What have you done today in the Garden?

Do you take your commission in tomatoes?

I finally trimmed the roses. They were budding already but its snapping cold again. Fluffed them up and fertilized them. One short month and counting around here...

 

Oh, the day was brown ‘n greyzy,
I was feeling dull and lazy,
When the Bride jumped up and said, “We gotsta go”!

“A big freeze is comin on now,
And we haven’t very long now,
So lets pop out to the lottie, don’t be slow”!

Our strawbies needed protecting,
So I went without objecting
And tucked those babies in all the way around.

On went the fleece just like a mat,
A plastic sheet on toppa that,
With weighty stones to hold them firmly down.

When all our work was nicely done
And heavy clouds obscured the sun
I fed the birds and locked the shed up tightly

We made it home in time for tea,
All warm and cosy as could be.
And stood and watched the snow fall soft and lightly.

 

A gardening poet, or a poetical gardener? Whichever, your strawberries will reward you later!

 

In a foreign language no less
A gardener waxing poetical
Is anyone else impressed?

 

I got out there today. I harvested rocket and lambs lettuce. I checked my tunnel and lettuce is coming up. I planted cauliflower, carrots and more lettuce in the tunnel. I weeded and hilled a row of leeks.

 

I took the dome off the seedlings today. The herbs are now under the grow light and will get thinned next week. I still haven't figured out how to thinly plant basil seed!

 

My seeds came in today. I spent some time planning the vegetable garden and looking into what seeds i have from last year, when I need to start which seeds.

I have also begun the process of trying to schedule our Community Garden business meeting. Process is the right word. It's like herding cats!

 

Jane—thank you. I am looking forward to the strawbs. This freeze is going to be quite harsh for here. My fingers are crossed.

Cheers Cayu—if the poetry will help my strawbs, I dunno...but hopefully they will survive this storm. Thank you for your recognition.

 

Well the blackberries are cleaned out and fertilized. I stapled some, trimmed some, and generally made the paths accessible. A good task for a cold day when you have on lots of layers and gloves. They are real bad jokers. Always stealing my hat.

 

Well folks, the weather was sunny, the wind died down and the temperature was a warm -4C. Nothing else for it but to head off to the lottie. The pic above shows that we are the first ones to go down our path. Virgin snow, We thought. It was such a shame to disturb it.

Once we reached our garden we took a few foto’s:






We just walked along the little fence and snapped those foto’s. Down at the end, we could see that the bees were snowed- in. I had to remove that. You can see that snow on the flying plank has drifted high.


Well, there wasn’t much we could do there but we could see that the strawberry beds were snugly protected. Remember these from a coupla days ago?




Then...you could be forgiven to think that you are gardening alone, but nothing could be further from the truth. Look at the signs of traffic in front of the garden house:


Once the birds were fed and and the bee planks were clean, we headed back up to the parking lot. We took the long way around since the weather was so nice. We came across an allotment where the house door stood ajar, swinging back and forth with the intermittent wind currents. I walked onto their plot after calling to them and not getting a response.


You can see that snow had blown in and only a bit of it had melted. I reached for the door handle to pull it shut and saw that there was a bird in that house! It was a little red breast. I went in and urged it out.

What a way to end a wonderful day at the lottie.

 

Sjoerd, you are such a good neighbor to both the allotment owners, and to the little bird!

 

Beautiful pics Sjoerd! I love the look of "virgin snow". So glad you noticed the little bird in the shed & glad to see your strawbs well protected. Will this set back your planting schedule?
BTW I like your arches!

My garden is still well snowed in too, but I did force some bulbs last fall. Here is the first set to bloom:

Hyacinths !!

I have a pot of tulips and a pot of daffodils still coming.

Two other indoor blooming plants:
Amaryllis!
This poor bulb has already sent up two prior flowering stalks. This little one is undoubtedly the last. I think this bulb has earned the right to be well planted and pampered after this.

Some kind of kalanchoe, I don't know what kind. I was given 2 of them over a year ago... They kind of petered out, so borrowing an idea from another Stewbie, they were in my version of a "Walk of Shame" on my sunroom deck, on their way to the compost heap. Well they both perked up, began growing, and setting bud. You can't throw out a plant like that, can you?
I think this summer I'll just let them live on the sunroom deck.

 

Snow is pretty till it turns to mud ! Major weather advisory here,, down to 8 degrees next week ! Not fun and we are all electric so if we lose power,, it will be a bit cool !!

 

Cayu— I am glad that you liked the piccies of the lottie. It looked so nice there, but there wasn’t much that we could do. I do not think that all this snow and freezing will retard our sowing and planting schedule. We have not yet received our seeds and spuds yet. I can’t yet tell if we will have a season that begins early yet or not. It was an early one last year, so who knows.

Nice inside piccies you have shown of the your plants. They are doing well for you, aren’t they. The Kalanchloë is a beauty, glad you’re keeping those. The sunroom deck sounds like the ideal place for those succulents.

Your Amaryllis has indeed deserved some pampering after performing so well for you...just look at that guy! Will you plant it in the ground in your garden, or keep it in your home? You know what to do with this guy, right.

The Hyacinths look spectacular and smell spectacular as well, I’ll bet. I like those and usually plant them here and there in the lottie once they are bloomed out. Do you save the bulbs?

We are waiting for your daffs now.

You have a very nice looking house, BTW. It seems to have a Spanish feel to it.

 

Let me know how your season goes Sjoerd, early or late start.

I don't yet know what I'll do with the amaryllis. The problem is that i get given them every year.

Here's one growing in our basement!

We were having a very mild winter until the last few weeks. We now have about 2 feet of snow. I think that is less than a meter.

I'll post a pic when the daffs bloom!

Thanks re your comments tree our house. I was going to say "Well my husband is Cuban!"

@mart I hope you all don't FFFFFfreeze!! Let us know how it goes.