All of my pre-ordered bareroot roses have arrived! Now it’s time to dig holes…ugh… in the past week I’ve gotten 90% of my pruning done, pulled weeds, put down compost, rototilled the garden, put in new berry bushes, spread the garden compost and tilled it in. Got my seed potatoes. Spruced up my strawberry beds and my lily bed.
Now it’s pouring rain. Figures. Almost killed my tomato starts - they need to be potted up so they don’t dry out so fast.
Am pleasantly surprised at the new growth on things. Some plants I was not sure about last year are looking super good this year!
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First planting of peas are in.
This weekend we got the compost pile turned, the garden shed organized, the plantings around the garden area raked and mulch added around daffodils. Cleaned up oak leaves. Got a hog panel up behind the clematis vine which had sorely outgrown it’s trellis. Took hardier over-wintered items out of the cold frame. Replenished gravel where needed. Leveled a few pavers that had heaved from frost. Raked through ground cover areas and picked up sticks. I want to start edging and mulching the perennial beds and have to keep reminding myself it’s still March and I can’t get the tractor on the lawn yet
Things have mostly thawed here, and weather has been great, warm and sunny. I have a small planter that I am going to put lettuce seeds in TODAY. And the south side of my fenced garden, I have to dig that by hand (can’t get the tractor with the rototiller on it that close to the fence anyway), so I am going to do that TODAY and plant the first row of peas. Since my tractor is ill right now, it will still be a while before I can get it in there to get the rototilling done, and it may still be frozen in the middle, but the south side is always the first to thaw, the rocks get warm and thaw the soil first there (it is a raised garden). My tractor is in pieces at the moment, bits of it going in to the dealer to get fixed. We fixed it once ourselves already.
I’ve been working on my pasture enlargement areas, and cleaning up broken willow branches (from heavy snow and winds in months previous) in pastures, adding to burn piles. I have four horses in my training paddocks, so have been doing some preliminary spring rebreaking, waiting for vet to get teeth floated before riding. Have already wrecked my back trimming feet, but am hoping that is only temporary. Getting old sucks, but is better than the alternative. Advil daily helps.
The potato patch is still WET, afloat with meltwater. I cleaned up my tackroom yesterday, and tossed those potatoes stored in there all winter that got frozen by mistake, and still have WAY TOO MANY left over for seed potatoes. I hope to get at least the first few rows of those in soon, along the driest side of the patch. The Caribes go in first, a couple of rows of them. The area does not look like it will need to be rototilled again, since I did it last fall, still looking light and fluffy once the water drains away. I am extending this area currently with manure from the training paddocks, filling more of the swampy low area next to the potato patch that I have never got to previously. Once filled and left to rot for a year or so, then rototill it, and turn it either into more potato growing area, or grazing.
Today, while the hubby is taking the tractor pieces in to the dealer in town, I am going to load cut poles into the back of the farm truck, and fix the dam fence in the far pasture. I cut these poles on purpose, for this purpose a couple years ago, and they have been stored in the bush. Willow and birch poles, thin and strong but flexible, and just the right diameter for this rustic fence made of thin poles. He will have “other ideas” for this fix, which will involve trying to buy poles, so I figure I’ll get it done while he’s away, my way. It will be done when he gets home. Sneaky.
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I planted two rows of peas, with spring onions at the ends as markers! I need to pick up some broccoli plants and seeds for kale, spinach and lettuce in the next few days.
@Mango20 - I really like that idea, using onions as row markers!! That sounds fun!
Now…how do you get rid of a giant compost pile when you live inside city limits and can’t burn it??? Holy cow it would take me 100 years to chop it all down and put in the yard debris can. Once a week. :eek:
Can’t help you with your city compost, but the onion markers work really well for me. I buy a bunch of white onion sets early, and keep the bag in my fridge to keep them from sprouting. Then I put about 5 at each end of each row as I plant things, which gives me a pretty continuous supply of green onions throughout the season.
I bought a broad fork to replace my little landscape fork. After 10 years, the base soil in my raised beds is suprisingly compacted and bound with old roots. Water tends to run off to the side instead of perk down like it should. Last year I went through with a fork and cracked the base soil on some of the beds before I added compost and those beds did great. My broad fork came yesterday and it was 55 degrees out so I worked on some more of the beds. Now everything looks perfectly cultivated and ready to plant but the last frost date is 2 months away and it will still be a couple of weeks before it is safe to set out even cole crops. …so… I wait…
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Obsidian Fire - Can you sell it or give it away to local gardeners or gardening groups? Lots of folks in the city buy compost. SmartAlex - I like that fork!
We pruned the roses which are budding forth like crazy. The lilacs are leafing in overnight. There’s an amazing bloom of Joshua Trees this year due to the rain. Despite the super-bloom of poppies here that you may see on your news - the bed I planted has not come up. It may be the elevation or it may be the seeds.grrrr We have lots and lots of butterflies this year and wildflowers. The high desert looks like Ireland right now.
Our last frost date is also early May. So, I wait.
Ummm… I think most of the snow is gone? Jealous of all of you that have already planted peas! We were still getting hard frosts this week! Like, mud yesterday, solid this morning, type of freeze. I’d love to get the garden area roto tilled ASAP but I’m not sure the tractor will be able to get in/out of the old horse paddock without sinking. Sigh.
@TCA Arabians - I wish. If it was “that kind” of compost I would just use it myself. It is years of rose prunings and a few other things, but mostly rose bushes and those kind of woody twiggy things just do not compost down. My husband thinks we should get a chipper/shredder and maybe we should…but for now…
OTOH… I have been able to get a few things in the ground. I visited a local nursery I love and I found a “Beauty of Moscow” lilac, I am dying for that to bloom!!! I also got a tree peony, and a ‘normal’ one in yellow.
Yesterday at another garden center, I found a large pot that is just gorgeous. And since I happened to have gift cards from Christmas to this store… 
My husband said to me that I have not been very enthused about anything lately, like my gardening which I do love. I thought “Huh??? What is he talking about?” but then as I thought it over I thought “he’s right, I just am not inspired this year.” and then I realized it is because I don’t have a project in the works. The last few years I’ve had rather large landscaping projects going on, but for now they are done - nothing to do but maintain, so all I’m doing is pulling weeds and spreading compost…and waiting for things to come up and bloom! There isn’t anything I really want to change this year, just a few minor touch ups, but even those I have to think over until I get an idea of how I want it to look.
Soooooo… I peruse pinterest, and magazines, and spend a lot of time just mulling it over in my head!
My tractor is back in one piece. $1700 repair bill. It feels like driving a reanimated corpse, but I am hoping to get over that feeling. We have put it back into 2 wheel drive, in an attempt to prolong the life of the front axle parts that were NOT replaced for this amount. Crazy.
Cleaned up the last of last year’s veggie garden. I was going to burn it in the garden itself, to preserve nutrients in the soil there, but it was so snow covered all winter that it just didn’t get done. So I have built another burn pile next to the garden, and all that crap is now added to it. And the garden itself is ready to rototill, though I think still a bit frozen in the middle. Moved the two sets of steel wagon wheel farm gates that my dad built 50 years ago, and which I dutifully moved to this farm 11 years ago, from their initial storage spot, to a “new” spot further out of the way from clean up plans in this area. IDK if we will ever use them somewhere, but I can’t let them go. The DH is not keen on them.
The far pasture fence repaired as planned, it’s adequate. Further burn piles added to in winter pasture, clearing deadfall. Must add lime to small grass hayfield today (I think it is dry enough to at least walk on by now). Have to pick up sticks and related detritus that washed into the alfalfa field from the neighbour’s field, and scattered all over our field by our confused boarders this winter running the fenceline for no apparent reason. “Frost free” hydrant at the arena finally thawed, and got the arena watered and harrowed at least in my lunging spot at one end. The rest of the arena is still full of irrigation and haying equipment, but it was nice for lunging yesterday with the dust gone. Still waiting for the local vet to show up to get dentistry done on horses, points on teeth are bad enough to not ride them yet. 18 year old jumper mare who should know better was the wildest one of the bunch yesterday on the lunge- “Wheeeeeee!”. She’s a Krazeeee Wild Woman. Perhaps she is going senile. Looks sound enough though.
Haven’t put the Caribes in yet, but thinking about it. Lettuce seeds went into the pot, and I promise I WILL do consecutive plantings every month all spring. Rescued some asparagus babies that had self seeded in the main garden, dug them up and put them in a pot. Plastic cover needs to come off the grape plant, see if it survived another winter. No grapes yet, but every year it survives I am hopeful that we get closer to producing a grape. Covering it in winter has made it happier. I don’t know anything about grapes, but am willing to learn if it ever looks like it might produce a grape. Haven’t killed it yet. The first row of peas isn’t in yet either, but soon. Need to re-dig that row with the shovel before planting, in an effort to remove invasive grass roots.
My cauliflower plants are outside! They’ve been out for 3 days and seem happy enough. My pea plants are just pushing through. I have tomato seedlings with their first true leaves, two inch high eggplants, and lettuce babies. I started the lettuce babies indoors for the first time ever. Usually I start them in the cold frame and they won’t get to stay indoors too long (no room), so they’ll have to go out there soon but I’m trying to get them started a couple of weeks earlier than usual. This year I’m only going to plant 36 lettuce plants - yeah right.
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I have two rows of Caribes in now. And another one at least with the seed potatoes I have. Then I start on rows of French Fingerlings. In the veg garden, both regular podded peas and snow peas are in. Have not yet got it rototilled, but soon I hope. I have spread two bags of lime in my little grass hayfield two days ago (by hand with the little lawn push spreader), and have seized my back up now big time. Sciatic issues today. And it snowed yesterday. I have six more bags of lime that need to go on other parts of the grass field, and I am flat on my back and can’t move, reading COTH. The cat is happy with this situation though.
@NancyM - yes the cat would be!! (mine would be too). :lol:
We have been having nothing but rain, and I do mean rain. Like, inches and inches and then the accompanying flooding. I am glad I didn’t get my carrot seed down or even my peas as they’d probably just be drowned in all this.
I still have compost needs spreading and fertilizer to get down in my general landscaping but for now… well the horse is getting rode and the house getting cleaned. :sigh:
How is everyone’s gardening coming along? I have all my spring stuff in - two plantings of peas, carrots, lettuce and I am waiting impatiently for my broccoli and cauliflower to do something - anything! It’s time to start on the landscaping but it has been so darn wet we still can’t walk across the lawn in anything but tall boots. That’s a good condition for edging, but only if you want to haul edges and mulch in a wheelbarrow not a tractor! And we edge and mulch on tractor scale.
Yesterday it was 85 :eek: degrees out and sunny so I left work early and pulled 15 perennial plants that are in the way of a new walkway I want put in and got them stored away on the edge of the woods for later planting. Today back in the 60s and cloudy which is good because I had visions of my cauliflower bolting which would be very disappointing.
@Lucassb nice lettuce! Mine is still baby-baby. But I’ll pick up some that’s further along at a greenhouse in the next week or so. Every year I think I’ll get lettuce going earlier, but without a greenhouse I guess that just isn’t going to happen. I seeded some in the cold frame in March, about 6 weeks ago, and that is about 2 inches high. That’s going to be my earliest crop
Well I did work in the garden some getting it ready for planting. I don’t know about the rest of you all but my butt has been mowing and mowing and mowing. Last night I finished up a piece in the dark with the headlights, I did hit 1 rock. DH had to come out and let me know he heard it. I can’t get away with anything. Got to go through seeds and figure whats going where. I can say that sunshine is the best blessing ever!
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Thanks, @SmartAlex ! I know what you mean about the greenhouse… I had a small one at our old house, and kinda miss it. Enjoy your tasty greens!!
Everything is planted in the garden other than beans and corn. Peas are just starting to come up. Self seeded onions are up and growing. No asparagus showing yet, but soon. Rhubarb is partway up. Raspberries and Strawberries are showing signs of life. Bought some more strawberries to fill in gaps in the bed, haven’t got them in yet. Most of the potatoes are in, but not up yet. Nights here have been cold, but we are set to warm up this week, apparently.
Have been clearing pasture of broken willow branches and winter windfall. Building burn piles, my favourate pastime. Irrigation intake pipe cracked, the hubby found that yesterday, so we got that partially fixed. Need more items to finish repair, today’s goal on the shopping trip. I guess all the water was not out of the pipe when we pulled it out of the creek last fall. Oops. Fighting with and fixing irrigation issues is almost an annual thing, one or another issue crops up. Cracked pipes usually, eliciting plenty of swearing and bad names. With the intake pipe, this entails the two of us, trying to not fall into the creek, balancing on several logs and planks that cross the creek for this purpose, at the pool we use for our intake. One log broke yesterday, an old one, cracked under the hubby. He’s a non swimmer, so is even more against going into the creek than I am. It’s not that deep, he would not be underwater if he went in, but dam cold. Multiple trips back to the house to get further tools and WD40. Whatever you need is something that you didn’t bring on the previous trip.
My back is getting better, slowly. Still haven’t finished spreading that dolomite lime that apparently caused the issue, 2 more bags and the spreader are sitting out there in the grass field waiting for me. I’ve been riding a bit, at the walk is OK, but can only stand 10 rounds at posting trot before things get too sore to continue with it. My old mare is my main mount for this, she’s OK with being my rehab coach. She is especially happy with the new hackamore/bitless bridle that I bought for her last fall to try. It’s the closest thing I can find to an English jumping hackamore. She doesn’t think she should have to wear a bridle with a bit any more. She’s been fine with it for our trotting sessions, but I am unsure if it will suffice when we start to canter and jump again. She is a powerhouse when we get underway on a course. But maybe it will be OK. Gotta try to find out.
