garden journal 2014 - seeds and seedlings in the greenhouse

[NwMtGardener]

Oh my gosh I'm so tired! The sun was out, it got up to 90 degrees in the greenhouse, and I got a lot of outside work done today! The biggest accomplishment was that I now have a REAL compost pile. I'm almost embarrassed to show you what I was working with before...

Ever since we got Charlie the llaso apso last year, we've had to barricade the compost more and MORE. He loves to lick up the coffee grounds!!! It was also too small. SO, I've been gathering pallets over the past couple weeks, and today I put together THIS:

It's really deep, big, AND it's like Fort Knox for all our compost! Here's a picture with the front pallet on:

I also raked up a bunch of leaves and dead grass from the lawn today, so we have dry stuff to add when we put our household stuff in. I'm so excited, it's going to make actual compost!!!

I also pruned a few of my lilacs, dug weeds in the garden in the greenhouse and got a sunburned face! At least it feels like I got some sun, it's awesome!

 

[ninnymary]

Heather, I saw the first picture and my first reaction was Oh my! It was a little shocking to someone who is a neat freak in her garden.

But you make up for it with that beautiful compost bin. Ha

Mary

 

[Wishin']

Looks good , we do the same thing for a compost bin, the dogs and cats love it. They hop up in there, dig a hole and snooze the day away. Glad the weather is turning up for you.

 

[NwMtGardener]

Heather, I saw the first picture and my first reaction was Oh my! It was a little shocking to someone who is a neat freak in her garden.

But you make up for it with that beautiful compost bin. Ha

Mary

Haha, yes it was TIME TO GO for that old pile. My plan is to demo that whole area when the ground is a little more thawed, and just plant some perrenials on a slightly raised bed. No wood framing. I think i'll move the rhubarb there too.

 

[NwMtGardener]

Looks good , we do the same thing for a compost bin, the dogs and cats love it. They hop up in there, dig a hole and snooze the day away. Glad the weather is turning up for you.

They dont eat the compost? Mine are filthy vermin who will do anything they can to get in there and eat things like eggshells and coffee grounds!!!

 

[Wishin']

We don't throw eggs in our compost it attracts to many predators. The only things that get put in the compost around here are leaves, grass, ash, sheep/goat/chicken poop, pine shavings from the coops and and straw from the livestock shelters, I used to throw old produce in there too, but it is so much more enjoyable to feed it to the critters, so that is usually where it goes.

 

[NwMtGardener]

Well here's a tutorial on how NOT to prune and thin your lilacs, haha! If you haven't been following my hijacking of Mary's thread on her pear tree, I learned this is NOT the time to prune your lilacs! You should do it after they bloom, or late fall/winter. Yup. But not me, I did it over the past couple weeks. Oh, and I can't count either, earlier I referred to my 5, then 6 lilacs. There are 7 today. Not sure how many I will count tomorrow. You will notice the 5 in the middle have much smaller branches, those are the ones that got chainsawed off about 7 years ago. :/

The 3 on the left, two of them got a serious thinning!

The 3 on the right, and the 4th one is behind my car.

This is one of the 50+ year old ones, I finished cutting out all the sprouts you can see in the right half of it today. It looks better, but it's not very balanced because we have to keep the driveway open!

And my favorite, I treed this one out years ago because it has really nice trunks!

 

[Smart Red]

As with most trees and shrubs, you should not prune more than 1/3 of the plant in any one year. With shrubs, this means cutting out 1/3 of the oldest growth as close to the ground as possible. This is a pretty good tutorial on pruning lilacs.

I checked on line because I had heard that lilacs start setting bud formation two years before blooming so planting anytime other than right after blooming would impair the next two flowering seasons. That is not indicated in the article, but there is a very small window for pruning with out sacrificing future flowers.

 

[thistlebloom]

Haha Heather, you're so funny!
I like the one you limbed up to tree form. You could possibly balance the one on the driveway by removing that largish trunk on the right, then clean up the trunks up to tree height.
I love your little trailer, and pup (is that Lucy?).

 

[NwMtGardener]

Yup, pretty sure I broke all the rules! That's Lucy in the pics, her coat is getting so long, she needs her spring shave!