What have you done today in the Garden?

Everyone is keeping garden buzy. It’s a full time job maintaining our gardens. Yes no rest for the wicked.
@Sjoerd How’s your plot doing this time of year?

 

Pac— oh mate, it is fast sleep. The beds are protected and the verticals have been pruned except for one apple and one plum. I will do then next month, after the freeze.No sign of voles, mice, moles or rats at the minute.

I still go to check traps and watch the birdies. I just drink tea and play a couple of simple games on my fone. I always check the canal for floating reed roots to remove. If I get really bored, I go to the bird protection website and play bird calls of birds that I know to be in the area…and wait for them to come and investigate.

While the garden is resting, I walk about refreshing my mind on the plans for the coming year. An extra this coming year will be the testing. Some planning is needed. For this, I keep going over and over the possible locations… plusses and minuses, you know.

The lottie is a lonely place in the winter, for there are only a handful of us that come with any regularly.

 

It wasn't so cold today and dry so i emptied one of the compost bins, got 4 large bags of it. I'll keep it until the spring for mulching, the robin was down twittering quietly.

@Sjoerd what testing will you be doing?

 

Loggie— I am going to grow some yet unnamed hybrid tom sorts for a developer, inside a greenhouse and outside.

 

That will be exciting Sjoerd.

 

Sjoerd you do a terrific job managing your plot it’s a lot in such a short time. Setting traps for Critters. I am happy to hear you also have no signs of them. Moles and gophers don’t hibernate. I hear that the tomato experiment has you planning already. It will be a fun project for us all to watch your progress.
And oh boy those reeds are a nightmare once they get a hold on an area. We have reeds one of those invasive thugs . I’ve manage to collect them when small. My friend makes reeds for wind instruments from them. More than one way to manage a garden thug.

Logan good to hear you got out & added to your compost bin. Winter is a nice quiet time to enjoy the winter garden.

 

Pac— Thanks much. Well, I do hope that you will enjoy the tomato trial. I will give updates.I am happy that you are interested enough to read the updates.

 

Sjoerd Of course we want happy tomatoes and happy gardeners. There is a lot to learn from you.

Today did my normal pasture check routine. Nothing unusual just extremely soggy landscape…. Squish - squish with every step. In a low grade hill in the pasture water build up with saturated soil I got stuck go up , so decided to back down and circle the perimeter there by level ground. Staying clear of muddy spots. But have a flat tire again.

 

Do you usually prune after a freeze?
i read somewhere, that's protective. I don't know. I already pruned apples, figs, and pears. We'll see what happens.

That's an exciting project! I bet you are excited too.

Today I didn't do outdoor garden work. I did sone mental garden planning. I have ideas... Those are kind of exciting.

 

I have always read where fruit trees ought to be pruned while dormant, in cold weather.

Sorry, I have been awol again this week. My internet was down this past week again. This time, it was the battery on my kids' modem that popped/exploded and it took 8 days for a new one to arrive. I ordered it on the 22d, the same day it happened. It was not shipped until Thursday, and it arrived today.

I have wild black rasperries, and I prune them any time over winter. I need to do more pruning on them. I also have tame raspberries, and need to do a bit more pruning on them. And I have one fall bearing bush. I don't know much about that one. I only prune dead canes anyway.

We had rain most of this past week, so I did not get much done outside anyway. I did get some leaves raked and hauled yesterday, and today. I put some in my compost, and use some for mulch in containers and beds. There are lots more leaves to clean up out there, and still some of my wood chips to haul. I did some more weeding here and there also. I still have that pile of ashes to move when I finish my leaves and wood chips. And I want to dig the hole for that next fence post on the pasture. DS is supposed to be home sometime in January.

My asparagus beds are under mulch and leaves.

@Willowisp0801 , glad you got the seeds. I hope all those seeds do well for you.

I did do some weeding in my peppermint, and in a front flower bed--the one with the Walker's Low Catmint. It has such pretty blue flowers.

Happy New Year everyone.

 

Daniel— About fruit tree pruning: The winter pruning I do in jan or feb, after a freezing period. I try and time it so that I am in-between freezes if possible. But for me it isn’t so much the temp as the wind…the wind. Nederland is a windy country, so it is not easy to get all the factors right.

So, no firm plans yet, eh. But you have concepts of a plan, right?

The project— Too right mate, I am well excited about it.

 

I got done today what I said I would do, including "turning over the jukeboxes."
They do have on their thermal "winter coats" and heaters, but they don't like inactivity. Lots of leaf switches open to the air. Hopefully, they will continue to function as and when during the winter, before they get more use in the warmer months.






We've always said there isn't enough room for one in my den...the front room. We wouldn't want one in the lounge. But my wife has recently suggested it might be possible. I think she's concerned about me going down there at my age, when it's really cold.

It could go just inside the door where I presently have my piano.





I could always move the piano and put it under my jukebox wall boxes on the back wall. My only concern is that it would be in front of the radiator. But the wall boxes have come to no harm, being above it for 15 years.





It'd be the small one that I would bring in.
It's a major job, as it weighs around 300lb.
I have still got the ramp I made to get it up the tea-house steps when I bought it.
But it will be a case of negotiating it past this acer palmatum.









All the records would have to come out, the turntable lifted off and the tone arm taped down. It'll be easy to move on my sack truck. I can use the ramp to get it through our front door. I'd need a couple of big squares of hardboard on the floor, to stop its castors ruining the carpet as it was rolled in. Then a square of plywood to sit in on to stop the castors from digging into the carpet.
But it's a job for the warmer months. If I decide to do it, I'll get my son to give me a lift. He helped me get it into the tea-house over fifteen years ago. It's not a decision I need to make now.
I've still the wisterias on the back of the house to prune, but that needs a dryer day.

 

Thanks Pacnorwest, i emptied another one today, only one left to do but it's going to turn very windy for a few days.

 

Yeah compost you know they say about compost , it is like therapy helps to compost your waste.
Wind storm seem to be the norm this year. So batten down the hatches , tighten your seat belts it’s gonna be bumpy ride. After all I just finished cleaning up a fallen tree from the last wind storm . Chopped it up and added to the compost pile.. Stay safe.

 

That makes sense. I think you must have more wind than we do here. In its day, that probably sent those great sailing ships on their way.

At the Home Orchard Society, they recommended pruning in mid winter. They said early pruning could cause frost damage. I think it does, a little, with figs. But they still grow fine. I haven't noticed a problem for apples, pears, or plums. I still have work remaining on one apple tree, and on the plums. I prune cherries after they bear fruit. Grapes, usually in January.

yes, but it's nothing I'll debate about . Sometimes I think your sense of humor is dangerously like mine.

Today I did work on the garden paths. I replaced the path where I repaired the last raised bed, and started work refreshing some of the others with new arborist chips. A good winter job.