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The strawberries are keeping me busy. I started picking last Friday, and have picked everyday. I have one, one gallon freezer bag full of cleaned, mashed berries, and will have to start the second one with tomorrow's harvest.
Colin (son number 1) called about a month ago, 12-12:30am, asking if I had any jars of (last years) jam left. I responded with a loud ??? He then asked if he could stop by to get one or two. I of course said yes, and was promised the tale when he got there. It seems his best friend (Matt) was in town and Matt usually stops by to get jam when he is here. Matt still had half a jar actually on him. (I found he carries one around with him, strange boy). They had gone to Col's favorite all night diner, where he knows the cook, waiters and most of the customers.
Matt pulled out his jam for his toast and the waiter asked what the what was. Col explained that I had made the jam, and also grew the berries. Cook and waiter were offered a try and had a WOW moment. Being "inner"city boys, they asked if I lived on a farm. Col answered no, here in town, and they really got confused. To make a long story short (too late) Col picked up the jam and delivered to the diner. Couple of 3 days later, Col brings these boys through the garden gate and gives them the 25 cent tour. Then proceeded to offer to pay for more jam when it was made. {promised the jam, turned down the money} It was fun to see my "grownup" son proudly showing off the garden, especially when it was he and CB that started the gardening bug here to start with. I just wish the boys showed that much interest when the heavy work needed to be done! So everyday I deliver a strawberry report. With the promise of jam in 2-3 weeks. I find it funny that something so small to me is such a big thing to others.
Radishes are also being picked daily. Thank God the neighbors to the south like them. Picked a fist full of pearl onions today, thank God DH likes them. Toms, peppers, pumpkins and melons have all taken off since the downpours Thursday and Friday, and the HOT temps. You could almost hear everything growing. Peas are filling out, and am on the third and fourth cuttings of cilantro and lettuces. Beans and Zucs are up.
First three roses have bloomed (after the shrub rose that is). Pope John Paul was first, unfortunately, being a white rose the rain kind of took his thunder, next was mardi gras, then Audrey Wilcox. Have pictures, just to tired to upload them tonight.
Kitty litter worked real well for the squirrels, bunnies figured it out. I had one stop about 8 feet away while I was sitting in the yard this afternoon. I have a picture of him as well. The bunny family also figured out that the new flower bed on top of the hill is the best place for midnight snacks, just ask the roses planted there, and the hollyhocks, stupid bunnies.
Mornings in the garden smell heavenly, the shrub rose and peonies surround the yard in perfume, the smell of the cool damp grass, and flowers, seem to fill the day with promise. At night the stock can be smelled 8-10 feet away. It's almost heart breaking to have to go in at night.
After a full day of weeding, picking, turning the compost bins and general outside stuff, I am beat. Going walking with DH early in the am so I am headed to bed. Happy Gardening!
DISCLAIMER: DO NOT TRY THIS IF YOU ARE PREGNANT. PREGNANT WOMEN SHOULD NOT HANDEL KITTY LITTER WASTE.
With that said.
In one of my new gardening books "how to cheat at Yard work and gardening". I found a tip that suggests sprinkling used kitty litter around your garden to repel bunnies and squirells. Obviously after removing the fecal matter.
Well said I, My beloved, spoiled Chess uses the clumping cat litter. I wonder........Starting my experiment this past Monday, I started putting clumps in the planters my little squirell buddies have been digging in. I also rolled some under the shed to get rid of my bunnies. I also placed some around the hollyhocks the rotten rabbit keeps eating. Every morning has seen me with my plastic bag and gloves.
You know what?? IT WORKS! After repairing and replanting 90% of the planters I did this weekend. Not a single one with kitty clumps was disturbed. No evidence of bunny hipping and hopping under or around the shed. I will continue to monitor the rodent activity and relate the findings.
Posted all the new pictures in albums
Bunnies figured it out, the squirrels didn't
Well, it took a couple of days, a couple of hot baths, and a WHOLE LOTTA sleep.
Sunday (the 31st) Dawned bright and sunny. I was out the door by eight, had to pick up top soil for the new flower beds. Came home, unloaded, ran to Ace and Wal-mart. WAs back home and in the Veggie bed by 11.....I finished about 4;30. I was hot, tired, sunburned,filthy. But it is all in. Took a hot bath, made dinner and collapsed. Yesterday I was to sore to move. Today was a bit better, a bit chilly, so I took the time to cleaned the house.
It all looks wonderful, my D/H bought some more wood for the pathways in the veggie beds. Tomorrow I will take AND post pictures of the garden so far. Lots of changes!
I did find 2 gardening books on Monday, one on composting and one on garden shortcuts. They look like interesting reads, just skimming I found a hint or 3 I didn't know.
Tomorrow I do the planters for the store, cut the grass and hopefull get a chance to pull some weeds. Wednesday is a bowling night (not for me though, the boys have their own team for Spring). I do have to take one of their team members to pick up his newly redrilled bowling balls though, that and a trip to the pc shop to pick up the laptop. BUT I will be able to work outside without guilt knowing the house is clean. Not that there was ever any real guilt, D/H is wonderful about not minding if the dusting is done, or the floor needs a good cleaning. Boy I am lucky. Well as it is getting late and I want to start early, off to bed I go.
Happy gardening.
Today started cool and Cloudy. But I was up and out the door early, had to buy some more potting soil, needed to pick up some plants for the container garden for the store. I was on top of my game, until I lost my cell phone. I only went 2 places, Walmart and Steins, I had it when I left walmart. so back to Steins, went over the whole place. Finally gave it up as lost for good, stopped at the Sprint store, had it turned off and ordered the replacement.
This put me about 2 hours behind my carefully planned schedule. While this is going one the sun came out, it warmed up and I was not going to let it bother me (at least not as much).
Yesterday I got all of the planters on the deck and going down the stairs planted out. Along with the three that line the garlic and mint bed.
Today I got nearly all the rest, some 40ish in all, and fairly large planted. With an abundance of plants left over. These will go to my mom and the next door neighbor. I got the patio swept, the deck cleared off. Landscape paper laid on the new flower bed, and the veggies ready to be planted tomorrow. I finished about 5:30.
DH rehung the garden gate that blew off during last winters storms. One of his buddies provided a nice big bag of grass clippings to go in the composter and bins. Not a bad ending.
I was finally able to get Colin's boss' garden done yesterday. As he and I were both running late yesterday, I didn't acutally get started planting until a little after noon. Finished about 5pm, That was a lot of kneeling on concrete, even with a kneeling pad! He had approched me Wedensday night about some hostas he had pulled out, that his grandfather had put in, wondering if they could be saved. They could! He had pulled out 4 or 5 really large clumps, I was able to divided them out to about 20 smaller clumps, and use them as part of the new landscaping. Both of us were glad for the same reason, he was able to have something of his granddad's around for posterity, and I love to have been able to give him a keepsake, I of course was half way through when I remembered I didn't bring my camera. I will swing by and take some pictures today. Donny seemed happy with the end result, he can't wait for it to start to fill out now. Along with the hostas, I used Beebalm, daylillies,mums, and pinks.
The neatest thing for me was, it was the first time I used landscape paper. Never used it before, but it biodegrades, it's easy to work with, and afterwards we used cocoa bean hulls as mulch. It look lovely.
Now it is time for me to get my own gardens planted. I have NOTHING done yet, either because of the weather or because I had to much running around to do. I will be putting in the container garden for the Greek store on Monday or Tuesday, Pictures will be posted soon, I hope!
Was able to go out and till a little more in the new flower beds today. Weather hasn't really changed much since April. A day or 2 of rain, a slow warm up, a day-day 1/2 of warm sun, and then? Boom, cold front and more rain. The ground is just staying to damp to really do a good tilling. But, I haven't had to water anything with the hose, good news-bad news. Lovely today after a weekend of rain, and more rain tomorrow. Oh well, the other gardens are doing well. Peas, onions, lettuces, carrots, brocoli, chives and cilantro are all getting off to a good start. A couple more weeks and the rest of the veggies can go in.
the roses are getting off to a slow start this year. Just a little to cold for them to wake up. The nights are still in the low 40's. Days have been jumping up and down, well mostly down. but summer is still a month+ away.
Strawberries are just starting to flower, that's always exciting for me. Baby bunny that is living under the shed can't get them, but has been eating the Hollyhock leaves... Had to use the pepper spray already. A gang kitty showed up in the yard today, I left some food and catnip out for him, hope he chases Mr Cottontail away....
Finally got all the yard clean up done 2 weeks ago. It was a hard thing, the first 2 weeks in April were Mighty Cold, then you would get one day in the 60's. The last 2 weeks cold, then 3 or 4 days of rain, one nice day and the cycle would start all over again. Today? it's cold, only 44, but sunny. Nothing but rain since last Thursday night.
Just before the last of the clean up, CB and I were able to get enough pallets to make another compost bin. Then the one I ordered from KGMB showed up. Boy was it nice not to have to pay to have all of that hauled away this year. Now everytime I empty the kitchen scaps in I just add a forkful from the leaf bins and put the lid back on. I am learning to love the Earth a little more each day.
Yesterday I wnet to Fleet farm and utilized my truck bed for the first time. CB and I were able to put up the rabbit (and squirrel) proof fence in the afternoon. Tomorrow is suppose to be a little warmer, so we will do the same around the strawberry patch (no more crazy people in electric wheelchairs driving through), and fire up the tiller for the new flower bed. We have to get the holes dug for the new roses also. They arrived last week with the downpours. The good news about the rain is Lake Michigan is rising again. Last year we were at a near record low. The news reports that it has rising 2 feet over the last 18 months and will continure to rise through the end of July. It's still about 9 inches below the long term average, but every little bit helps.
The greenhouses are filling quickly, the last one will have to be put up tomorrow, just running out of room for flowers and the veggies are starting to fill in.
Out in the gardens green things are popping up all over. Time to get the camera and start taking pictures again. The trees are all starting to bud, the grass it turning green. Soon it will be time to get the chair cushions out and really be able to enjoy the fruits and blooms of all the hard work.
To all, enjoy your gardens, don't over do it (like that ever happens!) keep well.
The snow is all but gone. The last 2 days were sunny and 55ish. Today very chilly and rainy. I took a walk around the yards yesterday and am picturing it with the flowers starting to come up, even though I know I am weeks and weeks away from that now. Maybe we will be blessed with an early and long spring. Even though I did get qome clean up done last fall before the leaf blower died, and during the February thaw I spent 4 or 5 hours with the rake, I still have a huge job waiting for me. It's all worth it in the end.
The seedlings are all looking strong and healthy. Another 2 weeks and I can strt some more.
Colin's boss for snowplowing (whose parent also own the bowling alley), asked me to do the plantings around duplex he bought last year. A small narrow side garden and two short and wide front gardens. We have come up with a few ideas and am getting them down on paper making final choices. Looks like May will be a busy month for me. I can't wait to play in the dirt again.......
I'll try to explain without sounding to anal..
First, the idea behind the veggie garden was my DH's. His idea of a veggie bed it a long wide rectangle, with chicken wire (or similar fencing), that you walk down the rows and weed, weed, weed.
1) I hate fences
2) All vegetables and no flowers? ARE YOU NUTS???
All of this lead me to start reading up on companion planting, also how to build a better mouse trap, oops! vegetable garden.
Since I had already tilled the plot out, and the weeds started growing back, this was a perfect excuse to try lasagna beds. Which is basically no till gardening. I'mm tilling out the trenches because our soil in so hard.
You soak newspapers in water and lay them down thick (6,7,8 pages) over your proposed site, this kills the weeds. Then cover it in layers of your organics, peat, manure, humus, leaves...now you have built a raised bed, without the building.
You can use this method in Spring to quick jump your beds, or in my case Fall, and the beds will be good to go in Spring. I'll use Fall clean up to help build the beds up and add the top layer in Spring. Instead of fencing, I am going to try to use different flowers and herbs as pest and animal repellants (I am keeping fencing by JIC)Again, I will find out in Spring if this works too. DH thinks I'm nuts anyway, he doesn't quite get the idea. What I like about doing this in Fall, is I can take a little more time in buying and hauling peat, compost and manure, I'd rather spend 10-15 bucks a week than all at once in Spring. We don't get the paper delivered, so I can go to my mom's and take the ones she saves again at my lesuire. And it's also become quite the conversation piece.
What I did was break the original bed up into 8 sections (5 1/2 x7 1/2 apprx.)
and tilled out trenches around each section so I can comfortable walk around each bed and not have to step in it and compact the soil. You use the dirt from the trenches and pull it up into the individual beds to make the "raised" part. I will use recycled boards for the trenches so I am not walking in mud after it rains. Also the hope is with obvious paths, no one will walk through the beds since the paths are so close.
It's also suppose to make crop rotation easier, I guess I will find out.
I was able to get some work in today. Re raked the North end and the East slope, even got under the deck and the whole south yard finished. 4 hours of raking and hauling. Just have to do a little leaf blowing and the bottem yard is finito! Next on the list is cleaning the deck and all the containers up there, the gutters and the little porch.
Cody is going to dig the holes for the last few roses, and help me get the tiller fired up. We are looking at some rain so I won't be able to till until Sunday or Monday.
Monday I will call the guy to come and haul this years debris away. I will post pictures tomorrow to show you what I mean.
I realized today that I join the "original" GG back in 2002. Col was not quiet 12 and CB not quiet 10. They wanted to grow "Tommytoes and Pepperers". All we had was containers at that time. We made it work!!! We also grew herbs and some strawberries. Some of the strawberries now live in our REAL garden.
Alas. the boys have grown. Col is almost 18! He is graduating this year, and is planning on moving Up North (5 hours by car). He has some jobs lined up and will be doing well. CB is starting Jr. year, with a chance to graduate early, He is also looking at moving, college out of state.
I realized also, that for the first time, in 20 years I will be alone..............I know that every family has experienced the Empty Nest Syndrome. But it hit me hard this week. This past week, the boys have dug holes, cut branches, moved mini mountains...........and next garden season they won't be here. I never gave a thought to what would happen when they grew up. I'll stop now, I didn't mean to get maudlin. Just don't know if I can garden alone.
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