The weather today might have been just about the most perfect a person could ask for. I don't know what the high was, but probably around 65° F, with sunshine and a light breeze.
It's the kind of weather that can play tricks on you, and make you think it's time to start planting things outside. But I remember last year...my asparagus spears were up about 8" high, and got frozen, not once, but twice in March, and we even had snow on March 17th last year! I'm not going to be fooled into thinking I could set out things like my Globe Artichoke (which desperately needs to be set out!).
But it was a great day to get some things done outside, and that's just what I did. I spent a big part of the morning potting up the tomato and pepper seedlings.
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| Pepper and tomato seedlings separated into individual pots. |
I lost track of how many I potted up, but it was enough that I ran out of pots!
Right now, all of the little pots are lined up on the wellhouse. I think the low tonight is only going to be in the 50s, so they'll be perfectly fine out there.
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| Lots of pots |
Next thing on the "to-do list" was to get the rest of the peas set out in the garden. The dirt was a bit wet still, thanks to the almost 2 1/2" of rain we just had (thankfully just rain, and no storms!). But because it's a no-till garden, I was still able to get them planted (because I didn't have to till! LOL).
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| Green peas, with their protective metal spikes. |
I uncovered yet another cutworm while I was planting the peas - it was unceremoniously tossed out into the yard with an emphatic "You're not welcome here!" Every little plant has a piece of metal fence wire stuck in the ground beside the stem...scraps of wire I saved from when we were building our new fence. Hopefully that will protect them from being chewed off.
Once all of the peas were planted and protected from the cutworms, it was time to put up protection against rabbits. I had previously fastened some scrap chicken wire to the south side of the cattle panel, and today, I took what was left of my original roll of chicken wire and made a "fence" around the north side of the panel.
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| Rabbit fence, made from chicken wire, rebar, bent t-posts, and hay string. |
The wire is about 10" to 12" away from the cattle panel, so I should have plenty of room to reach behind it to pick the peas. It might look a bit tacky, but a gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do to protect her green peas from the rabbits!
I set the little oak seedlings outside with the Trumpet Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) today too. I'm so happy with how that little vine is looking! It's grown a lot and looks to be about 2' long now. I've told it how pretty it is, but also told it I sure hoped it was the native honeysuckle - that I've not been babying along a sprig of the invasive non-native!
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| Oak seedlings and honeysuckle. |
One of the three little honeysuckle cuttings that I know are from the native plant has finally decided to start growing too. I don't know if it has any roots or not, but at least it has put out about 1" of new growth from one node, and the two most terminal buds are starting to green up as well.
And speaking of buds starting to swell up...two of my three Blackhaw (Viburnum prunifolium) root suckers have new growth from a couple of their lower buds! Now that makes me very happy!!!!
I also decided to go ahead and uncover the strawberries today. I might should have done that a week ago before all of the rain. The plants around the edges of the bed looked pretty good, but it was almost a slimy mess in the center.
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| The strawberry bed after the straw was removed. |
I guess the clay that's under the Ocean Forest potting soil doesn't drain very well at all, and there was probably a lot of water trapped under the hay. Those plants did have some pale leaves trying to grow from their crowns though, so maybe they'll make it. I'll just have to keep an eye on the weather and cover the bed with something if it decides it's going to get really cold again.
After lunch, I decided to go fetch some more privet limbs. As I suspected, it's now too late to do any more cut stump treatments. The privet is already putting on new leaves, well ahead of all of the native plants. That's one of the things that gives it a competitive advantage - it starts photosynthesizing sooner in the spring and keeps going longer in the fall.
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| Privet, already putting on new leaves. |
I cut and stripped a small load of limbs, carted them back to the house, and Little Joe and I shredded them. Slowly but surely the walking rows are being covered with wood chips. Take that, ChipDrop! (I think I've renewed by ChipDrop request about eight times now and don't really have much hope that I'll ever get a load delivered.)
It makes me a bit nervous to be cutting the limbs from the privet now, because I'm not sure what to expect from the plants. If they react by putting up a bunch of suckers, I'll have made my job next fall much harder. So this summer will be a learn as you go kind of thing...cut some back to the trunks, cut just limbs from others, and see how they react.
Late this afternoon, I took my big sister some daffodil bulbs for her orchard, and her little Red Mulberry (Morus rubra) tree. It made it through the winter in a pot in the south window and now has two little buds just starting to turn green. I had hoped to be able to walk down to the creek below her house to look at the Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) and Pawpaw (Asimina triloba), but when I asked her if she thought I could make it across the low water bridge, she sent this picture and said, "I'd say the answer is no."
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| Water rolling over the low water bridge that crosses the slough. |
I'm afraid if I don't walk down to Little Piney Creek in my dad's field tomorrow, I'm going to miss the Spicebush blooms this year. The rain is supposed to return on Tuesday and continue off and on the rest of the week, so I don't think I'll be crossing the slough below my sister's house any time soon.
I finished up the day by hauling three more cartloads of hay that the cows left in the field - most of what they leave is from where the bale sat on the ground and the hay has started to rot already, or hay that one of them pooped in! They won't eat that, but I have high hopes that it will be just what I need for my no-dig potatoes.
Now all I need is some cardboard and some potatoes....