It has been a beautiful and warm week in central Oklahoma. I have been continuing to prepare for the spring garden this week. We went to the farm yesterday and I pulled lots of weeds. I am definitely beginning to see why raised beds are so popular. It is difficult for me to start seeds in the ground because the tiny seedlings can’t compete with the aggressive weeds. So I am trying to start more indoors this year to transplant them out once they’re large enough to battle the weeds. I have had reasonable success this year so far on week 2 of indoor seed starting. I have gotten 73 out of 144 germinated so just above half. The delphinium, lupine, butterfly pea flower, African daisy, and four o’clocks haven’t germinated. We’re also going to be buying more established plants from nurseries that can compete with the weeds. This week we emptied out our change jar 🪙 🫙 and used the money from Coinstar to buy two new plants. I got a blue girl rose bush and I really love the flower color. I also got a tangerine beauty crossvine to put on a trellis by the grapevines. We are also considering to buy the Eden climber rose for another trellis but haven’t yet. The ajuga transplants I did last week mostly looked good. However, the Shasta daisy transplant didn’t look good. I planted some seeds of blanket flower and hollyhock in the bulb garden. I saw two pretty wild flowers blooming this week, a hairy bittercress and a yellow wood sorrel. These are both edible but we didn’t try them. I uncovered a cluster of braconid wasp cocoons when pulling weeds around one of the pawpaw trees. These are beneficial as they are parasitic to tomato hornworms. We saw a lot more spider egg sacs along the fence line. We saw another burrow near the fence as well. We also noticed that most of the eastern red cedars have lots of bagworm cocoons. As the sun set, we noticed a lot of moths flying around one particular dead tree. I always think the sunsets in Oklahoma are so beautiful this time of year. I had a great Valentine’s dinner with my boyfriend and lots of roses. He bought me a beautiful dress and a pair of shoes as a gift and they fit well. I finished my sister’s panda painting and it turned out pretty good. I didn’t stretch the paper before painting and it warped a bit. I have put it under a heavy book and hope it will straighten out. I saw some interesting graffiti in my area this week. I was very happy to buy my favorite girl scout cookies this week, Samoas. I have a couple of days off this week because of Lunar New Year. I would like to do a few more paintings in my time off.
Lisa Ledbetter 