The day has wavered from drizzly to rainy all morning, but I didn’t let that stop me from getting things done in the garden.  Days off are too precious to waste just because Seattle is being Seattle!

You can see the wet in these flower pictures:

The forced iris in the windowsill continue to impress;

I’ll pull more bulbs out of the fridge and put them out on the porch and in the greenhouse later today.

The main focus today was clean-up of the shrubs around the orchard garden.  This is what I removed:

It will take a few weeks to get all of this into yard waste!  Most of the branches are from the climbing rose, the Lonicera tatarica, buddlejas, rhodies that have crept over from the neighbors yard and raspberries.

Here is the cleaned up raspberry bed:

The canes are noticeably weaker this year.  I really need to fertilize them well and I have some fertilizer coming from Raintree Nursery.

The forsythia and winter hazel are opening up despite the rain–should be in full bloom by next weekend.

I planted a bunch of seeds today, too–lettuce and endive, parsley and peas, Tiny Tim tomatoes and kale.