What have you done today in the Garden?

Thank you Sjoerd. The neighbour's husband phoned about the cake. My hubby performed "poison control" and had a wee piece to be sure it was alright to send. The neighbour's husband called to say that he fulfilled his end of the arrangement and had a wee piece to be sure it was alright to enter the house ( fork in hand). hahaha.

Today is a splendid day - drizzling rain so everyone in the garden gets a lovely drink, the birds are celebrating and having baths on the branches, the leaves are springing out before our eyes, and.....( the best) our first harvest of asparagus for supper.

 

Did some weeding, the ground is very dry even after some rain.

 

@marlingardener you are SO ahead of us in the Northwest!

@Melody Mc. I've grown Trinity many times. I do like it very much. For some reason, this year I'm just not in the mood for the more modern types. I grew Early Sunglow a few years ago, it didn't do well but for some reason grew it last year and I liked it a lot. Smaller than my others (Ambrosia, Bilicious, Bodaceous). Those are all good, but I thought, dagnabbit, Sunglow tastes like real sweetcorn! So I bought seeds for this year.

I thought Orchard Baby might be a candidate for seed saving. However, for most sweetcorn they say 100 plants are needed, and I just have no use or energy for that much. I might still let a few ears go to seed to see what happens.

Last night it rained an entire inch (2.54 cm) ! No need to water today LOL.

I noticed my pawpaw trees blooming so hand pollinated some. Pawpaws are very picky and don't do well for me but I am stubborn LOL. They are not self pollinating, so you need at least two. The nectar is stinky so bees don't touch them. Supposedly carrion flies like them and if you have a dead possum in the yard, you can hang it in the tree to attract them. Lacking dead possums, I pollinate by hand. Spiders and ants like mine but I don't know if they help. The anthers mature a day or two or so before the stigmas, to add to the challenge. I usually don't get fruit but sometimes I do.




Supposedly the flowers look like the flesh of dead megafauna that are now extinct. BBC article about pawpaws. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220425-the-revival-of-a-forgotten-american-fruit

I inspected the fig trees. Some are showing promise for a June or July crop.



I filled in more potato trenches. At this stage they are a lot easier to tend.



Next: Fill in the remaining potato trenches, then install a deer fence for the squashes, install hose clamps on the drip line valves, and dig the second sweetcorn bed. Then start thinning apples.

 

Lovely asparagus, Mel.
How wil you prepare it?
Well done, you!

Daniel, you are a busy bee, mate.
I liked reading about your day. Interesting reading about pawpaw trees there. I wish that we could grow them here. The image of seeing a bush with dead animals hanging in them took some concentration, haha. The hand pollination sounds like the trick.
Your spuds are looking good. I have earthed-up mine several times and irrigated them once.. and the foliage covers the trenches. It’s up to them now.

 

@Sjoerd - Now you've got me going.....the first picking is always steamed with hubby's favourite white wine and kirsch cheese sauce. The second picking we roast. By then the really large sweet ones are coming, and they are kept until enough for baked bacon wrapped asparagus. Usually by the fifth picking or so, it is time for parmessan crusted asparagus with a dipping sauce ( they are lightly steamed, cooled, lightly breaded with crumbs and parmesan, then a brief saute - they stiffen up and are finger food). By then we start the line up all over again. Once hubby tires of having it every day ( I on the other hand do not I start saving it for pickling.

 

@Daniel W - thanks for sharing that about the flavour of the sweetcorn. We don't have much to compare to up here. A local farm ( three hours away) sells it in the store here, but by then it has been picked or a few days at least. I agree that the Early Sunglow definitely was tastier, but I thought it only because I had it in the greenhouse. I bought the Trinity because it said that it germinates at cooler soil temps ( which turned out to be 15 C so really.....not that cool hahahaha). I'm doing some corn experiments this year and have done volumes of reading about stages of growth, and the importance of each stage for proper cobs ( mine are always short), except the early sunglow in the greenhouse last year.). I'll post my corn adventures soon.

I've heard of paw paws but never seen one. Interesting flowers. And thanks for sharing the fig picture. So so jealous up here.

ermmmm.....thinning apples? May I ask how come? Do they grow larger?

I'm wondering if I am going to have to help my apples this year as I have only seen two bees so far. They will bloom within a couple of weeks. Have you ever had to help polinate your apples? Any suggestions?

 

Goodness gracious me, Mel !
So delicious. It is a good thing I am not living close to you…why, I’d be constantly …you know, accidentally dropping by, per chance on the days you would be cooking.

 

Just a couple of hours this morning.
Dug the grass out of the rockery, dead-headed the roses and then cleared the moss out of the cracks between the flags on the "rose patio."






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I gave the other patios and the paths a go over with "Wet n' Forget" to clear any green patches, before I get round to doing a bit of re-pointing later in the week.

 

We are back to watering, again! I watered the tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. While lugging buckets I found a few tomatoes that will be "pickable" in a day or two. There are a large amount of tomatoes set on, and when they ripen I'll have a day in the kitchen making marinara sauce.

 

"Wet n' forget" is amazing, with just a light spray it dries within a couple of minutes The "green" patches on the patio had gone within a couple of hours.

 

I think I will only ever use 2 part plant cages in the garden going forward. I have been installing the 7 ft or so tall bent cattle panel cages for the cherry and indeterminate tomatoes and it is just so easy to do it after they come up a bit rather than killing myself getting it all done prior.

 

Dirtmechanic, we install our tomato and cucumber trellises before planting, then plant on either side of the trellis in a zig-zag pattern. It makes watering easier--just water along the trellis and the plants on each side get water.
When you get the two part cages installed, would you please post a photo? I think we might be able to use those for the pepper plants. The peppers don't have to climb, but with our winds they do tend to lean a lot, and the cages might keep them more upright than the chicken wire cages we've made and are using.

 

I will. They are just 16 foot cattle panel cut in the middle to give spikes for anchoring but folded in half to make a roughly 2x2 foot square cage about 7 feet tall when set. They are all over youtube. I would think a couple of stake rods could be woven through fencing wire or something for a smaller version.

 

Is that the material that Cayuga uses for her Clematis arch?
It sounds like such handy stuff.

 

It's been raining, so I've just checked the "greenhouse."




I've had difficulty getting grass seed to germinate under one of the acer palmatums. Also the birds pinch some of it, so five days ago a made up a mixture seed and potting compost with some water and put it in this ice cream tub on the shelf in front of the window in the shed.



I opened it this morning.






I'll leave it for a few more days then carefully sprinkle it where it's needed and gently tamp it down. It worked quite well this way last year.