What have you done today in the Garden?

The time flies in the garden. It is tomorrow already.
We melted wax from the bees, weeded some ground elder, gave water and did the long boundary weeding with our neighbour-man. I am telling you that sounds innocuous, but it was a hellish hand and creeping work in that long, narrow space. I crept along out in front of my Bride hand pulling the weeds that were growing right in the fence and she came along then hoeing the rest flat. It was a mean task to say the least. If only he would actually get down and pull his instead of just covering them up with tiles and soil bags.

 

I had a more pleasant time in the garden than poor Sjoerd. Sometimes good fences don't make good neighbors.
I weeded the green beans, watered the tomatoes again, and found that in the next couple of days I'll be picking beans. Thank heavens the peas are just about finished. One can eat and freeze just so much "green things."

 

Love reading how everyone is doing in their gardens and everyone's unique approach to their own space.

@Sjoerd - you'll be ready for a trapeze act after all of the acrobats to plant your beans. It is good that you had a navigator. What is the comfrey food for? I have a huge patch of comfrey that has a will of it's own. Your straw substitue....is it small sticks? I miss straw but will never use it again because of the herbicide contamination. I've been gathering pine needles to try this year.

@Daniel W - very interesting to see how you use the chicken and chard. Calcium, potash and bone meal?

@marlingardener - that is good advice on the mason sand. I will look into that.

@Logan - your patience with your planting project astounds me. I'm excited to see the finished product and all of the flowers.

@Doghouse Riley - Daniel is correct - your home does look very much like Bouchart Gardens. Very lovely.

 

Today it is raining and a much needed indoor homecare day. The past few days have been very busy. With hubby's surgeries hopefully happening by winter, we need to get the firewood in for the next two years. I get up early and care for gardens, then by 10 we go and get a load of wood. Then after lunch it is back to the yard.

It is still very cold for spring. Every seeding is covered with remay to try and keep the soil warmer. I prepped the squash bed yesterday and turned it over. Then covered it with clear plastic to warm the soil. Squash seeds were planted in 500 ml milk containers for easy transplant. Fingers crossed temps become more seasonal by the time they have to go into the ground.

I gathered 5 wheel barrow loads of spruce needles to mulch the asparagus. Then found where pine needles had been dropping for years into the back of our old pickup. That will give me enough for the strawberries.

Raspberries were pruned out. And the blueberries were given some care for the summer. They have nice buds coming.

The potatoes and onion sets arrived. The soil where the potatoes needed to be planted is still stuggling with compacting from high water two years ago. It was tilled a week ago,so had settled with the rain. I could not hand plough it , but did adapt the method using a spade. It is not easy to look at but I'm hopefull that it will solve my hilling problem. I'm going to layer with mulch and soil as they grow to try and continue to break up the soil and improve it.



When ther rain eases by tomorrow, I will remove some remay to peek at how eveyrone is doing. As well as replant some cauliflower that were eaten, and add the second sowing bedding plants of small sweet early cabbages for a late August harvest.



The tomatoes are hanging in there. I don't think they would be without their soil cables, remay, mulch and heat lamps. I still have lows between 5 and 0 c.






The sweet corn is ready to be transplanted but I'm concerned about the cool temps stunting it. I will be cutting some holes in a clear plastic cover for planting today. The soil is warmer under the plastic, considerably. Hopefully this will keep them warmer. I'll also be adding a temporary green house plastic over them that can be rolled up. I started a few more plants yesterday, just encase.

 

Thank you @Melody Mc. you've got a lot growing there, nice to see your tomatoes are doing well.

 

I did nothing today as I played golf in the morning. But I did have a look round the garden deciding what I will do tomorrow.

The lawn needs a cut, we're approaching the time when it will need cutting two or three times a week. I'll prune the wisteria on the pergiola over the French windows. I'll need the ladder as the unwanted shoots are only visible from the bedroom window.
More wisteria blooms to hoover up off the patio. I'll give it a week then I'll start pruning off the dead bloom spines, as they look ugly if I don't.
I still need to do a bit of patio and path re-pointing, I've had the materials for nearly a week, but haven't got round to it. But it might not get done tomorrow, I'll only work in the morning as I'll be watching the Cup Final on TV in the afternoon.

 

Hey McMel.
The comfrey “tea” is what I feed my toms and courgettes with. I have written articles on here before about how I do it. It is an unmissable part of my gardening regimen each season.
https://www.gardenstew.com/threads/comfrey-a-different-kind-of-fertilizer.9181/

I harvest the leaves and stems, chop the finely and chuck them into a bucket and add rainwater. I wait at least three weeks before I use the tea on the ground or as foliar spray.

The straw substitute: those are not sticks, but rather flowering plant stems. After lying on my beds for a winter they are actually a tad composted. As I said, I use these stems year after year. I simply dry them out and bag them up until the following year. Tree prunings are too tough, so I do not use those.

Are you using pine needles as a mulch for strawberry plants only?

Your postings about your plants was so good to see. You had mentioned that you could not hand plough your soil in that one place. Were you able to find a hand plough then? BTW—if the ground is too heavy to plough, try min-tilling it first. That way you won’t have to do all that digging. The way I do it is to push the fork into the ground, push downwards on the handle once, push the handle away from you once and then hold that handle perfectly vertical and turn it side to side as you extract it from the soil. Once you have done this, you ought to be able to pull that hand plough the bed effortlessly.

 

Transplanted the cucumbers, tomatoes, and assorted other plants I had growing in the jungle room earlier this winter.

 

@Sjoerd - That is a good tip with the fork and the soil. Thank you for that. Usually I plant right after a tilling but this year it was not possible. I could not find the hand plough in BC, but my oldest is scouring her city in Alberta before she comes to visit this summer. Perhaps she will have success and I will have one next year. Hubby says that "somewhere" is actually a plough attachment for our rototiller ( somewhere meaning either the stable, tack room, loft of the barn, under the work shop, in the boat shed..... hahaha. I have never seen it so I will wait and see what he 'unearths' one day.)

I have never heard of comfrey tea, but I am eager to try it. My patch is large and I never know what to do with it. It eventually falls over and does it's own thing under the old willow. I am not sure how my timing will be with the plant growing enough to make the tea vs the growing season nearing an end for me. Will it help in the soil if it used for the following year's plants?

Pine needle mulch is new for me. As are spruce needles. Which is a little bit of a head shake, as they are in abundance. I always steered away from them as nothing grows under those trees with the carpet of needles. A neighbour used to buy "pine straw" which was what made me think of it. I know they acidify the soil, but I think that is perhaps only in abundance over a long period of time. The jury seems to be out on this. Many of our pine trees are lost now due to beetle kill. The needles are still around where the trees once stood. We still have a few pine that drop many of their needles every year.

I'm not quite sure what to add to the potato holes as they grow to mix with the dirt. Lawn clippings are my go-to in the gardens' pathways to stop weeds and be tilled in the fall. I think they would be too heavy for the potato holes. I do have old leaves and small chips that I may add alternately with the dirt. I'll have to root around.

 

Today I planted my bush beans. I'm leaving pole beans alone now, as I often lose them to frost before they have a chance to produce. I experimented with bush beans last year and was pleased. I made the TP rolls for them last night, and filled and planted this morning after a dusting in inoculant. I use magic tape along one side to stop the roll from unravelling. Plastic will go on the planting area today to try and warm the soil over the next week or so.

I also "magic taped" some paper towel rolls to try on some of the leeks this year. It will be a while before they go on, but I was in the taping tubes mood last night so everything was done.

Today I check out what's under the remay and see how all of the folks are doing under there, I'll add a few plants, and plant some corn through the plastic today. Everything is a gamble this spring, with three more cold fronts predicted before June. Everyone into the pool though, and we shall see how they fare


.

 

Today I've concentrated on the planters out front because I want them to not look newly planted-up on May 17th, Constitution Day. I've been digging up, dividing, planting back down, potting up, trading, and selling Hostas and other perennials. We've had a spell of good gardening weather. The few bad days in between have been cleaning days. The house is always in a mess when we've had a few days of nice weather.

 

@Melody Mc. I really enjoy your posts about your kitchen gardening. You really make the most of everything.

Yesterday I completed the drip irrigation for the fresh-eating tomato bed. The sauce tomato bed might be next week, after planting them.

I planted the first squash plant. Others are emerging. I want to get them into the ground as soon as I can. I'm happy that my favorite squash, Galeux d'Eysines are growing and that the varieties I researched, "Uncle Dave's Dakota Dessert Squash" and "Burgess Buttercup" are emerging as well as all of the others. I have Costata romanesca and Fordhook Zucchinis (both home saved), Saffron summer squash, Red Kuri winter squash (home saved seeds) and Honeynut (gift seeds) ready to plant. Unfortunately, I need to remove some things to make room for them. I hate to waste, but I only need so many Egyptian Walking Onions and they are so prolific I just stuck them into the ground everywhere. Also some of the garlic volunteers. And weeds.

@Melody Mc. maybe the Uncle Dave's would work for you? They were developed in N Dakota for a shorter season climate.

 

Sowed 60 more toilet roll tubes with wallflower seeds, that's 240 so far.
Weather should be better tomorrow so i'll be outside.

 

@Daniel W - thanks for the kind words. My kids called my long paper towel ones something that I apparently can't type on the internet or could get flagged by the RCMP or Interpol. hahaha. Hope they work. Thanks for the recommendation of the squash. I've never heard of that variety, but really like that it says it's adaptable to fluctuating climates. North Dakota definitely has that. I'll order some for next year.

Yesterday turned out to be firewood all day. There were some widow makers caught up in some birch behind the woodshed. It was a challenging day trying to pull one down the mountain. The second one was cut up the mountain and then threw it down a bit at a time to the woodshed. By the end the garden was too late in the day. And I was too sore.

Early this morning the remay came off and everyone was checked out. The new baby cabbages and cauliflower were planted. Everyone else looks okay and most will survive the critter snack bar buffet I think. I filled in the leeks and left the remay off of the leeks and onions. The sweet corn was planted with plastic on top. After lunch and the rain eases I'll fashion some kind of mini greenhouse over the corn to help it out over the next couple of weeks. Celery was planted, even though I think it will bolt with the cool temps.

I planted one of the canary vines. The other isn't quite ready. The moonflower needs the world to warm up before it goes outdoors so it is hanging out in the greenhouse with the tomatoes. Then I was chased in by the rain. I'm not made of sugar, but gosh it gets cold with a cold wind and being wet. Time to light a fire and bake some bread.

 

@Melody Mc. I would love to know what your kids called them LOL.

My canine companion has been off food and sluggish, so I made him baked chicken breast and white rice in a porridge. I worried he might dehydrate. That got him eating and he perked up quite a lot, wet nose and some playfulness. He's droopy now but it's evening. That plus rain, I was mostly indoors.

Planted the rest of the Galeux d'Eysines squash (or pumpkin) seedlings, and the Costata romanesca. Gave away the Red Kuri Squash seedlings, a zucchini seedling, and a "Saffron" summer squash seedling.

The roots. Cotyledon stage.



My great Aunt Emma used to say the ground is warm enough to plant tomatoes when you can sit on it comfortably with your bare bottom. I haven't tested that but I think it's ready.

I'm thinking the Honeynut squashes might be small enough to grow on a trellis.