BEST THING EVER!!!

Wanna know what the best thing ever is?!?!? FRESH STRAWBERRIES STRAIGHT FROM THE GARDEN!!!!! YUUUUMMM!!!!! Sorry I didn't take you a picture, but I was too busy stuffing them in my mouth! Maybe tomorrow you will get a picture. But for now, just imagine me sighing with happiness every time I put one of those yummy things in my mouth. Fresh and juicy and sweet and tart and... I don't know what all those other flavors were. But I'm sure I've never tasted them before. :-D

"Snackscaping" indeed!

Birdies have fledged!

I went to peek at the birdies today, and when I opened the house, one of them flew out at me! I got all worried that it would die, so I picked it up and put it back in the house, but as I did so, a different bird flew out at me! So then I picked it up and tried to put it back in, but as I was doing so, the first bird flew out of the house and onto a nearby tree! Then the second one flew onto our porch! It missed the railing and tried to land on the wall. It was soooooo cute! Then the birdies proceeded to experiement with their wings, flying all around the yard and into nearby trees. It was so adorable! One of the birdies hasn't flown out yet, but I did see the mommie and daddie birds going back to feed it. I hope they got back in okay tonight to sleep!

Baby Birds!

I forgot to tell you! There's a family of chickadees that has moved into the bluebird box! The chickadee parents take turns flying to the suet feeder and the nearby lilac bushes and back!

Big Gardening Weekend!

I got a TON of gardening done this weekend! This is the median that I am adopting. I'm planting it with prairie plants! It's pretty sandy, but the soil isn't too bad. Someone has planted it before. So far I've put in a white coneflower, some red and yellow gallardia, and white dianthus. I have plants ordered as well: yellow black-eyed susan, purple coneflower (which is pink) and purple coneflower. Also tons of little bluestem which is a native prairie grass. It should arrive this week. Can't wait!



I also did some work in the community garden plot. Everything is planted, except for the things I have to re-plant due to insect eating. The first narrow row on the left is the blueberries and cranberries. Then comes a wide row of paste tomatoes "Federle". Then a row of cherry and slicing tomatoes: Beams Yellow Pear, Brown Berry, Goldrush orange currant, Tommytoe red cherry, peacevine red cherry, Sungold yellowy-orange cherry, Red Brandywine, Glacier siberian, and some other slicing tomatoes in various colors that people traded with me. I planted a bunch of peppers, but people ate them. I have to replant - fortunately I planted extras! I re-potted them, and I'm going to plant out again with cages around them and diatomaceous earth everywhere. The slugs even ate the peppers at home, but I replanted with more of my extras. I also planted Dorinny Corn from Wood Prairie, soybeans from seed, and some celery which promptly died. However something ate all my Indigo plants! Argh. Such a wild garden.

At home, however, things are looking beautiful! Well, except for the colorado potato beetles humping on my taters. But even so, they're pretty. The Mason Bee house is winding down, with mixed results. I think I put them out to early, and the warm patch confused them. Still, I started with 6 tubes and ended up with 8. Not bad for freezing them in 19 degree weather then putting them out and having my apple tree not bloom at all this year. But next year there will be babies! And probably a few new tubes to supplement.

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!