APRIL
Sunday April 17th, to be exact. Sorry for the lack of updates, but not a lot going on really other than seedlings growing, and waiting. Today the weather was beautiful though and the yard is mostly dried up.
The in-ground beds look decent still. We'll just need to weed and loosen them up a bit with the broadfork. The soil doesn't look very compacted, so I think my no-till plan will work. We'll just add a bit of soil and manure to the top of each bed, smooth it out and plant. We'll need more mulch in the paths as well, but should be a thinner layer than last year. I'm hoping to fill the paths around the raised beds with weed mat and gravel on top so the paths will be more permanent, plus this will help with the tendency for water to lay in the paths when it rains quite a bit.
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| Garlic sprouting |
Yesterday was nice, but windy. I took the opportunity to go out and trim the dead fronds off the asparagus and the dead leaves off the three mint plants I have. Now they can get some sun and air and start with new growth. My garlic has been up for a few weeks now. Hoping our mild freezes haven't been too hard on them. The sprouts are a little purple on top, but still seem to be okay.
Earlier in the day we went to the Chatham market for our weekly Indian food, but they didn't happen to be there this week. We went to Kent's and picked up enough wood to make one 10", 4'x8' raised bed. I have some wood left over from last year, but it's in the back of the shed and paying $43 bucks and change sounded much less painful than cleaning out 3/4 of the stuff in the shed to get to the wood. Despite the bitter wind, I cut the corner braces and short sides for the bed so they were all ready to go the next day.
Today we got up early and enjoyed a coffee while chatting and surfing. Then Erin headed for the shed to get the patio chairs and I headed to procure our second coffee from Tim's. Then we sat on the deck with the boys (5 year-old cockapoo and 8 year-old terrier) and enjoyed the beautiful weather. It was really the first nice day of the year. We've had other sunny days, but always a cold breeze to go with. Today was perfect. Erin left and I set to building the rest of the bed on the deck. It took a couple hours, the first one is always the slowest, and always takes longer when you make them alone. Having a second set of hands is helpful in holding things in place while drilling and driving screws in. Once the bed was completed I dragged it out to its new home, measured and made sure it was parallel to the one next to it. I'll fill it after work this week and the Carolina Pineberries (white strawberries) that are being planted in it should be arriving from Vesey's by week's end.
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| Raspberry bed |
After the bed was placed I took a walk around to check things out. Raspberry canes survived the winter well. There are 4-5 new canes for every one I transplanted last year. I need to get a trellis built for these sometime this summer. Looking forward to a few raspberries. We will be putting in more of them as time goes on. I don't think you can ever have too many raspberries.
I was thrilled to find the rhubarb survived transplanting and you can see the new growth beginning. I also checked the flower beds I dug up/replanted last fall and the bearded irises have new growth as well. Not sure if I'll see any flowers this year, but at least they survived transplanting and the winter.
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| Rhubarb |
Asparagus beds appear to be doing well, you can see some spears starting just under the soil. We're really looking forward to our first feed of garden-fresh asparagus!
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| Asparagus spears starting. |
Next I pulled the mulch off the strawberry bed. They were so green it surprised me. Can't wait to harvest our first full-sized berries.
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| Garlic is up a couple of inches. |
So the first bed of the year is built. Only 22 more to go! My potatoes and fruit trees will arrive next month and hopefully I'll have my soil by then.
UPDATE:
April 22
My birthday. I took the day off because it was supposed to be 18 and beautiful out. Erin still had to work so we got up at the regular time, took the dogs out and she went off to work while I headed out to Kent's for lumber. I bought fourteen 8-foot long 2"x10"s and four 8-foot long 2"x4"s, plus two boxes of #12 2 1/2" wood screws. After paying, loading up in the lumber yard and stopping for a coffee at Tim Horton's, I headed back home again. I watched a few YouTube videos, ate a bagel and drank my coffee, then gathered my tools and went out to assemble my birthday present from Erin, a handy little vice and work-table. It took me about an hour to put together. I took another coffee break after that and then set to building a 4' square raised bed. I cut the sides, screwed the braces on two of them and set them aside to finish assembling once Erin was home to hold one end for me.
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| Jerusalem artichokes and horseradish |
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