Gardening in Small Doses

The Bay Area weather forecast tells me to expect a solid week of storms ahead—lots of much-needed rain and not-at-all-needed wind. Fine. But the garden is looking, well, horrible and I hate to lose an entire week of gardening time. Some of the things I’m itching to do, like pruning the roses and weeding, need to wait for dryer weather. But in the meantime I’m making a list of small tasks in and around the garden, things I can do in brief bits of time in between cloudbursts or under the cover of the carport. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

1. Cleaning up and re-potting three geraniums in the back yard.
2. Starting some coleus seeds for the front porch.
3. Starting some marigold seeds in a box by the back steps. (And remembering to cover the box with chicken wire to keep the cat from laying in it.)
4. Finally potting the tete-a-tete daffodil bulbs. (Yikes! This is really late.)
5. Sowing sweet pea seeds (again, oh so late!).
6. Starting a crop of micro-greens to grow in the kitchen.
7. Sharpening and oiling tools.

That’s just for starters. Any of these tasks can be done in 15 minutes or less. Let’s see how many I actually get through this week.