Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, the weather could not have been any more perfect! The sun was shining, we reached 55 degrees and the birds were busy chirping. My parents came up for a visit and after the celebrating with an Easter buffet, my husband, mother and I went for a "nature walk" At the Old Bay Port Cemetery. There we found naturalized lily's, spiderwarts and sedum's all awakening beneath the towering canopy of oak trees.

After my parents left, my husband and I took our respective places in the yard, me clearing out flowerbeds, and Brian on leaf duty. I was able to clean everything up and sow some flower seeds, mostly poppies and a few violas. It was so exciting to see all of the new growth on everything. It amazes me how perennials just know when the time is right to pop even when we have strange weather like we have been having lately. I also planted the peas and the radishes. They are sure to get a good dose of rain this week as it is supposed to rain every day now until Friday!

I was also very excited to find some old windows that someone had put to the side of the road. They make really good impromptu cod frames when leaned up against each other. That is where my kale spent the weekend days, safe under glass on the deck. I can't wait to get them tough enough to plant out as they are getting Huge!

Dinosaur Kale

 

Pass the Peas Please

11:30 on Sunday morning and I already have two projects checked off of my list! I wasn't so sure about going outside today but I decided to bite the bullet and bundle up. On my list for today was filling up my raised raspberry bed and setting up a trellis for my peas. Easy enough. Filling the bed was just a matter of slashing some bags, dumping and mixing. I had my husband help me with the pea trellis. That poor guy is always getting dragged into garden projects, but he doesn't seem to mind....that much! We had panels covered in chicken wire left over from a deconstructed iguana cage (Rip Izzy) so we lashed them together at the top with twine and secured it into the ground by weaving bamboo canes through the wire and pushing them into the ground. We figure if it stands through the gale winds we are having today it should be good! I plan on planting the peas sometime this week.

Peas will go in later this week. The rest of the bed
will be filled with lettuce.

These two peas mature at different dates and grow to
different heights. One is a three footer and the other
is a 5 footer. The trellis is six foot.

As for the raspberry bed, I filled it with a mix of Miracle Gro Organic Choice garden soil, peat moss, and some rotted humus/manure. After I get the plants in I will mulch with rotted guinea pig shavings. Raspberries like things to be a tad on the acidic side of life. I also need to construct a T-Bar trellis to hold the lil buggers in line so they don't try to reach out and snag me as I walk by. I picked three cultivars; Latham which is a summer producer, and Heritage and Fall Gold which are fall bearing. I chose the Latham for fresh eating and the Heritage and Fall Gold for late season fresh eating, freezing and canning.

Before

After

Berry Canes

Now for the rest of my day; clean the house, do a couple loads of laundry, make a meatloaf and some homemade bread...... and start some lettuce and flower seeds!

 

Snow? Again?

Dear Mother Nature,
Snow again? But it is mid April and I have plans. In the future would you be willing to hold off on the snow on my only day off from work?
Thank you kindly.

Free Goodies!

My boss is a bargain shopper who came across a really good deal last week. 100 packages of certified organic seed from Seed of Change for only $15. She was nice enough to share in the wealth. Here are a few of the packets that I got:

 

I am really excited about the two varieties of cone flower. I recently acquired some little blue stem grass seed and I think that the different coneflower varieties that I have will look great with it, not to mention make the birdies happy!

 

I think that I will start the clear pink tomatoes as they are supposed to ripen early and tolerate cool conditions. Not to mention they are compact so I can squeeze them net to my back walk way. 

At Last!

Well, after an unplanned hiatus due to, shall I say poor weather, I was finally able to get back out in the yard where I belong! After a pretty fair start to spring, fickle old Miss Michigan decided that it would be fun to shake things up a bit by having a late snow. Not just a light dusting about 8-10 inches! This was followed by two weeks of unseasonably cold weather.....

Calm after the storm

After finally thawing out, we were hit yet again with a strange team of events. Within a two hour period it started raining, turned to snow - which covered the ground as quickly as it came, turned to sleet and then back to rain and melted all of the snow. To top it off it even thundered and lightninged! 

Slushy rain almost horizontal at times

The rain quickly turned to snow.......

But enough of the cold, I want to talk about Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Talk about going from freakishly cold to freakishly hot! It was 80 degrees on Sunday! I actually complained that it was too hot.....

That little burst of warm weather was enough to get things cooking in the garden again. Although temperatures have settled back to there normal range in the 50's, thats alright by me. I was able to get out and do some bed prep and spy on some emerging "babies" as I call them. It was so nice to see the robins out, gleaning all of the worms and nest material from the ground to their little hearts content. I even heard a woodpecker going to town on a telephone pole! 

Sedum

Early spring bulb

Another early spring bulb

The bleeding heart getting bigger

Columbine

Oriental poppies and globe allium foliage

Cold frame sown leaf lettuce

Asparagus!

Strawberry plant

Two raised beds I prepared today