What Did You Do In The Garden?

[Trish Stretton]

According to my moon calendar, it was That day to plant out and sow berry/fruit grain and seed type plants
So, all the Beefsteak tomatoes got planted out....after I got all their stakes in and cross braced- I should have done that yesterday!
These went into a 4 foot wide bed, so I centered them and spaced them out at 40cm-1 1/3 feet.. Along the sun side of the bed, went a double row of cannellini beans. Some were old seed and some were from what I saved from last year. I'm thinking that I should probably have just used the fresh saved seed, but I didnt think of that til I realised that I didnt have enough to do the second half of the second row. So we will see how it pans out. I can always sow some more.

I found a packet of Yard long beans that I forgot I had so some of these were sown under a trellis, be nice if they actually grew.

My 'Whero' peas got direct sown between the sweet corn plants as well as under a trellis that runs around my water tank and the Nigella seeds were sprinkled around in front of the peas.
These should go well together and not impend each other.

I needed to lower the shelf in the porch and put the second one up, which took forever to get level, but finally its done and I now have my punnets of capsicums, jalapeno, eggplant...cant remember what else now.

Oh and I discovered why I wasnt getting as many asparagus spears as I thought I should be....my dog has been pinching them.
I found a nice big fat one and was munching on it for lunch, gave the last bit to the dog and trotted off to the next job, which just happened to take me back passed the asparagus bed, where I spied Jack chewing the ground.??? so I hid behind the apple tree to watch him and yep, he was eating the spears right down to the ground. Soo, I either need to plant more, or I need to fence of that part of the bed!

 

[digitS']

Funny about Jack, @Trish Stretton .

I really enjoy seeing English used in a different way and with a different vocabulary from how I am accustomed. Punnets- I had to check the definition .

Really try to be careful about my own English use. I have so many years being hard of hearing that my spoken language has changed, of course. Beyond that, not hearing the spoken word results in no reinforcing of written language use. Despite those college classes in linguistics, my word choices ain't wha they uster bee.

Steve

 

[Trish Stretton]

Today, I really needed to finish cutting back the branches of the Mulberry tree that were hanging over my neighbors green house.
I cut out as much of the low soft stuff that I could reach and had to climb the tree, with one foot on the fence to trim back some of the higher stuff....then had to climb into the middle of the tree to trim off small branches that went off into weird angles.
Just as I was starting on a medium sized branch, the wind picked up, so I decided that it was a good time to vacate the tree.
I dont need to go to a gym to get a work out, the back yard provides enough of that!

So, inside for a cuppa coffee. I hadnt realised that I had been at it for a solid 2 1/2 hours and was quietly pleased when it started to rain.....a reprieve from the rest of the tree that really does need to be completely cut down along with the next door Chestnut treeling. ( what was I thinking? putting it there?)
Thats going to be interesting!

Meanwhile, I did manage to get the second shelf up in the porch, but I'm not happy with the support brackets, so I need to dig around to see if I can find my old ones. the shelf is level but doesnt feel stable.

And finally, according to my moon calendar, it was time to sow or plant out leafy green things, so a few different types of cabbages, lettuces, Basil, cilantro...couldnt find the Mizuna seed but I apparently have tomorrow as well to do them.

 

[Zeedman]

Obviously not much going on in the garden at this point, but I finally decided to take down the dying apple tree. It has been slowly dying back from fire blight. If a person can have respect for a plant, that tree has certainly earned it. It caught the fire blight from the adjoining Red Delicious, which died 2 years after catching it (apparently from web worms). This tree, on the other hand (perhaps a Cortland) really put up a fight - for 10 years! It slowly died branch by branch, all the while bearing apples on the good wood every single year. I actually felt bad cutting it down, it felt like saying goodbye to an old friend.

About that Red Delicious. Suckers have been coming up from the stump for years, and I kept cutting them off - but the stump refused to die. A few years ago, I came home & found that DW had put a fence up around some 3-4' suckers to protect them. I told her that the suckers were most likely from the rootstock, and would bear unusable fruit if any. (The tree mentioned above had two trunks when we moved in, one of which was from the rootstock with tiny green apples, and we cut it down). She insisted on giving the suckers a chance, so I let them be.

Well lo and behold, those suckers (now 8' tall) flowered this year, and produced a few apples - apparently Red Delicious! I'm not fond of the variety myself, since they are temperamental & require spraying to produce good apples; but DW likes them, so I'll begin training it into a restrained habit. Not the first time DW has proven me wrong, she's got a green thumb that rivals my own.

We plan on putting in one more pear & one more apple tree next year. And given that we are about to lose about 1/2 of our 100+ trees to disease, I may be starting my own tree nursery to grow several potential replacements. It appears I am destined to become an arborist in my senior years, albeit reluctantly.

 

[flowerbug]

@Zeedman sad at the loss of trees, but every tree has a certain life cycle even if it doesn't have any diseases. i would have made the same call on the suckers not likely being edible, but not all trees are grafted so that may have been one of them. you got lucky!

 

[digitS']

@Zeedman , we have volunteers from peach pits in the compost. DW is particular about the fresh peaches she buys and so, she is delighted to see the seedlings.

One grew into a nice tree, produced a tremendous crop of white peaches (just as she liked), sickened from blight, and lost its ability to produce decent fruit. I cut it down, cut it up and hauled it away. Disappointed everyone, including the neighbor who could reach several pounds of fruit from her side of the fence. Well, there is another volunteer that produced it's first crop of about 10 peaches, last year. Yep, same tasty fruit!

Sorry for them? Yep. But, I'm sorry for the bugs that I see around on a warm, November afternoon! There was a fly on the South Window, yesterday. Maybe I shrugged that experience off ... the Honey Bee that showed up about 2 weeks ago on the living room window that opens -- I was sorely tempted to allow him to come in!

Steve
who leveled a backyard bed , yesterday - where the ground wasn't frozen.

 

[Zeedman]

Steve
who leveled a backyard bed , yesterday - where the ground wasn't frozen.

So you weren't just watching this time? Did anyone else see you do it? You do realize that your cover is blown now...

 

[Dirtmechanic]

I went out and picked almost a half bucket of tomatoes. I guess this is the last, next week is a hard freeze so I will take up the remainder. These are celebrity, and the second crop. Funny how they are smaller than the spring crop, but always sweeter. Must be the drier weather. I have learned I like smaller tomatoes. Just enough for a sandwich or so, with no half cut fruit leftover like the big ones.

I have only been composting leaves while doing some bathroom remodel work, but the garden needs cleaning and resetting now too. Crazy how much planting I do this time of year to give roots time to get ready for spring. I have bought a bag of fescue seed to put out. I see the winter lawn has decided to start growing again after the heat of summer. It does not take as much as it used to, and its nice having grasses that come and go at different times. I finally found a winter grass that can survive our heat pretty well. The hurricane actually knocked over some of the roses I put out so I will have a look and give them a good coat of hardwood mulch and winter feed. We keep P but K goes away pretty quick in our soil. Some lime is needed, not too much, but its easier to stay ahead of that game. I read the PH a few times and its close to heading south. We see 5 and 5.5 Ph when not amended. Dolomite works well here as the rains acidify our leached soil and the magnesium is usually low.

One fun thing toward stopping the leaching is the growing pile of charcoal I have been building. I usually get a couple of wheel barrow loads every time I burn the twigs and picked up stick from the yard. The hurricane gave me plenty. I will mix it into my compost shortly. I had a big pile of branches that have settled to about a third in size or less over the last three years so I know there is a bunch of black gold under there. Its gonna make my back sing but it will be worth it in the springtime.

 

[Trish Stretton]

Over the last few days I got so much done.
After work on Sunday, I plucked my baby tea hedge and got almost half a big bowl of leaves. Normally, I take them inside and dry toast them in my wok, but after reading that this is done to sterilize the leaves, I just popped the bowl on the hood of my work truck and every now and then, rolled the leaves in my hands. By the end of the day they had all dried down to a very small jar- I should have taken a before and after pic. Its quite shocking how small the end result is...but I still think its worth it, nice fresh organic green tea.

Monday was quite busy, I started the day fixing up the next shelf in the porch, I was going to call it the top shelf but yesterday I decided there was room for one more.
Anyway, the brackets I had used were too unstable. I finally found ones that were better and changed them out and the decided that I should put the last one up as well, so now there are three shelves for my seedlings and cuttings.

By the time I had done all that, it was time to go around all the lawn edges with the line trimmer aka weed eater, as well as the faces of the rock walls and then mow the lawns.
The clippings from the back lawn were used to sprinkle around my newly planted out things. In the front, I scraped off the old clipping from the little path between me and Julia and used that to mulch one of the beds alongside of the house. The fresh lawn clippings were just enough to cover our little path. I always tread them down and if they are a little dry, water it so that they will cook any weeds that think to grow here.

It wasnt a root planting day, but I had 2 6 packs of kim chi/korean radishes that really did need to go in the ground, so that got done.

The tea hedge was looking alittle leggy, so that needed to be trimmed, mainly the sides.

Today, the dump was open, so I did a couple of runs. One was just getting rid of some aluminium framing that I had been given to use as a greenhouse but it just didnt work out so it was broken down and dumped. The second load was green waste- sometimes, you just have more than you can deal with and good riddance, especially when its full of weed seeds.
Before going home, I went shopping for some blood and bone that I needed to feed the new plants with. Also got some seaweed/fish fert cos i wasnt sure that my homemade stuff was okay...and happened to notice a couple of really good looking rock melon plants and a pot with two, not one gherkins so they had to come home with me as well.

Two of the San Marzano toms didnt look very good so they were pulled out and the rock melons have replqced them.
I have mesh trellis that just needs a bit of a trim which will then be put up for them to grow up.

I noticed that the cucumber that was not supposed to be a climber....was trying to climb, so I set up a trellis next to it and coaxed it over and up.

....and lastly, all the plants got a little feed of blood and bone powder, just in time cos it then started to rain, yet again.
This has got to be the wettest coolest spring for a long time.

 

[Dahlia]

I love working in the garden! I am currently planning out the layout for next year and what to plant. I saw some cool garden markers online that I might get. Has anyone tried ones like these before?