Spring Fever

 

 Blink!

 

I'm always surprised by how quickly things green up; all it takes is a few warm spells and a lot of sun.  I've been keeping busy raking, cutting back, and planting cool weather crops. Sugar snap peas, lettuce, mesclun, arugula, and radish have been sown in the hillside garden.  The cinder block bed has been filled with sweet onions, cipollini onions, and shallots.  I tried using a planting aid I've seen on Gardeners' World; Monty Don uses long planks to walk on when he plants in raised beds.  The planks help distribute his weight, so the soil doesn't get as compacted as if he were walking on it.  I think my planks were a little too short, but I noticed when my mother's dog walked through the bed (!!), she sank about an inch deeper into the soil than what the boards had compressed holding my enormous bulk.  I guess it works!  

They don't look like much now, but by the end of summer we should be swimming in oniony stuff.  I'm excited to see how the cipollinis do, this is a new crop for me.

In the big planter by the house I've transplanted the leeks I grew from seed. 

I'm pretty happy with this experiment; I used seeds collected from my leek plants that I let flower, not sure if they would germinate.  Well, they definitely did!  I still have about 20 or so older leek plants in the hillside garden and I'm thinking of letting a few go to seed again this year.  The flowers are so pretty, and the bonus of having fresh seed for next year's plants is too good to pass up.

2024 leeks in flower

 

Between the newly planted rows of leeks I've sown some carrot seeds.  Normally I wait until August to sow them so I get a harvest around Thanksgiving, but I'm thinking two sowings this season might be a good idea considering how expensive groceries are getting.

Inside the house my seedlings are doing ok.  I've had some damping off issues on top of the aphid attacks, but I think what survived is nearly ready for the polytunnel - time to start hardening off these puppies.  The dahlias are doing great, so I'm really excited about those.

 

I'm thinking of putting them in the empty pots around the wildflower meadow.  Speaking of which, I'm really frustrated with that project.  It looked really great the first year, but it's so hard to keep the weeds out.  Just about every icky plant that thrives in "recently excavated areas" has set down roots.  I spend more time pulling up weedy invasives than planting my beloved perennials.  I am going to try to work on that area a little more this year.  It's on the list, but there's an order to everything.  First I need to get that downed pine tree cut up and moved off the mule track, then I can get a truckload of material in to make another dry lot that actually has shade.  Then I can move the mules so I can get the second half of the French drain in around the barn.  While the equipment is here, I can get the composted manure moved to the mound to prepare for the corn, and have a bed dug and boulders set to start the alpine garden.  Once that's done, I can start the cat fencing and Calypso will finally get to go outside again.  Then I will have plenty of time to work on configuring the meadow.  Yes, there's a plan, it's just taking longer and fraught with more obstacles than I ever planned for.  Oh well, no rest for the wicked.  Happy spring!

Mooshie in the daffodils

 

battle weary

 Despite my best efforts, the aphids and white flies are winning.  Into the woods I have tossed six pepper plants and about two dozen zinnia seedlings.  The aphids moved on to my globe artichoke and whorled milkweed seedlings, but I'm not giving up on those quite yet.

In happier news, I've kind of, sort of potted up my dahlia tubers.  I've given them no heat mats or grow lights, just the indirect light coming from a window that faces east.  

                           

In our zone, dahlias take forever to develop and flower if you wait until the danger of frost is gone.  I have a terrible habit of not remembering I've overwintered the tubers in a box somewhere, so by the time I get them out and get them in dirt, they're months behind.  For the last three years I've managed about two or three flowers between about a dozen or more tubers.  For those who are unfamiliar with the plant, if you live in a zone that gets killing frosts, snow, and temperatures that go below 40* for months at a time, you need to dig up the tubers and store them somewhere dark and frost-free.  They're a delicate plant, and when leafed out and blooming, the slightest touch of frost will cause them to blacken and begin dying.  Being that fussy of a plant usually means I avoid them, but I also love the amazing colors and never ending varieties of dahlias.  I'm hoping this head start means these plants will bloom toward the middle of summer rather than early autumn, but I can't be sure I've timed it right.  I do know that in twelve days of minimal care, they're already pushing through the soil.

 

I have to turn them every other day so they don't lean so much, but I'm really excited to see if they do bloom this year.  Some of them have, and I've noted the colors (red, pink, salmon, and orange), but some of them I've had for years and have no idea what colors they are.  Once it's warmer and they can go out, I'll transplant them into proper containers.

Speaking of outside, I may have jumped the gun a bit by putting out the cheap cloche over the big planter.

OF COURSE.  OF COURSE IT'S SNOWING...AGAIN.  Ugh, three to five inches expected.  I had hoped to start hardening off the leeks but I need it to be just a little warmer, even with the cloche.

Before it snowed again, I did clip some broken branches off one of the Midwinter Fire dogwood bushes.  Supposedly they're like willow clippings, in that you can just shove them in the ground and they'll take root.  I cut the base on an angle and cut most of the lower branches, then pushed them into the ground.  I think I was supposed to cut all of the little branches off, but we'll see what happens.

 But for this weekend, no poly tunnel covering, no hauling the tractor out to move manure piles, no removing the two downed trees on the track fence (finally found some guys to do that!), no working on the dead hedge.  I'm just a girl, stuck inside a house, asking for spring to come.  

 

 

blackbirds singing a song to lure spring back

Battle of the Microscopic Plant Killers

 Ugh.  I've been infested with white flies and what I believe are scale insects.  How does this happen?

The scale insects hitched a ride home with my baby bay leaf tree.  Sure, it was purchased at a reputable nursery, but that doesn't mean these places don't suffer from the same pests we do at home.  For the last year and a half I've been giving the bay tree bi-monthly rubbing alcohol wipe downs.  This has slowed the damage of the scale insects, but not stopped it.  Worse, they seem to have spread to other plants.  My celery plant is now covered with them.

 Yuck!  I cut the worst infested leaves and stems and soaked the plants with an insecticidal spray soap.  If you ever need to do that, pure Castile soap is fine; Dr. Bronner's sells liquid soap in varying sizes.  

Some of these pests are difficult to notice, but many of them secrete "honeydew", a sticky byproduct of their feasting.  Thankfully, that's easy to spot; it almost looks like water sprayed on the leaves.

 

I did the same treatment for the white flies.  These little turds look like minuscule grains of rice, and can usually be found underneath plant leaves.  I, however, found them in massive quantities on top of the soil in my seedlings.  Ew.  I've never seen anything like that, and I can't figure out where they came from.  The only thing I can think of is they were in the potting soil, much like the fungus gnats that hatch constantly.  Again, top shelf potting soil, which is disappointing.  I've read that to be certain there are no creepy crawlies in the soil, your best bet is to bake it in your oven before using.  To me, that sounds like something the companies producing the soil could probably do on a large scale so that each bag is pest free, but that unfortunately isn't going to happen.  So to war with flies I go. 

These are my over wintered Gerbera daisies.  They were really getting hammered on, so my first order of business was to prune them.  I used the same method one would use on ornamental shrubs or trees; take out the dead or diseased bits first, then remove any sections that are crossing/rubbing against each other, and open up the center for better air flow.

 

The plant on the left is pre-trimming, the plant on the right is post-trim. Once they were pruned, I sprayed the tops and undersides of the remaining leaves and the soil for good measure.  Kill 'em all.

 Outside, winter keeps trying to creep back in.  We'll have a few warm, classic spring days then BAM!  Snow, sleet, and freezing rain.  I'm not going to complain too loudly, because despite the snow and rain the last few months, we're still in a moderate drought.  

I just got my wheeled string trimmer back from the repair dude, so I can't wait for decent enough weather to start using it again.  I have the forest garden area to finish, and the bittersweet has already started coming back in spades along the unfinished fence line.  I did manage to turn and spread the manure I've been hauling to the bank garden.  I really want to get the back yard fenced in so I can let Calypso outside.  After about a week of not really being herself without Bizzy, she's started acting like the crazy cat she is again.  The last four or five months, Bizzy pretty much just slept all the time.  Before that, she and Calypso used to have their nightly Cat Olympics throughout the house, racing around and knocking things over, meowing at each other loudly and making skidding noises as they tried to race across the vinyl flooring.  Calypso has started doing that again, but alone it's not as much fun.  I don't think I'm ready to adopt another cat, but I know Calypso loves being outdoors.  I used to have to drag her back into the house when we lived at our last place.  So that's another goal for this summer.  I think that would make her very happy.

I'm starting to get antsy for planting season.  My leeks that I started from seed are about 10" tall, and I may plant them out under a cloche next week.  A lot of my seedlings need planting on into bigger pots, so that's another chore I can do to assuage the yearning.  If the weather gods ever smile upon us and stop sending sleet and snow our way, I can get the new cover on the little poly tunnel.  I've been getting extra chiropractic adjustments and keeping up with my acupuncture sessions, so hopefully my back will hold up better this year.  I've been getting my steps in, but I'm only averaging about 12,000+/- per day.  Hopefully when the weather breaks I'll be putting that number to shame!  

In the meantime, here are some of my favorite photos from the winter season.  Mostly birds because honestly, it's easy to photograph them from the window instead of actually venturing out into the weather.