Spring Clean-up

I started my spring clean-up a bit later because we've had more chilly days and because last year I read that leaving the leaves and debris and such should be left until April to make sure insect eggs and such nesting in them have had a chance to hatch.

But I finally got out a few hours at a time and got to the weeding!

Every year seems to be a new culprit and this year was one of the worst!

There are these little weeds I remember having a few of last year, but this year they were everywhere...unless they're just starting or dried past their peak, the second you touch them, the spiky seeds SHOOT OUT!! 

I'm talking like shrapnel flying out of an explosion...these things fly a few feet in the air! (Extra impressive considering the plant is usually only 4-8" tall!) It's a good thing I wear glasses because some have hit my face!  

(I tried getting a video, but you couldn't see the skinny seeds flying...but looking it up, apparently it's called shot weed 😆 Appropriate!)

So that was painful as I tried to cup them individually with my gloved hand to minimize the shooting (versus my normal aggressive, grab handfuls of weeds and yank method).

They were the worst in the long wildflower border, but I finally got it cleaned up!

(after photos are much more dramatic when you take before photos! 😑)

I then moved to the front beds and got them all spiffy...

My honeysuckle had exploded way earlier than I thought (below shows it by the 3rd week of March!) and I had kept delaying pruning :-/  

So I had to rather aggressively cut it down, knowing (though always with some concern!) that it would come back vigorously and sure enough, within a few weeks (pictured above) it was growing quite profusely again (though this time with me actually training the vines around the trellis!)

That one shoot is reaching his little arms to the heavens just waiting to grab the house. Sorry, fellow...NOT happening!

Taken from the porch; this entire corner was covered in sprawling weeds! So I cleared them out and looks like we'll have a spectacular lily year! I still need to clean up the rock debris leftover from our stoop restoration, but I did at least get all the cat poop cleaned out and black mesh put down to prevent them in the future 😑

I was counting the number of days I thought I would need for cleaning up all the beds. Most went even faster than I thought, which I totally credit my Mom-in-law and her spectacular  fall clean-up  for! 

In the count was 2 days for the shade garden.

Ha!

I was out there for about 2 hours one afternoon and got about a 5 foot section done! 😵

It was a mess!

It was also because there was also an accident. 

I talked about how I'd totally ignored this garden last year and as a result, tufts of grass started growing. Grass has the most substantial root system of any plant (root to plant ratio, grass surpasses trees in terms of root spread and hardiness)....sooooooooo, you can imagine what happens when huge chunks of it have to be dug out....

I suddenly realized that normally my favorite little groundcover is visible and blooming by now. I cleared away the leaves I leave on for the fall and sure enough...nothing. The 1-2' strip along the front of the bed was groundcover free. Whoooooops! 

The good news is that I have it growing elsewhere, including in the back of this bed, so rather than just yanking out weeds and not worrying about pulling out some groundcover that always needs to be thinned anyway, I tried to remove them in such a way so as to leave any groundcover that was growing nearby and then I'd transport groundcover from where it shouldn't be or was abundant down to the front again. So yeah, weeding took a lot longer!

So yeah....liiiiiiittle bit messy! 

But after several days of several hours at a time, pulling out weeds, thinning overgrown plants, husband trimming his prized "cylinder bush", relocating a few other plants to more suitable spots, and starting (or at least planning where and how) on adding and redoing my paths....

It was transformed!!

This garden is so much my happy place!!

Another update to come once I work on the paths and things fill in more (and I clean that poor bird feeder :-/)

Early Edibles

At the end of March things were already hoppin' in the garden...

My sacrificial kale was quite bushy.

(Thus named because caterpillars skeletonize it every year, and then it grows back and they feast again, and so on...all summer and fall long! But since they pretty much only care about the kale, I've decided to just let them have at it; keeps them from my other edibles, even though I'd love to have fresh kale :-/)

And since it was too early for the caterpillars to come steal it, I got a healthy little crop and enjoyed several salads!

And now it's 4 feet tall and flowering. Alllllrighty then.

It's also next to the sapling I've let grow for a few years waiting to identify it (it looks like some kind of fruit tree). This year we feel quite confident that it's a seedling of our cherry tree!!

We're going to re-plant it and hopefully keep it pruned to a reasonable size (our wacko cherry tree is crooked and scraggly and about 20 feet tall!) so that it can be netted from the birds and we'll get cherries!

Got the peas planted...

And now they are a couple feet high, though perhaps stunted because the cilantro shot up and will soon be going to seed in front of it...

And little lettuces!

I didn't get my tomato seeds started on time and found out I'm totally out of peppers and a few other seeds, soooo...this will be a buy a few established plants kind of year (if I can ever get to a store!)

I did plant quite a few flowers and two zucchinis (I really only need one, but two is safer in case one doesn't come up).

Several weeks in and only ONE of the flowers has come up!!! 😫 

But figures both zucchini did! 🙈

So time to just pop some seeds in the outdoor pots and they'll just have to be delayed this year 😒

My aspirations for edibles is minimal ... since that's my usual crop anyway! That bed really isn't great for anything besides accidental cilantro, some herbs, peas, and a few tomatoes that don't need to get bigger than cherry size. 

At least my flowers keep me sane!

Tulip Border!!

Despite it being a crazy warm winter, the flower seemed a bit delayed.

For example, the first crocus didn't pop until the first few days of March - usually they're up by mid-late February!

Case in point: snowbells, tulips AND daylilies all coming up at once!

But by the second week of March, everything seemed to take off at once!


Daffodils! 

"It's beginning to look a lot like spriiiiing...."

And then on April 1, the magic started!!!

TULIPS!!!

I decided to try ONE more time to see if I can get tulips to grow each year. We shall see if they come back next year as they have so miserably failed in the past (need to remember to fertilize and see if that helps). If they don't, then I'm done! I can't afford to buy new bulbs every year no matter how spectacular they are!

And oh they are spectacular!

⬑ Just starting to open ⬏

⬐ Fully popped right around Easter! ⬎

And much to my shock, they are still hanging on after pummeling rain and several days of 20-30 (and even some gusts up to 50!) mph winds!

A guy delivering our dinner splurge one night summed it up well:

"Your flowers look so great! They made me smile as I drove up!"

Awww! So glad I could make his night! They make me real happy too!

Fall Clean-up and New Compost!

Another previously written post from last year...

My in-laws were in the week before Thanksgiving so the guys could build our shed (finally! a real place to store gardening and other important outdoor necessities that doesn't look like hobos under a bridge! [it's all been stacked under our 2nd story deck for years])

My Mom-in-law brought her grubby clothes ready to go!
We are truly kindred spirits because while I love any task that gets me out in the gardens, I figure clean up, weeding, boring stuff isn't what most people would sign up for! (Maaaaybe planting pretty flowers and seeing it come together.)

But she was so excited! Hahaha! She said fall clean-up is one of her favorite things because she loves the end result!

So not only did she do - well, all of it - but it looked 10 times better than any previous year! (And 100 times better than last year as I didn't even get to clean-up because of renovations in full swing!)

Might be a bit more dramatic if I'd actually taken before photos :-/

But just picture dead stalks and piles of browning greenery (the first hard frost takes "aww, it's the end of the season, but still some fading green" into hideousness real fast!) and overgrown weeds I'd ignored all over. 

 So neat and clean!

Still looks like a lot because I leave the leaves on over the winter, but trust me - there was messiness everywhere!
AND! She painstakingly pulled out - by hand - all of the grass that had seeped in and I hadn't had time to remove yet!
And yes, that IS the camellia in bloom!

When all was said and done, the yard waste bin (pictured right) was full, compressed, piled high and overflowing.


I started piling the waste in the garden to dispose of over the next few weeks. It was SO much!

The pile next to the stairs on the right: that's about a third of what she
clipped and pulled out of my beds!

You can also see my peas in the background - like I said before: I got them in the ground a couple weeks too late and sure enough - the blossoms started, but the hard freeze took them out so no fall crop of peas 😔








Super random is that while everything else is browning and wilting and facing a sad demise, these adorable little purple guys draping over the pot edges are just as vibrant and lively as ever!




So yeah, goes without saying that the yard looks fabulous! And I am sitting real nice for spring! And therefore any success of next year is credited to my very hard-working Mom-in-law!


Meanwhile, when not painting the shed panels, I was working on a much needed project:

Operation Compost Relocation

I'm sure I've mentioned before how I put the compost in the far corner of the yard since that seemed to be the only (and most logical) place.

Neighborhood cats chillin' above the compost bin

What I did not think of, however, is the giant tree next to it and so over the last few years it has become an increasingly awful problem where I dig down to what is supposed to be my really good compost and instead find absolute nests of baby tree roots! 😱

Tree be like: "oooohhhh, look at all this beautiful soil you've provided for my nourishment!!" 😑

So after a year of pondering, I decided to move it to the only other place sort of out of the way and without huge trees! Next to the house.....and really hope that's not a mistake!

First I had to pull out everything from the bin and pile it on a tarp. I tried somewhat separating it by fresh waste (the molding jack-o-lantern being the largest 😆), by leafy in-progress material, and by the decent compost I tried recovering from the roots. That way I could put it back together in a logical fashion.

The start of the emptying the bin

By the time I got down to digging out the roots - just so I could pull out the stakes and plastic walls (the roots had grown through all the holes below the surface!), I was SO sore and cranky and had definitely heard a pop in my back!
(Definitely way overdid it and had no clue that I was actually a few weeks pregnant...whooops!)

The other wonderful thing my Mom-in-law did was dig trenches for where my new compost surround was going to go! She made the most perfectly sized trenches with straight walls and everything! It was incredible! (In typical fashion: I took no pictures)

So come the weekend, all I had to do was put it all back together!
Yeaaaah, that took hours and I still didn't even get the plastic walls up nor all the stuff put back in!

Thankfully the following week we had a beautiful day where I was able to finish.

Ta da!!!

And because it's now visible from the front of the house, I had to hide it with something very nice, classy looking, right?! 😆




I love pallets!! In the spring I'll put plants in the top and it'll look just dandy!

Plus we'll eventually have a fence blocking most of it anyway.

I am very pleased, so we'll see how it fares there and really hope gnats, mosquitoes or smell aren't a problem if we ever sit out under our deck. 😳
Think it'll be fine - so long as I keep it turned, the smell is never an issue and gnats stay localized to it where they get yummy sustenance! Mosquitoes will never stop hunting regardless, so there we have it!

All wrapped up and set for spring!

End of the Edibles

Yes, I'm still alive!

2019 was a buuuuusy, life-changing year!
In 2017, I posted 54 garden posts.  
In 2018:  32.

2019?  9    😯🙈 
And off to a rough start in 2020 when my first is in April!

Aaaaaand...just a couple things have happened since I last blogged here. 
You know, small things like most of the major holidays, me becoming pregnant and doing absolutely nothing productive through much of the winter, and now this little thing called a global pandemic.
Granted, the quarantine caused by that last one, while rough and life-altering has actually been great for both gardeners and bloggers! 
So at a few different times I have been writing posts, just not publishing them, so sorry if these come rapid fire as I catch up with where I left off!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I mentioned  previously  that my 2019 edibles were a pretty miserable failure.

Oddly enough, at the the end of October, we had produce!

A very respectable green pepper popped up!

Tomatoes finally started ripening....just in time to not fully ripen before cold hit. Alas. At least husband got some cherry tomato snacks while out mowing or grilling for a week or so!

I planted a second crop of peas, which shot up beautifully! 

Buuuuut as I was pretty much exactly 2 weeks late in planting them, they didn't sprout peas until the first frost...had I been 2 weeks earlier it would have been perfect. No fall peas 😞

But the one thing I can always count on is cilantro!!!

It has completely overtaken the edible bed and went to seed for most of the winter and then dutifully came back in January. I can't tell you how delightful it is to go out into your garden in January or February and get fresh cilantro for a curry! 😄

Thus ended a rather dismal season...but seeing as I put a whole lot of almost nothing into it, I didn't expect much else!

Here's to you, 2020!

Fairy Gardens for Everyone!

Re-visiting some of my fairy garden posts recently, I was inspired to bring a mini one
to a friend's young daughter.

How adorable did this turn out?!!

They are so delightfully simple to make with a cleaned out sauce jar, some plants propagated from my currently-so-overgrown-you-can't-see-through-the-glass large fairy garden, some moss and pebbles from my yard, and a little section of fence!

So cute and simple, there is absolutely no reason not to have...

Fairy Gardens Everywhere!!

😆😆😆

Fairy Garden Update

As the "active" gardening season is wrapping up, it's time to slip in some of my older posts I never finished...

I  previously  told the story of a coworker who was over-loving (i.e. drowning) her first fairy garden.

Well, that didn't get her down!

She collected more jars, bought more plants and enlisted her two pre-teen boys to help!

The result?

In a long-overdue post I've had drafted for almost a year, I'm happy to share her thriving, beautiful, super fun little gardens!

She went all out!

She kept them at home where they get enough light (compared to her sadly north-facing work window).

A month after she first made them and they still looked wonderful! And the boys had made them their own! 😁

Hehe, love the Lego guy!

They thrived for months, but the last update was that they had been neglected and died away.
Sadness.

Still, they were adorable while they lasted!


Re-visiting these photos, I'm inspired - I need more fairy gardens! And they need little critters!!

Fairy Gardens Everywhere!!!