What have you done today in the Garden?

The last thing you want is a fall. Me too.

I did dig a couple of holes in the big raised bed for composting kitchen scraps in place. The soil is a bit heavier there than I like, but has been fine for gardening.

After hauling another 5 wagons of tree chips for pathways, it started raining. So I went inside.

 

Daniel Your sticking to your gardening time frame goals. Plus you got rain? We were stuck in the clouds all day and cold winds. I have to say this has been one of the driest winters in years for day time winter gardening. Usually stuck in rain slickers, frizzy hair & in soggy mucky boots all winter.

Snow pack is above normal this time of year. Hoping the positives continue . Knock on wood.

 

The temperature dropped to about 29 F overnight. I forgot to bring in the lavender, sage, and rosemary starts. They look just fine anyway.

I was in town for some errands so stopped by the membership store. They are starting to stock garden stuff for the season. I bought onion sets.



I usually start seeds. I think they are better, except the sets seem more vigorous at the beginning. Jays go down the row, pulling up seedlings. It's also difficult to weed the tiny seedlings, so the weeds get more out of control. I think sets will be OK, and a bit easier.

Also my garden gloves are worn out. I bought these as a present to myself.

 

Daniel Nice gloves and onion starts.

Today the sun popped out for a few hours this afternoon as the fog burned off. Monitored the pastures for any new signs of plant or animal invasion. Not a sound, not a peep, nor a tunnel or even a tweet. Temps have dropped to extreme lows at night slowing growth and it’s eerily quiet outside.

I managed to chop down a few wild blackberries with the chain saw and limbing up and eliminate some dead tree limbs, doug fir seedings and cleared out more wild holly trees all across the south west pasture. Slowly but surely getting this project done.

 

Daniel— god seeing your onions. Mine look like the little white ones over on the right.
A question: when you plant these, do you leave anything showing above the soil level?
I ask this because I had the same problem. I just planted deep enough that no piece of the onion showed at all. By the time they did come up, they had some roots and no onions were lifted by the birds. I do not know if it would make any difference there.

Pac— I’m with you about Daniel’s gloves; they look very smart.
Good field work. You are a great worker with that saw. Good that there were no signs of rodents and the like. The work that you do is so amazing.

 

Made cheese this morning. I'll check the temp around noon and if it's warmed up enough I'll go out and put down the weed fabric between the beds and cover it with leaves. We're supposed to have snow flurries today.

 

Willow— I love seeing your cheese.
You know, Bride was born in Alkmaar, and the people from Alkmaar are known as “kaaskoppen”…translated, cheese heads.
Aren’t people from Wisconsin also known by that name?

Full marks for your cheese.

 

Cheesy stuff looks great. Yummy

 

DS found at least some of the problems with our main drain. An old dead mimosa grew into it near the end, and some other small trees toward the houses. (I don't know how we never noticed it sooner...) He has done a lot of digging around back there. Tomorrow, he will dig out around the second clogged area, and leave it open. Hopefully that will be enough to let the water drain out of the lines. Later when he is home again, he will dig up and replace at least part of the drain line. Possibly there are other bad spots, we don't know yet. The toilet no longer flushes the water down the line, so a 5 gallon bucket will do for now indoors. I also have an old hospital commode in the shed for an "outhouse"... I keep a lidded bucket with TP and hand sanitizer in it. The kids have a camping potty for their home. I hope the temporary fix will work for now. I hope to get some copper sulfate crystals next month to help get rid of roots. DS has to be back at work Monday early.

I am making a list of seeds and plants that I want for spring. It is to be near zero at night this week. I could put out some perennial seeds maybe, or just wait a few more weeks? The snow is nearly all melted now. I made an inventory of my seeds recently, and have that written in my garden journal.

 

Unless you can grow them indoors with a good light set-up, I would wait a month.

 

Sjoerd, that's a great idea. I don't recall how deep I planted them before.

Last month I planted topsets from Egyptian Walking Onions. I buried those just below the surface. Jays pulled up a couple that had green sprouts sticking out. I think the rest are still there.

Today I didn't do a lot. I got out some bamboo poles that were curing, and found four long enough to make a squash trellis. Now I need to cut them to the right length and tie them in place.

I repaired my garden cart. It doesn't look like much, but the casters are big and heavy duty, and it sits low. I can slide heavy containers onto it to move them, using a plywood board as a ramp.

This is after the repair.



I noticed a couple of weeks ago that the handle was wonky and loose. It was held in place by four bolts, but two were missing and the brackets were bent.



Also, on the bottom side it looked like the bolt had pulled through, bending the sides of the holes.



I had to do some creative clamping, using a vice-grip, but I managed to get the bracket re-aligned and the bolts into place.



Also, a big heavy duty washer on the bottom side so the bolt head wont pull through the frame again.



It's not the best looking cart, but it's handy and folds to a compact shape for storage. I'm glad it's fixed. At least for now.
,

 

Wow that was quite a repair job and looks very sturdy and heavy duty casters , should cart what you need a handy dandy garden accessory.
I can’t push much around here on uneven ground up hills /down hill. Well you know the drill. I have a dump wagon that can be attached to the back of the rider mower. I load up with trimmings or whatever. To dump weeds and trimmings the latch on the wagon hitch opens a lock load latch that allows the wagon to tilt up and dump the load. It’s been really handy for over 25 years , I don’t leave home without it…
Never had a flat on it. Knock on wood.

 

@Daniel W , some annuals will self seed and regrow fine the following year. Ones that have done it for me are: zinnias, marigolds, cosmos, morning glories. Perennials also grow if sown in fall or winter. Echinacea will and mints will grow back in spring. Parsley does too...

I just have not gotten those seeds out yet.

 

I popped out to the lottie today for a quick looksy. It was grey and below freezing.
Remember this plant? I took a pic and posted it about two weeks ago. It now has some blooms, but the stems are very short.


We are pumping the water out of our lower gardens.

 

Top pic looks like spring snowflake(leucojum . Mine are just barely starting to pop up.
It’s freezing here too, hard frost every AM. The weather is becoming dangerously cold the next few days in the US. See weather posts/thread.

Pumping water from the lower Lottie sections pic looks like that’s a powerful pump, keeps the water from flooding the area. Last week I could have used that pump when the washing machine flooded a small section of the house.

Ran across a video of the allotments set up by the Dutch . See YouTube mega vids.