May 1, Beltane, May Day, the first day of summer according to the Old Calendar. And wow, here, the weather went to summer right on schedule. We've had glorious summer days, and everything is booming along in the garden.
Late last week our house air conditioning system went haywire, we still have cooling, but it's not working right and the decision between us and the technician was we need a new system. They sent someone over to measure the house, windows, insulation, etc. and today another tech is coming out to show us our options (in other words, tell us just how outrageously priced is this new system, whatever we choose). I'm braced for the worst; looks like I'll be cashing in some of Dad's Savings Bonds.
Monday cousins stopped in for lunch on their way home from N. Carolina. It's like after they left, all I wanted to do was sleep. Woke up Tuesday raring to go and got a lot done around the house and in the garden. I moved all the Boston Ferns out of my bedroom, their winter quarters, and into the Pot Corral. They came thru the winter in pretty good shape, but I know they'll really perk up now.
Got the first section of the hose system hooked up for the veg. At least now I have water to the greenhouse. But I need to do some repairs. The short hose that attaches to the outside faucet and feeds the whole system is squirting water at the faucet so I think I need to take that apart and tighten up the hose end. I have all the veg hoses out but not connected so I may get that done today, just to get it out of the way. It's a bit complicated, but I only need to do this once a year and I've found that having several shorter hoses feeding off one main hose is better for my veg garden than trying to haul around a single hose to reach every corner.
Cleaned out the tulip pots by the deck and replanted the bulbs in the Below the Deck Garden, right at the bottom edge. The soil there is compacted heavy clay, so I dug up and turned over a biggish area and worked some compost into it before the tulips went in. Not so much for the tulips themselves but to just go ahead and improve another small spot of clay. I'm hoping to fill those big empty pots with something cheap from Lowe's. Last year I got a big flat of very very browned and sad looking begonias on discount at Lowe's; a little time and TLC and they were gorgeous all summer long.
I've been putting those "yard sign" wire supports to really good use everywhere! It's great having a quick way to give my emerging lilies support. I did not realize how many lilies I have around here and I'm glad not to have to scramble around finding supports AFTER the plants get top heavy. I'm going to put in some of these wire supports around some young peonies in the Below the Deck Garden too.
Today, the two big projects are to finish digging over the long bed in the veg so I can set up my tomato fence. I put in 4 lightweight metal fence posts and string a section of wire fencing called "sheep fence" on them. The wires are widely spaced (6X10 inch rectangles) so it is perfect for tomatoes. You can reach right through to pick. I'm not ready to set out tomatoes just yet, but this will get everything ready.
The second big project is to go over to Jerry's backlot and get a big load of stump grindings. I really want to finish filling up some big pots and that stuff is perfect for taking up room at the bottom of a pot. It's a mix of shredded wood and lots of dirt, and by the end of the summer it will be rich dark compost. I put a generous layer of regular potting soil on top and plant in that.
I'm so surprised that my "Jane" magnolias are still hanging onto their blooms! They look absolutely magical with the pink and white bleeding hearts and the white native dogwoods. Lucky!
We went from a high of 52F yesterday (Saturday 27 April) to a high of 82F today (Sunday 28 April). It's hard to know what to do in the garden from day to day. Yesterday I got another pretty big section of the veg turned over; I want to put my brassicas in that spot. It grew potatoes last year and I must have forgotten to dig all the rows because I harvested two buckets of potatoes! Most of them look very good; because we never had a long period of hard freeze this winter I suspect they "stored" perfectly in the ground. The rain chased me in before I could actually get my cabbages and broccoli in the ground and today it's too hot to plant them out. I'll wait til Wednesday when it starts to cool down a bit.
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What are the strangest things you've found in mulch or compost? A few years ago, I found a silver ring with a broken diamond chip in it. It had gone thru the township's mulch shredder and the ring was badly twisted. I advertised it but no one came forward and I think I tossed it. Today I found "Crime Scene Victim Barbie"....she must have got raked up with last autumn's leaves and she lay in the red raspberry patch all winter. I got her cleaned up and I'll advertise her in the local Post Office because I'm pretty sure those bags of leaves came from someone in the neighborhood. What a mess. Took me a half hour to get all the dead bits of leafs and things out of her hair and scrub the ick off her.
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Got more "stuff" out of the greenhouse and more plants moved in. I've got it vented to keep from getting too hot and I need to turn on the outside faucet so I can start watering and misting regularly.
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My early red Pontiac potatoes are up and growing; parsnips are up but very spotty. Peas are doing great; asparagus is doing great for 1st and 2nd year plants. Rhubarb is booming along; I have to harvest that soon. All at once it's summer here.
It's that time again: overnight it feels like I've lost control of the garden. Where did all those weeds come from? When did that shrub grow so huge? How, how is there still so much of the veg to "turn over?" It's time like these, it's important to take a deep breath, pour a cup of joe, and remind myself that, one way or another, little by little, poco e poco, it does (mostly) all get done.
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I've been concentrating on cleaning up dead wood and pruning the past few days. Yesterday, I took three big branches off a youngish silver maple that stands very close to the Folly Wall project. Those branches have been overarching the garden area and casting too much shade. Gone.
Then I cut down the two remaining substantial-sized paper mulberries in the Asian/Fairy Glen area. Only about 2 inches in diameter at the base; swabbed the stumps with RoundUp and also pulled out, cut down about a dozen wispy suckers. I don't want to jump the gun, but it looks like the end of years of battling that paper mulberry is finally coming to an end. I want to remain vigilant though because if even one sucker is allowed to grow, it will soon start to throw out roots that create more suckers and we're back where we started. If I can get the Fairy Glen cleaned out, then I'll concentrate more fully on the paper mulberries on the South Border.
I cleaned out a lot dead wood from the east (back side) of the row of arborvitae that stand between the east end of the house and the slope where the Grape Arbor and Fairy Glen are. That spot gets very little sun and the dieback was pretty impressive. Fortunately, most of the wood was so brittle I simply tossed it on the ground and walked over it: instant mulch. The bigger stuff went on the brush fence.
The Japanese Maple I moved last fall from the Below the Deck Garden to the South Border is doing well, lots of new leaves. I took out some expected die-back but the tree looks overall healthy. I'll keep a close watch on it this year.
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This morning I got all the blooming Garlic Mustard out of the Pond Circle's north side. I was very surprised and pleased to see that there is no blooming Garlic Mustard at all in the northern area of the Pine Gap and the new Glade area. I did a major clean out there last summer and it did a lot of good. I'm sure there's going to be more garlic mustard sprouting in there because of the seed bank in the soil, but at least I've definitely broken the cycle a bit and hopefully I can keep ahead of it.
Dug over another section of the veg and planted a short row of Russet potatoes. I thought my Russets had "chitted" (sprouted eyes) pretty well, but when I got into the middle of the bag, no sprouts. So I planted what had sprouted and brought the rest back in the house to sit and chit.
No sign of germination in the 2nd sowing of carrots. I'm going to have to research viability of carrot seed. I'm starting to suspect it's no good after 1-2 years and I think my seeds are pushing that envelope. Seems odd that the first seeding showed sparse germination but I did mix in a newer packet of seed with the older....maybe only the small amount of newer seed sprouted?
Looks like covering the strawberries was a good idea; all the blossoms look good and plants are untouched by frost/freeze. It went down to 29F a couple nights ago. (I learned that if the centers of strawberry blossoms are yellow, they are fresh and unpollinated. Brown, they are pollinated and will soon form berries. Black they are frosted/frozen and will not produce fruit.)
Not seeing many bees at all. I'll have to ask Julie what's up with her hives? I wonder if she would want to move a hive up here to my property?
We've gone into a very cold spell; last night the temps dipped to 35F, tonight is forecast 33F. I brought in my tomato plants from the (unheated) greenhouse and I covered my strawberry bed, which is blossoming nicely. I'm hoping this will be enough to prevent my losing an entire crop of strawberries. I put a double layer of fleece and netting over the berry plants.
Today was a day off. I spent the entire day indoors, working at my job and catching up on Gardeners' World episodes on YouTube.
Yesterday I cleaned up the Mimosa tree near the deck steps, which shades the Jungle Cliff. It did not need much, just a single dead branch to be sawed out and some unruly new shoots pruned off. Then I cleaned up the Korean Dogwood just above the Mimosa, also in the Jungle Cliff. Then the big job: cleaning up the flowering crabapple on the lawn below the Jungle Cliff. It's a beautiful older tree, full of character because when I planted it, I decided not to stake it or train it in any way. Over the years, it's developed an amazing network of branches. Last fall, R took it into his head to "prune" the tree to shape it up. I thought he was only going to take out the tall watersprouts that were coming up from the center top of the tree, but he also cut back a lot of branches to give the tree a rather "mushroom" shape. Not my choice, but not that bad either. ... Until I took a closer look.
First I went thru and removed the long stubs he left everywhere, then I sawed out a single very thick branch that was stone dead. Then it was a lot of up and down the ladder cleaning out a lot more dead stuff. I thinned out the center of the tree a bit, removing the usual: crossed branches, branches growing inward, weirdly shaped branches. I've offered to give R a lesson in tree pruning, but he insists that since he trims our hedges every year, he knows how to do this.
Oh well.
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Not much else going on. The entire garden is absolutely beautiful. We moved from an amazing display of tulips (where did they all COME FROM???), to now full blossom time: apples, crabapples, pears, bush honeysuckle, autumn olives, lilacs. The fragrance is heavenly. And, for the very first time: My tree form wisteria is blooming! 
That plant has been in place in the Grape Arbor garden for years without ever blooming and I honestly thought I'd got a dud. Last winter I decided to give it one more year and then it would have to go. It must have heard me.
Another "first time bloomer" is the climbing hydrangea on one post of the grape arbor. Again, that has been there for years, growing ever so slowly from a very tiny cutting. This year, I see buds on it for the first time. I'm happy.
The word for the day, children, is "Stinky." Stinky is the theme, the trope, the motif if you will. Yesterday, driving east into town to get groceries I passed three enormous tankers hauling liquid cow manure. A second later, I hit the wall of smell that those tankers were laying down. Oh my dear lord. Rolling up the windows did no good. An entity, a Presence, a Juggernaut of a smell. Acres and acres, glistening with dark brown malodorous wetness. The speed limit in that section is 35 mph. Nobody was doing less than 80.
Fortunately, the wind stayed out of the west so we were spared the worst of it at my house, although there was a certain "whiff" in the air early this morning. 
Figuring since we're already stinky, might as well get out the deer repellent and spray the hostas, stumpery, etc. That stuff smells bad, but the odor fades pretty quickly. Unless of course you put on the backpack sprayer and then bend Waaaayyy Over so that about a pint of it squirts out the top and into your hair, shirt, down your back, and all over your neck. Then the stinky sort of lives with you until you shower. 
But there were those cookies that my friend dropped off yesterday, leftovers from a wedding reception. Mmmmmm. Sugar cookies. Except somebody had obviously had them too close to a scented candle or potpourri and the first bite tasted like wonderfully expensive soap. 
The chickens got them.
