Notes for April 18, 2011

Last week on Monday evening, we had daytime temperatures near 80 and so it was just downright pleasant to work outside after dinner in the limited daylight. So I had a plan and I stuck to it. My plan was only to clear the winter wind blown leaves from another flower bed (since they were about 6 inches deep at one end). I pulled the leaves out and ran them over with the mower several times and then bagged them with the mower. I bagged three very heavy mower bags full. While I was clearing the leaves from the garden, I noticed our year old beagle playing around (on the other side of the fence from where I was working). When I looked a second time, I knew I had to investigate what he had.

He had this little two inch creature and was playing/toying with it like a cat. We think its a vole. Under the leaves were all sorts of habitat trails, so I gues I disturbed him/her from their wintering home.

Tuesday it rained and on Wednesday I emptied 1.0 inches from the rain gauge.

Friday I noticed the radishes starting to push up through the ground.

Saturday it rained and I emptied 2.3 inches from the rain gauge on Sunday. I also noticed the radishes were no longer pushing but were now exposed and the "pushed" ground was washed down.

Finally... progress

This weekend was finally productive...

Saturday...

Finally got the veggie garden tilled. Added 50 pounds of bone meal, 50 pounds of lime, 15 gallons of wood ashes and 340 gallons of 17 month old composted leaves.  Rototiller started on the second pull!

Sunday...

 I planted two rows of radishes, four rows of spinach and one row of romaine lettuce.  Since I went a little excessive with the leaves, I ended up having to sift the soil for covering the seeds otherwise the leaves would be blocking the germination.

After planting, I cleaned out the leaves from three flower beds and plan to gather up the leaves with the mower tomorrow.

Peppers are doing better

I was really getting started to get depressed and thought I was going to have to order plants again.  So I changed my methods and all have sprouted.  I was watering twice a day and I started to give up and said the heck with it and only watered once a day and the rest sprouted!  So now I have a pepper seedling growing in each pot!

Things are going slow...

The last few weekends its either been unseasonably cold or raining. This weekend I am under the weather (pun intended). So I am taking it easy on the laborious work still required to get my yard ready for Spring. Yesterday I did plant my onions but I still haven't tilled the main veggie garden. So much for early radishes.


Here are the daffodils that I transplanted along the back fence. Of course some of you might say there are still leaves to rake behind the daffs or a fence post that needs replacing.

Here are the daffs I planted along my veggie garden. The chicken wire in the front is the fence I put up last week to keep my dogs out of the onion patch. As you can see the veggie garden has been mowed and is ready for tilling.



Here are my tomato seedlings and my setup.

And here are my pepper seedlings.

Dismal, I know, but I have seven with growth (out of 12). Two have doubles, so hopefully I can transplant them. One of the cups you can read "NA" which stands for "New Ace" variety.

I am not planning for much today if anything but trying to keep from getting worse. The headache, stuffy runny nose is enough.

Winter holds on?

Winter came back this week, making it uncomfortable to work outside so not much got done this weekend.  I did however get something done outside Sunday afternoon.  Mainly out of necessity.  Two of our dogs have been digging holes in my onion patch looking for the bone I buried (in the form of bone meal).  So I looked in the shed and I did have a couple of partial rolls of chicken wire and luckily I had one that was long enough and fenced in my onion patch.

 

All but one of my tomato seedlings have sprouted (one cell did not germinate at all).  But since I planted two seeds per cell, I have plenty extra to transplant to the empty cell.

 

I am again struggling with the pepper seeds.  I have them in the peat pots and in an old baking pan on top of the warming mat.  I have been watering them twice a day and I have only one germinating so far.  Two years ago when I first used the mat and a plastic six pack, I think I had them all germinating in 10 days (today is day 15).  Which just makes me more frustrated because I have poor luck getting peppers before September.  And I have been trying to grow early varieties (but you can't get them in the store as plants).

 

And the family is busy next weekend (at least Friday and Saturday) leaving me to work outside but if you look at the forecast... I will be working inside again instead of outside in the rain...(I know its still several days away and it will probably change 6 times before Friday, but its still depressing).

week 2 Part 2?

As expected I never did make it outside on Sunday.  There was just too much to do inside that needed to get done.

 

As you can see I have a golden retriever.  We also have two other dogs.  Late last Spring we adopted a beagle puppy from a beagle rescue society.  And right before Christmas we inherited an older corgi mix dog from a friend of the family who had a stroke and could no longer take care of the dog (my wife and I were designated godparents a few years earlier).  So every night is a three dog night (pun intended).  Anyway, Saturday evening I had to chase the two smaller dogs out of my onion patch SEVERAL times (luckily I hadn't planted the onions yet).  Apparently they were looking for the bone I buried.  But of course they didn't find one but they dug a bunch of holes and found only BONE MEAL!  Sunday I kept checking on them and it appears they either got the message to stay out of that garden or they got tired of trying to find the bone?  I was thinking that if they were in it again on Sunday I may have to put up a better fence around the onions.

 

The daffodils are in a strong bloom right now and the forsythia are starting to bud.

 

Next time I am at the farm/garden center to get dog food, I will also get a couple of air filters and a new blade for the mower.  Since I use my mower to mulch leaves, the blade is always worn down enough to make me think that sharpening isn't really an option.

 

This next weekend I hope to turn the veggie garden, plant the onions and mulch some more leaves piled up in various places in the yard.  If I get a nice evening I may get an earlier start but I have some indoor repairs to work on this week as well, and the weather looks to be cooler again so an evening outside appears unlikely at this point.

 

On the agenda as well this Spring...

 

We got a new well installed back in November and I need to get some topsoil to fill in the truck ruts.  That will be the next priority after the radishes and spinach are planted.

 

I need to get on the roof and clean the gutters and replace the hardware store gutter covers which work fairly well but some of them are old and need replacing.  I don't think the gutters are too clogged.  They were once before, and it was then that I noticed that the gutters would drip for several days after a rain.  They aren't dripping like that now.

 

My tomato seeds are starting to sprout.

week 2 part1?

Week two and I am sore already.  Not sure if I will do much (if anything) tomorrow.  Couldn't get started until the afternoon today but I feel good about what I got done.  I bought some bone meal and added bone meal, wood ashes and leaves to the onion patch and turned it.  I bought the onion sets yesterday on the way home from work.  I might plant them tomorrow.  After that I ran the mower over the leaves that fell in the veggie garden.  Pull, pull, snap went the mower cord. So I had to fix the mower first.  I thought that running the tiller after that would be too much.  After that I had my son help me take down the Christmas lights off the front of the house. Then I raked out most of the leaves from two flower beds and mulched them fine and then bagged them and put them in the finely mulched pile (to be used as mulch and fertilizer). Then my body had had enough and I stopped for the day.