Berries and Compost

I knew last week that my berry plants were going to show up this week, so I prepped this bed for the blueberries. I had a cover crop growing here. Then I dumped the fall pine needles on top. Many of the plants were killed, but the ones on the edges survived. So I ripped them up. I didn't take them off, I just turned them upside down. They can be the mulch for my plants at the edges.

The two blueberries that were planted were Bluegold and Bluecrop. I also planted three currents - Pink Champagne, Jonkheer van Tets, and Rovada. I'm going to try to trail the Rovada along my white picket fence with just one main stem. It has long fruit clusters and I think it would be really pretty cascading down as it ripens. But I'm not sure it will work. But I just had to try.

My other chore for the day spreading the compost. Last fall I used all the finished compost up on most of the beds, but the other bin hadn't finished rotting down yet. It is much better this spring. It still isn't finished compost, but it is close enough.

For now I just spread it on top of the soil. I'll mix it in to the top layer of soil when I fertilize and prep the beds in May. In part of the bed that was to be covered I found some tiny lettuce seedlings. I transplanted them to the lettuce bed. I also had to spread the compost carefully around some bunching onion volunteers. I love my volunteers. Well at least until later when I'll have to weed them out.

I didn't get one bed done. It is the fava bean bed. I don't know why I didn't do it before they came up but I didn't. So I'll have to spread it careful today.

The Best of Intentions

The plan for today was to seed those all my tomatoes and my one eggplant. In addition I needed to get the bok choy and the Fun Jen into the garden as they were all hardened off. For the rest of the day I could just rest. My body aches. This morning my husband asked me if something was wrong. He claimed I was walking funny. I just don't heal up like when I was younger. I'm getting old (now quit laughing Granny).

Well anyway that all happened. I got my tomatoes in. I have Amish Paste (from Emily), Cherokee Purple (from Dan a year ago), Black Cherry (as I didn't like the chocolate cherry last year even though I did the year before), Heinz 2653, Market Miracle, Sungold, Sungold F4 (to be named GabrielleAnna as I'm only growing one), and last but not least Purple Calabash. The last one was all listed as Pruden's Purple on my planting sheets. I haven't a clue why. Emily sent me Purple Calabash not Pruden's Purple. And we can't forget Galine Eggplant. It is a varitey I'd never heard of before. Fedco described it as good tasting as Rosa Bianca but a lot less fussy and one that produces well in our short season. It isn't as pretty as Rosa though since it is an all black eggplant.

Then it was lunchtime. I figured it was time to go out and pick my first spinach. I went out basket in hand the first time this spring. And stopped short on my doorstep. I had a package. My blueberries from the St. Lawrence Nurseries had arrived. These are all bareroot dormant plants that should be planted right away.

Scott (my townhouse mate) was leaving with his wife to go somewhere and I asked if he was free to help plant this weekend. He said he was free Sunday. So we made plans for Sunday morning. I went in to open up the package and get the roots a bit of a soaking before putting them in the basement.

I just couldn't do it. I soaked the roots really nicely. But some of the buds were starting to open on a couple of the plants. They were crying to me to be put in the ground. So I just had to. Now I know this is the second time in a week I've told you that my plants were talking to me. I'm not crazy, I'm just a gardener.

I went out again, shovel in hand and planted all 15 of them. There are six Northblues, six Northskies, one Northcountry, one Friendship and one Patriot. The first three kinds are hybrid lowbush/highbush blueberries. So they grow between a foot and two feet tall. Northcountry can get a bit bigger. They will surround the currently nonexistant dwarf peach trees.

Doesn't it make my front yard so pretty. OK yes you can't even see them. All you can see is where I watered, but they will grow. It is a step up from the bamboo stick garden I had marking the spots where the blueberries would be planted.

I really did have the best of intentions to rest today. I won't get to tomorrow either as I'll be out walking with some friends. I guess I'll have plenty of time to rest when I'm dead, but now it is gardening season.

An Update and the Fruit Garden

I'm getting so behind in my postings, so I suppose I'll do a little catch up today and again tomorrow. First I spent another two hours working on my perennial border edging today. It is almost done. It just needs a little touch up near my Daphne where the two kinds of borders come together. I've run out of good rocks, but I'll get more in a couple of weeks when I finish up preparing the vegetable garden.

Sunday, yes a couple of days ago, I pruned my fruit garden. So not only am I behind in posting, but they should have been pruned in March, before I started seeing any growth. The raspberries has some broken canes as usual and a few tiny canes. I took them out. There isn't any other pruning to do for the raspberries in the spring. I have everbearers and the major pruning comes right after the first fruiting is over. Everbearers aren't really everbearing. They bear twice a year. Once in the summer and once in the fall.

The other fruit in my fruit garden are my blueberry plants. I have four old ones that aren't really producing anymore. They are still there. They got a huge pruning last year and got another one this year. The last of the old wood will be removed next year. I'm hoping that will start them bearing again, but I'm not counting on it. Last year I put in six new plants. Their location isn't ideal. They are along the driveway which means in the winter they get snow shoveled on them. Usually this is not an issue, but this year with the massive amounts of snow we got they were not happy. There were many broken limbs. I did the best I could cutting out the broken bits, often whole limbs. Most of the blueberries have only three stems now. I'm counting on new growth this year.

The one other plant in my fruit garden is a rose. I pruned it a bit too, but I really don't know anything about pruning roses. Most years the rose dies back almost all the way so I just prune out any dead wood, but this year there was no die back at all. I took off the rose hips and evened out the bush. I keep my rose bush in the fruit garden because it make rose hips so it seems like an appropriate place for it. I don't use the hips, but they are pretty during the winter.

Flowering News

I have good news in flowers and bad news. The bad news is that the pea blossoms are indeed starting to bloom during our unusual heat wave. Also my zucchini is blooming. That doesn’t sound like bad news, but if you look closely at the photo you will see that the only flower blooming is a female flower. The males don’t look like they will open up for a couple of days. Maybe the heat will speed them up, but it looks unlikely. So this little zucchini will die. So sad. Later in the year I may be quite happy with female blossoms dying, but this is the first.

There is a lot of good news in blossoms. The first pepper flower opened yesterday; the tomatoes are blooming like crazy; the geraniums are blooming; the peonies are just starting to unfurl; the Kousa dogwood is in full bloom; and the dianthus (allwoodii alpinus) are flooding the yard with their scent.

I love the clove like scent of the dianthus. I grew them from seed about 15 years ago. I used to have lots of different sizes, shapes and colors from the seed, but only one plant has survived the years. I’ve since split the plant. Though very slow growing, it makes a fabulous ground cover, slowly creeping along. It blooms at the perfect time in the garden. Right after the lilacs quit blooming and scenting the garden, it takes over the task.

The heat was fierce yesterday and it will just get hotter in the next couple of days. I went out EARLY this morning to garden to avoid the heat. Yes I was up at 6am on a Sunday morning. It was quite pleasant for a short time, and then it started getting hot. I figured the lettuce really needed some relief. I couldn’t find an old sheet, but found some old unbleached muslin and used it to wrap the bean poles (the beans will provide shade once they climb the poles). I also covered the Asian greens with muslin. They certainly don’t like the heat either.

I also had to weed the fruit garden again. I really need to mulch this bed. Two years ago I missed a thistle blooming behind my grapes (grapes have since been replaced with blueberries) and ever since I’m constantly pulling little thistle seedlings. I also swear that I’m pulling up grape seedlings. I don’t remember ever pulling them up before. Maybe instead of mulching I’ll get some clover to grow there. I can transplant some from my lawn easily enough and it will spread well over time. But for now I pull weeds.

I harvested some dill to dry today. I had some that needed thinning out and it was quite a bit. So now I will have plenty of dill weed for the winter.

Weeds and Cutworms

My Mother’s Day gift to myself yesterday was weeding the perennial garden. Since I hear people all the time complaining about weeding their gardens, I figure I’m a bit strange. I like weeding. Not all weeding is fun, but pulling out small weeds after a rainstorm is always nice. It is more on the order of communing with the garden than working. I also stripped all the flowers off the blueberries I had planted earlier this year. Some of the blueberries were planted where raspberries were last year. I obviously didn’t get all of the roots out, since raspberry shoots were still coming up. I stripped them out of the ground. Note to self: put on gloves before you rip out raspberries.

Today is very windy and chilly. The weatherman said we will have 20mph wind and may get occasional gusts up to 50mph. I was going to start hardening my cucumbers off so I can get them in the ground at the end of the week. They have already seen full sun all day being in their hoop house, but their stems aren’t very strong yet. They need to be gradually introduced to the wind. So they get one more day under plastic.

Cutworm update: cutworms 1; me 4. So far I’ve found and dispatched 4 cutworms, but one has eluded me. I saw the foliage knocked down and dug around the area, but I had no luck finding him. I’ll keep a sharp eye out tomorrow to see if he strikes again. There is the slim possibility that the plant was nipped off by a bird, but I doubt it.

Hope Springs Eternal

I was bad today. I went to Lexington Gardens to buy some herbs to add my herb bed. I got some lemon thyme, some garlic chives, “hardy” rosemary, and some chamomile seeds. Now they keep these plants in the greenhouse. So they really need to be hardened off before I put them in, but did I? No. I just plopped them right in the ground and watered them. Did I wait for evening until at least it wasn’t horribly sunny anymore? No of course not. They went in the ground at noon. Now I’m not sure that it is possible to kill garlic chives. I’ve had them before in my garden. I got tired of them self seeding all over the garden. Their little seedlings would never just pull up for me. If I pulled the stem, it would break. I always needed a trowel to pull it up. Ok so why in the world would I plant them again if I hated them before? Well I figured this time I would wait to pull up the seedlings and then when they got big enough, pull them up bulb and all and eat them that way. And of course intellectually I remember how annoying they were to me, but emotionally I’ve forgotten the pain. Gardening is a vanguard of hope.

Another chore for today was dividing one of my hostas. I needed 6 more hosta plants. I planted six blueberry plants recently and wanted the hostas to edge them. These are large blue hostas, whose names have long since been forgotten. I planted them along the rock wall on the NE side of the blueberries. Since I divided the hosta into 8 parts and put one part back, I had one more hosta plant. I had many places to put it, but finally decided to put it in the veggie garden edging my row closest to the chimney. The house has termite protection around the foundation and I have to keep the veggies at least 10 feet away from it. I’ve always planted flower there before, but the weeds from the path have a tendency to intrude. I figure the hosta is up for the challenge. Most weeds won’t have a chance against it.