April 11-15, 2012: Apples, grapes, and herbs!

April 11: Laid landscape fabric on grape bed and covered with woodchips.

Planted 2 new grapevines and 2 dwarf apple trees:

Nearest barn: Thompson Seedless Green Grapes (now realize these are zone 7-9 grapes--ouch!)

Farthest from barn: Canadice Red Seedless Grapes-late August fruit

Farthest north: Pixie Crunch  Dwarf Apple Tree–grows 6’-(sweeter than Honeycrisp) fruits late August

Farthest south: Pristine  Dwarf Yellow Apple Tree-grows 6’ – fruits early July

Watered everything well.

New grapes!

New dwarf apple trees!

April 12: Watered new apple trees and grape vines

April 13:  Dumped wheelbarrows of manure on ends of old tomato bed and onion bed.

Watered everything well.

April 14:  with help from Laura and Rich, we weeded herb bed and pulled up old black plastic from edges.  Mostly we weeded out lemon balm which had taken over!   That left good clumps of salad burnett, lovage, sorrel, 2^nd year curly parsley, bergamot, ornamental pink-flowering oregano, several lavender, lemon thyme, common thyme, and lots of chives.   Saw some new borage sprouts—will undoubtedly be more.  We left a triangle of lemon balm at back left corner.   And there is a great stand of tarragon in the corner of the onion bed and some 2^nd year flat parsley in the peapod bed.   I have some herbs growing in greenhouse (basil, lavender, oregano, and flat parsley—I planted rosemary but I don’t think it sprouted. The herb bed looks great!

April 15:  Raked the herb bed smoother and re-set some of the stone spiral.  SAW TWO BLUEBIRDS!! Ripped up last year’s landscape fabric from old tomato bed, dug out deep deep bindweed, spread manure, and raked smooth.   Also dug dandelions from old strawberry bed and borders.  Cut some long asparagus for Tuesday’s healthy food luncheon.  Cut and threw away some asparagus that looked bad---perhaps froze last week?  Or was damaged by my weeding, or by drought?   Watered everything well.    Flooded the blockbarn, as in ark-needed!  And tonight it is  raining hard!





April 3-10, 2012: Cold busy week, but the garden keeps growing!

April 3:  Got the greenhouse frame up, but found that one of the bottom plastic braces was missing!  

April 4:  Bill made a new wooden brace for the bottom of the greenhouse.  Jim put in 4 t-posts and wired the poles of the greenhouse to it, in order to make it wind-worthy.   I put the cover on and the greenhouse is ready for plants!

April 5: Moved 5 of the seedling trays to the greenhouse

April 6: 60 degree sunny day.  Greenhouse was up to 100 degrees!   I opened it up and temperature  fell quickly.  Weeded, Dug up, and added manure to onion patch, including digging out a few strawberries I’d put in last fall and moving them into new strawberry bed to replace three others that looked dead.  Planted 2 rows of onion plants from Gurney.  I was surprised by what arrived.  I thought they’d be onion sets like I’ve always planted.  But these were plants (thinner bulbs with green shoots about 6-8 inches tall).  Watered everything.



Raspberry patch




New onion plants, next to October's garlic planting




Zigzag strings on peapod teepees, with tiny lettuce seedlings along side of 2-3" tall peas

April 9:

Put up strings for peas to climb on pea teepees—it was trickier than when I put strings up on the fence trellis.   I ended up with a crazy zig-zag of strings going every which way!  I finally covered the landscape fabric we put in last fall in the raspberry patch with woodchips.  Weeded furthest north veggie bed, so that farm staff could move some manure down to there, in order to make room for new apples trees.  Also raked grape bed smooth and marked where new posts should be put.  Watered everything. (extremely dry spell of weather) 

April 10:  Farm staff put in posts and rails for grape trellis, and moved asparagus bed posts to make the plot larger, since there’s always been a few asparagus plants outside the corral we built to contain their summer foliage.   Unfortunately, one of the asparagus mounds got trampled—hopefully it will survive.  They also moved a lot of the manure from the apple bed down to the first veggie bed.  This afternoon, I raked the new apple bed smooth, and moved more of the manure to the yet unused far end of that bed, and filled 2 wheelbarrows with manure, hopefully to use tomorrow. 

April 2, 2012: Asparagus, broccoli raab, pea sprouts, garlic and strawberry plants!



Asparagus bed--brocoli raab on left

 

Peas 2-3" tall - need strings soon!



new strawberry bed - looking good!



April 2: Finished taking up the last of the black plastic from around the asparagus bed and raking the area smooth and pulling out the last of the weeds. Have definitely decided to extend each bed east and west to the railroad ties…no more woodchips paths inside the garden.   I think it will be easier to weed if the grass has nowhere to hide its roots.   I’ll just need to keep after it.   Also weeded and raked the area next to the asparagus bed (last year’s corn and kale beds), then weeded and raked the new bed for potatoes, south of the pea trellises.   In all cases, from RR tie to RR tie.  The peas are all 2-3” tall!   Even some of last week’s lettuce planting has sprouted—teeny tiny!  And the garlic looks really healthy.  Then transplanted 10 strawberries into the new strawberry bed to replace the ones that either died or looked like they would soon.  Watered everything really well. 

April 1, 2012: Dandelions, Bindweed, and Grass...oh my!

April 1:  Went to water but the raingauge said we got .2 of an inch last night, and that seemed sufficient, so I weeded the back of the veggie bed instead….a bucketful of huge dandelions, bindweed, and grass….the three worst weeds in the garden!  I’m paying for neglecting the back path last summer.  I pulled up the black plastic…with hope of expanded the bed rows, and then putting in a new path outside the existing one.