2017 Gardens

Would nematodes also do the job? I don't know what zones they can be used in but they are often recommended here (4b) for lawn grubs that attract the diggers. Never tried them myself. http://www.nematodes.com/

Bio controls I have not experienced much success. Make sure they attack your species and that they are alive. Follow directions to a tee. I am out of the nursery business almost 20 yrs.

I do irrigation now
 
We finally got a day without rain, and Spring is coming! The crocus are blooming, the tulips are up, and the plum trees are ready to blossom.

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I've planted a couple Rhodies, lupine, bee balm, and some other stuff, and spread out 30 bags of mulch. Raking up all the fallen stuff and looking around it appears I'll be spending a couple days mending fences again. Got a lot of painting to do this year too. Still, the yard is looking better.
 
The Dogwoods have started to bloom in my area. Spring has finally sprung. Thinking about getting my garden ready for tomatoes and so forth. I often plant tomatoes as early as April 1st, but the plants are slow in coming to the garden center type stores.
 
Bio controls I have not experienced much success. Make sure they attack your species and that they are alive. Follow directions to a tee. I am out of the nursery business almost 20 yrs.

I do irrigation now

Thanks - good advice. I try to keep my ear to the radio when my trusty gardening guy takes call-ins, not to say that I would bother much with the ground covers here ... that in past I have described as 'weeds pooped by moose'

Here I only guard and groom with a hand mower one small patch of grass beside some patio stones ... the pups' nature calls are diverted now to the laneway by a small bit of fencing. The rest of the 'grass' I leave to the moles and the big mower.


We finally got a day without rain, and Spring is coming! The crocus are blooming, the tulips are up, and the plum trees are ready to blossom.

I've planted a couple Rhodies, lupine, bee balm, and some other stuff, and spread out 30 bags of mulch. Raking up all the fallen stuff and looking around it appears I'll be spending a couple days mending fences again. Got a lot of painting to do this year too. Still, the yard is looking better.

The work sure is showing through ... a beautiful start to the season. Your pics sure are a treat for snowbound eyes!


The Dogwoods have started to bloom in my area. Spring has finally sprung. Thinking about getting my garden ready for tomatoes and so forth. I often plant tomatoes as early as April 1st, but the plants are slow in coming to the garden center type stores.

Great to learn springtime is blossoming in your neck of the woods. It will get here soon. :thumbup: Tomatoes in my little indoor greenhouse are reaching a healthy 8 inches ... and I hope to get them outside at least in the daytime before they get too leggy.


Went from this .. / .. To this don't even know where to start.

May I say that is one sweet location in the sun. A clean slate in the hands of a gardener. Enjoy ... and I can't wait to see what happens.
 
Veg garden will be clear soon with the strength of the sun upon it. This is yesterday's pic showing the burlap wrap around the roses just emerging.




And yesterday the entry garden looked like this. The snow will melt away very quickly now. The ravine slopes here ... that face the South ... are clearing rapidly but there is still about a foot of snow on the flats where it has not been cleared for the vehicle over winter. Overnights are hovering just below freezing overnight and a little warmer in daytime.




Beyond my disintegrating old deck, you can see that the river has opened up down at the bottom of the ravine. I awoke to that on March 30th and marked it on the calendar of course as I do every year. I can hear the sweet chattering of birds when I step outside these days and there was a mourning dove basking in the sunshine yesterday. They nest so early in the most low-sided stick nests that, when a wet snowfall comes and the tree branch is weighed down, the eggs can roll out.




Inside, the geraniums (plus basil and fritillaria plants and red hot cattail cuttings) are taking in the sunshine. Finally I have stopped taking the flower buds off the geraniums so soon there will be a red splash across this living room window ... just until it warms enough for them to go outside in the trailer in daytime (overnight in shop). Temps are not quite there yet. The fritillaria smell is unpleasant and is offered as a repellant for the diggers. Ha. Thought my friend would like it to contain her squirrels' enthusiasm for the bulbs :rolleyes:




Sunny South facing basement sliders are bringing along lots of seedlings in the mini greenhouses, new to me this year. Warm inside, still snow outside.






And waiting, like the ones upstairs for a trip to the trailer, are the geraniums here ... and the begonias




I just finished chipping a lot of ice from the patio stones on the North side. It has been a physically demanding winter indeed. Come on spring! :)
 
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Ah ... a little setback overnight on this end. Veg garden this morning ...


Even unwanted, the snow seems beautiful and silent ... although birds and blooms would be more welcome.


Hopefully, your gardens are blooming?!
 
Did the "double dig" thing this year per a suggestion last year. Noticed plant roots and so forth at depth that had not been disturbed before. Hoping it makes a difference this year. My garden was planted on April 6th this year. We'll see how it does?

I am in the middle of planting my flowers now. Mostly annuals, but will be doing my Lantana again this year in front of my house for continuous blooming until frost. Haven't purchased those plants just yet but it will likely happen in the next week.

No hummingbirds sighted at my feeder yet. I put the feeder out March 31st after seeing the migration map on line showing sightings north of me. Don't know? You can only do so much. The lawn is growing like crazy.
 
Hey, LEGION 12

Great to see the green and the colour ... lovely space. Is that a tree you've planted as well?
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22-rimfire

I remember from last year's thread about the double digging too. It will be interesting to see how it works out for you. Before I dig here I will have to run water through the hoses buried in the veg garden so I can find (and not cut) them.

Your lantana ... sold as verbena here - I'll definitely be having a couple of pots on the patio filled with them. Bloom from frost to frost, and beauty colours too.
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The geranium plants overwintered inside in the bags that they were collected in last fall (soil added and watered) are thriving. Daisy is herself, only more so!




Veg garden now has all the fencing straightened after being flattened and bent by the very heavy snow load. A lot of the small spruce and balsam trees and the caragana shrubs were misshapen after the winter as well. It has been a spring of straightening out a lot of things. The blackberry canes still need a lot of staking.




All repairs are now done to the 'Daisy' fence that should help keep the tomatoes safe. If she can get at the veg garden from inside the wild garden, somehow she finds a tomato clenched in her teeth ... but at least she has proven to be a willing model for pics when this happens to her ...




So now it is stog the woodburner in the shop for overnights that are below freezing ... because the 'geranium trailer' is rolled in for warmth at night and out for sunshine in daytime. Yes, the house is getting roomier as the warmth allows. It will be a month before planting outdoors will be a good bet. Still there are seedlings and begonias and some experimenting growing in the south facing windows in the basement. Raining and miserable yesterday ad today. All the bulbs that I got for a song last spring are coming up ... with some mole action around some of them. I see a modest little greenhouse in my future.

 
Wow, there's some beautiful landscaping in this thread! I came to post a picture of my humble little urban vegetable garden.

Since this picture, the tomatoes are several feet taller than the "condo/cage" and there's a tiny little eggplant starting. Hope I get to it before the 'possums do.
 
I think this may be the perfect place for my vegetable garden , anyone know what these purple flowers are ? They seem to be growing wild here .
 
Those look like wild violets ... low growth, lovely purple spring flowers. I think 22-rimfire has some experience with them from last year's posts.

Here, I have lots of them and don't find them a problem. People who like their grass more uniform, may not appreciate them. "In the eye of the beholder" perhaps? Very invasive, every flower a boon to the early pollinators yet seeds of sedition in the grass garden.

If the sunshine falls long on this garden patch of yours, it would indeed be good for veggies! :)
 
Wow, there's some beautiful landscaping in this thread! I came to post a picture of my humble little urban vegetable garden.

Since this picture, the tomatoes are several feet taller than the "condo/cage" and there's a tiny little eggplant starting. Hope I get to it before the 'possums do.

If you could see my four tomato seedlings, started mid-winter here, you would be so delighted with those healthy, thriving plants ... condo/cage beauties! Mine are relaxing on their stems, reaching for the strong sunlight of the out of doors coming in through a big window ... and they have a wait of almost a month yet before the temps cooperate outside. I always start my seedlings too early ... impatient for the growing season. Guilty :rolleyes:
 
If you could see my four tomato seedlings, started mid-winter here, you would be so delighted with those healthy, thriving plants ... condo/cage beauties! Mine are relaxing on their stems, reaching for the strong sunlight of the out of doors coming in through a big window ... and they have a wait of almost a month yet before the temps cooperate outside. I always start my seedlings too early ... impatient for the growing season. Guilty :rolleyes:
I have the opposite problem here in Texas. I planted some bush beans a few weeks ago, and then read on the seed package that they don't produce once temperatures are in the 90s, so unless we have a very cool June, I planted them too late.

Here's a picture from today. They are bustin' out of their cage, going wild!

 
R8shell, I hope those white cages are large enough for your tomatoes. I use a roll of concrete wire cut to make a circle (18-20" diameter). Most of the wire type tomato cages don't stand up to too much weight and simply aren't big enough. I planted two patio type tomatoes in big pots on my deck this year. One was planted around the same time as the garden (early April) and the other today. Both of these plants are determinate types versus indeterminate. My regular indeterminate plants (Big Boy, Better Boy, Whopper; these have become my favorite varieties) will get about 6 feet tall and out grow the tops of the tomato cages by mid summer. Will have to stake the cages down in the next few weeks to keep them from blowing over from the summer thunderstorms. Right now it is not an issue. It is really disheartening to watch them grow, take care of them, and then they get blown over in a thunderstorm. The foliage catches the wind being so tall.

Last year I tried to stagger my tomato plants. I did sort-of this year buying two large plants and the rest normal sized. The ones I planted a month or so later last year never really did very well (probably because of night time temps). This is why I planted the small patio tomato today to stagger a bit assuming it grows. So, all the plants are staggered in April so to speak. If plants were available, I could do a partial re-planting in July. May have to gets some seeds and plant my own for that planting time. Some years the plants are starting to peter out by Mid to Late July, but last year they looked pretty good and healthy and I had tomatoes until November (smaller ones, but still garden grown).

The timing of the planting is much like I did when I lived in Dallas TX.

I tilled my little garden the normal way this year and then raked the soil back to un-tilled depth and tilled again. We'll see if it makes any difference at all. But my experience seemed to hint at root development .... great tomatoes set early and then just little ones later on.

Taldesta, the garden looks ready!! Lots of work coming up, but it's a labor of love mostly for me. I think that I'm going to do like you do with the geraniums this winter and for next spring. They are just getting really expensive already grown in 6" pots. Your geraniums look great.

I split a couple Amaryliss bulbs away from the mother bulbs in the last couple of days. I used plastic pots last year (6" generally) and as the baby bulbs develop they actually deform the pots. This year I'm using clay pots hoping the added weight will support the plants better. I place them on a table that is in part sun for their growth. Thinking maybe they should be in full sun... don't know really.

If I recall, the regular bush beans take about 60 days to mature. You may make it before it gets really hot.
 
If I do the geraniums like you did Taldesta for next year, I honestly don't know where I till put them. My dining room table (in sun) is pretty much completely filled with Christmas cactus plants (various colors) and the amarylis. I give amarylis as gifts at Christmas and always add a few new varieties at that time. That is when the bulbs are available (late fall-early winter).
 
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