Gardening at 5,000'

Ian and I shopped for plants after my haircut on Tuesday. We went to three nurseries without finding what we were looking for. I talked him into going to G&G Nursery which is out our way, but it's where I shopped before I retired - not out of my way then. We found everything we wanted and came home with these battered ranunculus - free.

I planted them in two elevated perforated tubs to protect the plants from rabbits and the tubers from ground squirrels. We will need to pay attention that we don't both water the tubs and drown the tubers.
Last night the temper-
ature dropped to 26 degrees and my poor pretty flowers couldn't take that cold. Neither could Ian's cilantro. I think the flowers will come back but the cilantro won't.
I spent several hours this morning working in the yard, not planting. Perhaps unplanting is more like it. We spend more time pulling out than putting in. The roots in that basin were from below the beheaded (by frost) St. George. I wanted to plant the basket-of-gold cuttings from Mim there, but my trowel ran into some kind of succulent root system. It took a shovel finally to unearth the whole thing. I don't know what it was and hope I got all of it.
I spent close to an hour alone removing this vicious grass from the day lilies. I don't know if you can see it - perhaps click for big - but the system runs in a linear fashion. I used the spading fork to loosen the area, then had to kneel and put my hands below the line of root to find where it was going, then stand up and spade, then kneel and locate - for an hour. My quads are muy oucho tonight.
Meanwhile, the garden fortress is making progress. The front bed is half onions, garlic and horseradish - soon to be squash. We found the squashes we want but will wait to plant them another week. The far left bed is only potatoes, with some already sprouting. The right bed will be tomatoes, though only two are planted right now.
The only way we can harvest tomatoes without having a hot house, even those with a short growing season, is by using walls of water. We only had two this year that weren't leaking so Ian's has ordered some more be delivered later this week. Even with this protection, these two sustained some damage last night.
I decided to treat myself to a solo act spin-in on the deck this afternoon when I realized it wasn't windy - so rare and first time this year. I asked Ian how hard it was blowing. Ever the sailor, he said - not much - maybe 5 knots. He might as well have said 5 yachts!


I'm plying the first of my raffle silk with Benita's brown Merino. The silk has been a struggle to spin evenly, but in plying, it appears to be more of a designer yarn. I still need to full the skein and sample for gauge, but it looks promising.

Right above the blue reflecting ball, see him? That varmint?? I can't help but think of Monty Pythons In Search of the Holy Grail when I talk about our predators - sharp pointy teeth!!