Kefir -water type- and bits of other things

Got my water kefir grains today



I'm hearing the tree cicadas now

Haven't harvested anything from the garden since the green beans.  Squash bugs are doing bad things to my summer squash.

The area where the elderberries are is beginning to get shady during the day-  which is why i put the partial shade tolerant elderberries there.

I sprayed the apple tree again last Saturday if i remember right.  My parents took the kids for me for the whole day so i was able to get that done.  I've been spraying roughly every 2 weeks and it seems to be working out well.

First day of Summer

Its beautiful out. Blue sky, some thin, high clouds- not enough to cast shadows so its basically a clear day.  Temperatures are in the high 70's to low 80's,  dry and comfortable with a pleasant breeze. Just perfect.

Garden is doing well.  Needs much weeding of course.  The little one's wakefulness is making it hard to weed and get most things done. I have been bemoaning he condition of my grapes, they are growing like crazy and i wish i had understood pruning instructions this spring-  bu i didn't understand them at that time.  Now i do and i realize what i should have done.  Hubby bought me a nice set of pruners.  Not expensive ones, but for 5 grapes i don't need $75 pruners. Under $20 for a set of two is fair enough.  These actually look like good ones, drop forged and come apart for sharpening. One is a bypass and the other is a needle nose.  If i wanted to sound all pro, i could call them secateurs, but i think 'pruners' is a better suited word for my skill level. lol

The other task i have been bemoaning is setting up my netting for the cucumbers.  But then, they don't really need it right now. I got such a late start on them due to the low germination of many of my seeds. Three of the four types had to be reseeded at least one of each. 

I also need to spread some 10-10-10 in the sandier part of the garden. Its so sandy there is slow growth.  I also have some leaf yellowing going on with my squash.  Their large leaves have yellow along the edges and i'm sure its a fert issue.  The new part of the garden does not have much compost or manure from last year in it. Its very sandy and would be perfect for carrots if i wanted any this year.

Another thing is that the apple tree is due for another treatment of Bonide. I have to stay ahead of the bugs this year.  I missed one spraying last year and that was the end of it for the apples.
I need to also research what i may need to spray the pear tree for.  Its doing wonderfully so far. I actually don't know what bugs will bug a Stanley Prune Plum or any other plum for that matter.   I'll also spray the grapes for fungus and blight after they are pruned. Mainly a precaution- its been on the damp side this year.


Well someone has finally fallen asleep so....


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I got the apple tree sprayed!

And the grapes pruned

Before:

 

After:

Marechal Foch before:

Marechal Foch after:

It wasn't as intimidating as i expected it to be. With all that growth i understood what was going on. Books tell you that this or that branch will do something if you don't prune it and why,  but its different to actually see what that is.  So now i know what happens!  And now i'm ok with removing parts.

I noticed some browning on some leaves,  just one so far.  I think this was Frontenac  or Reliance:

Took some pictures

The aerial view

 You can see he newer part of the garden, the soil isn't the same rich, dark brown as the rest

Under the hoops, not as bad as i thought. Looks like even the cukes might be sprouting way back there

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Stanley prune plum breaking bud

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Apple tree, first open bloom

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Dahlia from the nursery

Another dahlia from the nursery,  they are labeled "figaro mix"

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Productive day, productive week.

Got the garden tilled again, and getting the rows carved out.  Hubby did it for me really,  i started smoothing out the top of the beds

I'm taking the rows in the opposite direction this year,  i'll see what works best.

It was getting dark so we halted work for the night.

I was getting worried a bit later that my measurements were off, i just doesn't look like i can fit 6 rows in there,  but i remeasured and i have 35' as planned. 

Oh, this morning we moved hubby's antenna- the one that features prominently in most of my pics of the garden from the side door of he house

It used to be at the corner of the driveway but now it is to the left and in front of the shed. We also got the tarp-covered fence panels up and out of the way,  so the backyard is less of an eyesore! Yay!

I'll also post pics of my previous week's efforts on the flower beds:

Elderberry sticks

Mini Vineyard

Stanley plum

What a difference two years makes!

Apple tree waking up

Blueberries getting buds

Grape leaves developing

Side of the house,  ready for berry plants!  They'll be assorted things from seed (i need to get going on them)

A Junebug in May???

So, the beds are all ready for berries, the garden is ready to have the rows all dug.  I may try planting radishes this week.  Maybe kale next week?

I planted the lingonberries last night.

Oh and my comfrey crowns...well hubby thought they were weeds growing out of the bag of potting soil...so he weeded them!  I got really mad.  To make amends he bought me a giant bag of soil and i replanted what was left of the roots in my giant pretends-to-be-terracotta flower box.  Out of 6 of them, 4 should pull through i think. They were already trying to send up new leaves.  He does this sort of thing so often i can't laugh it off anymore. I try, but i can't. 
This was last night, so i'm calm now. :o)
But...he's not allowed to weed anything ever again.  No unauthorized "helping". lol

The weather was gorgeous today, it was great to work outside!  Its supposed to be nice for the rest of the week.

Neatening things up

I have been threatening to do something about the flowerbeds and the grape row since last spring.  I finally got the bed in front of the house taken care of, but there were more things to do.

That is what i have been doing for the last week.

This bed was full of all sorts of things that were getting choked out by goldenrod. I actually made a real effort to weed all of it out last year, but it was a losing battle.  Once that stuff takes hold, its all over the place.  I'm going to miss a lot of plants that were in there, but i have to make the sacrifice.  I couldn't take care of it and it would be slowly destroyed anyway.  So i dug in and did it.

This is where i had to take a rest on this one.  I really needed to get to the grape row started too.  I wish, once again, that i had done before pics, but if i really need them i can look at pics of previous tears.

So, this is after digging out every bulb and iris that remained. I still need to Roundup the surviving goldenrod and lay down the landscape fabric, then mulch.

Right side, from my side window looking toward the nice neighbors' house

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And the rest of it.

I gave our nice neighbors first dibbs on whatever they wanted from it, they took quite a few things which made a good dent in the work i needed to do.  I dug out another two boxes of plant material, which went to my mom.  After so many weeds choking things for the last 2-3 years, there wasn't as much left as i thought there would be.


Now the major project which has taken many days, was the grape row.  I had to remove all the landscape fabric i laid down last year because the wind blew it so hard it tore away from everything i had holding it.

I had to move one Edelweiss grape from the right end to the left end because it was in the right spot to get almost no sun.  So now the grape row is bookended by the Edelweiss vines.   That shadier spot will get 2 new Elderberry plants that should arrive by UPS on Wednesday.

The project ended up being more ambitious than i had expected.  It needed a string line pegged in, then the edge cut in... the landscape edging was very challenging to install and i got it as perfect as i had patience for.  I'll fine tune it as summer goes on.  Then the fabric went down.  A calm day began to get breezy right about then, lol.

About 14 bags of mulch later....

Still not quite finished.  I have more fabric, but we need another 12 bags of mulch at least to finish this end and the other bed.

The extra part that juts out is for the dwarf Stanley Prune plum.  I hope there is enough room for it and i'm glad i got a dwarf.  That tree is coming in the shipment with the elderberries and also 3 Lingonberry plants.

My dad came over on Sunday and tilled the garden. Hubby acquiesced to the extra 6 feet i wanted. So now my garden is about 40'x30'- i'll get a more accurate size when the time comes to string line for the rows.

One more tilling is needed and then i can shovel out the walking rows and get the row cover supports put in.  First planting time is in about 3 weeks or less.  I can do radishes first and shortly after that,  broccoli, cabbage, onions and other such things can go in.

The asparagus is coming up and so is the horseradish

I also managed to get in the first spraying on the apple tree on Sunday.

I also completely removed the silky dogwood (gave to my parents), then pruned the hydrangea and the purple smoke tree.  The smoke tree is also being trained to grow toward the opposite side of the bed.

I am so glad i have made headway in the fruit and berry gardens.  It was tormenting me in my sleep.  It will be a huge relief when it is done and the weed-blocking landscape fabric and deep mulch should reduce weeds to almost nothing.  Any weed that pokes its head up along the edges will be easy to cap off with Roundup.

Looking forward to a Summer of moderate maintenance.

The tree is gone.

I was going o wait for hubby to do it for me, but i think it would have been weeks to wait.  So i decided that since our chain saw is a small sized version, i could handle cutting down a  tree that size.

It really was starting to look bad. No fruit and the leaves looked small and water-starved.

I took off one of the larger limbs first, then removed the white post and cut it from the upper part where it bent.

Hubby came home shortly after i used the lopper to trim the branches off the felled part and helped me move the stuff out of the way. Then we took the other post made from another tree out.  While we were getting that out of the ground we noticed that the  stump of the apple tree was very loose in the ground. I was actually able to push it down with very little effort. The roots were not even holding it up. It did have a tap root that was still hanging on a bit, but i used the loppers on that.  If it was that weak this spring, i think a hot summer then a hard winter would kill it.

So there is the little tree, in full sun now.  I pruned off some watersprouts and hubby propped it with the post to wait until we put the post in the ground.

It needs more thinning where i can't reach without a ladder, but i'll get out there in the next few days and clean things up more.  Maybe even set that post and tie up the tree.

Then i did use the Bonide on it.  I had actually started out to do just that earlier.  But when i got out there and took a close look at the big tree, it was obviously struggling too much. And why spray a tree that was coming down?
The rain went by  without touching us and the sky is cloudy and windless so it was a good day to spray.

Another task that i am glad is finished.

Flying fig and string-marking the garden.

The delivery estimate for my fig tree from Henry field's has changed. It used to have an estimated ship date of 5-3-10/5-10-10. Now it is scheduled for 5-11-10/5-18-10.

Oh, i can't forget to make room in the garden planner for my popping sorghum...!

11:30 am update.

It took me almost 2 hours cause i am so slow,  but i got the garden all marked out.

First thing i did was re-peg the corners. My dad plowed under one or two and in some places he tilled well within where i had marked. Its ok, but i have to recalculate some square footage because of it.

When i got the pegs in, i strung the pegs together to mark out the perimeter. Once that was done, i used our 100' flexible tape measure to mark the string with a Sharpie in 1' increments. Then i took fluorescent survey tape and made little flags and numbered them and tied them on.  If i didn't do that i would have had to run back and forth along the garden to count the Sharpie marks to be sure my rows were corresponding from one end  to the other.

 It is all strung here.
I was thrilled to see that i still ended up with 5 rows and plenty of walking room between.  The last row toward the trees is even bigger than i had expected. It is 6 feet wide so it will be the perfect spot for all the melons, cucumbers and winter  squash...and those gourds.

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I made a 1' edging along the starting side so that we will have room to put some boards or bricks to make a sharp border,  if we don't  it will at least be a buffer between the lawn mower and the garden pants.

In the picture below, i used clothes pins to mark the per foot measurements. The pink flags were great, but it was time consuming. While i was rifling around for my other shoes, i noticed i had a whole pack of new clothespins. They will still be usable for laundry after this, so why not?

I'm hoping this won't be an issue...  but i am 1.5' short over here... This should be 28' long.  I might get out the mantis or just hand-straighten it.

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This end is fine. :0)

Measuring the squash and melon bed.  I love extra room!
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The apples are officially in bloom....

Are they supposed to smell?  Cause i'm not getting even a whiff...  but i have had so many bad sinus infections, my sense of smell is almost gone.

I don't know what this is all about. Maybe the branch was damaged and its being weird or maybe the Bonide can't  fix whatever this issue  is?  I'll have to look it up

I can see a chewed leaf right up against the white post.  Maybe my Bonide mixture was too weak?

Or maybe it really just reduces insect damage...  i guess that makes sense. Eliminating it entirely might not be as good as it sounds,  chemical overkill.
I don't know.  All products sell themselves as a cure-all.

Well, i am beat.  It is very nice out, but hot in the sun. The ground is uneven in the garden where it was tilled... the soft spots were a killer on my leg.  I hope to get the walkways scooped and the soil up on the beds tomorrow.

I'm debating on whether to use the Ortho snail-be-gone stuff yet.  It has been a fairly dry spring for us here.. Last year it was so wet that all my plants were snail eaten. The earwigs were coming into the house and getting trapped in our clean dishes! It was disgusting.  Since the snails have not been a bother yet, i'm not sure what to do. The earwigs have always been a problem. Every year they destroy my sweet peppers by boring holes into the fruit and then feasting on it all cozy-like from the interior. They also attack my corn,  worse than the caterpillars. But i have not seen any yet.  I don't know if i should be proactive or if it might be too late by the time i realize they are an issue...

I think i will treat...  it might rain this evening or overnight and the instructions say to use it on damp ground for best results. So i might do this later tonight or tomorrow in the morning.  I have to watch the dog around the area i put it.

Oh... and before i forget, i need to get ready to plant carrots and parsnips. This  means i need to get ready to make the seed tape for easier planting, better seed economy and  almost no thinning. So i hope to be able to make up a sort of tutorial to post for fun.

Also i need to remind myself of something i came across recently. When planting seeds directly in the ground that are the type that can only be covered thinly (like carrots and parsnips), the way to keep them moist is to cover the planted area with a board.  Plant the seeds, cover them normally, water them in and then cover with a board. Check daily for signs of germination then remove the board but continue to water frequently.

Garden is almost ready!

My dad came over this morning and got started on the garden.  I have had it staked out for a while, but we had to cut the plastic  tape, but we left in the pegs...

First he spread out the compost/topsoil that he brought me yesterday.  Which looked like this on Saturday :

Hubby had taken more of the manure stuff and tossed it on the pile on the left...  but the compost is so nice and dark colored!

Ok, so...spreading it out...

There was a  bit more of it over there, so he took it too.

Ant this is the first actual tilling of the soil to mix it in

It looks so good!  (But, darn i can't wait for that fence to get finished)

All finished!

The yard slopes quite a bit, so my dad suggested that hubby take a few old boards we had lying around and make a retainer out of them for the back part of the garden.  We had plenty of scrap and they did it pretty quickly.

I also had dad do the part in front of where i planted the JA's ,  i am going to put the rhubarb in there and possibly the horseradish,  so i figured i might as well have that bit done. Otherwish hubby would have had to break it in for me with the mantis...  would have taken  him much longer.

It looks funny where it goes around the JA plot,  but i'll try and neaten it up some other time. We were in a rush last fall, so our digging wasn't quite as straight as the garden.

Very good day.

The weather was absolutely beautiful. I didn't check the temperature but i think it hovered around Perfect. It wasn't dry, it wasn't sweltering...it was sunny, little warm breeze... just right.  The Maine State Birds ( black flies )were out, but they weren't biting...too much..


Ok. Random spring pictures:

These are my tulips for the second round of spring bloom. They seem to come anywhere from 1-3 weeks after the Torontos.

This is a pink hyacinth that i do not remember planting. It has never appeared before that i know of and this is the first time i have seen it bloom.  I have no idea how it got there.  I must have put it there of course, but i thought i only put daffodills and crocus there.  Either i simply forgot, or my package of daffs had a hyacinth stowaway. The daffs were planted at least 4 years ago...

Oh, this is the Hoya Shepherdi flower penduncle.... or what i am hoping is.  Blurry, but worth taking note of so i know what to look for in the future:

The JA patch....  i think this was while i was trying to weed it...  The plants are not even big enough to make them out in this pic....

Apple blossom buds, turning pink...  Glad i happened to notice this  Friday evening because i sprayed Saturday and took this picture later that day... they are just about to open now.

The beach plums that made it through the winter.  The others got stepped on by mistake....  but i had to put them in drilled kitty litter buckets to protect them from being stepped on again.  The pink strings were supposed to prevent it, but no such luck.
Not a good picture of them, but i can at least record when they break dormancy in the spring for next year. Though this is an early year for everything.

Veggies revisited.  Again.


Kohlrabi, Burdock and Kale...  doing well.  Some of the other seeds in there are starting to come up, but are still small.

Pak Choi and Collards...  a month after seeding today.

Welsh onions and Shallots  (and a weed)

Lettuces... i need to trim out the twins....and eat them.

Assorteds

The other flat of assorteds... the tomatoes are looking good

Tomatoes and Tomatillo

Asparagus from seed.... so funny looking!

Another assorted flat

The citrus that i potted



























The grape. With the green onions behind that i planted for green onion tops.

Big honking rosemary....
I keep forgetting to buy plastic cups to transplant them all into. 

Goji doing really well...

The double flowered Rose of Sharon bush breaking dormancy. I don't really like the flowers much, some flowers don't double well and this is an example of that. Like hollyhocks, doubling the petals just detracts from the simple shape.  These flowers look like they have been shredded by wind.  I prefer the purple/blue shade of RoS,  this one is a medium pink color.  I might try to give this one away sometime later on. Replace it with something more to my tastes.

And the big Peegee Hydrangea is waking up.  It looks stark dead for most of the spring, its one of the last things to wake up.

Almost 11pm

I'm going to try and measure out the rows tomorrow, then dig the paths and mound up the beds. Thats the plan whether it takes me all week or not, i guess i will find out. Its dependent on weather, nap times and pain levels.