May 30. We've had a good inch and a half of rain over the past week, and now the sun is shining. Let the planting begin! Yes, I know I was going to wait until June for the transplants....but....the long range forecast shows double digit lows, so.... (10C = 50F)
Most of the tomatoes just went in,
and all of the peppers.
Garlic and onions are looking good, broccoli and turnips are just showing. New this year is a bean teepee.
We cut a bunch of young poplars and lashed them together, poked them into the soil and I've planted Scarlet runner and Mosteller climbing beans around the base. It will be fun to watch them reach for the top, then watch the hummingbirds in the blooms. At the other end of the field garden, where I turned over a new section last year, we drove in sturdy posts, then lashed some page wire fencing to lean over to them on a 45 degree angle.
This is a trellis for the cucumbers, not planted yet. It is a new take on the pallet ramp I used last year. Bush beans are going in part of the field garden, and they will be planted soon. There are 6 more tomato plants to go in there as well, and the requisite zucchini. Down one side, I planted my double row of glad corms on the 18th, and today there are 26 poking up!
Between and around all my garden beds, well, just everywhere!, the dandelions put on a good show this spring, and we left them for the early pollinators. Now they've all turned into white fluff balls, and mowing will cause them to waft all over my garden soil.
Do you suppose taking the vacuum out and sucking them all up would be a good idea?!!
Earlier, I made my own carrot seed tapes, as it is so much more pleasant to sit at the table and space the seeds out with some white glue and a strip of toilet paper, than try to sow them on a windy day, or while being harassed by biting insects. Once the tapes are planted, they are watered, then covered with some rubber matting or boards or black plastic; what ever will cover the patch. I lift up the edge to check daily, and once the seeds germinate, the cover comes off. I've found that germination is relatively quick (for carrots), and the rate is close to 100% using this method.
The French fingerling potatoes and Yukon Gems are growing in the barrels. As they get bigger, I add soil from the white pails to "hill" them.
After the burst of heat mentioned in my last post, the weather stayed somewhat cool, and the explosion of greenery in the bush slowed to a normal rate. Now the usual plants for this time of year are blooming, my lady slipper orchids are in full "pinkness",
fragrant, wild lily-of-the-valley is blooming,
as is the yellow clintonia (blue bead lily).
Star flowers are everywhere,
as well as fringed polygala, (gaywings),
and bunch berry blooms are starting to open.
On the bird front, the bluebirds are now feeding young, the activity at the nest box noticeably increased just a couple of days ago. The male bluebird is finally getting in on the action, taking his turn bringing food to the box.
The phoebes are incubating eggs in their nest up under the verandah eaves. Chipping Sparrows have built a nest in one of the pyramidal cedars in front of the verandah, at the opposite end from the phoebes, and a robin has decided that near the back axle of the old tractor, sort of under the slope of the fender, is a great place to build a nest.
At last count, there were 4 eggs in the nest, and she has started spending a lot of time there. We were waiting until spring moisture dried up to have a trucker come and take the old tractor to the wreckers...now that won't happen for a while!
I am very interested in how you used cardboard in your garden. Did you place the cardboard on top of the bed or is it at the very bottom of your raised bed with your planting soil on top. I am always looking for ways to discourage weeds! You have a nice looking garden!
ReplyDeleteThank you Anonymous. My beds are just framed, in situ soil, with lots of compost and manure added. Once the plants are in, I cut pieces of cardboard to fit around the stems, a good few inches out, to allow for growth, covering the soil surface all around the plants and up to the edge of the bed's frame, then add a thick layer of last fall's leaves, and hold it down with rocks and boards. We have sandy soil and often less rain than is optimum. In a wetter environment, this would be a good place for slugs, snails and earwigs...but thankfully we have few of them.
DeleteMy gosh, what a burst of spring time and the growing season at your place! You're ahead of me, but then who isn't? (Sigh. That's what we get for seeming to live too close to the Arctic Circle.) We've had too much rain and I fear my newly planted raised beds may have had all their seeds washed hither and yon and I'll have to start all over again. The surfaces of the beds were like a series of small lakes. We have a bumper crop of dandelions this year, too. We mow one day and the next there are more of them! I don't mind looking at them at all but those seeds get into my strawberry patch and big, strong new dandelions insist on growing right in the center of the plants. Grrr. Makes it hard to live peaceably with nature!
ReplyDeleteOh, Mama Pea! I feel your pain! How discouraging that would be. That is an awful lot of water...raised bed lakes! Yikes. Gardening is a gamble, wherever one does it, but sometimes it is extra hard to roll with the punches Mother Nature dishes out.
DeleteCredit for the trillium header picture, goes to our son.
ReplyDelete