March 2019

Vegetable garden starting time.

Actually started it Thursday 3/28

Planted five raised rows of “Buttercrunch” Bibb style variant lettuce, shorter variety carrots, and green onions. Reserved space for Pole beans and cucumbers. Got an organic variety of seeds, from Sky nursery. Unfortunately, it turns out they are from the exact same place as those from last year, when the yields were so miserable, didn’t know this until we were home with them. They are a different “brand” than last years, maybe they’re from a different source and they’ll turn out OK. Maybe this year the pole beans will actually climb, instead of demurring halfway through….

August Interruption! Had to copy/paste this post due to glitch

Lost all the text from this posting due to a glitch, so won’t repeat. Just wanted to show a couple of critter videos from August. One is of a couple of coyotes in our yard during the day, and another is of a Sharpshinned hawk that got into our house through the doorway (he got out shortly thereafter with a little help). The coyotes are “marking” my Parsnip Flowered Buckwheat, though the second, female coyote actually appears to take a dump on where the male had just marked in front of her…..no respect. Second video is the male coming back to sniff, maybe getting a surprise when he sniffs out the ‘marking’ spot.

Spring Maintenance

For the record, almost all of the sword ferns have been shorn. A couple were left in front because they are being taken out, and they provide staging for the birds at the feeder. Since most of them are going to be opening up later in April, they probably won’t be used by the towhees for nesting this year. They used one of them in a snowberry hedge cluster in the back last year but it’s now been pruned.

Also tried to shear down the hedge fronts, especially the spirea, and any leftover perennial stems around the yard in prep for spring growth. Pruned the tea plant outside to 21″ , since its last pruning before we got it was to 15″. Some instructions say to prune in January, but that may be for warmer climates.

Caught a wren on camera going into one of the roosting holes in the hanging planter, but only because the chickadee triggered the camera first: