The weather this year has made pretty much everything early except me. I seem to be slower this year at getting everything in the ground. This weekend I tied up the tomaotes, planted the eggplant and some more hot peppers (cayenne and tobasco), a couple of pots of cucumbers as well as some basil I started from seed in the basement. The tomatoes got another round of alfalfa tea as did the black satin blackberries and grapes.
I finally put the P. besetti bamboo into the ground that I picked up at last year’s longest yard sale. It was in a 1 gallon pot when I picked it up and its been in a 3 gallon since late last summer. I found a low spot in the lawn that I hope gets enough sun.
I took the weed eater to the raspberries to carve out two blocks from what was a small jungle. 4 tposts when into the ground at the corners of the new raspberry bed. I have small berries on the spring bed and the fall bed is coming along nicely. Since Heritage raspberries can bear fruit twice on the same cane (fall on new canes and late spring/early summer on 2yr old canes) I have cropped the two beds to give me raspberries from probably about mid to late June till frost.
The June bearing strawberries are about done. I only have 2/3 of the bed I have had in years past. Its much more manageable for me now. Not as many berries early but the other, everbearing bed will give us a few througout the summer.
I spent several hours one evening last week raking dried grass from the neighbor’s field. It was a little taller than normal by the time it was mowed and it had been dry so the grass layed in the sun and turn brown. Had it rained or been fairly moist the night crawlers would have removed every bit of it in about 3 days. Its amazing how fast the worms can clean off a lawn after a rain. I used the grass to mulch the zucchini, thornfree blackberries, grapes, onions, garlic, shallots and asparagus.
Blooming – On the way out:
Iris, double de coubert rose, dianthus, poppies.
Blooming – On the way in:
Stella daylillies, yellow primrose, petunias, mom’s peach colored mini rose, grandma Lou’s geranium, grandma Beulah’s allysum, rose de rescht, rosa mundi, apothecary rose.
Blooming – Soon:
Shasta daisy, orange daylily, catnip (if the neighbor cat would leave it alone), black knight butterfly bush, nanho blue butterfly bush.
The red lake currants have just started to ripen. Not sure if I will end up having to cover them or not. So far the birds don’t seem interested. It could be that the two mulberry trees full of ripe fruit are keeping them occupied. One can only hope.
I have 6 small figs on the two plants. I treated the fig with the organic fungicide. Still waiting to see if it worked. I also did a preventative treatment of a lilac (ludwig von spaeth) that ALWAYS gets powdery mildew pretty bad. I’ve only seen a couple of small spots of pm on a rose so I did a treatment on that too. So far so good.
I was late tilling the bean yard and what few beans are coming up are being devoured. I can tell we had a mild winter. I am going to go ahead and retill the area tomorrow after work, killing what pests are there I hope and start over. I have some beans soaking in a dish to presprout. I have another bowl of okra seed in water that will also go into the ground tomorrow.