There's always room for Advil

Today my SO and I worked and worked and after he went home, I worked some more.  Now my SI joint is unhappy, but we made great progress in the yard.  Photos will have to wait for another day, because I am too tired to edit them, but I want to record the latest before I forget.

• The potatoes in the grow bag are poking up through the soil.
• The asparagus is up!  Very skinny stalks.
• The tomatoes and peppers from Seed Savers Exchange arrived Thursday.  They looked kind of limp and puny, but I put them under the grow lights and gave them a good drink, and they perked right up.  The night temps are not staying above 50 degrees yet, so they will have to wait a while before being transplanted.
• I created two new garden beds and "planted" potatoes in them.  I'm using the lasagna gardening method of laying wet newspapers on lawn, spacing seed potatoes 12" apart on the newspapers, then covering it all with straw.  This was last Thursday.  Today I "planted" more potatoes, this time in an existing bed.  Why so many potatoes?  I ordered a potato "sampler" - 2.5# each of eight varieties.  (I get carried away.)
• After learning that vinegar kills dandelions, I experimented using it on Canada thistle.  The thistle amongst the garlic are a bit robust, so I cut them off and tried injecting vinegar into the hollow stems.  That was Thursday.  I checked the results today, and the stems looked burned where the vinegar came into contact, but the remaining parts of the plants look okay.  So vinegar kills on contact, not systemically.  Damn.  
• Today my SO dug the holes for the junipers, so those are in the ground.  The other newbies are still waiting their turn.
• My SO also helped me create a new bed between the tulip tree and the West Wing.  That area had never recovered from the construction, so instead of trying to turn it back into lawn, we covered it with newspapers and mulch.  I haven't decided what to plant there yet, but I might take one of the big clumps of ornamental grass in the front of the house and divide it into five or so smaller clumps and plant them along the house.  Maybe.
• I planted lettuce and radishes in a box on the patio, where the rabbits can't get them.
• I transplanted the Italian parsley into the garden, next to the rhubarb.
• The Keys of Heaven, columbine, and bleeding heart are all blooming, as are the honeysuckle vines.
• There is a wren in the wren house by the tulip tree, sparrows in the bluebird house, and a robin has built a nest in the clematis by the front door, but no one cares for the bottle house.  I'm wondering if it is in a bad location, too close to my neighbors' barking dogs.  I'll leave it there for this year, but if no one moves in, I'll relocate it next year.

And now I am going to go soak these tired bones.