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Saturday, April 30, 2016

Rain

The good news is, while I was gone last week, it rained enough that D didn't hardly have to water the gardens at all. The bad new is, it's been so rainy since I got back that I haven't had the chance to get outside and do anything.

I can see from my windows that things are growing well in the raised beds, but it's been too wet, soggy and chilly for me to want to take any pictures. So instead of garden pictures today, I'm going to share pictures of a place I saw while I was away that is the opposite of my lush, green, wet garden.

The place is Angel Peak Scenic Area, a BLM-maintained scenic area close to Farmington, New Mexico. It's the kind of place that pictures can't do justice, and the sun was so bright the colors don't show well, but you get the idea.



Somewhat in keeping with the garden idea... a wild flower


and a lizard




The roads on the canyon floor that you see in the above picture are used by oil and gas workers for access to mines in the area.


Angel Peak

This place was shockingly beautiful and had many nice picnic and camping areas. I would've liked to have been there at sunset, because I'm sure it would be amazing. If you're ever in the area, it is well worth visiting.

Hopefully, I'll have some garden pictures to post soon.


Sunday, April 17, 2016

We have an herb garden

I'm going to be out of town this week, which leaves D in charge of everything that's growing, inside and out. Even though we're still a week from our average last frost date, temperatures are above normal, and we've got rain in the forecast, so I decided to plant out everything I could to help cut down on his chores. The things that were ready, were plants for the herb garden.

zinnias
sage
thyme
itty bitty rosemary and dill seed
They joined the chive I planted last weekend.


The rosemary plants are tiny and probably not quite big enough, so I sowed more seeds between the plants.

the herb garden
As I was planting, I realized that I need a path to get to the faucet, which is behind the boxwoods. I think I'll just use a few pavers to make a stepping stone path. Also, I forgot to leave an area for the basil, but there are plenty of spaces between things where a basil plant will fit.

I also finally got peas planted in the raised beds yesterday. I'm really late, and our warm weather probably won't be good for them, but we'll just see how they do.


It isn't pretty, but things rarely are in my garden. I've got two rows of trellis and three rows of peas.


And last, but definitely not least, the peach tree is starting to leaf out.


My camera refused to focus on those tiny, little leaves with all that grass around, but you get the idea.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Flowers!

My work last fall is really paying off. The tulips started blooming a few days ago, and they are absolutely beautiful.




The daffodils have been going strong for about two weeks.


A couple surprise daffodils have come up in the flower bed on the west wall.



Wednesday, April 13, 2016

It's on!

The garden is officially underway. This past weekend I almost got caught up on planting.

But first, I had to dig something out. I'm not proud of the fact that I've just about killed more things than I've planted at this house, but it's all for the greater good, and the ratio is going to be leaning heavily toward things I've planted pretty soon.

If there is anything I hate more than Stella d'Oro day lilies, it's red Knockout Roses. Yuck. Hate them both for the same reason, but the roses aren't even pretty. They're not red and they're not pink. They're a sick reddish pink bleck.

before
after
After spreading compost all over the west wall, it only made sense to make use of all of that space. Instead of planting two or three asparagus plants in a raised bed, like I'd originally planned, I planted all seven plants that came in my order where that ugly rose bush used to be.

the asparagus bed
Look at my new tool I used to dig the holes.


It was a birthday present from a dear friend. The edges are serrated.


Looks mean, but works great.

Next I moved onto the raised beds. I placed the cucumber and bean towers, so I could get my layout right.


Then I planted the broccoli and cabbage that I "cold sowed" this winter.


Look at the roots on that broccoli:


Being dumped upside down didn't even hurt it. In addition to transplanting the brassicas, I planted lettuce, carrots and radishes.

onions, broccoli and carrots
onions, cabbage, carrots and lettuce
onions and radishes
That was it for Saturday, but last night I planted out the kale and marigolds.

onions and kale
marigolds and radishes
marigolds and carrots
Now, I have to water. It's been pretty dry here, and I don't have my rain barrel set up yet, so I'm using the hose. Hopefully, we'll get some spring showers soon, but not until after I get the rain barrel set up!

While I was outside planting all of these things in the gardens, I really started to feel like this place is home. K's garden is back.

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

The rest of the compost

When I stopped Thursday, I had added the peat and vermiculite to the raised beds and mixed it up with the compost.


Friday morning, I hauled a few more tarp loads of compost down the hill for each bed, until I decided I shouldn't put anymore into them. Then I turned my attention to other areas.

I hadn't planned on getting the potato box out until my potatoes arrived, but since it could hold some compost, I took it out of storage and set it up.


It went together really well, just liked I'd planned when I built it last year. I also mixed peat and vermiculite with the compost, and now it's ready for potatoes and flowers.

The herb garden is very close to the driveway, so it got a few inches of compost spread all over it. I even broadforked it a little bit to get the compost mixed in. Of course, I forgot to take a picture.

I didn't move much more compost on Friday. It was cold and wet, and I wasn't ready to tackle the next piece of "operation compost".

Saturday was much warmer, and I was very motivated to get the rest of the compost out of my driveway. The only other place I had to put it was the wall:


On the right of the picture, the wall has various perennials, shrubs and mulch. Since we're sure they won't be widening the adjacent street this summer, I've decided that I will plant peppers on that wall. On the back of the wall, which is the middle of the picture, it's covered with rocks. There is one small cleared area that had a tomato plant in it last year. I've decided I'm going to plant my tomatoes up there, using the cleared area, and removing more rocks as needed.

The trick was getting the compost on the wall. Luckily, D is pretty smart, and a few weeks ago he rigged up one of the fence panels on the back of the wall with hooks so we could remove the panel. The fence separates the front yard from the back, so with the panel removed, we can access the wall from the front yard. All I had to do was load up the wheelbarrow in the driveway, push it across the front yard, and on down the wall where I wanted the compost.



It didn't take long for me to get almost all of the compost moved. I threw the rest in the back of D's truck, and we took it to my dad's house, so he could use it in his gardens.

By 2:00 Saturday afternoon, the compost pile looked like this;


All that's left is a dirt spot.


After all that work over the weekend, I felt like I could take it easy, but now I'm realizing that it's time for a lot of things to get planted. I'm just glad planting things is much easier than hauling compost.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

One woman and a snow shovel

I took a couple days off work this past week because I had the compost for my new garden beds delivered. It started raining while the guy was dumping it, so I covered it with a tarp while I figured out how to get it into the backyard.


Too bad the guy with the tractor wasn't there to help me. He's with the local gas company. They're replacing all of the gas lines in the neighborhood. While I was laying out the tarp, he did ask if I needed help, but I didn't ask if I could use his tractor.

So here's one of the problems with my lot: the last owners built a large RV pad next to the garage. The compost in the above picture is sitting on the RV pad. To build the pad, they built up the surface of the lot, so it'd be level with the rest of the driveway. This means that there is a big drop off at the front of the pad, heading into the backyard.

view of the stairs - construction debris complements of the basement project
See what I mean? You have to go down three, uneven, unstable stairs to get to the backyard. Not only that, there is a fence at the bottom of the stairs.

view from the stairs
And not far from the fence is a tree. So, even if I laid a board down the stairs as a ramp, if I tried to get a wheelbarrow down, it'd probably bounce at the bottom, run into the tree, and tip over before I could get it under control.

view off the wall
Plan A was to lay a tarp at the bottom of the wall, drop the compost over the edge,


and pull the tarp down the hill to the beds.

the destination way down there
That was great in theory, but it was really hard to get the tarp around the steps and various boards, etc. at the bottom of the steps. Plan B was to lay the tarp next to the tree. That meant going up and down the stairs with every shovel full, but it was definitely easier to move the tarp once it was full. I just pulled it down the hill, lifted it over the edge of the bed, and dumped it in.

I got one fer each o' ya
It was slow work.

that's two
After several hours of this, the pile in the driveway hadn't gotten much smaller.


But the beds were getting pretty full, and I hadn't even added the peat and vermiculite yet. I took a few minutes to ponder this, and it suddenly occurred to me that I had done the math wrong and had ordered twice as much compost as I needed.

At that point, after spouting a few expletives, I went to the garden center for the peat and vermiculite, mixed it into the beds, and called it a day. After about seven hours of working in the cold, and then realizing I'd made a giant mistake, I was ready for this:

a hot bath and a beer
A giant, jetted tub wasn't on our wish list when we were house hunting, but some days I'm very glad we ended up with one.

I'll continue the story of the compost in my next post.