What have you done today in the Garden?

Happy BD (probably late) Pac! Hope you had a great day!

 

We used and made more comfrey tea, suckered and pruned the toms twice, pruned the fruit trees, covered some of the blueberry bushes, more weeding and strimming. We have also been harvesting and putting-up beans and Swiss Chard. Of course we had to eat some of the harvest to sort of do quality checks. Know wadda mean?
Some plots had to be tied-up to keep the plants from lurching over into the paths.
We planted up some beans for a neighbour lady. It is just in time.
We have agreed to take care of the allotment of the neighbour lady while she in on hols. Another lady fell from her bike and seriously injured her hip, so we are keeping her weeds down.
Keeping our own veggie plots clean has been difficult lately, with the heat. We sort of have to pace ourselves. I have been giving a bit of water here and there.

The beetroot is looking good and the parsnips have been thinned and are throwing-up larger leaves. The nets were removed from the strawbs. They will need to have those spent leaves removed soon.

There have been some moles working in the plots, undermining the broadbeans to the pont that they have fallen over. I have been trying to take steps. They are elusive though.

Today is an off day. We are going to have some fun in the garden of one of the fellow gardeners this evening. It is 26°C outside at the moment.

 

Pac:

 

Lazy day. Did the weed whacking bit where the car was in the way along the fence. Ate the edible pod peas out of the garden. Will water some a little later where pots are dry. Have had morning maritime mists. Fifth planting of lemon cukes are up. Hopefully they won’t get eaten.

 

Well last nights downpours and T-Storms took care of the watering. Loss power last night around 8:30pm - restored 10:40am. Garden survived no damage just had some branches to pick up.

 

Daniel Thank you. Appreciation for the BD greetings.
Sjoerd thank you and what a thoughtful card . I never laughed so hard when I saw your BD card full of those pesky moles.
Oreti …thank you.
A special thanks for everyone who took the time to wish me a happy BD yesterday! It was truly a wonderful day - perfect in so many ways big and small.

 

@Pacnorwest , sorry I missed your birthday. Sometimes it is just hard to do everything.

I don't know why some of my pictures load double. They are not double in my computer or phone. Maybe it is our wacky internet?

I hope these are not duplicates. I lost track of which ones I posted. There is a LOT going on, more than I took pictures of.

Baby leeks. They are next to the parsley going to seed.


the bird house gourds so far...






One of my new blueberry bushes. I hope the critters do not get it. Something ate the leaves off of another blueberry bush.



the wild black raspberry patch... they are yummy.






Part of the "poison ivy wall".... It is huge. It has some of my containers about buried. There is poison ivy, multiflora rose, rose of Sharon, Jerusalem artichokes, Bradford pears, some other unknown tree that I do not want, honeysuckle vines, various other weed trees... some old elms... I have cleaned this out a few times, but not good enough I guess. There is a black walnut hiding to the back of this mess that murders apple trees.... We HAVE cut that down several times. It is still there. It also poisoned an old compost heap that I had to shovel into Horsey's pasture. I will have to wear my tall boots when I get in here and spray me good with OFF. I don't know what to protect against poison ivy, and I do not want to use poisons. Behind this mess are about 5 white pines that are over 70 feet tall, and I planted them as babies. I want to keep them. There are other pines and a stretch of woods also. I will keep my shovel handy in case of copperheads. DS has one of those Weed Dragons, but it is broken and he has not yet bought a new one. (Burning poison ivy is a big no-no, as you can get it in your lungs that way and I do NOT need that.) Also part of that mess is the American Bittersweet vines which are highly invasive. Don't ever plant those on purpose. (A friend mistook them for periwinkle vines)


For some unknown reason all these pictures are here twice. I have absolutely no idea why. I only added them ONCE.







My rhubarb still is not looking very good. I transplanted them over with the baby beets if that picture is one of my posts. They will have shade part of the day. I HOPE that helps my rhubarb! They did not like that barrel for some odd reason.

I need to get some work done around here. Be back when I can.

 

Yesterday I installed a fence for the squashes. They are growing now but deer ate the first set of vigorous leaves. I hope the fence helps.

I picked big bowl of Montmorency cherries.

With cooler weather and some rain, I did not water. I might today, if things look dry.

 

@Jewell nice variety of plants and eatables in your garden. Even twice the pics to celebrate the up coming harvest of berries.
Poison ivy is a tough one to eradicate. I try to get to it before it sets seed, snd usually cut into pieces and place in huge plastic bag . Then using a paint brush apply poison ivy liquid directly on the cut areas full strength right from the bottle. It usually takes a few applications. It’s an extremely sneaky vine . Of course wear protective clothing . it’s a lot to tackle . I have a few spots of it as well as poison oak , tansey ragwort , hemlock, western hemlock and sumac.


@Daniel W I feel for ya buddy , sorry the deer ate the flowers on the veggies. Deer are so sneaky. I have curtailed their invasion into the pastures and the garden area as well. It’s a matter of due diligence on my part. It’s been exhausting mowing every day. But I don’t mow every single part of the fields just alternate mowing different spaces every day and at dusk a noisy mower presence seems to keep them at bay. And next time I mow the alternative spaces and so on.
I have all the flower blooms ..”Knock on Wood” … without using any deterrent (Plantskyyd). Which is $60 for one container. Just by mowing the pastures . No bites out of tree leaves or flowers. Also my dogs have had a presence while the deer were nearby and seen as predators. Well… if ya don’t count the gophers…

Now to keep those pesky ground squirrels from digging under the porches, home and barn foundations.

 

You're welcome Oreti. I'm enjoying them very much. They don't sucker and spread like raspberries. The fruit is large for a berry - about two large blueberries. The foliage is very attractive. There is a lot of variety diversity with flavours and fruit bearing times now. I have three varieties that are a little more cold hardy: Boreal Beauty, Boreal Blizzard and Boreal Beast. They need cross pollinators.

I bought mine as bare root stock and in three years they are about four feet tall. They usually produce some berries the second summer, and they are earlier than raspberries and blueberries. This year they are covered in berries. This is my second year of doing my own cuttings for propagation. Last year was an experiment in pots and they all lived. This year I'm trying a foam block from my friend's tree nursery.

The University of Saskatchewan has a Haskap Program and develops new varieties. I'll attach a link to a paper that explains the best varieties for cross pollination. Their Agriculture program is amazing.

Deer, bears and birds are an issue with them, as with most berries. But since I put up a small net fence around them it hasn't been a problem. I will put a bird netting over top soon as mine as beginning to ripen.

This is a three year old Boreal Beast.





I've started 15 of each variety to fill in the rows of the asparagus garden where I no longer have asparagus.





https://gardening.usask.ca/images/HaskapChart.png

This is a very helpful page also.

https://gardening.usask.ca/gardenin...-plant-pages/fruit/haskap.php#Plantinghaskaps

 

You are very very busy! So nice of you to help out your neighbours. That is hot temps Sjoerd. Does it get very humid also? Humidity is rare for me, and I do not like it at all when it happens. I makes my hair curly haha I hope your heat breaks soon.

 

I was wondering what it cost there Pac. Is this the pellets you mentioned? Do you have to order directly from Plantskyyd?

It's proven impossible to find pelleted form in Canada, and they aren't allowed to ship direct from the USA. The ready made spray is now in our hardware store but very costly for a very small amount. The box of powder I ordered last year came from a tree nursery on Vancouver Island and with shipping, taxes and purchase it was close to $95 Canadian. . I really needed something as a quick solution last summer as I didn't have the time for fencing anything.

I'm coveting it encase of deer or vole emergency. Hubby doesn't want me to use it until he can determine if not having it in the gardens improves the unwelcome visits of the larger hairy guests we had last summer. If it looks like I can use it next year, I'd definitely prefer not mixing the stuff. Maybe they will lighten up and allow the sale of the pellets in retail stores by then.

 

Mel— yes in-deedy it does get humid. We are on the water. It is really the humidity, more than the heat that is bothersome.

 

I weeded the majority of the Memory Gardens this morning. Still some Mare's tail to deal with tomorrow. I'm having to put in access gates for the deer netting as I go, but next time it will be less time consuming. The plan next year is to fence it off properly and have a gate.

Some flowers are showing their pretty heads.

Flanders Poppy



A dwarf Lilac in my Dad's garden





This rose was a gift from my son for Mother's Day a few years ago. It and one other survived the winter.



Painted Daisies - such a happy flower in my best friend's garden.

 

That's a beautiful memory garden, Melody!

I wonder if that lovely rose is a Rugosa Rose. Very pretty. Is it fragrant?

The lilac is very nice too. We had one of those. You could smell it across the street.