Ode to the Saturn

Jacob’s lovely Saturn wagon really served us well this weekend and I shall be forever grateful that it didn’t die on the highway as I had feared it would.  Sunday we had to drive all over town getting vermiculite, plants, and other soil mixings.  First stop was Oakland Nursery where we purchased 75 strawberry plants (all four varieties - 2 ever-bearing and 2 June-bearing), eight horseradish roots, and a Bay Laurel plant.  They were out of vermiculite so we had to plan another stop at the Dublin location.  Next we were off to Lowes for 20 of the 40 lb. bags of compost and three of the 3.0 cu. ft. peat moss containers.  If you ever need to feel true fear, pile all of this into the back of a Saturn wagon that has a big crack in the windshield and 147,000 miles on it!  The wheels were definitely less than happy, but by golly, it got us home safe and sound where we unloaded and headed back out to pick up our vermiculite, eight varieties of lavender (we just couldn’t decide), five chive plants, some Snowville Creamery milk and tasty cheese (from Whole Foods).  Once we got home, we filled the last four and a half beds and put down the grids, so the beds are officially full!!!!  Yippee!!!!!  I am so happy we won’t have to do that every year.  We put 64 of the strawberry plants in the beds and the remaining are going to try to tough it out in one of the herb gardens by the lavender along the fence.  We put in the chives and horseradish along the sides of the house.  The area where we dug holes for the horseradish looks a bit ragged this morning but I’m worried about covering the horseradish roots too much.  It kind of looks like a dog was let loose on the side of the house but it will look better soon…  The Bay Laurel plant is happy in its new home in a big pot out front.  We didn’t put that in the ground because it will need to come inside during the winter.  After five hours of intense labor, both of us were thoroughly exhausted but we got to enjoy a nice glass of wine and sit by the garden to take in the results of all our hard work.  It was a very nice evening.