Thursday, May 5, 2011

Garden and plants update

Annnnnnnd... It is raining again. We just had a few days of absolutely lovely weather. Sunny, 60-70 degrees, no RAIN. I do feel bad for the folks that are facing drought conditions right now. At least all the weeds and grass here are green, as we just finished one of the wettest recorded Aprils for this area. I wish we could all just get a happy medium. My peas are happy, but I haven't been able to get anything else in the ground because it is still too wet to till. Ugh.

Did get a lot done over the weekend. After the garden show on Saturday, I went by the old house and loaded up the mower and all the potted plants we still had there. The Japanese Maple was LOTS of fun to get into the bed of a full size truck, let me tell you. I dug up a grandbaby of a thornless blackberry that was given to me by a dear friend who passed away a year ago. It had come up from the roots of a start he'd given me from his plant, and I couldn't bear to leave it. I also dug up and brought home some surprises from my old raised bed. I had planted two parsleys and one chive start last spring. Well, the utterly neglected parsley overwintered in the bed, and each is now the size of a basketball. Go figure. The chives had come back up and are nearly as large. They are all now happily transplanted to the corner of the new house. Yay!

KT, awesome as she is, gave me a lilac and a hop that she had started from her own garden, as well as a bit of bachelor's button, three african violets that she no longer had room for, and a 3' Doug Fir that she'd gotten as a plug from the garden show a few years ago. I can't say no to new plants, especially when I've gotten better at not killing them! KT ROCKS!

Garden show, goodness. I spent waaaay too much money as usual, but that's ok. I came home with 6 assorted pepper starts, several tomato starts (mmmm... pineapple tomatoes), some spanish lavender, two grapes, a bay laurel, 6 very young apple trees (which were only $5 each. Score!), and a fairly large jade plant and a cascade hop for LJ. I also bought a couple yummy smelling purple flowers that I can't remember the name for, because my memory is crummy. :) I think that's everything. Probably forgot something. Ah well. The only items in the ground so far are the 3 spanish lavender. It is either still too cold for other items, or we just haven't decided on where to put them. Soon, soon.

We've been working to level the new garden area, even if we can't till yet. Got a bit more done last night before the rains came back. LJ dragged it with the tractor and landscape rake. The rake picks up the brambles, roots, and sticks, and helps to grub out the blackberry roots. We've been pulling rocks, some so large that I can barely tip them into the tractor bucket. The amount of glass I've found out there is ridiculous. I don't understand the folks that lived there before. We keep finding piles of broken glass, cans and bottles, random trash and bits of metal. Like they didn't have garbage service or recycling. All that property, and we found a couple old Christmas trees tossed into the brush 30 or 40 feet from the house. Just don't get it. Anyhoo, we're still finding little surprises like these, and cleaning as we go. Lots and lots of work left to do!

5 comments:

Alex said...

It's an adventure! Never know what you might find. Maybe they tossed some old tools or something. Interesting point on the parsley. The best looking grass on my whole place is in the middle of the field. I assume it came from sprigs. Never watered, never fertilized. Looks 1o times better than the grass around my house that gets pampered. Mother Nature has a way.

Paula said...

Out of curiosity Rae, how many square feet are you planning for your garden?

And if you save seed from your pineapple tomato, can I have a few? (Or if you're feeling especially sweet, you can start me a plant when you start yours :^)

Rae said...

Just guessing, as I haven't really measured, around 1000 sq ft of tilled garden. The squash, pumpkins, and short season watermelons will be dotted here and there around the back yard, so I can't really count the area for them. All this is if it dries out enough and warms up enough to till and have stuff grow. :)

I don't know if LJ will let me part with any of the pineapple starts, as I think I only bought 3, and he LOVES those tomatoes. Or maybe you meant next year? I am planning on trying to save some seed from these. How about, if we get a decent tomato year, I bring you a couple tomatoes? You will probably be more successful at saving seed than I will. :) I haven't intentionally saved seed before. My tomatoes like to self seed... everywhere.

Toni aka irishlas said...

Well, it seems all the cool people are on the west coast. Geez. Love the blog!

Rae said...

@ Toni, thanks! Oh, and as much as it rains here, we can't help but be cool. Well, Paula's cool. I'm a big faker. :)