stubbed toes and mud pies

[flowerbug]

psst! @ninnymary, you see all that green stuff in the background? those are weeds. you're welcome to come and help get those out of there anytime you'd like.

i posted this picture before from last fall, but this is as far as i'd gotten back then.

i started up again the past few weeks with some weeding and clearing more gravel out of the dirt as i go along the edges. i have piles of gravel and dirt now that need to be screened along there along with another pile of sand and smaller gravel that washed through from the first screening i did last year. before that gets all covered with weeds and grass again i need to get a smaller mesh screen and get the gravel out of there too.

the entire NE garden is now taken over by grasses/weeds, etc. from what i planted some years ago as a mix of alfalfa and birdsfoot trefoil...

NE_Garden | Anthive

Learning by doing...

www.anthive.com

not sure yet how much i'll get done before other things get going... one to three hours a day is all i can manage right now when the weather cooperates. which today is doing so i'm heading out now that it has warmed up enough. i have a bit of other weeding i need to do first before i can get to digging this area to clear it again.

 

[ninnymary]

Horrors of Horrors I do feel for you Flowerbug. What about sheet mulching? I would be there in a second to help you weed if I lived close to you.

Mary

 

[flowerbug]

Horrors of Horrors I do feel for you Flowerbug. What about sheet mulching? I would be there in a second to help you weed if I lived close to you.

Mary

haha!

whatever i can clear back there this season gets planted with beans, squash and melons. i can't sheet mulch it as i want to use the space and with as much grass and other weeds in there i have to keep it bare for a few seasons before finding out what else i want to plant there for the next cover crop. there's a fair bit of clover back there in one area i can let that go, but i'm tired of weeding that so i'm turning that all under too for worm food.

so far radishes, turnips and dill are on my list. i certainly have enough melon seeds to start a roadside stand. alas, i don't have any room for it and people would complain. squash and beans are both foods that store enough i can do those for sure in the space for the growing season, i need to do something else for the off season weed smothering. both radishes and turnips can work for that. if i had a fence strawberries would go in there and be well worth the effort.

cosmos. i'm gonna put more cosmos in.

i suspect the beans are going to get eaten more by the deer as i keep removing the other stuff... hmm... i don't want deer back there. that's actually a part of the main reason to get rid of all the cover back there. it's attracting them. the other part of the main reason is that i hate mowing and every square foot i can remove of area we are mowing the less time i have to spend on that and i can get back to gardening instead.

don't mind me, i'm waking up and rambling.

none of the pictures i took today were worth posting - the hard frost knocked all the crocuses back that were blooming and the rest of the pics were just for my own record keeping.

 

[flowerbug]

looks like another nice day to be out there so lunch it is and then back to it.

continue some digging, which i will start with today to get moving and loosen me up. yesterday was a few hours of weeding and one hour of digging. so reverse that and see if i can dig for two hours and weed for one.

speedwell in the gravel up front is a royal PITA. have to keep at it though because if i don't the seeds will wash down into the north garden and make that even worse than it already is. you really don't want to know how much fun it is to pick speedwell seedlings out of creeping thyme...

 

[flowerbug]

early pea planting is always a question of if the soil is warm enough and how much more of frosts/snow you think you'll be getting.

with colder soil and more chances of frost/snow the less likely the peas are going to germinate quickly anyways, so waiting another week probably is an ok idea. yet if i wait too long then the tail end of the pea crop gets into the hotter weather of summer...

my compromise for this location and microclimate is to wait until about the 10th of April and see what the forecast looks like. if it is cold and wet waiting another week. if it is warm enough they'll sprout then i'll put some in.

this season i'm trying to go for mostly just a few varieties instead of planting way too many. i want pods and i want seeds and i don't have enough seeds of these so i really want to get them all planted and growing. i just have to figure where...

 

[flowerbug]

a few pics from this morning:


killdeer eggs, the same pair that have been nesting in the back fenced garden area for many years now, much calmer and quieter than the ones that don't know us. she let me snap this picture without a single peep.

garlic patch with green garlic to the right:

onion patch showing how well the seedlings survived from last fall without any mulch.

 

[flowerbug]

the long views and closer up pics of the current project, more words at:

NE_Garden | Anthive

Learning by doing...

www.anthive.com

 

[flowerbug]

made it back to the flower patch yesterday and i was hoping to get more done today but instead i'm being a fair-weather gardener and taking a break with the winds gusting up to 30mph and some rains it's just not going to happen today...

book to read, computer stuff to mess with, nap probably likely. Mom off playing cards with her friend for the afternoon so i can enjoy the moments of complete quiet for a change.

often these mornings i get roped into helping her do whatever she wants done before she heads out the door so today i was sous-chef in cutting up the rice-krispy treats and making four grilled cheese sandwiches and then i did all the dishes after she put everything in the containers she wanted to use. zing, there goes the morning by so quickly.

i thought the afternoon was going to be warmer and calmer so i could get outside. Michigan spring weather. nope, but it's ok. raining, chances of snow and colder the next few days and then it looks like Thurs or Friday i will be able to get back out there again.

i don't mind having some breaks anyways here or there as it gives my body more time to recover as i'm getting more muscles and stamina built back up again. 3-4hrs of garden work a day is plenty now so i'm doing about double what i was doing a few weeks ago. i'll be back to 6-8hrs in a few more weeks and that will be about my limit unless there's a real crunch time for some reason. planting can be a bit longer but it's not nearly as much work as what i'm doing now with busting sod.

 

[flowerbug]

hard frosts, windy, no rain this week, some chance of rain predicted for later today.

i've not made much progress on anything gardening, a little bit of weeding, then we mowed yesterday and i had to run to town for a few errands so that was that day gone too. then we have a small family thing today with our pod so another day will go by without too much outside stuff getting done.

and then... well, let's just say that if Mom ever told me something and i didn't listen and i was stubborn or ignored her i'm being paid back for it in spades. very frustrating. it will be ok, it's not my issue, but when i'm here to help out it is hard to have stuff happen that could have been prevented. can't say much more but wow...

i tried to get some pictures of flowers and liked only a few of them. with the frosts it withered some of them so i won't get a second chance now.

i'd like to get outside sometime this morning and pick some green onions to be used in Thousand Island dressing. that will give me a few minutes of garden time. hmm, now i'll wonder how well they did with the hard frosts we had and if they're in good enough condition to pick...

in the meantime i have a few scraps i can feed to some worms and that will be good to see some of my buddies.

that's about what is new here.

 

[flowerbug]

in the North Garden the sandwort is starting to bloom. i like to try different things and to see what plants might work together in combination. while i was walking by this morning the light wasn't too bad so i tried to get a few pictures of how it looks. this corner has always been a difficult spot.

the thyme is almost filling it in (at last). the sandwort gets weeds around and underneath it when it grows alone so with the thyme filling in around it there is much less weeds showing up (not there aren't any at all but fewer is better).

North Garden | Anthive

If I only had a fence...

www.anthive.com