Plots and Plans

As usual, it is nearing mid-January and I am ready to be done with winter.  Yesterday, by some weather fluke, was in the mid-fifties and sunny.  I was driven to do something outdoors, but it is too soon to prune, the weather has been too wet to haul manure, it is too early and wet to dig...so I decided to yank out the honeysuckle that is smothering the azaleas. The honeysuckle really stands out with its evergreen leaves, so I set to it with the chickens at my sides eager to see what I was scratching up for them.

I pulled runners along the front, I crawled underneath the branches into a tunnel that has been maintained by children over the years, to reach what I call the mother nodes.  The mother nodes are the spots where the roots thicken and shoot out a zillion vines, usually what happens is I find it deep under the branches and tug with all of my weight and force until it gives and I suddenly find myself  under the bush in an undignified position.  I found a few, I know there are more.  The vines start in one spot and then travel 15-20 feet under the leaves and azalea branches to where they appear and start to climb and strangle its host.  There were vines criss-crossing the entire surface of the ground under those bushes.  I started thinking about chaos theory and all its applications as doing this.  I'd be on the north side of the bushes, tug on a vine and leaves on the southeast would bounce up and down with every tug.  The vine would also pull up several of the other vines that were above it in the tangle, popping them off their connection with their roots, which is why I am sure I missed some of the mother nodes.

Azaleas without honeysuckle vines. Yay!

A pile of honeysuckle vines

The entire process took about three hours.  I worked up a good sweat, felt the sun on my skin and now the azaleas can grow without being smothered and strangled.  It will take two or three more of these sessions to really beat the honeysuckle back, each one will be slightly easier than the one before.  I feel like I accomplished something!  It is sad that I really love honeysuckle, but it is so invasive that to have it I would have to sacrifice everything else.

 Before all the snow and cold there was one other somewhat mild day (sun was out, but it was in the thirties) when I hauled the stashed cardboard out of the garage and then made three trips to the horse farm to cover it, it needs one more manure load to be finished.  It will extend my sunny front garden another 10 feet or so. By my calculations, I have about 12-16 trips to the horse farm to complete before mid-April.

Front garden with manure and cardboard.

I'm hoping to minimize my use of the shady back garden this year, the front three or four feet get enough sun, but the sixteen feet behind that isn't all that great for vegetables.  I have a big bag of "Flowers for Shade" seed that I will try back there.

Roses will grow up this post.

I'm already looking forward to spring, plotting and planning what else to put in. In addition to the Kyung San Ban Si persimmon tree, two Chickasaw plums (Prunus Angustifolia, a native species) and three beach plums (Prunus Maritima) that I received from my husband for Christmas, we ordered more plants with a gift card. I will now need to plant two more tart cherry trees (pie cherries), some sand cherries (native species bushes) which will soon be our shrubs (we'll sell the boxwood and thuja on craigslist), everbearing strawberries, three Consort black currants, Joseph's Coat climbing roses for the front porch, seed potatoes  both Yukon Gold and Fingerling banana, and then horseradish.  Anyone available to come dig in late March or early April will be welcomed!

Consort Black Currants

Joseph's Coat Rose

Chickasaw Plum

Kyung San Ban Si Persimmon

Gardening Breather

Japanese Maple

It is dumping rain outside, so I have put aside my efforts to get my garden in for the day.  I've made so many trips to the horse farm that I have lost count.  The slippery clay soil in my back garden has taken on a darker, more organic hue.  I am incorporating 8 inches of manure into the top 8 inches of soil and then the following year I am top dressing with even more manure, I started this process on a small part of the garden last year, but I didn't have a good source of manure.  The garden beds end up being raised. The paths are mulched with straw and as soon as the soil heats up a bit more (it has been a cool spring) the beds will be also.

Back garden, Egyptian onions, Kale, Collards, Cabbage, Strawberries and Potatoes.

First Strawberry of the season.

Last year, I mulched the paths and never quite got around to doing the beds, I was a bit distracted with other projects that came up with the new house, like painting most of the interior, including the forty year old kitchen cabinets.  When I emerged from my projects to get back to the garden, the weeds had won.  At that point, I would go out to weed for and hour or so and there would be a small cleared area in the jungle, by July 4th I had pretty much given up and was a bit embarrassed when the BBQ guests asked to see my vegetable garden.  Food production was very low.(photos taken this morning between downpours)

This year, I have been making an effort to spend an hour, if not two on the gardens each morning, some of that time is spent hauling manure and some of that is spend picking out those weeds while they are still tiny.  For the new front garden, I am using the lasagna method, laying layers of cardboard for  weed suppression and layers of organic matter on top.  I planted it with squash and cucumbers and within 24 hours the squirrels had unplanted it.  I replanted the plants and most of them survived, but I lost a few Armenian cucumbers.  I am currently extending it bit by bit, so that I can plant pumpkins and watermelons.  I still need to build a trellis for the cukes and small pie pumpkins...

The fig's first leaves!

On the chicken front, I called the feed store to confirm that the Buff Orpington chicks would be in on Friday and the gentleman told me that in  a couple of weeks four different breeds were due in and he had no knowledge of Buff Orpingtons, even though he was the same person who told me about them in the first place.  The store manager called me back, right as I was typing this line, the Buffs and Barred Rocks will be in late next week and we may be able to score an Australorp in June, if not we'll get another Barred Rock.

Flower bed in front with plants imported from MA last year.

Shoveling the Manure and Other Social Dilemmas

I recently was confronted with a dilemma, I went to the local horse rescue to collect horse manure (completely decomposed, smelled like soil) in Rubbermaid tubs to put in the gardens and around all the new fruit trees and plants.   I looked like I had rolled in the pile not shoveled from it, I was doing my little fertility rite, I guess, for Easter Sunday.  I stopped my little, weighed down XB at a light, and hearing a friendly horn toot I looked into the car next to me, it was filled with the family of my daughter's friend, all coiffed and dressed up for Easter Mass. They waved.  I moved to wave back, but I froze half-way. I stared at the manure smeared hand in front of me.  I rolled down the window and wished them a happy Easter instead, laughing at myself.
 # 1 Who totes manure in a little box car? 
#2 How obsessed can I be with gardening to do this several times a week? 
#3 There I am in the small-town, upper-middle class burbs,  looking like I just rolled in poop. (We're the bitty'70's house in amongst the housing bubble McMansions.)

 I figure that if they know me, they understand, and if they don't, I provide some interesting stories, my service to the community.  I figure when the yard in producing all sorts of home grown fruits and veggies in a few years they might stop shaking their heads for a few minutes.

In the ground so far:
1 peach tree (came with the house-seriously diseased, but the Plant Doctor has put his studies to work, now we wait)
1 plum tree (also seriously diseased, may or may not make it, it is looking a bit better this spring)
1 apple tree, unknown variety with golden apples, came with the house, planted in the wrong spot too close   to the woods, produced 2 apples last year which we guess the deer ate.
1 crab apple serious fireblight issues, no fruit last year, but it is beautiful in bloom, which should happen  very soon.
Many, Many raspberry plants along the woods, very yummy and prolific
1 Lapins dwarf sweet cherry, planted right after we moved in last year
1 Stella sweet cherry planted about a week ago.
1 Montmorency pie cherry planted about three weeks ago
2 Nova Spy apples, planted about two weeks ago
2 Chicago figs planted in the fall, 1 still in a pot, negotiating with spouse as to its final location

Due any moment:
1 Hinomaki gooseberry
2 Apache blackberries (thornless)
3 Triple Crown blackberries (thornless)
1 Five in One apple tree
1 William's Pride apple
1 Enterprise apple
1 Liberty apple

We tried to focus on trees that would take the longest to mature first, but threw in a couple of things that will give us a little bit of instant gratification. As you can see, I have a few more holes to dig and more poop to spread.  In about three or four years, we should be buried in fruit from June to October.