What have you done today in the Garden?

I was saying what a cat did the other day...pooing on the lid that covers my drain. this is where the kitchen water/bathroom water goes down to the sewers below.

I have known cats poo on top of compost but never in drains.

K

 

Garden bird counting.
At home I ordered the last of the flower and veggie seeds as well as the seed-spuds.

 

Oh, that isn't how our system works here. everything is enclosed non accessible by most people and definitely not by animals.. interesting to see how other countries do their sanitation.

 

Today I prepared the soil of the potato bed.
The bees were flying and returning with pollen on their back legs!
I removed more of the reed roots from the canal alongside the lottie.

 

Cleaning out the canal. See the Tantalus thread.

 

I planted peas this morning--regular English peas, sugar snaps, and sugar pods! It was so good to get out into the freshly turned soil with the sun on my back and get dirty. Tomorrow the turnips go in, and then the onion sets. Spring hasn't quite sprung here, but it is uncoiling!

 

I planted our turnips and got most of the asparagus bed cleaned. After lunch I played in the flower beds, dead-heading roses. That wasn't the most urgent task, but it was the one I wanted to do!

 

Today I took cuttings of the geranium I wintered over a nd sweet potato vines I started in the Fall just for cuttings. Started more seeds and watered everything in the small greenhouse. Started cleaning up the big greenhouse, too. It has been too busy with being a caregiver this past 6 months to do much more than get through each day.

 

I put about 95 onion sets in the ground today (actually, it was yesterday). Today it warmed up to 80 degrees and the forecast is calling for rain. I'm hoping they'll get established before the next cold flash. That's what we get in Florida instead of cold spells.

 

How wonderful to have a husband who understands--he came home from town with two six-packs of Celebrity tomatoes, and a nine-pack of broccoli starts! I'd rather have those than diamonds. I ran out of room to start everything for the garden, so I didn't start what I was pretty sure I could find at the feed store or somewhere else. He remembered that I mentioned we'd need the tomato and broccoli starts, and when he saw them, he got them. I am blessed with a husband that understands! Now I just hope he understands we are going to have to open up another small garden in back of the barn . . ..

 

Hahahaha....I'll bet he didn't bargain for that Jane! --chortle.

Went to the lottie to remove more roots from the canal., feed the birds and do some weeding in-between the rain, snow and hail showers. It was quite a day.

I fed the birds and watched them from time to time, and made plans to prune the apple tree if and when it ever gets dry.

I added chalk around some of the fruit trees and perennial plants.

 

I love the things one can learn here!
Sjoerd, please tell me about the chalk's benefits to fruit trees and perennials. Is it a soil amendment or fertilizer, or what?

 

yesterday we took the plastic off of one greenhouse to re cover it. It was a bit windy but a really nice warm day... big mistake. I couldn't convince Kevin it wasn't a good idea. so once it was started we had to finish. Well. the plastic got ripped off the one end as soon as we had it tacked in the channel.. oyvey! it ripped a 12" square right off the center end of the plastic. almost enough to have ruined 200.00 worth of plastic. it got caught on the hooks inside the greenhouse as it blew over it poked several holes in it... enough already! well greenhouse tape will fix that. Eventually we got the first layer on and left it at that for the night. this morning we plopped the second layer on with the help of a neighbor and now it is done. WHEW!

 

It is so that the fruit will make and maintain a good and durable wood and so that the fruit can be saved be better. Plus when one adds mulch, compost and fertilizer over a period of several years the ground can become more acid. My ground is what we call veen ground and is by nature somewhat acidic. Apparently the apple trees that I have do better in a more alkaline ground.

Since using manure and chalk together results in a significant weakening of both their qualities, I will give some manure later on in march. Some years I use bone meal for a slow release feeding.

Now then, I will say that some of the more "technical" gardeners will use a mixture of chalk and magnesium. I know that you 'get' the use of magnesium in the garden...by tomatos, for example. This element is necessary in our gardens.

Chalk use also improves the structure of the soil around the tree as well as makes a better micro-bacterial milieu under the soil's surface. This is to say, it adds "food" for the creatures that live in these strata...especially the earth worm, for instance.

Another thing chalk does is that most plants take it up to strengthen the formation of their cell walls. (I had spoken of the fact that chalk makes the wooden structures of the trunk and branches above. This related to that. Because of this last aspect, I suppose that you could refer to chalk as a fertilizer loosely speaking..

I keep using the word, "chalk"...that's because our word for this element is kalk. The chemical element is Calcium.

I hope this doesn't sound too esoteric.