Grow!
More stuff went into the ground on Sunday April 28th, 2013 and so far so good.
Since then we have had moderate low temperatures of about +10C, moderate high temperatures of 15-22C and light showers. Only small portions of some raised veg beds have been planted in so far.
Hopefully 15 yards+ of garden mix earth will be ordered today and delivered soon, followed by days and days of moving it from the dump location (at one end) to the actual beds (in far away, multiple other locations).
Great exercise! Great Pain Meds! Makes watching TV after dark much less guilt free!
A large raccoon has come to visit most nights in the last 2 weeks. Not sure why as we are taking down the bird feeders it likes each night and put them back up in the morning, when he goes to sleep.
Thanks to a talk given to the L&AHortSoc a couple of months back, we have laid out two 10′ sections of embankment by the creek to plant strawberries this year.
The hill is only 1′ tall or so, filled with mostly rock and some poor soil.
We laid out sections of weed cloth 3’x10′ and rocked it down. Then there will be 3-5″ of soil added, a bag of sheep compost to each and then another layer of weed cloth to help keep the weeds out of this fresh clean earth. More rocks to hold it all down. The plants will go in immediately when this is prepared. We’ll dig a hole through both layers of weed cloth and plant our remaining stock (many have died already, waiting to go in the ground) and put some straw down to help protect them.
Then a layer of chicken wire to keep the deer, squirrels, chipmunks and birds out of them. I suspect we may not get any fruit in the first year, so we’ll keep all of the pile intact and also cover it in straw overwinter.
This will have good drainage but once it gets dry we will have to haul water out to it.
Thanks to another talk at the OHA District 3 AGM in Brockville last weekend, we had the inspiration to massively enlarge the existing Butterfly garden, maybe x2 to x3 the original size. Note that this also cuts back on the amount of grass that needs to be cut!
Kim is preparing a map and a list of the butterfly friendly plants to plant as I dig out the grass/sod and transport it to the back to enhance the earth berms that protect the other veg beds from flooding in the spring.