What have you done today in the Garden?

Thank you my friend. You're a keeper you are.

 

Had lunch in Vancouver, and shopped. Another bag of container soil and two small geraniums, but gave away a fig tree and a nice geranium I started during the winter.

Tonight's prediction is 32 F. We often run colder than the prediction. I covered the tender plants that I planted yesterday and today. Thank goodness for cardboard boxes.

i measured soil temperatures around the garden. Mostly 50F or 51F. Some containers were 48 or 49F. So other than some cold nights, I think I can continue planting some plants outside.

 

I never thought of that......I've used floating row cover and buckets. tarps. Buckets are useless. And I have a tonne of boxes.

 

My theory is that cardboard has insulating air pockets. I put buckets on top of the cardboard so wind won't move them. Tomorrow am I'll check on the four o'clocks at nine o'clock.

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The steel mail glove came today, so I can feel safer while "power pruning ". Only one glove, because the right hand can't get in the way while holding the pruner and pulling the trigger. Either that or, I'm the next Michael Jackson. This is such a Thriller!

 

More cleaning of the sloot (canal) . These are some of the reed roots that we pulled out. You do not want reeds in your garden. They are terrible and so hopelessly impossible to get out and keep out. The Bride got these ones out, and when she had had enough, I had a go and we got even more. Some were X-Files…and they were growing towards my garden from the RR tressel on the other side. They are real hufters.

Hiya Mel, what a nice posting from your head tomatoes. I went right upstairs to the bedroom to check out my toms after seeing your pic. My toms are growing as well:


You can see that they are getting taller. Perhaps yours are taller, I am not sure, but I am chuffed at how they are doing.

Then there is the foto of your little guys…


Well, I showed my little girls the foto, and they wanted to go out with them right away, but I told them that they were too young. They insisted that I post their picture, so here goes:


Rainy day here today, so it was indoor chores— window washing and plant watering. There needs to be a big field day because we are hosting the Cousins’ Day this year. They will come here.

 

I never spot spray, it's down on my hands and knees digging them out with a trowel.
I have a lot of greater celendine at the back of the back garden, but they die down for the summer, but spreading a lot.

 

Great fit you must commit . I think you are the MJ of the ‘Gardeners World’. Love the glove it’s a labor above,
you can always shove away that dove that is sometimes so beloved.

 

Today was mostly tending seedlings. Putter here and putter there. It was a nice day.

I did repair a window in the sunroom. It becomes so hot in there, I worry about the plants. I took the window apart, and discovered that the sliding rail had a manufacturing flaw, leaving a raised edge in the track that made it really difficult to open. I could feel my back almost strain, each time I opened it. A chisel, hammer, ultra fine sandpaper, a good washing, spray with silicone lubricant - now it slides like Jutta Leerdam on wet ice.

 

See pic . Trimmed the shrubs, pulled the weeds. Cleaned up the trees from broken and torn branches . Pulled out the dang wild blackberry’s growing up in everything. Now I feel like a sieve poked full of holes on my arms and legs. Maybe I need a body glove of chainmail for the dang blackberry’s they leave brutal injuries.

I try to work smart not harder. I used the front bucket on the big tractor and attached a rope with netting surrounding all the blackberry weeds to pull them all out by the roots at once, by attaching the rope to the bucket then lifting the bucket up and out. Then I mowed them into mulch..hehe..and enjoy every minute . It looks much better even though it got cloudy by the time I finished this project.

 

I dug up some wild blackberries from the edge of my woods and planted them on the trellis where my grapevines (at least 5) all died. I love to eat them. I found a baby tame raspberry bush in the grass out back, so I put it up front with those wild blackberries. There are no black walnuts in that area, so it should live. My other tame raspberries are in tubs to protect them from the black walnut trees. Wild raspberries have no problem with them.

@Pacnorwest , your garden is beautiful. It looks like a magazine cover.

Yesterday, I did more mowing where I could get at with my rider. I don't want to take it behind the dog houses because I picked up at least a dozen or so nails out there recently where I had burned some trash and brush last year. I am waiting to get the push repaired before I mow in that area.

It is hot and muggy, but we are expecting a cold front and storms this evening. "Cold" will only be in the 40s, so nothing major at the moment.

My blackberries are blooming, and allegedly this should be the last cold front of the season according to old timers here? Our average last frost date is April 18 for our area, so maybe I can put out porch plants and warm weather things in a few days?

I still have not gotten my leek seeds planted. I need to get out and do that.

 

AANight thank you for the lovely compliment .
In Missouri the humidity can be high and exhausting to work outside during afternoons are the worst.
And about those wild blackberry’s they can literally march across the land in no time. They are thugs. The birds and wild animals eat the berries and spread the seeds everywhere across several acres and it’s a constant problem here.
I hope your raspberry’s produce for you mabe a few this season and more the next year.
I am also anxious to put out some plants too. I usually have to wait til late May or June most of mine are tropicals.
Still dreading the summer weather in the last few years extremely high temps have broken weather records . We don’t have any wildfires in the US this summer.

 

Drought has already been declared for WA State now. It's based on snowpack, not rain, so I don't know what that means about wildfires.

We contracted a tree service to remove the two closest remaining "fire torch" trees. One is a massive Ponderosa pine that I think is just beautiful. But would I rather have the pine tree, or my house? And if the trees burn anyway, then I don't have them either.

I am waiting for the third roofing contractor to change to a metal roof. Meanwhile, my neighbor is planting a Leyland cypress hedge...

I just try to do what I can.

 

Today I did some more pruning. I completed the last of the pear trees, a European plum multigraft (not a lot to prune), and an apple that was once a Jonared but now has main branches of Jonathan, Airlie Red Flesh (Also sold as Hidden Rose™, and HoneyCrisp. Maybe still some Porter, which is too vigorous for this tree so I have bern removing it. Now it looks like this.



I left some branches for future training, but mostly it's the shape I want now.

There is one remaining apple tree to finish up, although I did most of it already.

I also started moving the black plastic mulch from last year's squash bed to this year's.

That's about all. Some seeds are sending me memos beginning "Action Needed: Plant Me" so I should get on that now.

 

@Pacnorwest , I have lived here since the 1980s, and the wild blackberries have stayed out on the edge of the woods and field in various areas of my property.

I have tame raspberries in tubs, and wild raspberries in the ground. Most of my raspberries are grown bushes and do well. They reproduce when the tips of their canes touch the ground and take root.

I have wild elderberries also, and moved some to my yard. They are doing well. I had a tame elderberry but it died.

 

Today I planted out, about half of the Four O'Clocks. Miraculous Mirabilus! The ones that I planted, that survived the frost under cardboard, look better than the ones still in pots.



I want them to toughen up a little before exposing to deer and rabbits. Also they need some slug bait.

I up-potted some Pelargoniums.


That pink one is new. Interspecific hybrid "ezee pink batik" or something. Now I have to give away a couple more of the starts that I started

The strawberry plants arrived from Amazon. They look quite depressing. Maybe they will grow. I planted ten into two deck containers.



Those were the best looking! . I heeled in the other ten, with watering and the tops out, to plant tomorrow. The planted ones are in shade until they start growing, like I did the daylilies. I don't know...

One of the Valentines Day mini roses that I have been playing with.



I up-potted the four clumps of snowpeas. They will stay on the deck.



I like snow peas very much. Either raw or stir fried with noodles. Every year I plant them and no matter how I try to protect them, animals and birds destroy the plants. This year I'm growing on the deck. #
So far, so good.