Too wet to plow ...

[Terry Coombs]

But I managed to till up a couple of strips out in the garden . I'll be planting some lettuce/spinach/bok choy soon , I'd like to get some harvested before it bolts this year . I was going to plant some other stuf for the bees yesterday , but it all wants to wait til after the last frost . I did manage to get the rose bush and tulips I got the wife for Christmas planted , hopefully early enough the tulips will bloom this year . I think today I'll be setting up the shelf in the south window that I use to start my veggies . Nothing like getting a jump start on ol' Ma Nature . Got my plan made as to what goes where and how many of each , just gotta implement it now . Much of this year's garden will be from seed saved from previous years , and not a single seed from WM will be used - after last year's debacle with the tomatoes , I no longer trust them to be what the package says .

[George Shirley]

We're in the same mode, yesterday we cleared the frost bitten eggplant, sweet chiles, and cherry tomatoes out of the 4X16 raised bed. Used a rake to break up any clumping and leveled out the square foot gardening mix. Today we're going out to buy composted cow manure, some more peat moss, and a few other items. Still have a large bag of vermiculite and a couple of small bales of peat moss.

I think our blueberry bushes drowned due to the shallow pits in the fill clay we dug to plant them. As a consequence we will be deepening and making wider the planting holes. This property has about three inches of sand on top of five feet of gumbo clay. Rather than dig out the clay to a depth that would help I use a steel pry bar to poke holes into the bottom of the planting hole as deep as I can, helps the roots start breaking up the clay.

Our seed order from Territorial should be here next week and we can start growing out some seedlings. Most of the plants we can buy at the big box stores, etc. don't grow properly and seldom prosper.

Also have to amend the beds dug around the back fence line. The clay we dig out goes behind the fence to keep the fence from falling over. Eventually will have to redo the eight year old fence as it was badly built to start with. I was out yesterday afternoon putting screws into fence boards that originally had really short nails somewhat holding them on the rails. The houses here are thrown up in about a week and the fences in about a quarter of a day. Slowly all the residents of this sub division are rebuilding their fences, we're next.

A slight warming trend, 34F predicted for tonight, then into the fifties tomorrow again. We should be transplanting by early March.

[Terry Coombs]

We also have a somewhat clay soil , but there is enough ttopsoil on top and enough slope to the land that we don't get pooling . Sounds like you've got a plan ...

I'll be getting onions from the co-op , they did really well last year . I'll be planting them in staged this year , we ended up with too many at once last year . Any starts I buy will be from a local grocery's nursery , they have a very knowledgeable gal in chcharge .

Last year I put my tomatoes out on April 15th , supposed to be past frost danger . They all got bit that night . This year they'll be left in the hot box (yet to be built , but I have everything I need on hand) until I'm certain . They'll also be bigger , I just bought 100 4" pplastic pots for my seedlings . I'll start them in toilet paper tubes , then they'll go into the pots until planting time - I expect they'll be a lot bigger too . Note to self , pick up some potting soil today !

[songbird]

...

i hope the tulips do ok, but i'd be uncertain with this late of a planting. may take another year or two to sort themselves out. if the rose bush wasn't dried out or otherwise damaged it will probably do ok as long as you don't get frosts from now on. those tender new growths are easy to damage.

good luck! :)

songbird

[songbird]

...blueberries...

arg! sorry, i sure hope they are ok in the end. i'd perch them up higher on more organic materials as they'll need that acidity anyways.

...

is a fence required by the HOA?

we'll be above freezing today for the first time in a few weeks. no complaints on my part...

songbird

[The Cook]

Yesterday I started my Granex onion seeds in the greenhouse. Planning a lot less this year. I was out of commission a good part of last year and still not up to par. Everything in the garden and planter boxes has been overrun with weeds. I did cut back some dead herb foliage in one of the boxes. DH has decided to burn off all of the weeds in the asparagus bed. He figured that the rhubarb was too close to the surface to try to burn it off.

I am going to put as much as I can in the boxes. Beans did well there a couple of years ago. Maybe I will put a few rows of lentils on one of them. After I harvest the spinach I plan to put in one of the boxes.

Now back to the greenhouse with a large garbage bag to get rid of the mess.

The Mexican and Key Limes are blooming right now in the greenhouse. The Meyer lemon hasn't started yet. They will go onto the deck when it gets warm here.

Think I will see about making a pie from the last Key limes I picked.

[Terry Coombs]

I checked with the gal at the nursery , she felt the tulips stand a pretty fair chance of blooming this year - the bulbs have been stored out in my unheated shop and that's in my favor . The rose bush came from that nursery , and has been out in an unheated greenhouse until I brought it home just before Christmas . I had it up close to the house and had a blanket over it during our recent near-zero event . The foilage is mostly gone , though there are a few green buds and a tiny bit of bud growth . I'll be watching the weather , if it looks like a really hard freeze I'll cover it with straw - it's got one of my tomato cages around it for just that possubility . We have about another six weeks or so before the weather warms up very much . I hope they bloom this year , but if they don't , all the daffodils and iris I planted earlier will be enough color .

[George Shirley]

Planning on using a lot of rotted pine bark compost plus putting pine needles down as a mulch.

Oh yeah, can only be six feet tall, several other rules on fencing. Lots of rules in this HOA, run by an idiot who was elected, most people dislike him and, I hope, this will be his first and last term. The covenants are state approved and must follow rules. I may be bitter because this is the first time we've ever lived in an HOA. I'm used to doing what I want with my property. If you repaint you have to fill out a form and add paint chips and it must be approved by a committee. As you would expect there are a lot of white or tan houses here. When we repaint I want to try for red.

We bought some composted cow manure and some more peat moss today, it's being blended in today and tomorrow. Seeds should be here early in the week and we can start some seeds. I use a shop fluorescent light, two tube, four feet long. Put in a daylight tube and a sunlight tube, cheap at the big box store, run the light sixteen hours a day. Been doing that for years and also have a hot pad under the trays.

[George Shirley]

The father of my eldest grandchildren has a Meyer and gave us a big bag of lemons the other day. I made lemon marmalade from them. I had one of the original Meyer lemons 25 years ago and cedar rust got it. Went to a Ponderosa lemon after that, very prolific and pretty much cold resistant, left it behind when we moved, it was ten feet tall. I probably gave away over a hundred of the Ponderosa's I started from seed, all were true and are out there producing today. Supposedly a sport between a grapefruit and a lemon. Nice product.

I'm looking for a bigger property within an hour's drive of this house but SWMBO says this is where we're going to die.

[songbird]

Derald wrote: ...

wow! "not like blueberries" does not compute in my noodle. some years we nearly live off them for weeks at a time and that's even when we don't grow them.

songbird

[Terry Coombs]

I just wish we could get some before the critters do . They're all over the woods here (these are actually huckleberries) but the squirrels , coons , birds , and deer get them as fast as they ripen . Which reminds me , the wife made me a blackberry cobbler (from wild berries picked on our property)yesterday . I think I'll get me some right now !

[~misfit~]

Don't want to be critical but it's either a sport or it's a hybrid - it can't be both. A sport is when a branch of an existing variety undergoes a random mutation and produces different fruit / foliage to the rest of the tree. Anything involving two varieties is a cross or a hybrid.

Cheers,