Intoxification

The long wait for warmer weather sometimes makes gardeners do silly things.  Adrian and I had some cleanup to do over the weekend, and a rainy Saturday made for a longer than intended day of work on Sunday.  By the time we finished the majority of our chores list and the daylight was waning, we ate a very well-deserved take-out dinner (oh the irony), and then slept like the dead.  The aches and pains this morning reminded me how I can bite off  bit more than I should at this time of year.

Still, the rabbits have an upgraded manure collection system (we needed the buckets back!), and we bred two of our does in the rabbit run in full sunshine, giving them some personal time as well, to eat some fresh grass, dig, and lounge about.

The potatoes I had kept for seed from our harvest last year (red, white and purple) went into our potato buckets, along with some local, organic, fingerling potatoes which had sprouted even in our dark spare room.  I'm still waiting for my fingerling seed potato order, and have 4 larger buckets waiting for planting. As Adrian noted, Russet and Yukon Gold potatoes cost a dollar or two a pound, but the fingerlings are up to five dollars most of the year - focusing on growing specialty items saves us money at the market and makes us more appreciative of our 'treats,' since the fingerlings taste wonderful smashed and fried.

Barley and wheat went into the beds prepared last weekend, and are covered carefully in weighted-down row cover fabric, to deter all of the wildlife that is currently scrounging for food.  With all of the rain we were having, I was reluctant to sow my grain seed too early.

Our first round of Snap Peas is also in, assuming the aforementioned rodents and crows don't dig them up.

The mason bee trays are soaking, and the bee house is being aired, in anticipation of this year's crop of cocoons - which are temporarily being stored in the fridge.  With the bushes and trees breaking bud, our masons will hopefully help us to have another good harvest of fruit this year.

Lastly, we had one more trick up our sleeves in our efforts to protect our fruit trees.  They had sticky traps for the fall and winter, wound around their trunks and slathered in petroleum jelly, then we managed to spray them weeks ago, to try and knock any overwintering pests and fungi back.  Yesterday afternoon, we took some white interior latex paint, and covered the trunks up to the lower branches with sparkling bright paint, to act as a further deterrent to animals that might nibble on the bark, or bugs endeavoring to burrow into the wood.  That last chore is probably what made for the most aches this morning.  It's harder than you would think to paint a tree!

We intend to move our top bar hive back under the old apple tree, but we also need to finish pruning and top up the mulch under there, so for now it remains in its temporary location.  the bees have been quite busy, and the days are getting warmer, so I decided to take a quick look inside the hive to assess what's going on.

My concern was that the colony population might be swelling in response to the season.  I took the lid off this afternoon, in 12 degree weather, and had a brief peek in each side of the hive for the first time - not opening up the hive fully and risking cooling things down.  The hive was absolutely buzzing, the bees largely ignored me (which was perfect, since I wasn't wearing any gear), and were actively making daisy chains and building new comb.  I added two extra bars to assure them that they have plenty of space, and closed the lid, with the heavenly smell of fresh beeswax in my nostrils, and a smile on my face.  I've been watching them for weeks now, and I'm thrilled that the girls made it through their first winter.  Adrian and I will need to get geared up and do a full inspection (though we're looking at 6 days of rain starting tomorrow).  I need to know what the whole hive looks like soon - was there any mold or insect damage over winter, what do the stores of pollen and honey look like, are there are any drone cells... I especially need to know if the colony is starting any queen cells - we may need to speed up our hive-building plans.

Smells like spring!

Feeling The Burn

With a short break in the 'Spring' weather, this has been a time of starting things up in the garden. After our surprise snowfall (which made house-hunting just that much more difficult), the crocuses are again showing some color, the buds are starting to burst, and the tulips and peonies are pushing up through the mulch.

At the beginning of the week, when I realized we would have a few days without rain (a window we missed last year), I was determined to get the fruit trees and the fruit bushes sprayed.  Because of our mild weather, many pests overwinter here on the coast.  Even some non-edible species of plants and trees are hosts for insects and fungi that can do real damage in the garden.  Living in the suburbs with many gardens around us, we have scab, aphids, rust, borers, sawfly - you name it - and some of these pests can be minimized by an application of 'Dormant Spray,' which is a combination of horticultural oil and lime sulphur.  The trick is to get it applied to the plants and trees when there will be several dry days for the application to rest in the nooks and crannies of the bark to kill pests and spores, but before the leafy buds actually 'break' and are damaged by the sprayed oil.  On the 'Wet Coast' we sometimes don't get the chance.

So, at the end of the day, I assembled the ladder, the spray pump, the hose and the Dormant Spray Kit, picked Adrian up, and expected a quick round of him prepping the water/oil/fungicide mix while I clambered up and down the ladder and sprayed the rotten-egg-smelling mixture all over the back yard (and myself - can't be helped with a breeze).

Except the pump wouldn't hold pressure.

So there we were, in the fading light, switching to a plant mister each, and straining to reach as high as possible with our application of the stinky mix. What can I say - I love him!

My minimal seed order was placed last week, and arrived yesterday, so this weekend will involve starting some tomatoes and lettuces - as soon as I pick up some sterile Starting Mix, and purposely ignore the seed selection that will likely be in evidence at the hardware store.  The dry spell meant that we could get at the first few garden beds to pull weeds and the remaining cover crop of winter rye, turnip and mustard (rabbit snacks!), which was what Adrian helped with last night.  Three beds weeded, and the top layers prepared for my wheat, and barley planting.  The timing is good - Mother Nature should helpfully water it all in for me this weekend (that's one way to make a positive out of the weatherman's report that we have our normal, rainy, seasonal weather on the way again).  The timing for a rainy weekend is also good for the tending of one's aching muscles after a long-unused set of gardening muscles have returned to use!