Arrived yesterday. Wasn’t sure what was splashing around there, but a pair showed up. About 3-4 weeks early.
More plants emerging: tiniest new Castilleja Miniata (red) Indian paintbrushes, Silk Flower, with one flower open already for a week….tough little bugger, still there after snow and hail, and Fawn lillies. I believe I planted a lot of fawn lillies, although the little shit vole has decided those are OK with him, so we’ll see. They’re definitely not bunched into clumps like the Brodiaea, which also can “self-clump”, so maybe they won’t be as good a target for the vole. Until they get nice and mature, and wham! When oh when will the screech owl ever show up? His splendid new abode awaits him, king of all he surveys.
Shooting stars, Hookers onions, Camas howelli and Cuseckii (the light blue colored camases). Large leaved Lupine, Columbines provide winter greenage. Some trilliums are poking up. As far as seeds, can only see Desert Parseley / biscuit root so far.
Update 2/4: also coming up are Ookow/ Brodiaea congesta, Mule’s ears, Indian paintbrush, Wild Blue Flax, Oregon Geraniums.
Coyote by daylight, looking for his rib bone. I put it there to keep him in front of the camera longer. He eventually found it….see below
Seasonal garden occurrences: Monkshood is ‘leafing out’, as of last week. White Tritellia coming up. Both in the backyard, maybe I should transplant? The Cuseckii (light blue) Camas are coming up in the various places I transplanted , hopefully they’ll recover and bloom once again. I haven’t definitely seen the Howellii Camas which are similar color but different appearance, the other light blue Camas bulb patch I had to transplant due to failure to thrive. All the other blue and the white Camas are thriving, to the point where we considered cultivating it for eating. We have gathered and slow cooked it (see former post) a couple of times, but it is work. I can see how potatoes won out over Camas in the Native communities.
All seeds finally in the ground, although not all landscaping projects are complete. I hand finished some of the front yard where I wanted to plant, and where we had take out lots of Oregon grape, and various other non native plants as well as transplanting the large fern from there to the backyard (it already likes it better). Ten bags of top soil, potting soil, cactus soil sand and gravel filled in the fern divet and covered the areas for seed and plant/transplant. New Lewisia Cotyledons and Tweedyi for the front, a Castilleja Miniata Paintbrush, Penstemon Newbergii with crimson flowers, and the seeds of Irises Chrysophylla (white with purple and yellow stripes), Setosa (dark purple blue), and Siskou (yellow), and seeds of Buckwheats, bear grass, monardella and some other rock garden favorites.
First wild critter to be caught on cam….infrared camera which is motion activated. Would like to get it to trigger a little earlier, so angled it more southfacing slightly. Had to change the camera position several times to a) keep from filming all the squirrels and b) keep from filming all the trucks that drive by. Coyotes here overnight (~4:30 am) for drinks at the pond, maybe a vole or mole? Probably also to stalk outdoor cats, though they’ve been pretty effective at keeping those out….no cat sightings for many moons now, thanks to them. Lots of “cat missing” signs for a while, they’re not missing, we know exactly where they went.
Also, a few bulbs coming up: mostly more Brodiaea, but also the Camas Cuseckii, or light blue Camas. I hope it recovers from whatever was making it fail in its former spot, and blessses us with blooms soon. Also hopefully deer won’t eat it. Few Trillium Chloropetalum coming up, including the deep maroon one (Kirabayashi).
For our New Years entertainment, a screech owl box, which Dave put up in the pine trees in the back yard. About 12-14 feet up, with a view towards the north/ northwest, it is about 20″ tall and about 8″ deep and 11″ wide with a 3″ hole in the front, thick wood with sloped overhanging roof. It came with a bag of wood shavings. We also got a barred owl box which is really cool, but too big for our yard. Not to mention that would mean that two owls would have to find our boxes and then get along. Barred owls might even eat screech owls, I’ll have to look it up. Western Screech Owl, hopefully eventually I can get my own picture to post someday:
Pic of the Sceech Owl box we mounted in the backyard, on one of the bigger pines:
Had to wait until the end of May according to the experts, so I wouldn’t get “flower drop” and lose all the potential fruit to our labile weather like last year. But we chose two varieties which tolerate cold, anyway, so maybe plant earlier next year. These are Sweet Casady (sweet small heirloom type, indeterminate) and Oregon Spring, (a determinate early fruiting one). Now we just have to hope the deer don’t find them! I may put the dilute pepper spray on them, but it seems futile since it will get washed off with the frequent watering I do. Baseline pics of the ‘maters and early cucumber shoots. No beans yet, so I planted some more recently.
Video tour taken today, in 30-60 second segments. But, the site is having difficulties and I can’t upload them to the site. Next time, we’ll have to go with pix today.
We had salad from our veggie garden last night. To harvest baby spinach and butter lettuce, you can cut the largest leaves off as they grow, and then more leaves grow in. It also allows more light for the carrots and onions (scallions), which I need to plant differently next time. It produced enough salad for three already- we planted it March 26. The carrots, green onions and new set of radishes and lettuce still need to mature. I planted pole beans and cucumber along the back of the planters on May 1(4 days ago), to trail up the trellis. The cuke seeds turned out to be a “bush” variety, which trails over things rather than climbing (gotta read the fine print…who knew about that?). I can still use the trellis to loop the vines up before they hang back down,as long as the beans have some room to climb. What with the nasturtiums in most corners and the newest veggies along the sides, this is going to be one full, busy planter!
Today had a handful of nasturtium leaves, they taste peppery good (a sulfur compound, similar to radishes).
This is after harvesting all the first batch of radishes and the larger leaves of baby spinach and butter lettuce: more light for the rest
View of what the cloches cover…I planted outside with stuff the deer probably won’t eat, like nasturtiums and onions. Hopefully they don’t like cucumbers?!
ellensgarden.us 