Unexpected nice weather Tuesday and Wednesday had me outside all day long with my new pup, Magpie, in tow. We picked Maggie up from a rescue shelter about a month ago. She’s a very sweet and very active Australian Shepherd/Terrier mix – about 3.5 months old. She loves to be outside helping me dig holes and spreading compost. Well, it is more like I dig and she kicks it back in the hole. I toss handfuls of compost in and she tries to catch and eat it mid-air.

She also likes to help with watering. She LOVES the hose and thinks drinking from it while it sprays her in the face is just so much fun. It doesn’t matter if I am trying to water pots or trays – she gets right in the middle of it. She also likes to grab tools and gloves and run into the woods as fast as she can. Everything is a toy. She is a cutie and therefore gets away with just about anything.

Magpie is also an environmentally conscience dog – she has brought me all sorts of things from deep in the woods – an old rag in many, many pieces, bits of an old plastic ball, lots of old baseballs, plastic bags, etc… I put them all in the large “toy box” for her (otherwise known as the garbage can). Luckily she finds many other things to keep her occupied and has yet attempted to retrieve anything from the “toy box”.

I am taking a haphazard approach to my garden this year. I’ve decided not to plant in nice even rows and have been tossing seed here and there and will use my grow room starts to fill in the gaps. I have a lot of seed that needs to be used, and vowed not make a big purchase this year, making due with what I have on hand. I only made a few exceptions for things we must have that I had run out of like carrots.

I re-potted all of the tomatoes from 4" pots up to 8" pots – they are looking quite well. My squash and pumpkin starts are budding up but I’m afraid to plant them out as when I planted them out this early last year – most of them died. Waiting for sage advice on that from the PNW group.

Pics
1 – my sweet little Magpie
2 – gardening sure poops a puppy out
3 – potted up toms in the grow room
4- hardening off squash and pumpkins in the greenhouse bed