay soil on my trusty almost 40 year old garden spade. This spade is an inch shorter than when I bought it in 1987. NO kidding and I don't know how that happened! Anyway, to dig in the famous expanding clay soil of the Rogue Valley, you not only need a shovel...ya need a putty knife. It goes like this: Dig, then scrape it off into the wheelbarrow; dig, then scrape; repeat until you have a posthole, preferably 6" x 6" x 14" deep, all the while singing "Stuck on you." The good thing about our clay soil...is there a good thing? Oh yeah, it's rich, so rich in minerals that if you could garden in it you wouldn't have to use fertilizer. But of course, you can't garden in it. No matter how much compost, compost, compost, compost...you add, you'll never really get it past the pulverized marble stage. That's why I have raised beds. 

Here is some March cheer...this geranium loves the heat...the greenhouse can get up to 100 degrees on a 70 degree day, so I've had to deploy my shadecloth over the roof about a month earlier than usual. This plant just burst forth with blooms.