flyfisher51's Blog

Herbs are doing with the exception of coriander.  I am going to transplant them to larger pots.

Hops have broken ground and are about an inch high. I will probably string twine this week. I have four Northern brewer  bines and one cascade.

I put a new suet out on Tuesday night. It was gone by Wednesday night. It was "hot" suet so I new it was birds. I put my last block out today at 8am and witnessed why it went so fast. It was swarmed by Starlings, up to four at a time on the feeder and another three picking up crumbs on the ground. Some of the birds came to the feeder with worms dangling from their beaks. Was the suet adding to a gourmet meal? They intimidated a Red Bellied Woodpecker once, he finally got in later for a short period when the Starlings got spooked by me moving past the window. We went out at 11am and when we returned at 6pm the suet was all gone. I think the Starlings intimidated the smaller birds away from my sunflower seed feeder. I later whitnessed a tufted titmouse fly to the seed feeder and grab one seed, fly up to a branch and proceed to peck the seed open to eat it. He did this a half dozen times.

I hope to plant the vegitable garden tomorrow. The zuchinni is starting to suffer being in a confined pot and the spagetti squash is just going wild. I wanted to have a barrier ready first to keep the deer out but I don't think I can get that done tomorrow as it is Mothers Day. I'll spray deer repellant untill I can get the fence up. I bought three tomato plants. I don't start seeds early enough to do tomatoes.

The landscaper removed my crab apple on Thursday. It has been battling the local cedears for about 10 years. They are sharing Cedar-Apple Rust disease and it near kills the crab apple each year. I could never spray enough to defeat the problem. This year the tree wasn't healthy enough to bloom. Maybee the cedars will lose the desease now. It hasn't affected my apple tree yet. I hope the variety is immune.