April in the Garden

First iris to bloom in the yard

I love this time of year, when some of my favorite flowers are blooming, iris, lilacs, roses, apple trees... It seems the garden is bursting at the seams these days!

I have so many old bearded iris in the yard, these plain white ones and some plain dark purples are the early bloomers; later there will be a tall yellow and a two toned purple and lavender.

lilacs in bloom

I love my lilac bush, it smells heavenly. The scent of iris and lilacs reminds me of when I was a kid and mom would put vases of them around the house.

apple blossoms

While that late snow browned the edges of some of the petals, the apple blossoms seem to be ok.

the terrace garden

On the hillside terrace garden the poppies, cilantro and wild flowers are getting a good start.

patio garden, west side of house

The patio still needs some cleaning up.

Princepe Borghese

But the Princepe Borhese tomatos are blooming.

Sweet Magnolia, a purple snow pea

Between the crazy weather and some rabbits, there are only a couple of Sweet Magnolia plants left, but they are making peas.

Sweet Magnolia pea blossom

And their flowers are pretty too!

Bleushokker pea blossom

There are only a couple of Bleushokker peas left too. They were in the coldest spot in the back garden and the Dec. snows did most of them in. They do have pretty flowers and they are the yummiest soup pea ever!

weedy spot in the back garden

I tried to get this silly picture to be vertical, but Blogger doesn't want to do it so it's sideways. This is a corner of the back garden, on the east end. This is a narrow trellis bed where I had planted Sugar Snap peas. there were only a couple of plants left in there and they were pretty sad looking with the crazy weather we've had this year, so I pulled them out along with all the weeds and fed them to the chickens.

Most of the weeds are gone.

Most of the weeds are gone now. I will probably plant either beans or cukes here, haven't made up my mind which one. On the right of this picture you can see the Mammoth Melting Sugar peas, which just started producing. More about those on Harvest Monday!

brassicas

This is one of the two brassica beds. on the right side is the purple sprouting broccoli, in the center are the Romanesco and on the left are either De Ciccio or Waltham, the tags got lost so I'm not sure which. I weeded out all the hen bit and discovered the bed was pretty dry; perhaps that's why they haven't done as well as they should have. Either that or I'll blame it on poor soil, late planting and crazy weather! Behind this bed is the one with the Mammoth Melting Sugar peas and behind that, the trellis bed that I weeded out.

Red Pontiac potaoes

The Red Pontiac potatoes that I planted in January are sprouting up and looking good. Some of them were just breaking ground when the snow came a couple of weeks ago; I just piled a little dirt over their tops and they didn't get frost bite.

Cecile Brunner Rose

The Cecile Brunner climbing rose that I planted a few years ago has grown quite large. I spotted the first blossom this after, after catching a whiff of it as I walked by. While the blossoms are very small, they are very fragrant. I hate that modern roses have so little scent and refuse to buy them. I want roses to smell, what use is pretty if there is no fragrance?

bolting celery

In the greenhouse the celery is bolting. The cilantro is already there. I let it bloom all over because it's small fine flowers are good for the beneficial insects.

Cilantro/coriander blooming

snapdragon

The snapdragons are blooming in their wall pots. The ones I planted around the yard are a bit behind since the air and soil outside are cooler.

tomato plants on the shelves, peas in the background

The greenhouse shelves are loaded with plants; more small fruited tomatoes, Snow White, Currant, Princepe Borghese.

baby tomato plants

The large fruited tomatoes were started later and so are smaller; Amish Paste, Italian Heirloom, Black from Tula.

basil seedlings

Lots of Classic Italian and Lime Basil seedlings.

green strawberry

There are some green strawberries in the greenhouse bed.

old seeds sprout!

The greatest thing though, is those Hale's Best Jumbo cantaloupe seeds that I saved in 2003 had almost 100% germination in the greenhouse under their cute little Victorian cloche!

Chickens!

And here are all the chickens, my four hens and my young Buff Orpington rooster, standing tall in the center. He isn't crowing yet but I have seen him getting after the hens, so I think I'll set aside some money next month for an incubator. I'd like to hatch small lots of chicks at a time for meat.


These chickens are not as tame as my previous ones. My other chickens I raised from chicks when my grand daughters were with me all the time and the girls were always petting and playing with them so they were very tame. These were in a large pen with about 50 others and while not exactly wild they don't come sit in your lap either! In fact they are just now getting the idea that when I come up to the fence and call them they should come because it means I have a treat, either scraps, weeds or worms.

Building Soil

mmm there's supposed to be steps in there someplace!

First off, Happy Turkey Day. Today I am remembering Thanksgivings past when I lived 1,000 miles away from any family. But we always had a good holiday. Some of those years everything on the table came from our own place except the flour for the pie crust and any sugar used. The meat, milk, eggs, vegetables, pickles and relishes were all homegrown. There were always some bachelors that didn't have any where to go and we would feed them, along with a young couple who were also far from their family. We traded and bartered with these folks all the time and many of them lent a hand when we built our house. Good times indeed.

Today was a very nice day outside so I did some more clean up work out back. There really is a set of steps in that mess someplace! It's buried in silt and leaves that washed down during the July 4th storm.

Shredded tree prunings with fertilizer sprinkled over.

A big part of what I actually worked on today was to continue shredding up weed trees. I also worked on soil building in a new garden bed right next to the sidewalk. I plan to do an informal espaliered apple tree on the fence with perhaps strawberries or flowers and herbs as an under planting. So I loosened the dirt up and piled tree chips over the area. Then I put on some blood meal for nitrogen to help decompose the wood faster, some potash because the soil has none, and some seaweed meal for trace minerals.  I watered all that in.

Silt and oak leaf compost spread over the top

Then I began mucking out that set of steps. They are buried in fine silt mixed with decomposed desert oak leaves. I tossed it on the growing bed, right over the wood chips.

and mulched with fall leaves.

Then I topped off the bed with a bag of free leaves from a friend. I'll probably pick up a new apple tree around January when they come into the garden centers. By then most of the raw organics I've added should be pretty well decomposed. The next time I'm working over the worm box I'll grab a few and drop them in the bed to help things along.

Since the garden is a bit higher these days than the sidewalk I set some old boards right along it to keep the soil and leaves from washing off onto the sidewalk. I also managed to set the posts and string most of the fence (only about 8 feet). There is one small gap next to the green house that I have to cover and I have to make and hang a gate. I haven't decided what I'm going to make a gate out of. I have several options; a couple of different sorts of wood or a wood frame with wire fence or perhaps a piece of junk art.