Outside

Rain, Finally

It started raining this morning, and is supposed to continue through the weekend. At first I was disappointed - no time in the garden - but then I started thinking about all the nice rainy-day things that I can do. Besides, we need the rain.

Some good news in the vegetable garden - the asparagus lives, and I have proof. As you can see by the picture, I sort of let things go after the deer had their way with it last year. I will have to weed out the creeping charlie that you see here, along with dandelions, grass and thistle.

Plus - the fingerling potatoes are coming up. I won't post the picture here, as it's not much to look at. Additionally, the peas are going gangbusters - they're probably 3-4" tall by now.

At the pond, the dragonflies are back and doing their thing.

On Wednesday, I lamented the lack of ducks this year. So of course yesterday the pond was filled with ducks, including the just-arrived blue-winged teal (male and female), a pair of hooded mergansers, and the usual mallards and wood ducks.

Our next-door neighbor does not actually live in his house. However, because he has let his woods go even more wild than everyone else's woods, he has some interesting things growing. One is this mystery tree. It's tall but very spindly - right next to the entrance to the driveway.

This is a picture of part of a branch that came down in our last snow storm. The branch is on the ground, but obviously still connected to the tree. What this picture doesn't show well is that the flowers are actually more in upright racemes. Another plant to look up in Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. If not there, then in Trees and Shrubs for Northern Gardeners. Each is excellent.

Here's yet another shot of the wood anemone - this time with some flowers open. I know I posted one yesterday, but what a nice ground cover it makes.

The to-do list for the garden this weekend is short, as it will be raining. I will re-pot a few more tomatoes and peppers, and maybe start the watermelons, pumpkins and summer squash.

Spring Wildflowers (and Veggie Dreams)

The weather has continued to be beautiful: Today's high is forecast for about 70 degrees, with a perfectly blue sky. As a native Minnesotan, I don't trust weather this nice in April. It should be in the mid-50's and raining, with a few sunny days interspersed with lots of cloudy days. However, it's been mostly in the 60's and 70's, with a few 80's, and the sun has been shining most of the month. In fact, it's dry and I need to water. So the question everyone "from here" is asking - how bad will the weather be in May?

Whatever the case, I've been making hay while the sun shines. Or at least working in the garden. It's become beautiful and gets greener every day.

The water birds have returned to the pond. I heard and saw a kingfisher last night. A great blue heron has stopped by a few times. And some of the egrets have returned. The only one we haven't seen is the green heron. The picture below was taken from inside the house, so the quality isn't that great. However, egrets are very camera-shy - if you try to get close, they take off.

We haven't had many ducks or any migrating warblers this year. I'm not sure if it's because we've been lulled into thinking it's later in the spring that it really is by our beautiful weather, and they're still coming. Or, perhaps because of the weather they just kept flying north. Or, worst of all, they aren't coming at all.

These violets are all over our yard. I haven't determined exactly what they are. They have more of a purple blush than Canadian violets, and are way too purple to be sweet violets. In any case, they're a beautiful reminder of why we don't use chemicals in our yard.

We also have Wood Anemone (anemone quinquefolia var. quniquefolia) growing in patches in the yard. Most of the pictures in the guidebooks show it with green leaves, but one mentioned that it occasionally has maroon leaves, which all of ours do. Interestingly, the MN DNR plant database says that Wood Anemone blooms in May, so perhaps we are a few weeks ahead in our spring this year.When I took this picture, it was early evening, so the flowers had already begun to close. I'll try to get another - better - one today.

 

But, what's most exciting of all (at least to me) is that my asparagus is coming up! I thought for sure it was dead after the deer ate all the foliage last August, but on Monday night I saw a few spears. I'm just so glad I didn't dig up and compost the entire bed as I had planned on Sunday!

As I mentioned yesterday, I managed to re-pot most of my seedlings on Saturday and Sunday, along with expanding my light contraption at work. Here are the tomatoes.

The peppers look good.

I still have some seedlings that were just a bit small to transplant.

The expanded light set-up seems to be working. I added another bank of lights, as the number of trays I have is growing.

I finally had some seeds pop up on Sunday. Here is a bit of the pea and spinach bed.

Some of seeds in the roots and greens bed have started to come up. Good old Black Seeded Simpson lettuce is the first of the greens. The line of leaves below the string are Purple Plum radishes. As of this AM, there were a few more lettuces coming up (Revolution and Red Salad Bowl, I think), along with a lonely Chiogga beet.

A good weekend

No pictures today. :-(

Since I've started this blog, I have been carrying around our camera along with the cable that connects it to the computer. However, a few days ago, I think spouse decided to be helpful. He put away some recharged batteries in the carrying case, and I he saw the cable and decided to put it back in the drawer in the basement, where it was stored pre-blog. So, I will have some good pictures on Wednesday.

Saturday was a bit overcast, which was just as well because we had 1:00 pm matinee tickets to see Hamlet at the Guthrie. Hamlet is the last show before they move to the new building. I am very sad to see the old place go - a great venue, and a waste of a ground-breaking modernist building, if you ask me. However, it will be nice to have a new bathroom set-up, which always leaves some people still in line when intermission is over. The play was excellent. Santino Fontana, who plays Hamlet, did an outstanding job. I just looked - he's only 23 - unbelievable. I especially appreciated the way that the character of Hamlet was portrayed - as a young man who becomes unravelled at the death of his father and the marriage of his mother to his father's brother. I've seen a few productions in which Hamlet pretends to be crazy (there is a lot of textual evidence for this), but I found it much more effective to have the character actually come apart before our eyes. I think it was the most "human" Hamlet I have seen. Additionally, the reading of the lines was done expertly. I also liked the way that Rosencranz and Guildenstern were portrayed. Usually these are very one-dimensional characters, but Joe Dowling (director) has them play the parts as being manipulated by the King to do the state's business, somewhat against their will. Very well done.

Anyway - there were some garden chores that got done this weekend, too. Before the play, I managed to re-pot the tomatoes and peppers. Once this was done, I discovered I needed more lights, as the trays are getting too big for the area. So, Sunday I headed to the hardware store, got what I needed, and set up another 4 foot light. After doing that, I went to Cal's Nursery and got some composted manure for the unplanted beds. However, once I got home and ate a late lunch, I lost my desire to dig up beds, so spend a beautiful afternoon reading on the deck.

I have lots of pictures, but they will have to wait until Wednesday.

Daffodils in Bloom

A quick post, as I'm at work and very busy today.

The daffodils in our roadside ditch are finally beginning to bloom. I took this before work today.

A few native plants are beginning to bloom. This is something I've noticed every spring, part-way around the circle we live on, and I've always wondered what it was. No time to look it up now, but here it is for posterity so I can look it up another time. It was windy when I took this picture - last night - so it's a bit blurry.

And look what a difference just 18 days makes. The picture on the left is from April 1st, the picture on the right is from yesterday, April 18. (As always, click on picture for larger view.)

Okay - enough for today. I'll have pictures of seedlings for tomorrow.

Easter Bunny Surprise

As I was clearing away leaves and straw from around my miraculously growing rhubarb, trying to decide if I should replant it today or wait for a week or two, imagine my surprise when I found this! (Click on the picture for a larger view.)

Yes, that's a rabbit's nest, directly next to one of my rhubarb plants. Below is another picture, showing one of the bunny's butts as it tried to burrow down further after being revealed.

I've decided to leave them where they are. Now that I've disturbed the nest, there is a chance that the mother won't come back. However, I did some googling, and discovered that baby rabbits leave the nest when they are only 5 inches long, and these are very close to that. Also, the Great Horned Owl still spends time in the arborvitae next to the garden, so I might have built-in pest control.

To ensure a bunny-proof garden, I put in my new rabbit fences this weekend. I used 36" x 25' window screening, folded in half, and stapled to 1"x1" pointed posts. It didn't turn out quite as elegantly as I had envisioned - it's more saggy than I thought because it's really hard to pull the screening tight - but it will do. It's also less annoying (and less ugly) than chicken fencing. As long as the rabbits stay out, I'm happy.

I got my roots and greens planted, too. Here it is before the rabbit fence went up.

I used the square foot method on this bed - each square has a lettuce, beet or carrot, with scallions along the string lines. In the two triangular corners I spaced in rhubarb chard, then broadcast mache (corn salad) around the chard.

If the weather continues to be beautiful this coming weekend (70's and sunny in the middle of April - unbelievable), I hope to finish cleaning out the garden beds, get the initial weeding done, and put out some of the garden ornaments.

I thought I killed it . . .

But the rhubarb lives!

I put in two rhubarb plants in the spring of 2004, and they have been on the verge of death ever since. I have finally figured out that I didn't plant them deep enough. This weekend I will dig them up and get the crown under the ground, and maybe we'll have some rhubarb by next year.

The willows by the pond are just getting green. Here's a nice shot I took last night, with the blue sky showing off the green branches.

I got home a bit early last night and planted peas and spinach. I had hoped to get another bed planted, but time goes by quickly in the garden.

Tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful - mid-70's and sunny. I'll get the rest of the roots and greens planted then.

Finally, something in the ground

I finally got something planted last night - potatoes. Below is a picture I took this morning showing the fruits of my labor. (I took it about 6:45 AM, just before the sun came up, so it's a bit dark.)

The freshly-dug bed on the right holds two fingerling varieties of potato: French Fingerling and Rose Finn Apple. The bed with the trellises has a potato trench in the back, filled with Purple Viking, a general purpose white potato with purple skin. The far left bed doesn't have anything - just extra dirt from the Purple Viking trench. This year I decided to go with more "exotic" varieties than I did last year (Kennebec and Norland). I figured the fun of growing them at home is to have something I couldn't find easily at the grocery store or market.

In the fingerling bed, I planted the potatoes right down the middle. I will plant bush beans along each side after I push the dirt back into the trench. This was an idea from Great Garden Companions by Sally Jean Cunningham. According to the book, the potatoes and beans should repel each other's insect enemies.

Along with planting the potatoes, I set up the trellises for peas and beans (see picture below). I built the tall trellis in 2004, and it's still working well. This will be for the snap peas and pole beans. I decided to try something different for the shelling peas - old tomato cages with extra twine.

Besides planting potatoes and setting up the trellises last night, I had also planned to plant the peas, along with beets, lettuce, spinach, carrots and onions. However, by 7:45 pm it was getting dark, so I'll have to do that on Thursday night.

Before I went in the house, I experienced one more first for the day - the first mosquito bite of the season. I guess that's the trade-off for temps in the 70's.

Basking in Spring

Ahhhh - spring at last! This picture of Dexter in the garden says it all about the past weekend. The sun was shining, the temps were in the 60's, and there were obviously a lot of good "dog smells" that needed to be sniffed, and deeply.

I didn't get everything on my list done, but I managed to get quite a few items crossed off. On Saturday I went to a few stores to get fencing material, compost, etc. I planned this year's bed rotation, too. I'm not particularly satisfied - I haven't gotten a system down yet. This is the third year with the new garden, and I haven't put anything into the same bed two times in a row, but I still don't have it on auto-pilot yet.

I also went to work and set up my light contraption, which I think will work pretty well.

It's in our warehouse, on a shelf with dead computer stuff. At home I have a new tray germinating - nicotiana and lemon balm. Once I see some sprouts, those can come in under the lights. I have to wait about 3 weeks to start cucumbers, squash and watermelon. I just hope I have enough room under my one light - I don't really want to set up another one. Employees think I'm weird, but oh well, I'm the boss.

A great portion of Sunday was devoted to my half of housecleaning (bathrooms and kitchen), which hasn't been done for too long. I finally got outside about 2:30 pm. I dug in the compost into three beds, put in the ground fasteners for the deer fence, and planned out the supports for peas.

Speaking of the deer fence, here's a picture I took on Saturday, from the porch looking directly out. Behind the fence, just to the right of the middle tree trunk, is one of my four-legged neighbors. Hah!

However, the dog is none too happy with the new fence. Here he is, looking into the neighbor's yard, which he firmly believes is HIS territory.

I didn't get to the planting on Sunday, which is too bad because it's supposed to be beautiful this week. But I think I'll go home a bit early tomorrow night and do it then. Bill is going to the Twins home opener, so my time is my own.

Ah yes, spring has definitely sprung!

Ice Out

The ice went out of the pond on Wednesday, and the ducks were out in full force. While walking the dog Wednesday night, I also heard the first spring peepers (frogs) of the season. They weren't in our pond - they were in a little spring wetland at the other side of our circle. I wonder if we'll have frogs in our pond this year? Two years ago we had a plethora of great white egrets, and last year there was a noticeable lack of frogs. Hopefully they will rebound before this year's egrets can get to them.

Last night we had huge storms, with gale-force winds and pea-sized hail. I had hoped to cover the beds on Wednesday night so that they didn't get too waterlogged, but I didn't. So, I hope today's sun will start the drying process so I can plant some things this weekend.

Some of my tomatoes and peppers have germinated in the Jiffy pots. I plan to set up my lights at work tomorrow.

It's supposed to be dry and sunny on Saturday and Sunday, so it will be a yard and garden weekend. Here's the plan:

1. Pick up sticks. Our two snowstorms of the season were heavy and wet, so there are some big branches down.

2. Set up lights for seedlings. I'll do this at work, where there is more room.

3. Anchor the deer fence.

4. Compost the beds.

5. Plant potatoes, spinach, lettuce, peas, and maybe carrots

6. Clean the house - it's been too long!

Getting Nicer

The weather is improving, day by day. Yesterday was mid-50's and sunny. Today is supposed to be close to 60 degrees and partly cloudy. Rain moves in late tonight, continuing through Friday. Right now the weekend looks like it will be mid-50's and mostly sunny.

If I'm smart, I stop at Cal's on the way home tonight and buy compost to spread over the beds before it rains. Otherwise, the ground will be too wet to plant anything on Saturday. Or, I could bring some black poly from work and put it over the beds to keep them dry through the next two days.

Not much else to report. I've been checking the asparagus bed every day to see if anything comes up this year. The deer ate the fronds back to about 1 foot tall late last summer, and I don't know if the plants got enough nutrients to last through the winter. I really hope so, because otherwise it's another year until we can finally eat home-grown asparagus.

Ice-out for the pond should be today. I'll check tonight.