READY TO PLANT

11 Wednesday May 2011

Posted by backyardnotes in Vegetable garden

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I FINALLY GOT MOTIVATED and cleaned out a couple of wintered over vegetable beds and prepared them for planting. I began by laying down alfalfa, bone, cottonseed, and kelp meals as my first layer.

COMPOST is the second layer and piled on about three to four inches thick. I used to sift the compost, but it was so much extra work and all it really achieved was to remove some sticks and stems not fully composted. I finally decided that the compost could finish breaking down in the beds; it has worked out well ever since. Anything that is obviously large or not broken down is pulled out and returned to the bin. I’m happy and so are the plants.

COMPOSTED CHICKEN MANURE is the last layer. Since I don’t raise chickens I have to buy this product. I became a believer in chicken manure when I used to raise chickens many years ago. I now favor Gardener & Bloome products after an unpleasant surprise (chicken bones in all 18 bags!) with Whitney Farms chicken manure two years ago. The Gardener & Bloome product is better composted and has less odor.

NEXT STEP is tilling it all in with my favorite garden device: the electric Mantis tiller.

The tilled beds.

FINAL STEP is raking into shape. The raised beds are about twelve inches high and about thirty-six inches wide when finished. I water with rubber drip/soaker hose. The paths between the beds are just wide enough to maneuver a wheelbarrow through and covered with wood ‘play chips’ to keep the weeds and the mud down.

This is one of the lettuce volunteers that I have frequently mentioned; ready to move from the path into a newly tilled bed.

FEBRUARY’S FABULOUS PARADE

28 Sunday Feb 2010

Posted by backyardnotes in Spring bulbs, tulips, West Seattle garden, Winter flowers

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compost, crocus, February, hellebores, tulips

BACK IN NOVEMBER my neighbor had some trees trimmed and pruned. The tree trimming company shreds/chops all of the trimmings and offers the chipped wood gratis, so I asked for some and ended up with about four yards of wood chips to spread around the garden. The chips are good mulch material, don’t pack down, conserve on water, and attract worms and other creatures that break down organic material slowly, thereby improving overall soil health. The chips are not especially attractive to everyone (my husband), but I kind of like the bright green of emerging plants atop the earth colored chips. It won’t be long before the chips are barely noticeable. I spread some of the material throughout December and most of the remainder after we returned home last month. Some of the chips went on the paths between the raised beds in the vegetable garden.

Before covering each garden bed with the chips I spread compost and broadcast a mixture of alfalfa, bone, and kelp meals, all slow release fertilizers. So, everything in the garden should grow happily throughout the coming year.

The compost bins

Since our January weather has been so mild and warm, many bulbs are showing more than a month early like these Early Harvest tulips. Planted in the fall of 2008 they bloomed in mid-March of last year. This year they were beginning to bloom the first week of February.

The camelia ‘Freedom Bell’ began blooming in mid-January, also about a month early. This is a small camelia, a slow grower up to 6-7 feet in 10 years. We planted this one about 12 years ago and so far about 6 feet tall.

There are some things that I just look forward to seeing every year. Each little thing is a herald of its season and what will unfold as the season rolls along. I love the little catkins that dangle from the twisted, curly limbs of Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’ also known as Harry Lauder’s walking stick or corkscrew hazel. The actual flowers are the tiniest red petals at the end of what appear to be green leaf buds. The catkins just look cheerful as they sway in the breeze.

OH, the mid-winter blooming hellebores! Most of the hellebores here came from Grandma T’s garden and have multiplied. Like columbine, hellebores seem to freely hybridize so there are color variations in the flowers of new plants.

helleborus orientalis

A yellow hybrid purchase in 2008

The rain returned last Tuesday and continued off and on through Friday. The crocus had about two weeks of glory before succumbing to the rain and falling over. These are giant crocus, ‘Pickwick” inter-planted with white ‘Peter Pan’ and white arabis. They are about 4-5 inches tall and have mulitplied nicely since planting in 1997. They run about 15′ along the edge of the driveway. Tulips are planted behind and will bloom over the next w months. So many plants resuming growth and blooming it is hard to keep up!