Archive | April, 2008

Yard Work

by on April 17, 2008 in General

The front yard has these curved areas wrapping around the front and side of the house, and along the sidewalk and into the side yard, they’re full of roses and rhododendrons, a big wisteria and other bushes. The weeds in these areas have gotten pretty crazy since we moved in, but we started tackling it with the Mantis and my new weeder hoe thing and wow, it looks so much nicer out there. There’s still a ton of work to do, but I’m trying to tackle it a little at a time to keep from killing myself and getting another sunburn.

It’s supposed to freeze every night this weekend, so I’ll be covering the strawberries later on, it’s really nice out right now, about 60 degrees.

Snow?

by on April 14, 2008 in Plans & Getting Going

Monday night

A few rain showers this evening mixing with snow showers overnight. Low 36F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of precip 30%.

Tuesday

Considerable cloudiness with occasional rain showers. Snow may mix in early. High around 50F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%.

Now we get snow *grumble mutter whine*….I covered the strawberries just in case we actually get some, though I’m not actually expecting it. Now that I said that, we’ll get a foot. Anyone in this area should protect their outside seedlings.

Tons of lettuce is coming up and the Oregon snow peas are poppling through too.

More seedlings

by on April 14, 2008 in Plans & Getting Going

I have beefsteak and roma tomato seedlings coming out my ears. I thinned them out and transplanted many of all the seedlings to their own peat pots for ease in planting this coming week (if it stops raining). I also planted the asparagus, but my Sunset garden book says it’ll be next year before we will be eating from them. I’m going to call the rosemary a bust and try again, I think I must have planted them too deep..maybe not enough light? I’ll try again in any case, I love rosemary!

The Mantis should be here Tuesday…I can’t wait for the next dry-ish day to get this garden planted!

Beautiful, productive day

by on April 12, 2008 in Plans & Getting Going

Got out into the garden today and prepped the back left square as best I could (tons of root balls and rocks and chunks of glass), and planted the strawberries, and put the fence up. Sadie (dog) was very put out that we did that to her, but considering she’s been coming in with muddy paws every day, I’m not losing my garden to her!

Here’s the before:

And the after, not a lot of difference, except in the 2nd picture you can see the back square that the strawberries are not in. I had planned on that one being tomatoes and strawberries, but the strawberries need more room then I realized.

Beautiful day – 70 degrees! It was 73 inside last I checked. The only downside is the awful sunburn I got – I’m bright, almost fluorescent, red. Oops.

Sunset New Western Garden Book 1981 to 2008

by on April 8, 2008 in Tools, Products & How To

My dad has/gave me a 1981 edition of the Sunset New Western Garden Book…I grew up with the book in our house, I’d spend hours looking at all the plants (wish some of the knowledge had absorbed).. unfortunately it’s very outdated. Many varieties of plants don’t exist anymore. So I went looking for the newest edition, I originally found it at Amazonbut when I was in Costco yesterday, I found it for $21 :D If you can’t get it locally, get it from Amazon…it’s so worth it if you’re on the west coast!!

Tiller

by on April 6, 2008 in Tools, Products & How To

I finally broke down and ordered a tiller – a Mantis 2 cycle. They have a 4 pay plan that is easier to work then then one big chunk. I was prompted to finally get one when I went out today and tried to rake, hoe and otherwise break up the dirt further and get it ready for planting. I simply couldn’t. I have to get the strawberries planted pronto, so I might have to do part of it, but there’s no way I could do it all.