My wife's rose garden is sleeping now, but it will soon awaken to its full beauty again, the hummingbirds will return, and Heaven will reappear in my backyard one more time.
It gave me a chance to take off the row covers, and let the lettuce get a good dose of sunshine and rain. I picked some endive to add to my salad to eat tonight along with a few spinach leaves.
Got a little patio cleanup done. Have been doing a little reading on food storage. Looked at a quick recipe of Pembican- 6 Lbs of beef, container of blue berries,(dehydrate these and grind up)add beef tallow made from the chunks of fat.
Old time pioneer/native indian food that supposedly lasts for more than a year.
Hope all is going well for you. Prayers up for all. Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Pinging the list.
It was 71 today! I took Penny-The-Prancing-Pitbull to the dog park for the very first time and she was WONDERFUL.
She played with all, regardless of race, color, or breed.
(My fifth rescue, and just AWESOME)
We have bananas coming in. I really wonder how commercial banana growers survive as the plants fruit so seldom
The latest crop of mangoes was filled with worms. They’ve never had those before and I am not sure there is much I can do about it.
We also have watermelons and the ever present papayas.
Something, probably beetle grubs killed my cannas
My wife's rose garden is sleeping now, but it will soon awaken to its full beauty again, the hummingbirds will return, and Heaven will reappear in my backyard one more time.
I’ve still got a lot of leaves in my yard I didn’t get cleaned-up last fall.
Would it make sense to run the lawnmower over them come Springtime and mulch/mix-in to the garden before it plant it?
I’m guessing I should probably add some extra nitrogen fertilizer if I do it.
Please add me to your ping list. Thanks.
Here in w. MI, I saw my first robin yesterday. Red-wing Blackbirds have also put in an appearance.
The daffodils are coming up, but no crocus yet.
We tapped our maples this week. I always look forward to tapping time. It’s time to crawl out of winter hibernation.
Yesterday and today was in the 71’s - unusually warm for February in Delaware. I took advantage and raked all the leaves out of the garden. Going to wait on new soil (I’m a pessimist by heart and expect a big snowstorm any day.
New seeds on the way. Trying out Baker Creek Heirloom; anybody use them?
I CAN NOT BELIEVE HOW FAST THE WEEKS GO BY Greeneyes!!!!!!!!
We are getting another storm this weekend. An embarrassment of riches for SoCal!
Greetings from southern New Hampshire where we saw a half dozen Brown Headed Cow Birds and a Red Wing Black Bird on our feeders this morning. A sure sign of spring!
So signs of flying from our two bee hives. I am concerned that they might not have survived the winter, despite wrapping.
We’ve had warm (70’s) temps on/off for the last two weeks. It’s too early to start the garden, but the weeds are springing to life. I called yesterday to see if the mad dash to get mowers to the shop for their annual service had started yet & it looks like I’m going to get the very speedy zero-turn mower in just in time. It also just happens that I called right at the end of a “special” - free pickup & delivery with an annual service. The mower has a problem with the engine surging (probably a dirty carburetor/plugged valve) so it had to go to the shop anyway. In the meanwhile, I have “Little Buddy”, the riding mower (tractor style) - slow, but it will get the job done until I get the speedy one back.
This week, I received the book I ordered: “Straw Bale Gardening Complete” by Joel Karsten. It’s been fascinating reading & I plan on trying some of this type of gardening this year. My niece was visiting earlier today & I mentioned this to her - she was excited because a friend of hers does straw bale gardening with great success & was thinking about it for her own garden. She’s has no raised beds & would have to build/fill them before she could plant anything, but could start right away (after conditioning) with the straw bales. She could also put them anywhere she wanted to in the yard & unlike beds, the location can be changed next year if this year’s doesn’t work out.
This week, baby chicks come in to the farm supply/gardening store. My SIL will be getting some - her 3 hens (out of 6 originally) are getting old (4-5 years) and laying an egg only now and again. She’s asked me to go with her so that should be fun - baby chicks (and ducks) are always so cute.
Potential for severe weather later this afternoon with high winds probably being the worst of it - temps are dropping from this morning & the wind is picking up. All should be gone by 8 p.m. Next week should be seasonable - good time to start digging weeds out of the garden & hauling shavings for a new project I’ve got planned (walkways between the beds that can’t grass up). I also noticed lots of winter branch debris that needs to be picked up in the fields before I start mowing in earnest. It feels good to get out in the fresh air & sunshine again after winter has mostly passed us by.
I bet pemmican would taste even better using tomatoes for the fruit, and a little salt.
Nephew helped me with poo over the weekend. I brought three trailer loads home from the neighbor lady's horse stable. One load is ~12cu/yd, and it took a full load and part of the 2nd to mulch the 25 orchard trees.
Pops sold his big loader tractor in January, and bought a little Massey-Ferguson. This thing is super handy for tight-quarters work, and is small enough to fit on the trailer for unloading poo. What used to take an hour of hard work now takes 15 minutes of shovel-leaning while Nephew does the hard part.
The last load I brought home was hot, hot, hot!
