I had a great afternoon gardening with my kids. True, I seemed to spend much more time helping them with their projects than working on mine, but I still managed to get my tomatoes in the ground.
I hope everyone is enjoying this wonderful, sunny weekend!
We actually had a couple of nice days this weekend. They even dried up the ground enough for me to do some weeding today.
I know this post is much shorter than usual, but I decided to enjoy the weather instead of hiding away at my computer. Next week, I’ll go back to normal. 
Planning
Maintenance
Lawn
Fruits, Nuts, and Berries
Vegetable Garden
Herb Garden
Flower Garden
Bulbs:
Native Plants:
Perennials:
Roses:
Houseplants
Planning
Maintenance
Lawn
Vegetable Garden
Flower Garden
Annuals:
Bulbs:
Shrubs:
Vines:
With all the rain we’ve been having, I have been feeling discouraged and behind in my gardening. Looking at this list, however, I realize things really are starting to pick up.
As I’ve written before, my composting method is not very scientific. I toss all of my kitchen scraps (minus animal products and all of my garden waste (minus diseased plants) in a huge, open heap. Its moisture levels are determined by the weather, and it is turned when I run out of useable compost. This system is a lot less stressful that the more scientific methods, but there is one major drawback. Dogs LOVE compost.
Compost Hounds
This picture was taken right before I turned the pile, effectively burying the kitchen scraps, but as you can see, the dogs wasted no time whatsoever.
I used to prevent this, or at least try to, by enclosing the compost in wire mesh. Not only did dogs just dig under it, though, weeds grew around the mesh, making it difficult to turn the pile. Now, I just cover the kitchen scraps with straw in the winter, and pile garden waste on top in the summer. This helps a little, but the dogs get far more than I would like.
This brings me to hops. Right now, the hops are just beginning to climb up their trellises.
Just Starting to Grow
A Little Further Along (Weeds Included)
Eventually, though, harvest will be over, and the vines will have to be chopped down. If you are like me, they would just be thrown on the compost heap with the rest of the fall cleanup. However, if you are also like me, and have dogs, this could be a deadly mistake.
Ingesting hops, both before and after brewing, can cause malignant hyperthermia. Symptoms include heavy panting and a rapid heartbeat, along with a high, fast-moving fever. Not all dogs are affected, but it is not worth taking the chance.
If you plan on growing hops this year, you also need to plan on having a safe disposal method. Our brush pile is outside the fenced yard and should therefore be safe enough for the vines. As for the pulp that remains after brewing, as much as it pains me to do so, that will go into the garbage. I may send mental daggers their way each time the dogs get into the compost, but I would never want them to actually be harmed.
After a record-setting month of rainfall, you would think the weather would start to even out. And it has, for the most part. Unfortunately, “for the most part” did not cover Thursday night. In less than 24 hours, we got over 2 inches of rainfall and our yard was flooded yet again. Fortunately, the Spring growth helped drain things quickly. Saturday, I was able to weed the front bed, and the vegetable bed had dried out enough to plant potatoes by this morning.
At least my ferns love the rain. I recently trimmed the fronds off and now all the new fronds are unfurling. Thanks to the rampant sogginess, this is progressing at a much faster rate than normal.
I always feel guilty cutting all the old fronds off.
Especially when I know this ugliness will be the result.
This is my favorite part.
Just a day later.
Unfortunately, the weeds also love the rain.
In unrelated news, I actually caught the first cherry blossom of the year (on my tree, at least). This picture was taken within 10 minutes of the bloom opening.
Planning
Maintenance
Lawn
Fruits, Nuts, and Berries
Vegetable Garden
Herb Garden
Flower Garden
Annuals:
Bulbs:
Native Plants:
Roses:
Shrubs:
Vines:
Houseplants
Planning
Maintenance
Lawn
Flower Garden
Native Plants:
Roses:
Houseplants
I always have such huge plans in March . . . and then the rains come anyway. Actually, this year, snow has come — not enough to stick for long in the lowlands, but enough to be a nuisance. This is the first weekend all month it hasn’t snowed.
Ideally, I would have been very productive today, taking advantage of the weather, but I was enjoying the sunshine too much. I did turn the compost and take care of the weeding, but mostly I played in the yard with my daughters. And I suppose that is a productivity of another sort.
I also took pictures, which I haven’t done in a while. I’ll probably post some of them next week — when we return to our regularly scheduled nastiness.
I finally got around to finalizing my crop rotations this morning. I would have much rather spent the time outside, but since it was hailing intermittently, I decided it was time to stop procrastinating.
In theory, this would be simple. I would look up last year’s plan and just move everything one plot over. I supposedly have a ten year rotation. To date, however, this has never worked.
This is my system:
1) Create a 3×5 card for everything I intend to plant.
2) Look at last year’s plan and place the cards in the intended rotation slots.
3) Notice that there are gaps where I no longer grow a certain crop.
4) Also notice that there are several more new crops than there are available slots.
5) Get out my reference books to look for possible companion plant combinations.
6) Notice that some crops can not go into the available slots, even if there weren’t more seeds than space, because they don’t work well with the neighbors.
7) Start swearing as I realize I have to re-do most of the rotation.
It took me two hours, but I did finally get everything figured out today. I was also glad I had taken the time to do this, because of the two crops I meant to plant last week, one of them had to be moved. There would have been a lot more headache if I had gone ahead and planted them first.
