Sunday, 14-July-2013

Hmm...a bit of catchup to do here. Will try to get everything.
Weather has turned from cold and rainy to hot.
With assorted bits of company coming, Ed's been cleaning out the kitchen porch, so it's not so horribly ugly out there. Plant pots and such going toward the far end of the woodshed, as if a potting table might appear there before long!

Yard

• Blueberries coming along still. Have been picking a big handful of raspberries most days. 
• Frequent mowing. 

Pots

• The lemon tree is looking good, tiny, but good, having come back from its winter freeze. 
• Last winter's pansies that did so well earlier in the year are petering out.
• Cotoneaster looking peaked.

South Forty

• Parental trees all doing well. 
• Fruit trees doing ok, although the apples have some black gunk and might need to be sprayed with something.

Potager

• Put some of Shirley's onion bulbs from last fall in the ground under compost and they're coming up!
• Planted the cloves from a very sprouted garlic at one end of the tomatoes. 
• Most tomatoes have perked up and are doing well. A few were just too snail-eaten to succeed.
• Eggplants, haricots verts, winter and summer squash all doing well.
• Lynn gave us some cabbage and kale plants. Planted these, which got a bit snail-eaten before we got to the garden. We'll see. 

Entry

• Got some potted geraniums and fuschias from the front. Also a yellow abutilon and a salmon geranium that wanted to come home with me. (All are pelargoniums, of course.) Potted the last two properly today.

Saturday, 22-June-2013

Yard

• Rain keeps raining; grass keeps growing. Not much else of note. The Mock Orange on the fenceline is blooming beautifully, making me really want to be rid of the thuja that crowds it on the left. 
• The raspberry is producing. Picked a small bowlful today. If we went daily there'd probably be about the same each time.
• The blueberries are coming along.

South Forty

• The three thujas at the bottom of the South Forty are gone, hooray. Looks a bit odd coming up the road below, something missing, but looks much better.
• Looks like we'll have a few pears and plums this year. Not much action on the apples.

Potager

• The store-bought eggplants are doing well.
• The zucchini seedling that I planted is doing well. Planted the remains of a snail-eaten plant with it.
• One winter squash seed up. 
• There are haricots verts (Cordon Bleu) and fêves seeds planted directly in ground are growing. 
• Planted the remains of the slug- and snail-eaten tomatoes, six San Marzanos and five Tomate des Andes. (The weakest of each share a pole.)
• The paths need a mowing should it ever stop raining, (Actually everything needs a mowing.)

Entry

• The hydrangea is starting to bloom; the little clematis has finished. 
• The passion flower is blooming. It has never really recovered from the hard freeze winter before last. We're thinking this would be a good place for a honeysuckle; could put lath up the conservatory "walls" (that will probably never be closed in again). The passion flower could coexist with that whenever it's in the mood.

Soap spray for bugs

Found this in the June/July 2013 issue of Organic Gardening, unfortunately in a letter to the editor, so it's not available for pinning.

For a spray that works on all kinds of bugs (ants, potato bugs, white flies, etc.), mix:

• 1 cup water
• 2 tablespoons witch hazel
• 2 drops of dishwashing liquid

Spray on whatever needs it, both in the garden and around the house.

Monday, 3-June-2013

Since last post we've had lots of rain, with bits of sunshine. The grass has grown like mad.

Yard

• Bad news in the pipe from the fosse to the ventilation pipe has broken. The grass grew exceedingly well over that spot through the winter, but now it's a swamp. Someone's supposed to come replace that length of pipe soon. 
• Ed cleaned out the bed from the rose by the bedroom back to the tulip tree. Lots of elder and baby trees in there. Also cleaned some dead bits out of shrubs along the fence, 
• There was one ripe raspberry from the raspberries in the yard. I ate it.
• I marked the holes in the narcissus path with string hidden in the grass. In the fall I'll order a bunch of mixed bulbs and plant them along those lines. Only did the biggest gaps on one side. This will get mowed down next time since it's pretty will done now.
• The climbing rose (Kathleen, I think it is) is looking like it might actually climb up the albizia (pink mimosa) finally. Has lots of buds, but no open flowers yet. Odd since the one we had in NL was usually blooming about now. The albizia is just starting to think about leafing out. It's always the last tree to come.

Pots

• The baby lemon has new growth; seems to be happy. 
• Trimmed the dead stuff off the fuchsia and it's looking jolly.
• The little olive seems to be flowering. Little olives in the future? I didn't think it would flower while it was so small.
• The bougainvillea bit the dust I fear. We really need to improvise some kind of winter shelter for potted plants given that these cold winters will likely continue.
• Last fall's pansies have been doing well, but are starting to peek.
• Bought a hanging basket of petunias for color. Two of last years hanging baskets have remnants that are blooming. I combined these.
• The astilbe came back and is looking better than ever.
• Lavender getting ready to bloom.

Salad garden

• Nothing happening here. It's overgrown with weeks. Ed nowed a path through to read the fosse pipe. The yellow flowers, whatever they are, are blooming like mad. There's a mass of wild geranimums that are really weeds, but Ed and I both like the cloud of reddish foliage and pink flowers. 

South Forty

• Fruit trees doing fine, although something is eating the leaves on one of the apples.
• Parental trees doing fine.
• The burn orchids in the grass are about done and will get mowed next time round. 

Potager

• Most of the seedlings that I planted have been snail or slug eaten. Today I planted out the two eggplant plants that I bought at an organic market recently. One is Aubergine Black Beauty, which is kind of the standard eggplant around here. The other Aubergine Rotonda Bianca, rounder, with purple on one end and white on the other. We'll see how they go.
• Put out the two haricots verts Cordon Bleu that sprouted and survived, on either end of a bamboo hoop. Planted a few more seeds, just in case.
• Put on the one zucchini plant that survived, along with some seeds, hoping to get at least two plants in that "hill".
• Planted some winter squash seeds (Patidou) directly in the ground,
• Planted a short row of fêves (De Seville). These are about two months late, so I doubt much will come of them.

Entry

• The hydrangea is growing well. 
• The clematis is blooming but doesn't seem to want to climb up the pergola. 

Wednesday, 15-May-13

Yard

• Grass wants mowing yet again. Rain does make the grass grow, if only it would stop long enough to dry out.

Pots

• Pansies from last year doing great!
• Lemon tree that I thought had died over the winter is sprouting from the base!
• Potager seedlings are being munched by snails and slugs.

Salad garden

• Nothing happening; needs lots of work. 

South Forty

• There are five burnt orchids below the birches, where I think there were 8-10 last year. Ed found another below the walnut tree as he was mowing.
• A deer has been munching the quetsch plum. Apparently deer have a special fondness for plum bark. We put some wire around both plums this morning, and hope the deer don't move on to the pears and apples. 

Potager

• The wild strawberries are doing great. Nothing else going on.

Entry

• The clematis is trying to climb, and is blooming. 

Sunday, 28-April-13

Yard

• The narcissus path is winding down. Need to mark the holes before it disappears.
• Lilies of the valley blooming. 
• Camellias finishing up.
• Big rhododendron by camellias starting to bloom.
• Potted blueberries doing well; all blooming.
• One of Barbara's raspberries doing well. Ed says another is trying, but I forgot to look.

Pots

• Pansies from last fall have come back strong. 
• Pot of fuschias growing; needs a trim.
• Potted herbs in kitchen window need to be watered daily! Rain doesn't usually reach them.
• Astilbe coming back strong.

Salad garden

• Rosemary is blooming. Thyme in bad shape after winter.
• Not much else going on here since this area needs to be recombobbled.

South Forty

• Fruit trees blooming.
• Parental trees doing well. Dottie almost got mown down, but survived; has one flower.
  
• Asparagus coming up.
• Two Burnt Orchids coming up. There were more last year, so more might still appear.
• Raspberries looking the best they ever have. Why, I wonder?
• The first of Victor's bulbs (Chinodoxa lucilae) in the parental grove bloomed. Pretty little bluish flower, quite short. Unfortunately because the first mowing had a rain-delay, they're gone now. 

Potager

• Wild strawberry is blooming. Nothing else happening.
• Potted seeds are growing. No eggplant action. Both tomatoes doing well. Lots of winter squash. One zucchini. A couple of haricots verts. 

Entry

• Part of passionflower doing well. Vines on left didn't survive graveling the drive.

Sunday, 24-March-13

Yard

• It's happy mowed. Dumped the dirt from the old sage pot onto a low space.

Pots

• Pansies blooming. Not much else happening. None of the geraniums have come through, no surprise since we didn't do much to protect them.

Salad garden

• Emptied the old sage pot and filled with, um, soil for your veggie garden, and popped in a store-bought pot of mint. (Ed bought the wrong kind of soil yesterday. We'll see how it does. Mint's not all that picky, I'm hoping.)
• Pulled up three of the bits of sage that overflowed the old pot and put into one of the old pots that used to sit just outside the fence gate. I want to see if that "takes" before moving the rest of the sage. It's really gotten wild.
• Moved some of stones marking the big square bed around the umbrella tree to start making a circle around that. Amazing how stones laid out on the grass sink so far in just a few year. Thinking we might build some square boxes to make raised beds (4 or 6 perhaps) for the salad garden proper, then fill in the around those with some kind of path stuff (gravel, bark, whatever's cheap). The more space that doesn't need to get mowed, the better. 

South Forty

• It's still there.

Potager

• A few of the seeds I planted yesterday seem to have come to the top of their soil, so I pushed them down a bit. Otherwise they look fine.

Entry

• Clematis growing happily. Me smiling in amazement.

Friday, 22-Mar-13

Yard

• The willow, especially, had a good trimming with all the wind this winter. Lots to pick up in the yard.
• The tête-à-têtes are blooming prettily. Added another French pot this year. They look so happy in their corner.
• Ed mowed mowed for the first time in ages. Parts had to be cut with the strimmer first. 
• The flowering quince are flowering the best they have since we've been here. The plants really are huge. I'm used to the knee-high kind used in Dutch plantsoens.

Pots

• Potted three different basils (regular, purple, and the small "Mediterranean" on to set in the kitchen window (outside) with the lemon thyme. Hoping we might be able to keep some herbs going through the winter by closing those shutters on cold nights. Maybe.
• Put two boughten cilantro pots into one pot.
• Looks like we lost quite a few potted plants, including the lemon, through the winter. The olive is still going, though.

Salad garden

• Most of the old sage in the pot on top of one of the fosse septique portholes is dead. (It's planted itself around that.) I cleared that out, but will have to get Ed to help lifting the pot so we can dump the dirt and start again. Plan to use pot to contain mint. Will try to isolate one or two bits of the sage and trim it more tidily. I use fresh sage a lot more than I expected, so it's nice to have around.
• This area really needs to be rethought since the woodshed went in. Think I'll start by making a ring of rocks around the umbrella tree to contain that narcissus and stuff there. Don't have any ideas right now how to do the rest. There's the fosse septique portholes to work around. And a very nice rosemary plant. The remains of some thyme that doesn't seem to  have fared well over the winter. Tosca's plant that I'd like to move around the bird feeder, but may have waited too late.

South Forty

• All the fruit trees and parental trees seem to be doing well. I was a bit worried about the pecan but it's got swelling buds now. 
• There's a flowering shrub flowering that I'll have to look up. First time we've seen it flower. I see the shrub around, but don't know its name. This one's pretty scrubby looking, but maybe we can trim it tidily after it finishes flowering. 
• The probably-a-forsythia has two good twigs, no leaves or flowers.
• Lots of violets blooming, especially the white ones which seem to be taking over.

Potager

• The potager itself is a serious mess, desperately in need of mulch, belatedly, if we're going to do the no-dig thing. 
• Gathered up the empty toilet rolls and seeds from year before last and planted up a bunch of stuff for the potager. Some of these are a bit out of date, but we'll see what happens.

Entry

• What ho! The clematis, which I'd given up for a loss is leafing out. Should I get another for the other side or something else?
• The hydrangea fills only half the space under the pergola. Needs to be added to or replaced.