Today I mostly mowed. I got out the electric hand mower and it worked fine. It goes places the riding mower cant. I increased the cleaned area of the back yard, quite a lot (Rose garden, duck yard, and some more). Still a lot to go. I started hauling arborist chips to cover the bare ground areas in the rose garden. That will be a long project, but not too bad. The chip mulch keeps weeds down and soil, a bit less dry. I watered the transplanted roses and blueberry, and the new dogwood. This "Carmine Jewell" bush cherry is blooming nicely. It's about the size of a rose bush and is in the rose garden. So are several blueberry bushes. Rhubarbs are growing nicely. An Erythronium. Leucojum Some daffs An apple that was sold as Tasty Red, but it isn't. Still, delicious and productive. Columnar and stays within size for me to manage easily. Lots of these little ones around the yard. These were the first Chines chives harvested. Not at all bad for mid April! They went into these (made by a far better cook than myself). Also, there were a couple dozen, so some went into the freezer. Next, I want to plant some flower seeds, and I can't lapse on tomato plant care. Next weekend I want to buy pepper plants. I hope, Jalapeños, poblanos, some others. A nice clump of oregano. I grew these from seeds a few years ago. Bees love it. Some random tulips that must have been in the potting soil. I do re-use it.
Beautiful! It sure is looking like spring over there Daniel! I've been craving rhubarb, but my plant isn't even growing yet. Yours looks great
Random thread is a good idea !! Yesterday when I trimmed off a low branch from my pomegranete tree, which was hitting the ground, I took a bunch of cuttings from it. 6-8" pieces, thorns and all sideshoots removed, tips pinched out, dipped in rooting hormone and tucked into the outer edge of the pot. It's already humid in S. Ga. so, no need for humidity dome or plastic bag. I stuck it in the shade on the North side of the house and by mid summer we should have roots.
Adding to random this that and the other... I started soaking some Four O'Clock seeds. I saved most last year but also some from '22 and '14. I doubt those oldest ones will grow, but who knows? The tomato seedlings are growing quickly. The odd lighting is LEDs. I think I'll start them on their days outside, tomorrow. I planted more seeds. Genovese basil, a many-color mix of California poppies ("Swirl mix"), and some celosia plumosa, flame type. I also spread 4 wagons of arborist chips in the rose garden, and made more progress on clearing out weeds and blackberry vines. There are more seeds to plant tomorrow. I might plant radishes in the kitchen garden and maybe marigolds and zinnias in pots. I usually start them later but it's so warm outside now.
Here's an aerial view of the kitchen garden. Resolution isn't great. It is more or less what I planned a decade ago, but has evolved. You can see the raised vegetable beds, mini-dwarf fruit trees, large containers, and fruit trees pruned sort of flat against the fence. The emphasis is on a accessibility, variety, relative ease of the work. Ground level views. The barrels are not planted with anything yet. Here are some apples in bloom now. Pristine. A very early, really nice flavored yellow, disease-resistant apple. Liberty. This is an older tree outside of the garden. Also great flavor and disease resistant. Behind it is North Pole, for pollination and also a MacIntosh flavor. Akane, a Japanese variety. Has Jonathan flavor, prolific producer. An early Camassia, almost blooming. The earliest lilac. This was an offset from a very old lilac bush. The fig trees that I started last summer by air layering, are beginning to grow. They survived their first winter. Lattarula. Highly vigorous variety, good beating two crops a year. Sweet, mild figs. Other name, White Marseilles. My most productive variety but the patent tree is in a bad location. Petite negri. Low vigor, not reliable producer, but one of the best tasting, richly flavored figs. Black outside, red inside. I really wanted this one to grow. My 25 year old tree, the parent, is only about 8 feet tall. The parent tree is in a bad location, so I wanted to propagate it.
Amazing @Daniel W your garden is a perfect place and great style for a kitchen garden. Are you flying drones too for your birdseye view shot. Looks great… so glad to see all your hard work and planning coming to fruition . it’s beautiful.
Thank you. Borrowed drone. It's old so the resolution isn't great. It does show the general layout, which is nice.
Looking good Daniel and Annie Couple of random pic here Welsh jumping onion head... And the Banananana Shallots starting to come up, with Spring Onions behind...
The chicken yard lilac is blooming now. Nice scent. Speaking of chickens, the four new ones are growing up quickly. Two brown Leghorn, two Americana. Of which, one is even more obviously a cockerel. The back yard Petite negri / Violette de Bordeaux fig tree has the starts of a few figs, and a few leaves. Also the Lattarula fig tree. Wonder of wonders, I replaced the irrigation system's filter, pressure reducer, and timer (blue circle) and the splitter (red circle). And it even works! (Not really just garden, but I also rebuilt the outdoor spigot on the house. I didn't know how, so I took it apart, went to the hardware store for new parts, put it together. I was really surprised that worked. The old one must have been 50 years old. The rubber parts were crumbling and the metal parts were corroded). Five years ago, I pollinated a columnar apple variety (either North Pole or Golden Sentinel, I forget which) with pollen from a red flesh apple (Redlove Calypso). I grew out the seeds. Two were red leafed, like Calypso, and had columnar shape. Today, they bloomed - the second time for one, the first time for the other. I hope they have apples. I feel certain they will have red flesh, and might be less sour than Calypso. Who knows? Things are really dry now. I'm a bit worried. I need to water some plants every day. I got the first two raised bed drip emitters working. I might be able to get two or three more working tomorrow. One might need replacement of the main line, more complicated.
At the Grocery Store this morning I pick up a hanging basket of Gerber Daisies. Yellow. Last year, about this time, I bought a basket of Gerber Daisies in red. Once I got it home ( because Gerber Daisies are not "hanging basket" plants) I took it out of the pot. Lo and behold FOUR plants in there. I was thinking about this for the last couple days and when I over to check the plants out front... a yellow one !! Only one in yellow. Now I need to figure out where to plant them as I do stuff backwards. I don't think what I want in a space much; I buy what I like that grows well here, THEN find a spot !! And I picked just a few flowers for the house.
