A Totally Average Day

 Finally the temperatures are back to "normal".  It was cold and snowy all day yesterday, never getting out of the 30s. But this morning dawned bright and clear and the temps have been in the mid-40s which is average for our April.  For a change I didn't have to worry about anything being too hot or too cold.  Everything was just as it should be.

It always amazes me when I plant cole crops out in cold, crappy weather and the next day they are standing up green and eager to grow.  I can tell these have all rooted in well and are already beginning to put on some new growth.

The peas were a little flat after that heavy snow and the second lettuce seeding is still being a bit careful but no harm done. The last row of peas goes in tomorrow. The carrots are looking awesome.

Nantes Half Long Carrots

I potted up my Caladium and Begonia tubers today.

This is my first time for these and they look great.  They are all big, healthy tubers and starting to show growth at the eyes.  I'm looking forward to seeing how these turn out.  They are destined for containers which normally have store-bought annuals in them, and I can store them over the winter for next season.

They look like big hairy donuts.
The sprouts are pink and the white stuff is the shavings they were packed in

I transplanted four varieties of Marigolds, two dozen each of Fireball, Strawberry Blonde, Durango Outback Mix and Snowball.  Marigolds are my favorite fill in annual so I always like to have a bunch ready to go.  You can buy a packet of 50 seeds for little more than a 6 pack of plants cost.  This is the first time I've grown them from seed and I was amazed at how quickly they germinated and grew.  If they are this easy then its a no-brainer.

Soon the Tulips will be in bloom

A Hot Mess

Today's forecasted high was 78 degrees.  It was 53 when I got up this morning and by noon it had hit 83 degrees in the shade and it stayed there all day.  It is currently, at 5pm,  81 on the north wall of the house.  For several days I debated whether to change the broccoli and cauliflowers to the insect mesh but since tomorrow is supposed to return to more reasonable weather, I decided instead to just run their pant legs up.  I didn't want them to cook in their little greenhouse.

The cold frame was another challenge.  I have several trays of young seedlings in there.  I can't just open it up the because the polycarbonate panels do block some of the sun and experience tells me I can easily scorch them.  With one panel down, a 50% shade cloth, and a fan running the air temp was 95 and the soil surface temp was 103.  I think everyone is OK

There was at least a nice stiff breeze today and we got another chunk of the mulching done around the house.  It was actually sort of pleasant because I had already cleaned, raked out and weeded the beds earlier in the week and we just had to cut some edging and do a lot of shoveling of new material.  Then we turned on the fridge in the garden shed and stocked it with water, sweet tea and beer.  Then the lawn was mowed for the first time.

I went around taking photos of daffodils to keep track of where they are for the next time I decide I must need a whole bunch more.  Which I don't.

I might add some yellow with deep orange centers.  They are a real stand out.  Most of mine are the giant mix for naturalizing and over time, the standard all yellow or white with yellow tend to take over.  I have only ever singled out the all white Mount Hood or the white with peach Salome.  But I am seeing a whole lot of the Ice Follies with their wide open pale yellow centers.  I was so sad last week when we got the eight inches of snow because I was afraid they would all have been crushed, but the two cold and lightly snowy days before hand had made all of the flowers close back up so when the heavier snow came on Tuesday they were less vulnerable and very few bent over.

It is a banner year for daffodils

Rescuing the Broccoli and Cauliflower Transplants

 The broccoli and cauliflower plants are just fine.  

I think that transplanting marigold seedlings can wait until tomorrow.

Typical Easter Morning

 It seems it always does this on Easter morning, no matter how many pretty days we have beforehand.  It's as if Mother Nature has something against little girls in bright bonnets and egg hunts on the lawn.

No gardening planned today

Windy Days and Apple Trees

First thing this morning, before I was willing to admit to actually being awake, (It is the one year anniversary of my retirement afterall) my husband said "let's go to Home Depot early this morning (like before breakfast) and get your apple tree".  

More about that later.

A Beautiful Sunny Spring Morning

This has been a fairly busy week, but I haven't blogged anything because until now I haven't finished anything.  I've been whittling away slowly at things.  The weather hasn't been bad, but it hasn't been good either.  There haven't been any really good "let's do a bunch of projects" type of days.  It has been more a "dash out and work for an hour" type of week.  

We dug a big hole out from under the front pavers that heaved in the winter and filled it back with gravel. We got the new load of beautiful fresh, aromatic mulch. but did not get back to mulching because it has been too wet.  Really freakin' wet. We got a dump truck load of rocks for a creek bed expansion.  The truck got off the edge of the drive and got really stuck.  The load got dumped in the middle of everything just to get the truck out.  My husband spent a whole afternoon sorting that problem out.   I spent two or three partial days preparing planting areas but not actually planting anything.  Things came in the mail.  Thoughts piled up.  Goals finally got accomplished.

My potato shipment came and is on the garden shed counter "chitting"

My spring bulb order came and was inspected but isn't ready to plant yet.

The cauliflower transplants got broken up into three tasks.  First the bed was raked and fertilized.  Then I drilled all the holes for the frost cover supports for this bed and another bed.  On the third day I rounded up the right frost cover and the shade cloth and installed that.  Then yesterday I transplanted the ones that were ready.  This freed up a spot under my grow light in the basement so this morning I seeded tomatoes.

This morning the third planting of peas went in with a side dressing of lettuce.

The first peas are looking nice, and the second row is just starting to poke through and will be visible in two or three days, right on schedule.  Those pots have teeny tiny carrots too.  Too small to photograph.

Closeup of peas and lettuce

Now back to that apple tree.  For the past year or so I have known that I needed to plant an apple tree near the garden as a cross pollinator for the two Northern Spy trees.  Away in the corner of the backyard we had three trees that the last owners had planted about 70 years ago.  One, a Yellow Transparent, we cut down a few years ago because we never got any apples from it and as an early, soft apple it was an absolute pest magnet.  Between the crows and the squirrels and the deer it was a feeding frenzy.  Sure its nice to feed the wildlife but I didn't want to draw them into our yard just to eat all those apples and then stay for the next batch too.

This left us with a Macintosh and an Empire.  In a good year we might get a bushel of apples which made really sweet applesauce.  And at least they cross pollinated the Spies. Last year the Empire tree finished dying and we pushed her over and hauled her to the burn pile.  I knew the Mac wouldn't last much longer.  We talked about putting a new tree in the spot where the Empire was but there were two problems with this.  #1 it was too close to the woods so there wasn't enough sun and #2 it was too close to the woods so the squirrels could jump from the woods trees right into the apple trees.  We had trimmed back some of the woods limbs but it was still not a good spot.  We needed to pick a spot in the garden area where we could defend our crop.  Yes, the main reason for planting it would be cross pollination but when you go to the expense and trouble to plant a tree you want to eat the apples too.

We have all of this room, but still there aren't a lot of unused areas.  You have to take into consideration what surface the apples are going to fall on and how it might affect your mowing and if it is in a high traffic area for squirrels and deer so on and so forth.  And it shouldn't be too wet and honestly, just about everywhere is too wet. I decided the only possible spot was along the chicken run where we had planted a triple paperbark birch some years ago.  The birch didn't survive but it is a pretty good place for an apple tree.

We hooked up the trailer and went to HD first thing this morning.  We hit all the lights just right.  The parking lot wasn't crowded.  I picked out my tree, put it on a flat cart and rolled it in to the service desk.  The Garden Center check out isn't open yet this time of year which makes check out of large garden stuff a little but of a hassle.  So I asked them nicely to check me out so I wouldn't have to fiddle with the self check out or wheel it all the way down to the Contractor desk.  Then I wheeled it right back Out the In door.  We wrapped it up and secured it in the trailer and headed home.  The sun was shining.  Everything seemed perfect.  As if it were meant to be.

This Gala apple is a late bloomer like the Northern Spy

After breakfast I planted the tree.  I wanted to get it settled before it breaks dormancy and the weather forecast is cool and rainy which will help too.  At this point, the beautiful sunny, calm morning changed to overcast and windy.  Really, unpleasantly windy.  Gusting 40 mph.  It blew over wheelbarrows and shovels and relocated anything not nailed down including the tarp covers on the mulch and gravel piles.  It was seriously irksome.

I had finished planting the tree and was waiting for the first can of water to soak in before adding another.  I decided I had better put in some T-posts and wire in some supports right away otherwise by morning it would likely be leaning.  I went to the garden shed to get the T-post pounder and I heard sort of a "crack crunch".  I thought "I'll bet we are going to lose some trees in the woods" so I stuck my head out and sort of scanned around and I saw....

This is one of those "I'm not kidding" moments.

The Macintosh.  The last old apple tree the wasn't good for much other than pollination.... was lying on her side.  She held on to the last possible moment and when the new tree was planted and it was OK for her to go.  She went.

I walked out there and gave her a pat and thanked her for her service.

And then I hurried away from the woods and all the other potential falling trees!

 

Peas Are Up

Lettuce to the left and Peas to the right

The first planting of peas and the lettuce is up at 17  days.  They were starting to disturb the soil yesterday and last night's rain gave them the encouragement they needed.  It has been a drizzy, dismal day around fifty degrees so we are glad we made the most of the warm sunshine.  

The only bright spot outside is the first daffodils.  I planted these Tête-à-Têtes in fall of 2020.  Last year they came up but the stems were almost as long as a regular daff.  I was a little disappointed because I wanted them short and compact like I have seen in other gardens.  And these weren't particularly cheap at the time compared to regular bulbs.  At last I am able to enjoy them as I'd hoped.

 

Tête-à-Tête Daffodils

More Mulching

It is just so easy to mulch the landscape beds before the plants grow up! 

And the soil is soft and the weeds haven't sprouted yet.

We put out a string line along the straight edges and go to town,  We dig a good deep edge that keeps the lawn from encroaching.  There are daffodils and orange daylilies in here.  Both can be mulched over without concern for their survival and right now they are only inches high.  This mulch is no longer hot.  In fact, its about ice cold.  So it can go right over the plants.

The length of this bed edge is over 165 feet.  That's a lot of shovels full and a lot of ups and downs. The digging is easy because we are only removing old mulch.  We are following the existing edge and the grass isn't growing yet so the sod is not hard to cut.  The old mulch is put in a pile where it continues to break down and will be used for drowning out weeds or amending lawn areas or as a final layer on clean fill areas.  Its pretty good stuff really.

We didn't know if we would get the new mulch added yesterday or not, but we did.  I was dog tired by the time we finished but I don't feel any the worse for wear today.  Yesterday was a perfect day for yard work.  It was dry and sunny, both warm and cool enough for hard work.

Today was warm again but cloudy and windy.  We are supposed to get some rain by morning which will freshen up the plants and clean the remaining mulch off of rocks and fences.  We took some time to heavily mulch the ground cover around this dry creek bed.  The ground cover is Houttuynia cordata or "Chameleon Plant" which is a terrible thuggish critter.  I wouldn't mind drowning it out some with a heavy mulch layer but it won't be discouraged at all.

That bed in summer

This colorful patch of crocuses is right by the door.  It was a popular spot for honey bees and when I went in later there was a big fat bumble bee passed out in one of the big white blooms.

5 Reasons Why I'm Not Growing Potatoes in Raised Beds | Growing Potatoes...

 This popped up in my YouTube feed today and I really enjoyed it.  He talks about prioritizing garden space, managing soil health, improving cost to output potential and maximizing your joy of gardening.  These are the things we have to take into consideration when we plan our crops.  It follows closely to my own feelings on potatoes.

This year I ordered a small amount of seed potatoes, less than I ever have.  I am planting them in 7 gallon grow bags.  Because I am growing in containers, I have to take into account the cost of soil and/or soil amendments when planning my potato crop.  I chose my favorite white potato "Satina" that we enjoy as salt potatoes when they are new.  

I don't have a really good storage place for potatoes.  They do fine for a few months so I need to moderate the amount that I plant with plans to store.  I've already chucked that last of our wrinkly potatoes a few weeks ago.  I love digging new potatoes and it is satisfying to put some away for storage, but in the deep dark winter I still get a lot of joy from bringing home an inexpensive bag of fresh, clean potatoes from the store.

Second Peas Planted

 

This photo is from the last planting.  Too cold for snaps.

I just went out and planted the second row of peas.  

Four ounces, soaked overnight.

Side dressed with lettuce seeds.

The first planting will not start to poke through until next week some time.

Yesterday's weather:  65 degrees and overcast.  Windy with breaks of sun and occasional sprinkles.

Today's weather:  31 degrees and overcast.  A stiff wind and on and off wet snow.  April Fools!

It's getting to be time to start seeding my snapdragons and marigolds in the cold frame with heat.  

Seems a little foolish.  I'm going to need a sunny day to take the plunge.