4/22 - Critters began digging up seeds, eating lettuce and chard.
4/28 - First tulip blooms; bibb lettuce transplanted; solitary spinach test-seedling planted; soil temp = 52
4/29 - First pea and beet sprouts emerge.
Hastily planted early last fall, this hosta (pictured is 1/4 of the original plant) was dug up and divided into quarters to fill out a newly created garden bed behind the garage that receives only a very few hours of direct sunlight.
Dividing hostas is very easy and seemingly hard to mess up. Spring appears to be the best time, although I've read that it'll handle division just about anytime of the year, maybe with the exception of winter. Dig up a clump and cut it in half or quarters with a spade so that the final clump has five or six shoots. Return them to the soil and before long they'll root and spread their leafy wings once again.
Hostas' tolerance for neglect, unlike baby chicks, is astounding. While walking through a somewhat wooded section of yard, I came across an old hosta that had been tossed in the woods last fall. Despite sitting out all winter on top of a pile of leaves, the plant was actually sending up shoots. It's since been planted in a far corner of the yard and we'll see how it does.
Sources: Bob's Hostas, HGTV, Royal Hort. Soc'y, Ohio State
A deciduous azalea-like rhododendron, it's incredibly hardy, tolerates full-sun to light shade, and puts out rich pink blossoms in the spring and has rusty colored leaves in the fall. This plant anchors the right bank of a newly planted bed behind the garage, which had previously been a dazzling collection of the great weeds and noxious plants of North America.
April 15-19 -- Cold and rainy
April 19 -- Nor'easter finally departs. Soil temp = 44 F.
April 20 -- First peony shoot emerges
April 21 -- Daffodils bloom; vegetable garden started; lawn fertilized and patched; soil temp = 58 F
April 22 -- Forsythia flowers open
After weeks of abnormal cold weather, abundant sunshine and summer-like heat warmed the vegetable bed considerably in just a few days, raising the temperature t0 57 degrees at a depth of six inches. With temperatures rising, it was time to get some cooler crop vegetables in the ground.
Sown: 4' of peas, 4' of pole beans, and beets
Transplanted: romaine, red sails lettuce, "Bright Lights" swiss chard. (the UBC Botanical Garden has an amazing photo of Bright Lights.)
An 8'x4'x1' bed holds (get ready for some serious math) 32 cubic feet of soil, laundry, or stray cats. That's enough dirt to seriously strain the shocks of an aging station wagon, but not quite enough to make it worth renting a truck and visiting the dirtmonger. Perched high atop the horns of a dilemma, the problem was resolved when a recent price war between Lowes and Home Depot ushered in sale prices on Miracle Grow Garden Soil, 2 cubic feet for about 6 and half dollars. At that price, it made sense to buy about 14 bags of soil and 200 pounds of composted cow manure, which, surprisingly, isn't exactly dirt cheap. Along with a hefty amount of
sphagnum peat moss, it took 12 bags of soil and 160 pounds of composted cow manure to fill the bed within an inch of the top.
Positioned on the margin of a fairly wooded section of yard, the bed was lined with some landscape fabric. It's hoped this will keep weeds and roots from growing into the bed -- at least for a little while.
Cloudy, cold, and rainy typified the past week. Buds on a few deciduous trees began to swell noticeably. Some even showed a bit of color. Springtime bulbs like tulips and daffodils continued to march toward bloom, which is probably two or three weeks off still. Pictured at left are garlic chives. These were planted three years ago and seem to be finally hitting its stride.
April 9 As yet unidentified tree in backyard sets red flower-like buds.
April 12 First bud on hydrangea emerges; wild turkey struts across backyard; rain and sleet
April 14 Raised garden bed filled; forsythia just starting to turn yellow
April 15 Late season nor'easter drops 3+ inches of rain; no growing degree days logged for April thus far
Despite a warm start, the winter of 2007 was particularly hard on the broadleaf evergreens on the grange. The rhododendrons and the female meserve holly have large swaths of dead, brown, and dessicated leaves.
To quote the experts,
"Winter burn is caused from desiccation, which is a type of dehydration injury. When roots are in dry or frozen soil, water lost through transpiration cannot be replenished by the roots and dehydration occurs. Water loss through transpiration is normally low during winter months, but it increases when plants are subjected to drying winds or are growing in warm sunny spots."
Source: High Plains Journal, "Winter Damage to Broadleaf Evergreens" available here.
Moreover, chlorophyll is destroyed at temps below 28 F, leading to further damage. Fear not, however, for winter, like ladybugs and pretty pink flowers, is a fact of nature.
According to the University of Minnesota,
"If an evergreen has suffered winter injury, wait until mid-spring before pruning out injured foliage. Brown foliage is most likely dead and will not green up, but the buds, which are more cold hardy than foliage, will often grow and fill in areas where brown foliage was removed. If the buds have not survived, prune dead branches back to living tissue. Fertilize injured plants in early spring and water them well throughout the season. Provide appropriate protection the following winter."
Source: University of Minnesota, Protecting Trees and Shrubs Against Winter Damage, available here.
April 4 - Quick dusting of snow along with temperatures well below normal make gardening all but impossible.
April 7 - Cold temperatures continue.
According to the National Weather Service, temperatures for the first week of April were 10 degrees colder than they were for the first week of January. Return your hybrids now, we need a little thicker blanket around the planet.
pictured: sedum
March 25 - Quick inch of snow that melted by noon.
March 26 - Daffodils well underway, but no blooms yet.
March 27 - Crocuses in full swing throughout front yard.
March 31 - Bed behind garage cleared out, a few shrubs and trees cleared, chopped up and brought to recycling center.
Last weekend, the weather was finally nice enough to complete the raised garden bed. With a little input from "The Compost Bin," who advised that my structure didn't need extra bracing, the whole thing went together in about 45 minutes.
The final product deviated from the original plan slightly in that the trellis is positioned on the inside of the bed rather than the outside. All of the lumber came in 8 foot lengths. Securing the trellis to the outside of the frame would have required two sections of 2x4s, which would have been a pain. Unsure of just how visually appealing the trellis would be, it's been secured using galvanized lag bolts that can be unfastened.
All in all, she holds 32 cubic feet of dirt. Priced out by the bag, that'd be about $112 - $120. (Incidentally, there are 52, 40 pound bags of dirt in a cubic yard.) Luckily, there's a pretty swell dirt yard near me that sells a cubic yard of screened loam/compost mix for $30 picked up. Tack on a $20 U-Haul pickup rental, and that's not too shabby. Unfortunately, my desire to garden is not matched by my dirtmonger's ability to supply dirt. Given that it snowed just last weekend and a touch of snow in the in offing this week, much of the dirt is still frozen.
Source: http://www.therockpile.com/pages/order_soil.htm
