During a quick watering this morning, I noticed the Moulin Rouge sunflower seeds, planted abbout a week ago, have sprouted. The root end has pushed out and propelled the still shelled seed out of the dirt. The colors are red and black — little green. It looks a bit alien.
The calendula has sprouted quite a bit in the ginger planter, but hardly in the sunflower planter. I’m beginning to suspect that the ginger is in a slightly warmer position that the three other planters — i’ll move them tonight. I’d thought the deck wall was causing shade, but it shades the afternoon sun, not the midday sun. I suspect the current location of the two veggie planters gets less intense light.
The tomato plant has one green tomato on it — amazing!
The lemon tree is about to burst into blossoms — i’ve been watching the buds for over a week.
We’ve still a long list of things to do to settle in to our new home. (An album of photos of the empty place the day we signed the lease is 
The north end of the patio is where i’ve put the baker’s rack we had in our San Francisco kitchen. The pine will warp and weather with time, but since the other option was donating it to Goodwill, i’m quite pleased. We have another unit that actually fits between the Baker’s rack and the wall — it was moved because GreyBeard kept escaping to the patio of our neighbor. I moved it to the south wall, under the Green Man — and as i moved it GreyBeard escaped again. 
I had thought of making that southern interior corner the shady glade. It’s not working that well at the moment — it is a well lit corner and the plants have all been sunburned. Once i have another tree or two — i’m wishing for Meyer lemons and or a Mission fig — I think that corner will be shady. We have a storage closet on the north end of the deck and our dining area. We’re enjoying that already.
