I dug in the dirt today

Last week, Marc and I finally moved to our new home.  It was a long and stressful year, waiting for his house to sell, but once it did, things moved pretty quickly, and now we are just starting to settle in to our new home.  I still have the place in Nova Scotia to sell, but that's going to take a while, and I just need to be patient about it.

It has rained almost every day for the past week, so I didn't have many opportunities to get outside and do some garden work.  The new home has some established perennials already that I am slowly getting to know.

I'm really looking forward to the blooms on these poppies coming out - I do love poppy plants and they come in such vibrant colours.

There are a number of roses that I look forward to seeing in the bloom phase, so I'll know what colour they are.  My mom brought some English primroses to share that are originally from my grandfather's garden, so that is very special for me, and they are growing well already.  You can just see one of them in the centre front of the picture below - it has yellow flowers.  One of the trellises at the back has a clematis on it.

I wanted to get a few tomato plants into the ground - if you followed me back in Iowa, you might remember that I used to grow 30 or more varieties of tomato each year, up to 72 varieties one year.  I don't have that much space now, but I have put in a few.  I bought transplants this year because I don't have my plant light trolley set up yet so I didn't start my own, and it would be too late to do so at this point because we have such a short growing season.  I usually plant heirloom varieties, but this year it's just the hybrids.

I bought Burpee transplants - some indeterminate and some determinate varieties.  I planted a couple of different container varieties today - each of which produces extra lycopene, carotenoids and/or vitamin C.  I planted some "Cherry Punch" hybrid and some "Power Pops" hybrid in the containers.  They look a bit droopy here but I just finished showering them with the hose.



In the ground, I planted a "Super Sauce" hybrid as well as a couple of "Lemon Boy" tomato plants and a "Brandy Boy" F1 hybrid.  Next year I hope for better tomato supports too, but for now, I'll make do with what I have!

I also popped in a few creeping thyme plants because I do love them as a ground cover.  I received a peppermint plant from a local friend and planted it with a restraining "collar" made from an old planter to keep it from spreading too much.  I'm hoping to get some raised beds in for next year, but I have much to do before then, so a few tomato plants seemed like a good start.  I've also popped in a bunch of VERY old zucchini seed (2006 through 2010) with the hopes that a few might germinate.  I have my doubts but we'll see!

The perennial beds are really lovely and I'm excited to see what colours begin to emerge as things flower.  There are sedums and irises and astilbe, a wealth of hostas, and some plants I really don't know!  There's also a beautiful arbour but I think it has Virginia Creeper on it, which is not so lovely, because it's rampant and invasive and difficult to control.  If it is what I think it is, it might have to come out and something else will be planted on the arbour.

If you are wondering, yes, the sheep and goats will be here...but I do need to put in fencing and get a small barn in place first, so they're not here yet.  I have far less land than I would have liked - only 1.75 acres, because there weren't many places with land available to us in our target area, or the ones that had land weren't zoned correctly for sheep or goats.  Anyway, they'll have to have supplemental hay year round, but it will be so lovely to have them back with me.