The weather is quite dreary today. There was a heavy mist or something when I took Mo around the yard to do his business - it was actually heavy enough that some was dripping off the house.
I had thought I might go back down to the woods this morning and cut some more privet limbs to shred, but since it was so wet out, I decided instead to do a bit more seed planting instead. In the toilet paper tubes, I planted:
- Florence Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)
- Jewel Nasturtium (Tropaeolum nanum)
- Empress of India Nasturtium (Tropaeolum minus)
- Common chicory (Cichorium intybus)
That used up the last of my saved toilet paper tubes (insert sad face here).
In one of my Charles Dowding CD-60 trays, I planted:
- Picotee Cosmo (Cosmos bipinnata)
- Carpet of Snow Alyssum (Lobularia maritima)
- Imperial Rocket Larkspur (Delphinium consolida)
- Apple Blossom Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus)
- Rose Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus)
Although Charles Dowding has very good luck with his CD-60 module trays, I've struggled with them. They seem to dry out so fast! I've tried to keep on top of watering them this year and so far, maybe I'm having better luck with them. It is nice that they use such a small amount of potting mix, but if I had it to do over, I might go with a bit bigger size cell. Jury is still out on that.
The morning drizzle/mist didn't last very long, so although it was still cloudy out, I was able to get outside and collect some of the daffodil bulbs that were dug up when I moved the American Bladdernut tree away from the Black Walnut. These are going to my older sister's house - she wants to plant them in her orchard around her apple trees.
Next project was to clean up the asparagus bed.
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| Asparagus bed, with the old fronds all broken and tattered looking. |
I took my pruners and cut the old fronds down to about an 1", topped each clump with some of the partially composted cow manure, then covered them back over with leaves and straw. I wish I could have put a deeper layer of compost on them, but at this point, I'm still struggling to come up with enough compost to really pamper beds like that. So they just get what they get and I hope that's enough.
As it turns out, it was a good day to do the bed cleanup. Several of the plants are already starting to put up little shoots! I don't think I cut any of the shoots off, but I sure wasn't expecting them to be there, so if I didn't cut them, that's just dumb luck.
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| Pale white asparagus shoot that I uncovered as I was cleaning up the bed. |
I put some new stakes in the ground to try to hold the wire cages up this year. Always when the fronds get very tall, they lean over, and the cages usually get pulled up out of the ground. I don't know if I even need cages on them, but with the rabbit problem being what it is, I'm not sure I want to take them off only to find out that rabbits love asparagus too!
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| The asparagus bed, all cleaned up and ready for spring! |
I could tell as I was working that the clouds were getting thicker and it was getting darker. I decided to get a start pulling Bermuda grass out of the flowerbed at the south end of the house before I quit for the afternoon. Overall, that bed isn't in very bad shape at all, but on the west end where I didn't pour a concrete footing for the rock border, the Bermuda grass comes in from the yard very aggressively. I'm determined to get it out of there this year and do my best to keep it from creeping back in! I'll do the same thing I've done around the garden...once I get the rhizomes dug out, I'll put some cardboard under the rock at that end and try to keep the grass hoed away around the outside. Devil grass.....
I saw Mo going after a mole at the end of the new Hügelkultur row and was sad to discover that he had actually caught it! I took it away from him, but I think he killed it. I put it back in the hole he dug in the Hügelkultur row and covered it with straw. I hope it was just playing dead, but I don't think so.
As dreary as it was this weekend, there are still reminders that spring is on the way...asparagus shoots, and a little drop of purple in the grass.
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| A tiny grape hyacinth (Muscari sp.) poking up in the back yard. |
By next weekend, it will be March. The gardening season will get going in earnest next month and I'm so ready!