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!