mudpies's Blog

Gardening on hold because of rain
Jun 1, 2009 | 5:10 PM PST
Tags: Cleaning , pickerel , Asparagus , japanese painted fern

Five whole days since my last entry!  That's because I don't have much gardening news.  We've had either high winds or rain or both since then.  I WANT TO PLAY IN THE DIRT!!

Oh, well!  At least I put my 'down time' to good use.  I went at my van with a commercial vacuum cleaner and found that it was carpeted under an assortment of loose soil, empty pots, garden implements and just plain junk!    During the process I discovered a novel I began to read last year and enough coins to make my wallet very heavy.  Now, when I set out to drive, I have to double-check to make sure I'm in the right vehicle.

Then I tackled my basement, otherwise known as the dungeon.  It was even worse than my van.  Some people have lovely family rooms in their basements.  Not this family!  I'd like to say that the dungeon is strictly utilitarian, but that would be a gross over-statement, maybe even a big, fat lie.  What it is, is a repository for our local library's Santa Claus parade float decorations including an artificial tree, stuff we're storing for one of my daughters, toys for the grandkids, all kinds of gardening stuff - pots, various ornaments, potting soil, stakes, etc., an assortment of tools and parts for C's business, some life-sized manequins for Hallowe'en, leftover bits and pieces from building our house (lumber, siding, nails, etc.), C's fishing equipment, a dog crate filled with stuff our dog, Clyde, had gathered up here and there - toys, bones and whatnot,   two freezers, a washer, dryer and laundry sink, a washroom and a large furnace, among other things.  It's been a long time since I did a thorough cleaning down there and I'm afraid I'm not 'a place for everything and everything in its place' sort of person.    (Well, I seem to be 'a place for everything' kinda gal, but absolutely NOTHING had an appropriate place of its own. )  In fact, it was difficult to make my way from the bottom of the stairs to the door to the garage.

I've got a long way to go, but at least everything's sorted into some kind of logical order and the floor's been swept and scrubbed.  I still need to get a lot of laundry done and scrub the bathroom.  (I may get at that tomorrow.  It's raining as I write, so another 'no gardening' day.)  And, YES!!  I can actually walk in a straight line from the stairs to the garage!!  Wonders will never cease!

C had fun on his fishing trip and came home with some pickerel for tonight's dinner.  I made potato pancakes and steamed some fresh asparagus to go with it.  Mmm  mmm  mmm!

During one of the few breaks in the weather, I moved my Japanese painted fern down to the farm.  I hope that wasn't a mistake.  It was getting crowded out here, but the wind has taken its toll on it since I moved it.  I've been especially proud of that fern.  It was one of my 'foundlings' - an end-of-the-season bargain - broken and wilted when I bought it.  It was very beautiful before I moved it.  I can only hope that it will return to its normal, robust self when this darned wind finally decides to settle.

Finally able to put some more garden in
May 18, 2009 | 7:25 PM PST
Tags: a touch of frost , goat's beard , Bleeding Heart , Asparagus , carrot , cosmos , goat , sunflower , plant potatoes , Banana Fingers , Chieftains , California white potatoes , Yukon gold potatoes

We didn't get any rain yesterday!!  But the wind was oh so strong.  Besides, my youngest daughter and her husband hosted a family birthday party for me, so I took the day off from gardening.

We got frost overnight again, and it destroyed part of my bleeding heart and wrecked some of my asparagus.  I'm sure both will survive, but it was disappointing, nevertheless.

It was cool this morning, but sunny and there was no wind, thank goodness.  Yesterday's wind knocked the snot out of my newly planted goat's beard.  I hope it's a tough plant.  C and I headed to the farm to get some more garden in.  Both of my younger daughters and two of my grandchildren met us there.  My grandson wanted to plant a row of carrots, so I prepared the soil and made the tiny furrow.  My grandson sowed the seed and tamped the row after I covered it.  He did a really good job for a hyper 8-year old.  My granddaughter checked my supply of seeds and chose to plant a row of cosmos.  We made fancy markers with each of their names on them before they wanted to visit the animals in the barn.

My grandson is afraid of Sadie, our goat, so she was let out of the barn to roam free.  Unfortunately, she seems to like strawberry foliage, so she had to be returned from whence she came.  Not an easy task!  She led all of us on a merry chase before C managed to get her by the collar and put her back into the barn.

My children had other things to attend to and left shortly after the Sadie round-up.  C had to visit a customer, so I was left alone for a little while.  I used that time to transplant all the volunteer sunflowers from my perennial bed into a row of their own.

When C returned, we planted a few strawberries in spaces where those we planted last fall hadn't survived.  Then we transplanted a bunch of raspberries.  After that, we planted two 40' rows of potatoes.  C dug the trenches.  I cut and placed the potatoes.  Then C covered them up and I followed behind, hilling them from the opposite side of the row.  We're trying a new variety this year - Banana Fingers.  They were recommended to us by friends who have eaten them but never grown them.  Neither C nor I have tasted them.  They were a little dearer ($6:99/10 lbs) than the more conventional seed potatoes I grow:  Chieftains, California Whites, and Yukon Golds, each of which were $4:99.  There were a lot of eyes.  C thinks there is enough seed left for another row and a half. 

I came home and had a nap, leaving C behind to plant another row of potatoes on his own.  He's six years younger than I, but I still felt guilty leaving him to work on his own.  He had a nap when he got home, too.

Second time around typing this entry
May 4, 2009 | 6:58 PM PST
Tags: onions , Asparagus , tiller , daffodil , day lilies , iris , hydrangea , holding bed , bluebells , dianthus , stonecrop , forsythia , sprirea , heritage roses , peonies , tomato cages , foundation plantings , Berm , lasagna garden , lady's
Well, my friends, the soil was dry enough to plant onions this afternoon.  Hubby raked, set out the lines, and made the furrows while I tucked the sets into the earth, covered them and tamped the soil down.  It’s amazing how much satisfaction can be gained by seeing one small area (four 15’ rows smack dab in the middle of our garden) all smoothed out like a bed spread.  We plant the garden in three sections with paths between so that the harvest is easily accessible.

We didn’t get to eat asparagus, though.  Being the greedy person I am, I decided to wait one more day so we could have more of the delicious stuff.

After we got the onions in, my husband (hereinafter referred to as ‘C’ since he wishes to remain anonymous following yesterday’s rant) tried long and hard to start his tiller.  Didn't happen.  God is good!  No plants were harmed through C’s over-enthusiastic use of said machine.

Meanwhile, I went back to cleaning up my holding bed.  Virtually every plant over-wintered successfully:  daffodils, day lilies, irises, perennial geraniums, hydrangeas, bluebells, dianthus, stonecrop, chives, forsythia, spirea, and even some heritage rose bushes.  I’ve never been successful with roses.  The person who gave them to me said she had actually tried unsuccessfully to kill them off.  There has to be a lesson in that.

I was especially excited to see two peonies popping through the ground, discards from another friend’s bed.  I adore the outrageously gaudy appearance of peonies, but there’s no room to accommodate them in my flower beds here at home.  I once planted a pair of them on either side of a ‘telephone tower’ (those ugly brown aluminum things that are scattered throughout urban areas) at the edge of my lawn, but someone cut a cable and the linemen trampled all over them when they came to make repairs.  (No, that time it wasn’t my dear husband.)  I’ll have to protect them from the wind (and the tiller) with tomato cages later.

When we build our new home at the farm, I’ll have plenty of plant material to start my foundation plantings and the berm I’ve been designing (and revising) in my head for the past couple of years.

My attempt at making a ‘lasagna bed’ has met with mixed results.  The only shady area on our farm is a curved row of spruce trees that border the lane between the barn and our vegetable garden.  Winter before last I came across an article about creating a new bed using the ‘lasagna method’.  “Aha!” thought I, “the perfect solution to making a shade bed at the farm!”  I spent all summer long digging out the most persistent weeds – burdocks and dandelions – then section by section between the trees, laying down several thicknesses of newspaper that had been soaked thoroughly to prevent it from flying away and to accelerate its eventual decomposition.  I covered the newspapers with a generous layer of compost, then a layer of spoiled straw, then a layer of pony and goat manure (It’s a good thing I value their droppings, because neither creature is good for much else.), and finally another layer of straw.  Then, like Rumplestiltskin,  I waited for Mother Nature to work her magic, turning straw not into gold, but into soil.  Dreams of my beautiful shade bed made our long, dreary winter more bearable.

Well, Ma N did a fine job at the top end of the bed.  But as she worked her way towards the bottom, she was prevented from accomplishing the desired result by an over-enthusiastic top layer of straw.  I managed to circumvent the decomposition process by piling it on too deep.  So I spent much of the afternoon turning the stuff over, bringing the wonderful rotten stuff to the top in preparation for another application of compost and pony poop.  Hopefully, it’ll be ready to plant by fall, but if not, I’ll have another winter to design that end of the bed in my head.  I must remember to take my camera with me so I can display my new, if far from complete) shade bed to all and sundry.

I’ve been splitting the perennials in my shade bed at home and moving them down to the farm.  After years of struggling to grow in sticky clay, they’re luxuriating (along with a bumper crop of earthworms) in the new soil Ma N created at the top of my new bed.  Thus far, I’ve planted five hostas, some wild violets, a couple of astilbes, several small bleeding hearts, a couple of clumps of lady’s mantle, and four clumps of silver mound that miraculously made it through the winter virtually bare-rooted in a pot above the ground.  The silver mound nagged at my guilty conscience all winter long.  A friend gave it to me late in the fall and I just never got around to planting it.  How ungrateful!  Early this spring, I moved the broken old plastic pot to my garage door intending to throw it on the compost heap at the farm.  When I was about to put it into the back of my van, I noticed some new growth at the base.  Lo and behold, I split it up into four sections and planted it in my new bed where it has thrived ever since.

Well, my friends, I hope I haven’t bored you with this long entry.  Having typed it out twice, I’m definitely bored.  Happy gardening to all, and to all a good night.

OMG - How embarrassing!
May 3, 2009 | 8:15 PM PST
Tags: rain , tractor , cultivator , stinging nettle , holding bed , visitors , onions , Asparagus

Took a couple of days off from gardening due to the weather.  We are getting an inordinate amount of rain this spring.

Got up this morning, raring to go!  Just a smidgen of rain yesterday; and today promised to be sunny and warm.  I wanted to get my onions planted at the farm.  My husband was eager to get started at it, too, so I gathered my sets up and headed out.  I hadn't showered this morning and I had dressed in my ratty old gardening clothes.  No one would see me down there.

When we arrived at the farm, I was dubious about planting.  The soil appeared too wet.  It was really windy and my hubby thought that if he tilled, it might dry sufficiently to get the onions in.  He got our little tiller going, but it was difficult to operate in the damp soil, so he decided to borrow a friend's tractor (The friend had already put his cultivator on.) and do the entire garden quickly.

While he went off to get the tractor (I knew it would take a long time because friend and hubby love to discuss the weather, the state of the economy, the price of wheat, beans and hay, any new equipment a neighbour may have acquired, the prospects for a prosperous harvest, the declining behaviour of teens these days, etc., etc., etc.  You get my drift.), I cleaned up my holding bed.  There was a lot of stinging nettle, so I used latex surgical gloves.  That was a successful experiment.  I'm not good with most gloves, but these worked well.  Most of my plants over-wintered well.  I worked away digging out old sunflower roots and lugging them to the compost pile, getting dirtier by the minute.

Back came hubby with the big tractor and cultivator.  First he ripped up an old strawberry bed from which I had intended transplanting some of the healthy runners.  Oh, well!  Next, he came booting over near my holding bed (which isn't a bed unto itself, but rather the upper corner of our vegetable garden).  Before I could place myself strategically  to protect my perennials, he had managed to rip two of them out.  That man is a disaster with any piece of machinery powered by gasoline!

Eventually, hubby finished cultivating with no further mishaps.  I continued weeding and getting rid of the sunflower roots.  I had taken my gloves off to open a soft drink and forgot to put them back on.  Ouch!  I hate stinging nettle with a passion.  Brushed hair off my face with my filthy hands and managed to get soil well distributed throughout.  Soil is definitely not an appropriate hair care ingredient!

 I was just thinking longingly about a nice hot shower when I heard a vehicle come up our laneway.  Customers often stop by to purchase hay, so I simply went about my business behind a large shed, assuming hubby would attend to the matter, an no one would see this unkempt, filthy old lady.  Wrong!!  My cousin and her husband were passing and decided to stop by when they saw our truck.  Not only did I look awful, I'm sure I didn't smell very nice, either, not having showered then slugging away for most of the day.  I'm sure our visitors left wondering if I was short of soap and water.

I didn't get any onions planted so will have to try to get them in tomorrow.  (The forecast is for rain Wednesday through Saturday.)

The bright spot in my day was finding asparagus almost ready for harvest.  Can hardly wait to enjoy it tomorrow with Hollandaise sauce.  Mmmm!  Mmmm!