osprey94's Blog

Forgot to add that since the previous post (the first post of the season), we put the mason bees out and already a few are chewing their way out of their plugs. 

The red currants and indian plums are in full bloom, too, and I could SWEAR I saw a swallow the other day, but none since. OH! And, we saw the first osprey of the season, too.

 This spring is, as usual, bipolar and schizophrenic. Yesterday, we had multiple hailstorms, rain, sun, snow and more rain. Today, the weather started out nice, always a sign that you’d better not get lulled into any smugness. Thoughts like “Oh! sun! I’ll get some work done in the yard! Maybe we can get the grass mowed before it grows taller than us!” are all signs that you’re about to get punished and surprised by weather that’s more like a joke than actual weather.  

In reality, though, I did get a lot done today before the clouds began to threaten and the rain started to fall AGAIN. I thinned and edited the stuff growing in the deck bed. The golden grass I planted a few years back had completely taken over, the viburnum never thrived and the hardy geranium and catmint had also crowded everything out. I pulled up a TON of the grass, the geranium and the catmint and potted a few bits of it in case I want to plant them somewhere else one day OR give them to friends.  I moved a viburnum to a new spot, hoping it’ll do better, threw away the other one (I suspect it’s beyond hope anyway) and moved a couple rhodies. We also removed an evergreen honeysuckle from another overcrowded bed.  

We’re enlarging the veggie garden to almost twice its original size. Since building a garage/enclosure for the boat next to the garden, the beds just aren’t getting as much sun. The new area we added skirts the enclosure and juts out into a part of the yard that gets more sun. We’re going to add a few new beds to the new area and leave most of the old beds where they are for crops that need a little shade. Tomatoes will go in the sunnier part next to the side of the metal enclosure. Hopefully the reflected heat/light will help the tomato harvest. 

It’s our spring break this week and tomorrow a friend from work is bringing her three daughters over to plant some seeds in my greenhouse. We’ll plant the seedlings in the garden in May and then the girls will come during the summer occasionally to tend and harvest their veggies. It’ll be a like a little community garden since they don’t have the space to garden where they live in Olympia.  

We have a pair of eagles just across the field from us, who are out enjoying the thermals and SQUAWKING their heads off most days. Right now, the pair should be incubating a clutch of eggs.  

 It seems like we only have 3 or 4 hummies at best. I wish I could encourage more to come to our feeders regularly. But every time one zips past me or I see the male performing for a female, I feel really lucky to have any at all.  

Only one quarter of school left!

Last year, according to an entry in THIS blog, we saw our first hummingbird come back on March 8 and had at least 3 at our feeders daily by the 15th. 

This year, the 8th and then the 15th came and went and I was getting anxious. But today, while working on the expansion to our fenced veggie garden, I heard the buzz of a hummy and froze. Then, there he was, zooming around the feeder. Later I saw at least 3. One was a female. It was almost emotional to see them again, finally. I'd like to try to hold the feeder in my hand again, while they swarm around me and eat like I did a few years ago. Magical.

 Over spring break (only one week away!), I'm going to start all my seeds in the greenhouse. I ordered them all from Gurney's again because of their "$25 when you buy $50" deal. I got several tomato varieties, broccoli and cauliflower, spinach, kale and chard, corn, carrots, beans, peas (which I should plant over break too), beets, cucumbers and butternut squash. The only thing left to buy is basil which I think I'll just buy a few starts of instead of plant from seed.

The indian plum and red currant trees are almost in bloom. We haven't put the mason bees out yet. Hopefully they haven't started to come out of their mud plugs yet, because they are currently in the potting shed from this winter.

 We're expanding the veggie garden so more of it gets more sun. We took down some of the old fencing, covered a huge new area with wood chips, and made a new gate. Next, we'll have to build the new fence around the area and move some of the raised beds into the new space and fill them.

So, that's where we are right now. Spring is really here! 

Last weekend, I relented and planted my tomatoes. They were flourishing in the greenhouse, but would soon need repotting to continue to flourish in there, but it's been so cold and rainy, I was putting off planting them in the ground. I finally gave in and just got them in the ground, figuring I'd cover them at night if I had to.

They are doing fine, even without covering them, so far. The temps at night are high 40s, which makes me nervous, but not to the point of rigging up some covers.

My pea plants look terrible. Only a few are taller than a foot.

I planted the cukes a few weekends back and they were dead within a week from the cold and wind. I should have covered them. I bought some new starts yesterday and planted 3 of the 7 starts. The other 4 I'm keeping in the greenhouse just in case I lose the 3 I planted to more cold and wind.

This weather is really cramping my style!

The zucchinis went in maybe 2 weeks or so ago and there is already one big enough to harvest! I can't believe it. At least they can withstand this weather.

I've also been harvesting a handful of asparagus approximately every week and we've had some broccoli a few times now too. The broccolini aren't ready to harvest yet, though. I have more buttercrunch lettuce than I know what to do with and a few nice spinach and kale plants I've been cutting from every few days. The flea beetles haven't done as much damage this year as they usually do. Maybe it's the cooler-than usual temps at play (silver lining?).

Yesterday, I spent $200 on plants for the bird garden. I bought 2 big peegee hydrangea, a few each of: stella d'oro daylilies, bayberry, elderberry, butterfly bush, viburnum and a little evergreen tree I can't remember the name of. They're going into one of the two beds today. We also impulsively bought a new deer repellant system. For $24, we got little tubs of bloodmeal with posts. You can hang them on plants or stick them in the ground with the posts. When we got home and looked the system up on Amazon.com, we discovered that the reviews were awful and that we overpayed. No impulse buying, BAD GIRL!

I have 10 more wake-ups until summer break.

This is Rosco trying to get through the window and at the deer who DARE invade his property. They were munching on my rhodies, by the way. They'll eat anything. They also ate: columbine, hardy geranium and dogwood.

"Okay, girls, she's on to us. Stand very still. Maybe she won't see us. As soon as she goes away we can get back to ruining her hard work."

The seedlings are looking great. They're sucking up tons of water though. I have to check them every day and add more water.

We had a pretty good frost last night. The broccoli leaves were frozen solid when I went out in the early morning.

Some of the the asparagus spears are very thick and curving as they grow. They look tough and light-colored. I'm not even tempted to harvest them. Maybe as more come up, they'll look better. *crossing fingers*.

On 3/27 (Saturday), I started my first seeds in the green house. I am just now getting around to posting about it. At least I remembered the date I planted them. This is an accomplishment for me. I'm trying really hard to stay organized about this and try something other than haphazard and see how that goes for me!

So, first I disinfected the trays from last year in a mild bleach solution. I didn't measure or anything. I just poured a slosh or two of bleach into a huge tupperware storage tub (big enough to take a bath in) and then added about 3-4 inches of water. I dumped all the trays in there and sloshed 'em around in the solution. I then rinsed them off with fresh water and filled them with the little jiffy expandable soil plug thingies. Here they are all ready to plant.

I added a gallon and a half or so (total) of warm water over them and let them get about an inch/inch and a half tall before I put the seeds in them.

Then, I had to figure out a way to label them in a way that would allow me to keep straight what had been planted where. I ended up cutting up a gallon milk jug into strips to use as markers. Here they are:

I used a Sharpie to write on them. I also recorded all the seeds and their brands in a notebook with the date (the reason I was able to actually remember the date and the plants I planted).

Each little mini tray inside the big tray (I should have taken pics of this rather than try to explain in words) holds 24 little plugs. Some plants took up all 24, so I just planted a whole mini tray of that kind of seed and then stuck a label in between a plug and the edge of the tray. I didn't want 24 seedlings of some plants (like cilantro and parsley) so I cut the mini tray up into sections (usually 3 sections of 8) and planted each 8-plug section of one kind of plant and then labeling that section.

And, that's it! I've already thinned the broccolini and nothing else has come up yet. I'm planning on selling (for a very small fee) my extra plants at work. Last year I gave away TONS of beautiful tomato plants since I was too exuberant from the thrill of a new greenhouse and had way too many for myself. It was fun to give them away, but charging a little for them would help with buying the soil and so on. I still can't bring myself NOT to plant vast quantities of seeds.

I also planted 3 broccoli plants in one of the raised beds, and several squares each of kale (red russian), a lettuce mix and spinach. Then, I planted 2 rows of buttercrunch lettuce (seed tape). Next weekend, I'll plant another succession of some of the greens, especially the buttercrunch.

We planted the peas several weekends ago. I haven't even checked on them. The weather has been so cruddy, I don't expect to see them coming up too soon.

Well, the hummingbirds are here to stay now (the males only so far). There have been at least 3 at the feeders since the 15th.

Today, we saw the first swallow and Dave says a few mason bees have chewed out of their mud plugs already.

I've been in bed the last few days with a stomach bug and now that I'm feeling better and the weather is gorgeous, I've got some status-checking to do. I want to check on the asparagus and then take a tour of our woods which are now completely different. It's a little traumatic to see them so thinned. You can see all the way through to the other side, now. On the other hand, it's so easy to walk through  and enjoy now. I just feel a little bad about destroying some nice, dense habitat. But, it's for the greater good, and the trees that are left will benefit. It was done for free, in exchange for the trees. Now, we need to hire someone with the appropriate equipment who can blaze some trails through it for walking.

I think I'll plant the first installment of snap peas this weekend, and then start all of my other seeds in the greenhouse next week after this one, which is our spring break.

Also on my to-do list is planting my bird garden in the front of the house. I have my plant list and I just need to start shopping and seeing what plants I can find.

We moved one of the 3 camellias (the one closest to the heat pump) to the bird garden because it does so poorly getting blasted by the cold air that comes out of that heat pump.

We also pulled out and trashed the California Lilacs that didn't make it through the cold snap we had early in the winter. They'd outgrown the spots they were in, anyway. Oh! And I moved one of the catmints to take its place.

I've always suspected that the myth of fairies comes from sightings of hummingbirds. I think of them as tiny fairies in my garden, that's for sure. On the 8th (2 days ago), Dave was leaving for work and heard the buzz of a hummer. He turned around and saw it at the feeder. He texted me at work and I told my class that the humminbirds were back. They spontaneously cheered! I was so excited to get home and see it, but we haven't seen another one since. Was the one he saw a "scout", or just passing through? I'm sure by this weekend we'll be seeing them regularly.

Today, I noticed a few asparagus spears poking up. One was mushy and I wonder if it suffered some frost damage. We've been having some really cold weather right after some of the most gorgeous warm sunny weather. We even had some hail/sleet the other day. The hummer nectar even froze over the other morning and I had to thaw it.

We saw the cooper's hawk in the woods today. It's always a little startling to see a hawk fly TOP SPEED through dense woods without hitting a tree.

We're having the woods thinned this weekend. We tagged some nest trees and the beautiful cherry trees plus some snags so they don't disappear on us.

The new raised beds in the veggie garden are done! We finished filling them with soil mix yesterday morning. We peeled a section of the fencing back to allow us to drive the tractor into the garden and dump the soil right into the beds. That saved us so much time. The scoops filled a bed perfectly. Here's how they look:

Okay. They're not perfectly straight, but they'll work. The plants won't care if the beds are wonky.

I think I'll start my seeds during our spring break. That'll be end of March, beginning of April. The mason bees and swallows should be making their appearances soon after that. Oh, the joy of having the swallows back.

Anyway, the hummingbirds should be back soon, the indian plum and red currants are blooming, my sedum, bleeding hearts, columbine, catmint, daylilies and many more are coming back up. Spring is RIGHT around the corner. OH! And I've been hearing owls like crazy. For a few years there I didn't, and I was worried that our owl population had somehow disappeared. Nope!

I need to think before planting. It's like a disease, my addiction to unplanned planting. This time, as I approach  planting the veggie garden, I've got to plan ahead. I know that my green beans I canned were just about enough. In fact, I have plenty of jars left. They might make it till I start canning more this summer. My tomatoes were another story. I have only 3 jars left. They were so good that I used them for everything, all the time. I didn't take notes of how much I canned, I just know it wasn't enough. I made a few jars of salsa and thought it was delicious, I just didn't use it as much as I thought I would. So this time, more tomatoes, less salsa. Also, I made tons of pickles and didn't even finish one jar. They were really good, I just didn't want them. Strange, because I thought I LOVED  pickles. I'll give them away to whomever will take them.

The basil I planted didn't do well at all. It got too cold early on and was stunted. I ended up pulling most of it out to make room for onions which did well. I think one or two really great, thriving basil plants should do it. I grew several cilantro plants, but they bolted so fast and I didn't end up using them enough. Same deal as the basil. Ditto for italian parsley. So, what I'll do is, grow a few pots of herbs for cooking and leave the big beds in the garden for the veggies. Although, I would like to grow enough basil this year to make a bunch of pesto to freeze.

I plant using the square foot method in my raised garden beds, by the way.

Other than that, the amount of zucchini I planted was good. I think I planted 3 plants. I shredded some and froze it for later, used a lot for zucchini  bread, and stir fries during the summer. I planted one 4 by 4 bed of bush beans - perfect amount. A few squares of carrot - just about right. One 4 by 4 bed of onion - good, one short row of snap peas - a little too much, but not bad, 7 - 8 tomato plants - almost not enough, and 4 cucumber plants - too many.

Also, this year, we built some real wood (lumber) raised beds to replace the ones we made from logs. They're so much better. They are more efficient, spacewise, and are 4 by 8 feet. We've fit 5 of them in the garden and I think we could get maybe 2 more in there, if we wanted to.

I'm NEVER organized enough to keep all of my seed packets, and every summer I grow something I love and want to grow again, but can't remember what it WAS. This time, I'm going to do better. Maybe this will be a New Year's Resolution I actually keep.

Gurneys:

(They were having a great sale: Buy $50, get $25 off. Therefore, most of the seeds are Gurneys.)

Sunflower, Royal Flush Mix and Hybrid Goldrush

Leaf Lettuce, Blend

Large-Leafed Italian Basil

Cilantro

Dark Green Italian Parsley

Broccolini, Hybrid Atlantis

Onion, Candy

Bush Bean, Early Contender

Head Lettuce, Buttercrunch (seed tape)

Sweet Corn, Hybrid Gotta Have It (Frighteningly, with the following warning label: "DANGER: Treated with Captan 400, Thiram, Dividend Extreme, Apron XL and Plymer Sepiret. DO NOT USE FOR FOOD, FEED, OR OIL PURPOSES. KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN). Wha...?

Summer Squash, Black Magic

2 of Carrot, Tendersweet (seed tape) (one for inlaws, one for me)

Cucumber, Hybrid Eureka

Radish, Champion (for inlaws)

Burpees:

Tomatoes: Tomande hybrid, Black Truffle hybrid, Sun Gold hybrid

Red Russian Kale

Lilly Miller:

Nasturtium, Cherry Rose and Jewel

Ed Hume:

Purple Coneflower

Nasturtium, Alaska dwarf single flowering, variagated foliage

There. Now, as I buy more (which I will, because I can't pass buy a seed packet display without buying SOMETHING), I will TRY to remember to write them all down here.

I was finishing up in the veggie garden today and as I was closing the gate behind me, I noticed a bird inside the fence. She (I'm just gonna go with she, here) was so close to me and completely unafraid that I thought something was wrong with her, but then she flew to the feeder. I figured then she was just a fledgling and not yet scared of humans. She hopped from the feeder to the ground beneath and picked around for seeds. I was able to sit within a foot for two of her. Eventually, she fluttered over to my knee and then up to my shoulder and hopped around to the back of my head where she perched on my hood!

Eventually, I was able to get her to hop on my finger while momma bird fluttered around me, checking us out. I felt like Snow White!

Meanwhile, we are having some seriously gorgeous weather here and the garden is responding. The deck bed is REALLY filling in. The two catmints I planted there last spring are so huge, they're  taking over. I think I might move one of them to another place that needs a HUGE plant to fill it.

 This particular part of this bed is really full:

In the veggie garden...

• some tiny green tomatoes
  
• some tiny peas
• LOTS of lettuce and other greens
• beans, cukes and squash getting started
• bolted cilantro (I don't think I can grow cilantro! It always bolts before I even get to use it and I don't use it often enough to put the time and effort into growing it) that I just pulled up. Same goes for dill. I just don't use it enough.
  
• basil that was so pitiful I pulled it out (I still have a few sweet basil plants growing on the deck that look okay).
• onions looking great! 
• nice broccoli heads about ready to harvest. Might be eating that tomorrow for dinner!
  

 Why do these peas look so pitiful? Maybe I'll give 'em some fish fertilizer tomorrow.

We also got to see a brand new deer fawn (covered w/ spots)  the other day. He was racing back and forth at top speed while mom patiently followed him. Cute beyond words.

I have ONE DAY OF SCHOOL LEFT! 

More beautiful weather here. Enough to make me moan with pleasure when I walk out into the golden warmth at the end of the workday. 

A list of things...

1. The beans, cucumbers and squash finally popped up.

2. The zinnias are blooming. Pink and green.

3. Some of the nasturtiums I planted last weekend are popping up in the deck bed.

4. There are MILLIONS of little lady's mantles popping up all around the established ones in the deck bed. Man do they reseed easily!

5. Nasturtium, borage and tomatoes reseeded pretty well too from last season.

6. I got my pressure canner and coil cartridge for the stove and have it all ready to go for canning time.

7. Heard the robins SCREAMING out front near the nest we found in the doug firs. Found a fledgling hopping around and two adults DIVEBOMBING the hell out of it. I put him/her back in the tree to perch on a branch, but I don't know what happened to him/her. Hopefully, she's being cared for.

8. The basil in the ground is looking TERRIBLE. I should probably give up trying to grow them anywhere but in the greenhouse. Although, the basil in the containers looks good. Weird.

9. Gotta buy some row cover cloth to keep the bugs from eating my lettuce.

10. Mustard greens bolt almost instantly.

11. I don't really need millions of arugula plants. Just a few. But I do need TONS of tender lettuce for salads. Gotta plan better next year.

12. The cat mint has taken over in the deck bed. I might divide them and move some to the beds in the front.

13. The yarrow has bloomed and it is FIRE red.

14. The deer have re-established their coral bells and lady's mantle habit. They've munched them into flat-top shapes. That's okay, as long as they leave some for me.

15. There are already some tiny tomatoes on the deck plant.

16. Thirteen more wake-ups left until SUMMMMMEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

 I spent the morning (I have a personal day) creating my plant list for the bird garden. I think I finally found a relatively organized, quick way to get a wildlife-friendly plant list! Here's what I did. I started with this book:

It
has a really helpful plant matrix in the back. All of the plants are in the list because they're beneficial for wildlife, but Russell breaks it down even further into categories like: shade tolerant, produces berries for fruit, produces nectar for hummers, etc. Here it is:

 There's a lot going on in the Jardin de Deitz lately. The "Bird Garden" is really coming along. While I was at a late work function one evening last week, D made tons of progress on it. He lined the halves of the bed in rocks and then filled them almost entirely with our soil mix. The area looks infinitely better even WITHOUT the plants in it yet.

The left side bed will also be lined with rocks and we'll finish lining the right bed eventually.

The few plants you see here and there are just temporarily placed until we decide where to put them. I still haven't completed a plant list for these beds.

Here's the view from the opposite direction. The path is so nice and wide and curves in an appealing way. It's so exciting to see it coming along like this.

That big daylily in the front is a challenge. I don't want to get rid of it, because I need all the free plants I can get to fill out all this space, but it's not necessarily in the perfect spot. I might dig it up and divide it this fall. Then, I can spread it out amongst both beds.

 The deck bed is beginning to come into its own, too. I'm finally really seeing its potential.

I've added more sedum to the sunnier south end and just today added a few little columbine seedlings to the shadier north end. The little viburnum in the very middle of this pic just won't get going! It's eventually going to be the biggest plant in that bed and right now, everything else is outpacing it! I also planted a bunch of nasturtium to some empty spots around the perimeter of the sunnier end. I used Empress of India, Lipstick, Jewel mixed colors and one other variety.  I tore off the top of the packet of that variety and promptly lost it. Of course, the top was the only place the name was printed. The blossoms will be cream and deep burgundy. Moonlight? Something like that.

 In the veggie garden I planted about 18 bean seeds, a few squash plants near the sunflowers, about 8 bush 'Spacesaver" cucumber plants and a few squares full of carrots. I bought yellow and red onion starts but I don't know if I have the space for 'em now. Also, I was reading in "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades" by Steve Solomon about how most onion varieties out there won't set bulbs before our summer season is over. I've had some success with onions before, so maybe I'll put a few in the ground and see what happens. Maybe I'll intersperse them with the basil. The basil, by the way, is just barely hanging on after a cold night we had last week. I wonder if they'll make a comeback. I was really looking forward to making a VAT of pesto to freeze for the winter.I planted bibb lettuce and red leaf lettuce in a row in front of the peas. Which, by the way, are so tiny still. I don't know if I'll get a good harvest this year.

This is the summer I'm going to attempt to do some canning to preserve the harvest. I haven't had the guts to try it till now, but here we go! On ebay, I found a coil element cartridge to fit in my Jenn-Air modular stovetop. It's a really cool stovetop. You can plug and unplug different cartridges. We have two ceramic burner cartridges that are in most of the time. I can unplug one and replace it with a giant griddle one, or a grilling one or in this case, a coil one that will help the pressure canner get up to the right temps fast enough.  I also found a pressure canner that had great reviews on Amazon for $88 (including shipping). With 11 tomato plants this year (I usually plant 4-6), I will be canning sauce and salsa like crazy. I also plan to can the green beans. That's one veggie I like canned much better than frozen for some reason. I might even try pickles if I have an overabundance of cukes. I have enough dill to do pickles, I think.

Here are some things I've been thinking about:

1. I'm amazed by how much my lady's mantle reseeds. There are tiny lady's mantles ALL over the place!

2. The deer haven't munched on the deck bed plants at all yet. Are they going to find them again one night and eat every last leaf? I might not survive that.

3. How important is it REALLY to pinch off blooms on a plant you're going to transplant so it focuses its energy on root production?

4. Why isn't my barrel composter getting my compost nice and hot? It's not cooking at all. I wonder if I need to add more brown or green material? How do I know?

5. What's eating my lettuce?

6. I wish I'd planted sweet peas this year. They are so lovely. I guess I still could.

7. The lilacs smell so incredible right now.

8. My asparagus spears are so tall now. I wonder how tall they'll get before they stop growing. I read that some can grow up to 4 inches a DAY! I think by next year we can harvest a few spears. That'll be their third summer.

9. We caught a coyote on our wildlife cam in the woods the other night checking out the remains of a roast chicken carcass we left out there.

10. I want to plant runner beans again because the hummers loved them last year, but I'm not so sure I really loved the beans for eating so much.

11. I planted too much arugula and mesclun mix and not enough REAL leaf lettuce for nice hearty, crunchy salads. Most of the mesclun mix that germinated were mustard leaves. Not my fave. The spinach I planted barely germinated and is growing VERY slowly.

12. The zinnias in the veggie garden are about to blossom out. Can't wait to see them all blooming.

13. I'm going to cover the basil with plastic at night until the weather really evens out. I don't think they can take another cold night.

14. Friday we went to Lake Sacagawea in Longview Wa. I think it's just possibly the prettiest lake/park I've seen in a long time. The rhodies were all blooming: coral, red, pink, yellow. The lake was lined with yellow iris and lily pads lined the water's edge. Huge grass carp were lazily floating right under the lily pads. Just incredible. I could've stayed there all day. If it weren't a 30 minute drive from my house, I'd go there everyday.

15. We put out the cushions on the outdoor daybed, the hammock and the cushions on the outdoor dining table chairs. It's officially summer now, even if the equinox isn't quite here, yet!

16. Only 15 more schooldays left. I'm alternately freaking out and blissing out about that. There's always such a rush at the end of the school year to accomplish way too much in too little time.