I know it's not spring everywhere...
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Lovely bike ride in the park today. I think it was in the 60s. But it got windy too.
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It's been as high as 81 once. Tomorrow will 83 and the day after 85.
I'm kind of dreading it.
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Or anywhere, really. Lol.
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It was 79 degrees last Friday; we got a couple of inches of snow on Wednesday, the first day of spring. Go figure.
We finally had our silver maple tree pruned, a project I had been dreading for a long time. The tree was overhanging the roof on the north (back) side of our house. We kept trying to prune the branches away from the house and roof but finally caved and had a couple of very large lower limbs removed this morning. Mas luz! I think my veggie garden and the roses I planted last year will be much happier.
These guys were amazing. We have a three season room with a Lexan roof that can't be walked on. And utility lines. And lots of landscaping. All of which had to be taken into consideration when figuring out how to get the limbs down safely. And just to make things interesting, the wind picked up towards the end of their work. I don't think I could ever work as a tree pruner. Watching the guy move around from one part of the tree to another made my hair stand on end.
No damage to anything in the yard, power stayed on and lines stayed up, and the crew cleaned up beautifully. After they were done, the main guy who was up in the tree said he likes jobs like ours where he has to get creative about how to tackle the project. TBH, when he first walked in the back yard he had an "oh, sh!t" look on his face. But they got it done.
And the dreaded project is checked off the list!!!
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I took advantage of last week's warm weather to remove four fairly large boxwoods. They have been declining for years and were also growing into an adjoining pine that's gotten really big. Out they came.
Funny story...landscaping guy in his pickup truck stopped across the street and came over to give us a business card and to see if he could drum up some business. Guess we looked like a couple of geezers who might need help. I was in the process of digging out the stump for the first of the four bushes, and he offered to dig it out for me. "I won't charge you."
I declined politely and thanked him, pointing to the other three bushes and explaining that I was taking all of them out. He told me that I needed to water the other ones (they were quite brown from a boxwood disease that they had). I thanked him again. He went on his merry way, and I finished up my work. -
Ha! My chives and Thyme survived! Rosemary, not so much.
All of the mosses look good. Let鈥檚 see which ones spread the most.
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The crocus and daffodils are coming out here, and it was so warm that I really enjoyed running several errands on foot yesterday.
We are in the last few months of our first year in this house, so we're getting the last garden surprises. I didn't know we had crocus until a patch of purple showed up in our back yard. (Unfortunately, we also have deer or rabbits or something, because something ate them.)
I'm not familiar with pieris, so I was pleasantly surprised to see it blooming in our front yard. And the rhododendron has great big buds, so I'm excited to see it come into bloom.
I'm going to be too busy with the new book to do any vegetable gardening this year, but I've got four tabletop aeroponics systems in my office that are doing great. I've been getting red cherry tomatoes, jalape帽o peppers, and lettuce for a while, and I picked my first cucumbers this week. The yellow cherry tomato is covered with blossoms, and the Fairy Tale eggplants have buds. The LED grow lamps on those things keep an upstairs window lit up for part of the night, so I think our neighbors think I'm growing pot up there.
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The crocus and daffodils are coming out here, and it was so warm that I really enjoyed running several errands on foot yesterday.
We are in the last few months of our first year in this house, so we're getting the last garden surprises. I didn't know we had crocus until a patch of purple showed up in our back yard. (Unfortunately, we also have deer or rabbits or something, because something ate them.)
I'm not familiar with pieris, so I was pleasantly surprised to see it blooming in our front yard. And the rhododendron has great big buds, so I'm excited to see it come into bloom.
I'm going to be too busy with the new book to do any vegetable gardening this year, but I've got four tabletop aeroponics systems in my office that are doing great. I've been getting red cherry tomatoes, jalape帽o peppers, and lettuce for a while, and I picked my first cucumbers this week. The yellow cherry tomato is covered with blossoms, and the Fairy Tale eggplants have buds. The LED grow lamps on those things keep an upstairs window lit up for part of the night, so I think our neighbors think I'm growing pot up there.
@Mary-Anna said in I know it's not spring everywhere...:
I've got four tabletop aeroponics systems
Ooh, tell us more!
I didn't know we had crocus until a patch of purple showed up in our back yard. (Unfortunately, we also have deer or rabbits or something, because something ate them.)
Rabbits love crocus leaves and flowers.
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The weeping cherry lives!
Sunny and 70 here today - time to assess the carnage.
Looks like 鈥榤ost everything survived the winter but the yellow roses look pretty ratty. The big pot with the pink rose in it shattered all to hell and being as the rose never really looked right in the space I chucked the whole mess in to the trash.
Most interesting are the mosses, which I planted in the fall. Each plug has been frost heaved right out of the ground. Some survived, some didn鈥檛. Prolly ought to plant them earlier this year.
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March did not go out like a lamb here. We've had 3 bouts of mixed precipitation, each with 1 to 3 inches of accumulated snow/ice. Each was followed by one or two days of 30s -40s F. Yesterday, I swear, slush was falling from the sky! Temps have been on the rise for the past 8 hours and we're now at around 50F and aren't supposed to go below 45F tonight. So I didn't light the stove. It's cool in here, but not too bad. A little space heater gets the chill out from around the desk.
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We continue to have whipsaw weather. Really warm temps and then they plummet. We may get some snow on Monday. I've been catching up on garden organization projects that aren't weather-dependent. Always seems like I chuck a bunch of pots back in the corner of the yard at the end of the previous season, leaving an unsightly mess. I went through those, got rid of some, and stacked the rest neatly. I also emptied out the elevated beds and am mixing some fresh soil and compost in so that I'm ready when it's time to plant. I have one early daffodil that bloomed last week.
My neighbor is taking out three very tall arborvitaes that shade an area adjacent to my veggie garden. More sun!
So what are y'all going to be growing this year in the way of veggies?
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We continue to have whipsaw weather. Really warm temps and then they plummet. We may get some snow on Monday. I've been catching up on garden organization projects that aren't weather-dependent. Always seems like I chuck a bunch of pots back in the corner of the yard at the end of the previous season, leaving an unsightly mess. I went through those, got rid of some, and stacked the rest neatly. I also emptied out the elevated beds and am mixing some fresh soil and compost in so that I'm ready when it's time to plant. I have one early daffodil that bloomed last week.
My neighbor is taking out three very tall arborvitaes that shade an area adjacent to my veggie garden. More sun!
So what are y'all going to be growing this year in the way of veggies?
@wtg Tomatoes, one Zucchini plant, Cucumbers. These will all be started soon in trays.
I'm going to try planting lettuce, radish, and peas very early this year. In fact if the ground is workable now I might even give it go this early. Reason is that if I wait to plant until our last frost is past, they will bolt.
I will also grow Swiss Chard and maybe Carrots. Maybe a few potatoes plants too.
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Rosemary, French thyme, lemon thyme, chives (back from last year), Tarragon (back from last year), sage, basil, cilantro, bay leaves (survived winter in the house). Maybe hot peppers of some kind.
Meanwhile, I鈥檓 pulling weeds. They are always the first things to appear.
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Potatoes - Kennebec, Pink Gypsy, Russet and Red Pontiac.
Tomatoes - Little Sicily and Sweet 100s.
Cukes - several different pickling varieties
Green beans - Kentucky Wonder
Mesclun mix (a modest planting, as Mr wtg isn't a fan)_
Bok choy
Peppers - Mostly poblano, maybe a jalapeno or two.
Sorrel - I have seeds that are old but I'll plant them anyway. Sorrel soup is excellent.
Onions and shallots
Spinach@Bernard I like the idea of Swiss Chard. Have never grown it. Is it hard to grow?
I did peas last year and I love them but yields weren't great.
@Steve-Miller I have chive plants my Dad dug up from his garden that he gave to me back in the 1980s!
I'm currently looking for DYI critter protection ideas on You Tube. The squirrels always want to get into the beds and I want to be ready for them this year. I also need to build some kind of frame so I can put a row cover over the black currants and hopefully avoid the aphids I've been getting on them every year since I planted them.
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Potatoes - Kennebec, Pink Gypsy, Russet and Red Pontiac.
Tomatoes - Little Sicily and Sweet 100s.
Cukes - several different pickling varieties
Green beans - Kentucky Wonder
Mesclun mix (a modest planting, as Mr wtg isn't a fan)_
Bok choy
Peppers - Mostly poblano, maybe a jalapeno or two.
Sorrel - I have seeds that are old but I'll plant them anyway. Sorrel soup is excellent.
Onions and shallots
Spinach@Bernard I like the idea of Swiss Chard. Have never grown it. Is it hard to grow?
I did peas last year and I love them but yields weren't great.
@Steve-Miller I have chive plants my Dad dug up from his garden that he gave to me back in the 1980s!
I'm currently looking for DYI critter protection ideas on You Tube. The squirrels always want to get into the beds and I want to be ready for them this year. I also need to build some kind of frame so I can put a row cover over the black currants and hopefully avoid the aphids I've been getting on them every year since I planted them.
@wtg said in I know it's not spring everywhere...:
@Bernard I like the idea of Swiss Chard. Have never grown it. Is it hard to grow?
Swiss Chard is easy to grow here, except for that year when it was attacked by leaf miners. So I didn't grow any the year after that and when I started again, did so in a different area. It did very well last year. I love using Swiss Chard in quiche w/ leeks.
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I had good luck staking down laundry baskets and milk crates over my lettuce to keep rabbits out.
Might work.
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The freezing rain and snow continues but I just placed an order with Gurney's, thought I'd try them this year.
Perseus Hybrid Slicing Cucumber seeds
Gurney Girl's Best Hybrid Tomato seeds
Kennebec seed Potatoes
Honeoye Junebearing Strawberry plantsI may not get any strawberries this year seeing they're June bearing, but you never know.
I'll get annual flower seeds and other veg seeds at the hardware store.
