Blogging outdoors and pics of what is growing.

Its  a bit chilly out today but its been so nice i decided to take the laptop outside and try making my entry from the table in the driveway.  Its interesting how 65 degrees indoors on a winter day can feel so cold,  but 65 degrees outdoors in the spring feels balmy.  Unfortunately its the breeze that is bringing a bit of chill to the air and the sun is behind a bit of hazy clouds right now.  But that should be clearing up soon.  Its supposed to reach the high 60's today and Thursday is expected to be in the 70's.   Sounds fine to me!

So far nothing iss flowering of course,  but leaves are popping out all over.  I managed to get the fruit trees sprayed yesterday and my dad delivered me a new trailer load of well-rotted horse manure. The garden badly needed some fresh poop.  My soil is rather sandy and the organic matter from the other year has broken completely down,  so we needed some fluffy richness.

Here is one of the goji plants setting out some nice healthy leaves


This is the male seabuckthorn


And the female


One of the beach plums waking up


One of the cherries


Blueberry and lingonberry


A not-so-good photo of Stanley's leaf buds


Autumn olive



The other cherry


The elderberries


The grapes are still sleeping.  If i remember correctly,  they don't begin to leaf out until the apple is about to bloom.


Speaking of the apple...


Hubby, spreading out the manure for me.


We still have piles of garden rubbish that needs to be burned,   but we have not had rain for quite a while so its been too dry to safely burn anything.   No rain in the forecast either for the next week or so.  If we don't get rain we will probably have to cart off the stuff and let it break down in a pile somewhere.

I may start bring out the brassica seedlings to begin hardening them off today or tomorrow.  I need to get the sunflowers started and i'm a bit late on trying to get some herbs started.  I had a number of things that didn't germinate quite the numbers i had hoped for,  so i may have some gaps to fill.

I'm hoping my dad will be able to come by this weekend and till the soil,  i'm hoping for two tills before planting.  This should disrupt many of the weeds and get the warmth deeper into the soil.  It may not matter in the end because we are going to try using black plastic in the rows this year to block out all those confounded weeds.  But i won't be able to use it on the bush bean rows or the potatoes,  so its best to do what we can to keep the weeds in check.

Speaking of potatoes,  my Adirondack blues came in last Thursday.  My daughter is happy with the skin color of them.  We won't get a look inside until its time to chunk them up to plant,  but i bet they will look pretty cool.   I have grown a few blue potatoes before...  i think they were All Blues,  i got a small box of them from Walmart one year,  enough for just a little plot in one of my little gardens many years back.

I ordered 10 Sparkle strawberry plants that should be arriving soon,  they didn't come today.  I was going to put them in a container,  but i'm not sure which one i might use.  I almost hope they are out of stock and i'll get a refund or credit,  because i ran out of options.  I used to have a round, white pot by the front door.  Its been here since before we bought the house 10 years ago.  It finally developed a big crack in the side so it was time to go.  I'm replacing it with my big terracotta-looking pot that is about 3'x12".


  I was going to put the strawberries in there,  but i kind of want flowers in there since its going to be in the front...  i was thinking the nasturtiums would look nice. But then,  i want strawberries and since i don't really have many purely decorative flowering plants anymore a big pot of strawberries won't be out of place with my landscaping.  So, we'll see.  If the strawberries are out of stock (they were in stock when i ordered,  but the next day they were listed as sold out,  and i'm pretty sure Pinetree is good at updating their stock accurately-  but this time of year things run out fast and they are very busy so things might slip through.)  I did just look across the yard and remembered this:

Maybe that will be the place for the "nasties".

The goji seeds i planted for my mom have come up nicely,  one is really big and the others look fine.  The schizandra are not doing anything noticeable yet.

*Sigh*  I just can't wait to plant the garden and enjoy a warm summer.

Finally planted some more!

I got all of the tomatoes planted, the schizandra, some borage, basil, the Ancient sweet peppers and nasturtiums.

Tomatoes:
Cherokee Purple
Martino's Roma
Matt's Wild Cherry
Mortgage Lifter
San Marzano Lampadina
and
San Marzano from Providence Acres

Nasturtium- Trailing mix
Borage- common
Basil- Genovese

Sweet Peppers- Ancient

and 26 Schizandra Chinensis seeds.

I didn't take pictures of the dirt filled pots,  but i do have pics of things i saw in the last few days:

Not sure if this is a mushroom or a lichen.


The colors were really that blue

And this is a picture of an oak leaf that melted straight into the ice:



I scraped a teeny bit of bark off one of my Carmine Jewel cherry plants and saw green!  Looks like this one made it ok so far


Moving some pieces of wood,  i noticed one with what looks like toe prints


Garden looks so awful at this time of year.  Its hard to believe that in a few months it will be green again

Pictures on a gray day

We had a good deal of rain last night.  I don't have my rain gauge hooked up yet,  so i have to guess just under an inch.  It was enough to melt away much of the snow.

I went out earlier on this gray day and snapped some ugly pictures.

I was annoyed to see that one of my beach plums got snapped in half:



I'm sure it will grow back,   but it really has a bad break.  Maybe i'll need to stake them next fall and hopefully prevent this.

Female Seabuckthorn looks good


As does the male



Gojis


One of the Carmine Jewel cherries


I hope it and the other survived and really put on some growth this year.

Blueberries and lingonberries


Closer look at one of the blueberries


The garden looks so gross at this time of year


Stanley prune plum and hydrangea


Here's what is left of the snow in the yard


The apple tree seems ok



And the grapes


The weather is supposed to be warm today,  but expected to get colder in the next few...   Possible snow on Saturday-  i hope it won't last too long.

I'm going to try and get the rest of the early seeds started either today or tomorrow.

A lot going on actually

I just don't know where to start.

The blueberries are almost done,  we've gotten a number of overflowing handfuls of beautiful, flavorful berries this year. That's even with my youngest daughter grabbing the unripe ones before they all started to ripen.

My tomatoes are going strong.  We have many green tomatoes growing and sizing up.  We ran out of tomato cages this Spring so only about a third are caged up,  the others are kinda growing naturally-- which i know is going to turn into a big mess, lol.  I know they can be staked,  but that takes pruning and its way too late for that.   Besides,  after all my reading i still don't get how to stake and prune tomatoes.

Out weeding and my daughter pulled up my Kai Lan Queen kales.  I guess its ok.  We haven't more than snacked from them.  If i grow them again i'll do a whole row,  they don't seem to produce enough tips for a meal all at once if you only plant 3.

Three days ago she picked our first Golden Zebra summer squash.  It was a little small (5 inches or less) but it was crisp and flavorful.  I'll plant it again.  More are on the way.

Funny thing happened to one of my beach plums and one of my cherry plants.  The main stem seems to have died,  all the leaves crumbled and dried,  but both are resprouting at the roots.  They are on opposite ends of the yard and looked like they got hit with Round-up or something.  Butthey are coming back strong anyway.

The green beans are flowering right now, looks like a good potential crop.

The weather has finally cooled down,  we'd been dry and hot for the last 2 weeks the lawn is going brown in places which has my hubby all annoyed. 


Well thats it for now.  I'm still working on getting my phone working for posting,  hopefully i'll get some pics up with it soon!

Photo post

Grape patch

Autumn Olive,  growing like the weed that it is.

The healthier of the two Carmine Jewel cherry plants

Blueberries and Lingonberries

Lingonberry flowers

Blueberries in fruit

Side bed all filled up

The less impressive Carmine Jewel cherry,  i hope it survives winter

The Yard

Wild kitty in my garden,  digging in the bean row

Other end of the Yard

Autumn Olive a few weeks later-- even bigger than before

Goldbeere Elderberry

York (left) and Nova (right) Elderberries

Caerulea Blue elderberry

Grape row

Full garden shot

Photo shortly after getting most everything planted in.

I've enjoyed things so far this year.  I have managed to keep up with the weeds at this point- using my scuffle hoe.  Keeping my 3-year-old and feral kitties out of the garden has been the main challenge.  I lost a cucumber plant the other day to one of the two. At this point, its too late to do anything about it.

Next year i definitely have to get an earlier start with seeds,  i held myself too tight this time and then ran out of time.  The older my little one gets,  the easier it should be,  i'll be able to direct her away from things more easily. 

Its been a cool couple of weeks,  its been in the 60's during the day,  40-50's overnight.  We are expecting 90 degree weather in the next few days,  the cool air does not seem to have damaged anything,  but things like the beans are growing slowly.  The tomatoes are about to bloom though and the grapes are in full flush right now.  The cukes and squashes have just kind of sat there.

We'll see what a few days in the 90's can do to get things going.