My garlic is up that I planted last fall by about four inches. I am so excited. I hope to sell some of it this year if it is successful and as far as know there should not be any reason for it not to be ~ unless of course Mother Nature decides to do something drastic weather wise. I planted close to 500 bulbs so that is a fair amount to start with.
Finally the gardens are planted. If I could just stay away from them for a wee while, I am sure they would do much better. Today I was pruning brand new plants (why? they are new plants) to get rid of any part of the whatever plant wasn’t prefect. I killed a perfectly fine Russian tomato plant. I was clipping off a lower leaf because it had a little yellow around the edge and clipped in too far and snapped the whole top of the plant off. What a jerk! If anyone else had done that to my perfectly fine tomato plant that had three tiny tomatoes on it – I would have ripped their head off!!! I was so angry at myself that I just left the poor lame plant to die a slow death in the baking hot sun. When I finished my Pilates and a short meditation I went out and got that sad little tomato plant and put it into a glass of water with a bit of plant food. Just maybe it will come back to life and grow some roots or at the very least not have such an agonizing death. Good thing we are going away for four days – keep this monster away from the garden!
Most of the veggies that I planted this growing season have now made their debut. We will indeed have quite a smorgasbord of vegetables this year. I probably even have enough for doing some bartering (stuff I didn’t grow or some fancy harvesting) and the food bank as well. We are just now enjoying fresh herbs and rhubarb. Any day soon it will be Swiss Chard, Spinach and Radishes.
I have had FiddleHeads almost every evening for dinner for the last week. I went on a “Stalking the Edible Wild” hike last Saturday and came across even more Fiddleheads than my last picking session. There are a lot of Fiddleheads in the freezer to share with out of town guests that would like to share in the pleasure of eating them with me.
Three sisters is a term referring to corn, squash and beans. There is three sisters soup for example (Google it). The three sisters I am referring to is companion planting. I prepared 13 tires that are embedded in one of my vegetable gardens this afternoon by turning the soil, ridding the very young weeds and adding lots of sheep manure and organic matter (rotted leaves and compost). This year I am planting the corn (several seeds in a square shape) and two poles beans in the center of the corn of six of the tires (in a square shape again). I will then plant three or four different varieties of squash in the remaining tires. This is companion planting. The squash serves as a ground cover (less weeds). As the corn grows tall, so do the pole beans using the corn for support and at the same time keeping the corn sturdy during windy days and nights. I also planted some Nastursium and Calendula on the outside of the tires to attrack the friendly bugs to keep away the nasty bugs in order to keep our garden organic. I will be planting the corn and my own dried seeds of squash and pole beans in early June – the soil should be nice and warm by then!
I planted a half row each of spinach (Viking – a good freezer variety) and Dwarf Blue Kale today. I love spinach. Not to sure about Kale but it is really good for you! I will eat it if it is on my plate as an edible garnish when I am eating at a restaurant and enjoy it. After looking at the picture of the Kale on the seed packet, it got me thinking about how beautiful it is. Then I remembered that Kale comes in many varieties and colours. I will purchase some ornamental, container garden variety kale and it will be one of the featured plants in my planter boxes around my deck this year. I do want a lot of colour and texture in my garden boxes on the deck but at the same time to be sustainable so besides the kale, I plan on mini-eggplants, mini butter lettuce, small carrots, scarlett runner beans, Matthiola flowers for the beautiful evening scent, some Nastursium for my salads, some Nemophilla because they are a black flower which I think is pretty cool and I may even sneak in a few munchin sunflowers for texture and fun.
I planted four rows of yellow onions today – the are long lasting winter keepers.
I also got the first set of peas planted. I am planting a new type of pea this year. I got peas that do not need any trellising. They are called “Pea Knight” by McKenzie – suppose to be a darn good pea!! I will plant some more free standing peas in 10 days time and again 10 days after that!
I put some Cherry Belle radishes in between the onions which should be ready in 24 days!<
I planted a half row of various leaf lettuces – dark red to dark green – should be colourfully delicious! Radishes were also planted among the lettuce – makes thinning the lettuce a little easier. Another half row of various lettuces will be planted in 14 days.
And not a moment to soon. I have so many fabulous ideas this year that it is hard for me to sit still. I got the red onions planted on Good Friday – what a glorious day it was! On Saturday I bought some yellow oninon sets and assorted early season seeds with the anticipation of getting them planted today. The weather network said that today was going to be a lovely, sunny day -perfect for gardening. Well it is rainy and chilly not at all a gardening day. But I will be ready for the next fine day for getting dirt up nails.
They’re baacckk! The deer have been eating all of my beautiful tulips already – at least I think they would have been beautiful - even pulled the bulbs right out of the ground. The deer are in the back forty everyday several times a day!
Early evening yesterday I saw a very young bear. Probably one of the cubs that the mama brought around last fall to the apple tree buffet in our back yard. So another visitor.
The humming bird feeders are out now. We are not getting the crazy amount of humming birds we usually get but a very brilliant humming bird has checked the feeders out yesterday. Lots of Robins now too and Barn Swallows as well!
On a similar note – on my way to work this morning it was a good thing that I left a little bit later (it was now fairly light outside). I saw a couple of deer crossing the busy Hwy 3A close to our home then I saw some more. Then I saw some young elks at the junction checking out the newly sprung wild grass. Then some more deer on my way through South Slocan. This was the most magnificent though – two huge eagles on the side of the highway in Beasley area – I think that they may have been the early birds for some great nesting material. Certainly isn’t the 401 (thank goodness) but it keeps me on my toes – or should I say keeps me quite alert while driving at such an early time in the morning.
Fiddle-head picking time now everyone!
Well once again we have had a super short spring and it is now summer – at least is was in my backyard today – 83 degrees F and it is suppose to be the same tomorrow. I got some vegetable seeds planted (spinach, chard, lettuce and radishes) and more raking done. Bob put up the umbrella clothes line and I was able to hang up a couple of loads of laundry (love that!). Last year it was the exact same weather at this time (and it was Easter weekend). It will probably go super cold again in June (it always does) but how nice right now! I look out my window at this moment and the mountains still have a lot of snow on them but down here it is Shorts and a Tank top. Tomorrow I have a choice of going snowshoeing at Nancy Green Summit or walking/hiking over in Glade – Hummm – what to do – grasp the finale of winter or jump into summer?
P.S. Fiddle Head picking starts in two weeks!!!
I bought some great gardening gloves last fall knowing that as soon as I could get outside and do whatever needed to be done, I would have some new gloves to start up with. It was so nice today to go to my garden out building to get my garden gloves and first of all know exactly where the gloves were and second of all being brand new – not some old crusty gloves with holes and dirt in the finger tips. That is the first tip – treat your self to some nice garden gloves in the late summer or even late fall (they are ususally on sale) to start out with in the new spring.
The second tip is the gloves that I got were Atlas Grip Yard Work. Great gloves $4.99 last fall.
I am hoping that with a couple of bandaids and these great gloves I can finish up poop scooping
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