Chickens!!! Whooo!!!!!

In an astounding display of support, Town Meeting members in Arlington voted last night to allow for the keeping of up to 6 hens (with plenty of restrictions) in Backyards in Arlington!!!! Whooo hooo! More details here: http://backyardchicks.com, with more to come after this weekend!

Gardening weekend

This was a great weekend for gardening!  Cool, but not too cold, sunny in parts, cloudy at times.  Just fine.

I went out to the community garden both days this weekend.  The three raised beds are done!  I added more compost to them, and this upcoming weekend I think I'm going to go to the Lexington compost facility and get even more, but the basic structure is done!  Yay!

These raised beds are made using the lasagne method: 4 layers of newspaper or heavy brown paper, 1 thin layer of twigs and branches (1 -2 inches), 1 layer of brush and straw from previous plants (1 - 2 inches), 1 layer of salt marsh hay (2 - 3 inches), 1 layer of shredded pine bark mulch (1/2 inch), and a thick layer of compost from various sources (4 inches or more).  It's going to sit for at least 2 weeks - I'm not planting there until after May 15th.  If I'd had all winter, I would have put the free horse manure from down the street, but alas, I didn't get until a couple of weeks ago.

In the background you can see the strawberry beds, which have a gianormous amount of weeding to be done.  The blueberries look like they're starting to grow, so it's just a matter of time now!

One thing is, I wonder if anyone knows what this weed is - I thought it might be vetch.   I feel like I might be digging up some kind of really awesome natives, but Alix and Meg both swear that most of it is purple loosestrife and the rest is just weeds.  Well, at least the strawberry plants are still blooming!

I also worked some in my own home garden.  I:

• potted up Federle paste tomatoes
• started Dorinny Corn
• started more Aparagus "purple passion" from seed
• Divded a bunch of Hostas
• Moved the "American Highbush Cranberry" Viburnum trilobum to over by the house.
• Added two new natives to the garden - Fothegilla minor and Viginia Sweetspire. 

I was all sad that I hadn't seen my Mason Bees in a while, then I looked down and low and behold, there was one feeding on a dandelion!  I thought it was a fly, until I heard it fly away, and saw that iridescent flash of green.  Hoo-ray!  Now I am wondering how many of those flies I've been seeing are just flies!  I bought them clay, but it was "clay", like from the art store, and now I'm wondering if that was a mistake, or if I should mix it up with my regular soil, I don't know.  They don't seem to be using it.  Maybe the females aren't awake yet.  My fruit trees haven't really started to bloom.  I hope they're doing okay!

Community Garden update, also Lettuce!

Spent a lot of time in the community garden on Tuesday, and after all that work, here's how it looked:
You can see the first of the 3 raised beds I'm installing, and the beginnings of the second.  We put down the newspaper and cardboard to block out the existing weeds.  I like newspaper because I won't be finding it in the garden for years to come - in order to lay down this paper we first had to pull up remnants of ground cloth that was who knows how old.  There was still some left, but I just ran out of "oomph".

Then we used the 4x4 boards as borders, and piled in there the twigs and brush from the plot that we had raked up.  Then we topped that with shredded pine bark (it tends to break down very rapidly) and salt marsh hay (few weeds), and finally I put a good 3 inches of compost on top.  I imagine everything will be broken down enough in a month when I go out to plant!

In the background you can also see the perennial rows, where there are strawberries and rhubarb already, and I just planted four blueberry bushes and some cranberry bushes.

You can also see my cute little cart which makes getting things out to the garden down the 500 yard path WAY easier.  I intend to go back out both mornings this weekend and spend a lot of time on the remaining beds!!!  I thought we would have had them done this Tuesday, but a rainstorm came up and my husband wanted to leave before we got rained on.

 

The lettuce in my home garden, that I planted out about a month ago, is looking really, really good.  It's covered to protect it from frost, cold winds, and also whatever is eating my peas (I'll get you, you pesky....  rabbit?).  So far that strategy has worked very well!

I'm looking very much to a tasty salad this weekend!  Now if only my carrots would sprout and give me yummy carrots!

A few of my asparagus babies are also up now - I could eat four pieces right now, if I wanted to, but those would probably be the last!

Last night I started from seed:

Beams Yellow Pear Tomato

Brown Berry Cherry Tomato

Gold Rush Currant Tomato

The tomatoes I planted last week are almost all up and doing good!  So are the peppers!

Peas and toad lilies

Something is eating my peas!  The stems are all that are left - all the new leaves are being eaten right off.  What could do such a thing?  I looked for slug tracks but didn't see any.  I thought perhaps my beetle problem was gone since I started adding organic matter to the soil, to make it more moist, but maybe not?

Also today I:

• Planted out cranberry bushes from Johnny's Selected Seeds - "Howes"
• Planted out my own mystery cranberry seedlings from the grocery store cranberries
• Planted out sweet alyssum seedlings
• Planted out Lovage & Salad Burnet
• Started seeds for lettuce, more spinach, swiss chard "bright lights",  and beets - "bulls blood" and "chioggia"

And, my Toad Lily is blooming today!  First ever!  Hooray for native flowers!  You can see the native virgina bluebells in the background.  So pretty!

Sing a song

I forgot to mention the coolest thing that happened to me this weekend.  My next door neighbor has a 5 year old daughter that is just so cute - very precocious.  She learned about composting and nature on Earth Day and wanted to help me in my garden this weekend.  I figured - what the hey.  She slowed me down a little, but she was willing to take direction, and was just so darned enthusiatic.  The next day I also let her help, in the morning, and she also came out and helped me plant blueberries at the community garden.

So Saturday (I think) she comes running over to me - "Pam!  I have something for you!"  It was a card, with writing on it, and I thought, how cute, I got a thank you card from a 5 year old.

But her mom says, "Sophie, sing it like you did before!"

And I got serenaded, to the tune of "clemantine", by a 5-year-old:

"I love planting flowers!

I love planting flowers with Pam!

Pam is the best flower planter in the world!

Thank you Pam!  

I want to do it every day!"

It was awesome.  :-)

From spring to summer in 1 week!

What a glorious gardening weekend!  My serviceberry has begun to bloom, and it is so pretty!  

Mostly, though, I can't wait for the delicious sweet-tart berries! Mine taste like sour apple & watermelon jolly ranchers - I love them so much! I'll have to put a net over one of the branches so that I can fend off the birds and have some for myself.

You can see my birdfeeders in the background, kind of. I got a birdfeeder inside of a cage so I could keep the stupid squirrels and grackles and pigeons away. So far I've seen the black-capped chickadees, wrens, sparrows, and the downy woodpecker get inside of it. And I have a safflower feeder for the cardinals. I hope it works! My upstairs neighbor started out asking me to get rid of all the birdfeeders, but I think if this makes the pigeons go away she will be satisfied. They were pooping on her car.

The apple trees have started to bloom!  Oh happy day!  All my mason bees are out - all six tubes opened up!  I was worried some of them had been subjected to the Deep Freeze (our winter) for too long.  But no, they are awake, and peacefully buzzing away.  

I have also seen tons of bumble bees.  I hope one of them finds my Humble Bumble Home! 

What I need to know now is how long before I give up on my apple grafts?  I don't think any of them took.  All of the rest of the branches have leaves, but the grafts have none.  :-(  I have read up on techniques, and found one that was easier than whip-and-tongue, and I am going to try it next.  Fortunately, I ordered double the scion wood so that I could try again!   I would so much like for this to work!  I really want to expand my Frankentree to true monster-hood!!!

My bokashi been looks.... okay.  Actually, it looks utterly revolting.  But I think that's how its supposed to look.  It smells kind of sweet, which is odd.  Aren't rotting things supposed to stink?  But this smells like a super-sweet apple cider vinegar.  So odd.  I am told that is how it's supposed to smell when it's working properly.

It has a little white fuzz growing on it, which is apparently desirable.  And there is "bokashi juice" coming out the bottom, which smells just like apple juice.  I have used it to clean my drains, and also (diluted) to water my plants.  They seem happy.  I can only assume it's working.  I got the "food grade" bokashi liquid.  I am seriously considering trying some in juice.  It's supposed to aid your digestion.  I'm also considering giving it to my cat, because her poop STINKS!!!!  It's also supposed to help with that.  Although I do wonder if it's unethical.  Technically it isn't experimenting, because tons of people have done this, but I worry.  

I let my cat (Aiko) out into my garden this weekend, so she could enjoy the sun with me.  First thing she does?  Pee on my hay.  Bad cat!!!!  *sigh*  Why do we love these ridiculous beasts so much?  Then she proceeded to get her leash totally wound up in the patio chairs, such that it took about 10 minutes to detangle her.  But letting her run loose is about as good as throwing her in front of a car myself, at least in my neighborhood.

Also this weekend, I met Daphne for coffee this weekend, and to show her my community garden plot. She was very nice! It was almost like meeting a doppleganger - she does jewelry work, she likes scifi, likes board games, and enjoys talking about gardens. Very funny. Oh, and she saved me from the ticks! Thank you so much! Did I mention I had a phobia of ticks?

As far as the community garden goes - I found out this weekend it's full of ticks!  Tom (my husband) bought some industrial strength tick repellent, and so far I think it's worked.   We spent about 5 hours down at the community garden this weekend, unloading and working on raised beds.  I SERIOUSLY underestimated the amount of work this would take!  We got about 1/3 of the way done.  I would show you a picture, but my camera broke!  I'm getting a new one, so I'll take some good pictures then.  Anyways, we got almost done with the first huge raised bed (4' x 15').  And Daphne - you were right!  There wasn't enough room to walk with both those 4x4s end to end!  I ended up sawing about 1' off the end of one of them.   Next time it will go much quicker, since everything is unloaded.  We're heading out there Tuesday to try and finish up the raised beds, since I get out of work early for the doctor.

I have decided my husband and I are the tortise and the hare.  He pushes himself as hard as he can - he even lapped me unloading wood from the car (and taunted me as he passed, no less), but before we were done with the work he was panting and resting in the car with the a/c on.  Meanwhile, slow and steady, I was plugging away.   It's definitely hard work, especially with the 85 degree weather we had this weekend!  I only lasted about 45 minutes longer than he did.  

We met one of the other community gardeners, an active older lady named Merita (or maybe Merica), and she asked if Tom was my son!!!  Doh!  He does look rather young.  But I hope I don't look that old!  It was funny.  She seemed nice, rather embarrassed about it.  Tom and I had a good laugh over it - it's not the first time.  She also showed me her asparagus, which reminds me that I need to by for the new garden!

Also this weekend I dug up tons of seedlings and divisions for the Arlington Garden Club plant sale.  I think I must have about 60 little plantlings for the sale!  And it costs me nothing!

The AGC plant sale is May 9th, from 9am - noon, at the Jason Russell house on Mass Ave.  Proceeds go to civic plantings in the town of Arlington.  I will have the following plants for sale.  Garden club members will have many more!

-Strawberries

-Raspberries

-Chives

-Old-fashioned Lilac (lavendar and very scented)

-Black-eyed Susan

-Bee Balm (red panorama shades)

-Purple coneflower

-Hostas

-Marigold seedlings

-Zinnia seedlings

-possibly hierloom tomato seedlings, if they grow fast enough

Hooray for spring!

Earth Day!

A friend of mine has written a wonderful blog post about why economy and ecology are incredibly linked, and how the current economy prices energy and polluting goods the way they are because it takes too much for granted.... It's a good read!

http://echopath.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/economy-and-ecology-thoughts-for-earth-day-2009/

More seeds started!

I started some warm weather seedlings last night!

Tomatoes

Red Brandywine - slicing

Tommy Toe - cherry

Peacevine - cherry

Glacier - slicing

Federle - paste - 

Peppers

Peacework Bell

Chocolate Bell

Garden Sunshine bell

Alma Paprika

Golden Treasure banana (sweet)

Sangria hot ornamental

Diamante Celeriac

Redventure Celery

Sage, culinary

Honey scented Alyssum "Summer Peaches"

Snapdragons "Chantilly"

And I'm also trying out some dyers plants

Indigo (blue)

Madder (red)

Weld (yellow)

I'm excited!!!

I also bought a cart for the community garden, and some extra landscape fabric to help control the weeds.  And a collinear hoe, which is supposed to be easier to weed with.