Garden update
My daffodils are blooming. Actually they were forced. That is, on Tuesday afternoon when I went out to the front garden, almost all my daffodil buds had been plucked from their bed under the peach tree and laid neatly upon the retaining wall. I put them in a glass of water and set it on the windowsill above my kitchen sink. Most of them are blooming now, and I hope that the four or five that are left in the garden will be blooming in the next few days. The muscari leaves are out, but I don't see any bloom stalks coming up yet.

The buds on the peach tree are swelling. I just planted it last fall - wonder how soon to expect fruit? In the same garden with the peach tree and the bulbs, resides the only blueberry that survived the summer. I'm going to plant two more this spring and that's it! I hope they live!

If I get as many tomatoes this year as I did last, I'm going to take some of them to the farmer's market once a week and sell them. A couple of years ago, Organic Gardening said that a nice way to make more sales at a farmer's market is to sell boquets, so this year I've started some seeds that (if I don't manage to kill them!) will grow into cutting flowers: delphiniums, cornflower, yarrow, carnations, wall flower, and daisies. Seeds are so cheap that I can sell boquets for a dollar or two and make almost all profit.

In the houseplant department, my Christmas Lily finally decided to bloom. Mike gave it to me Christmas 2001 and I cared for it according to directions, watering it until the foliage died down then storing it in the dark for several weeks before bringing it out in early November 2002, but that year it didn't bloom. Lots of leaves, but no blooms. So I faithfully cared for it again the rest of that season, watering it until the foliage died down et cetera, but it wasn't ready to go into the dark until the end of October, so it's only just now blooming. Strange plant. I suppose next year, if it blooms, it'll be an Easter Lily!

After killing two ficus trees, I finally figured out what I was doing wrong - I was keeping them too wet. As far as I can remember that is the only plant I've ever killed with kindness. Usually they die from neglect. :-( Well, the current victim is a month old and is putting out lots of baby leaves, so I guess it's happy. Oh, one other thing that may have made some difference. Lilian loves playing in the ficus's dirt, and I have never been able to train her to stop doing it, so I put a layer of Spanish moss on top of the dirt, and Lilian doesn't like it, so this one has had the pleasure of undisturbed roots. Of course, the week before I put the moss on it, John sprayed the dirt with Lysol All Purpose Orange Breeze cleaner. I scraped off the top layer of dirt and added a fresh layer, and it doesn't seem to have bothered the tree.

Hmm. Maybe when I plant my blueberries I should have John spray them with Lysol. ;-D