of dogs and daffs

Between the blackflies on Friday and the frigid temperatures on Saturday and Sunday there is little to report gardeningwise.  I turned many beds and planted more peas, spinach and lettuce, seeded four kinds of chard, two varieties of mustard greens and four types of kale. I also transplanted little garlic bulbs that I had gotten as bulbils from gardener extraordinaire, Peter Wiley, at Seedy Saturday a few years ago when it was held at Wychwood Barns. They had grown bigger each year and now are ready to join the rest of the garlic in a dedicated bed.

Thea and Scylla hot on a trail

It seems so fitting to have dogs in the country. So nice for them to be able to wander at will, enjoying the smells, flaking out and playing by turn.

Scylla spurns Thea's invitation to play

Christopher also tried out the new pole pruner he got for his birthday. But, unlike on our arbour weekend where safety was uppermost, he likes to do a bit of yardwork in his housecoat and slippers.

Scylla says, "Now that's a stick!"

Over the years I have planted hundreds of daffodil bulbs in the ornamental beds, field and "woods".

Thalia daffodil - the best of the white narcissus

Naturalized daffodils in the field

And we now have a couple of new benches.

Green iron bench under the old apple tree

Lutyens bench in the crabapple allee

woodlot management

This past weekend we decided to round up a few volunteers and devote some long overdue time to our "woodlot". Over the past 20 years we have planted close to 1500 trees, a combination of softwoods and hardwoods and some understory shrubs. The survival rate hasn't been great and the trees that have grown needed attention. The softwoods had become crowded and were "self-pruning" with dieback. The hardwood whips on the other hand have a tough time competing with the quackgrass, goldenrod and milkweed.

I saw bundles of wine boxes behind my local LCBO store and it occurred to me that they could be used for the cardboard we needed to keep down the weeds and grasses around the base of the hardwoods. It turns out they were bundles of 100 to 200 boxes and very heavy. Because of liability issues the manager wouldn't let me help move them. So she and one of the other female employees literally did all the heavy lifting. Many thanks to Kathy at the Gerrard St. store!

We weren't exactly sure how the division of labour would work out but that became clear Saturday morning. A few weeks ago Alex and Christopher had flagged pine and spruce trees that were damaged or needed to come down because of overcrowding. Alex and our friend, Avo, used the chainsaw, bow saw and pruning saws to thin the softwoods. Diane cleared grass away from the base of the hardwoods and covered the cleared area with cardboard boxes and I delimbed the pines and used the branches for mulch to secure the cardboard boxes.

The first step for Avo and Alex was to sharpen the chainsaw with a file.

Avo filing the saw while he and Alex compare notes.

Then came mixing the gas with the two stroke engine oil at a ratio of 40:1.

Mixing the oil and gas.

Avo and Alex were a model of cooperation working on "creative solutions for challenging problems" as Alex says.

Alex and Avo coming up with a strategy for the tallest pines.

 Alex working on topping the pine.

And Avo takes his turn.

Diane achieved a zen-like state working in solitude with the hardwoods. Initially they were even hard to locate but once she got the hang of distinguishing the slender hardwood whips from the weed stalks they appeared to be popping up everywhere. The long grass at the base of the hardwoods had created a habitat for rodents and many of the trees had suffered "girdling" damage from them.

One of the apple trees girdled by rodents.

Diane, ready to start, before she achieves her zen-like state.

And now......off in a world of her own.

And I, with more grunts than grace, used the long handled loppers to remove the limbs from the felled pine trees and collect them in the wheel barrow. Then I spread them on the hardwoods Diane had protected with the cardboard.

Black Walnut Saplings with a Crinoline of Cardboard and Pine Mulch

Alex had found the deadly pathogen, Commandra Blister Rust, on three of the pine trees we had planned on keeping. She cut off the specific limbs affected and we'll keep an eye on the trees. Getting rid of the affected branches made the perfect excuse to have a bonfire.

Christopher, recovering from a nasty flu that had left him achy and exhausted, came to life for the snacks at cocktail hour by the bonfire.

Cocktail hour by the bonfire

Christopher enjoying the appetizers Diane brought

Alex assesses the apple trees

And now there's skylight in the pines!

planting peas and spinach

It's been such a non-winter that I'm going to take a chance and start planting peas and spinach. Certainly the ground can be worked which is when they always say you can start planting cool weather crops. In fact I think the theme this summer is going to be drought. Railway Creek, which runs along the south border of our property, is already very low and the ground is really quite dry even this early.

Pea support in place

I decided to put the peas in the bed where I've had tomatoes the last two years. As nitrogen-fixers, they should replenish nutrients and restore a little of the fertility. I started out by digging out the poplar roots which have become the (most recent) bane of my existence along the north edge of the bed.  I've spent so many years building up the soil in the vegetable beds I can't bear the thought of giving up on them. My husband, Christopher,  helped move the support for the tall peas into place. Because it is so dry I decided to put semi-frozen manure into the rows hoping as it melts it will add much needed moisture (or alternatively everything will just rot and I'll have to replant!) This weekend I started with Lincoln Homesteader, Sugar Snap, Sugar Lace and Alaska peas and Longstanding Bloomsdale spinach at the foot of the peas.

Over the next few weeks I'll add Laxton's Progress, Little Marvel and Green Arrow peas and Dwarf Grey Sugar for pea shoots and tendrils. There is also a nice purple snow pea called Desiree and a yellow snow pea called Golden. For support for the bush peas I like to use prunings from the highbush cranberry. They're nice and twisty and offer lots of branches for the peas to grab hold and twist their way up.

I find it's a good idea to plant different varieties, both open pollinated heirlooms and hybrids, since various types fare differently in the unpredictable vagaries of the weather. In addition to more of the Bloosmdale spinach I'll also plant Tyee, Space and a lovely hybrid called Bordeaux which has red veins.

no dig beds in the second year

Last year I created some no-dig beds in the field. It seemed easier (at the time) than digging through all the thatch since I don't have any equipment. In the early spring before the grass had started to grow I started by laying flattened cardboard boxes on an area about 20 by 40 feet. Then I covered the cardboard with compost. I used these new beds for last year's potatoes. I remembered reading a novel set in Newfoundland where they "planted" potatoes on rocks simply by laying them out and smothering them with seaweed. I figured if that worked then surely I could plant my potatoes on cardboard. The previous fall I had collected about 10 bags of leaves (from the dump) and used them to mulch the potatoes as they grew throughout the summer. It worked! I got a great crop of potatoes.

So this year the project is to turn the soil in the no-dig beds so I can plant right in the ground. That was the process I started this weekend. The cardboard had completely broken down and the leaves and compost yielded a nice "crop" of earthworms. I know that earthworms are not native but in a pretty down-to-earth activity like vegetable gardening having a few exotic helpers is very welcome.

Earthworms

Removing the perennial weed roots was relatively back-breaking work - milkweed, bindweed, goldenrod, quack grass. Sooner or later the piper has to be paid - in this case the no-dig beds exacted their price a year later...

The one bed I have worked on so far is devoted to leeks. First I dug wide trenches. I added manure  and then gently pressed the seedlings into the bottom of the trench. As the season progresses I pull soil down into the trenches to blanch the leeks. I'm hoping all the hoeing to hill the leeks up will help keep the weeds down. I tried transplanting about two thirds of what I've been growing in flats in the porch. They look a little flimsy - or maybe very courageous.

The first transplanting of leeks

ramps and spring ephemerals

Last weekend my daughter Alex and I went for a walk in two different woods. Both were predominantly hardwoods but the first had lots of hemlock and cedar and the second was an archetypal sugar bush. Lots of lovely spring ephemerals: bloodroot, hepatica, Dutchman's breeches, blue cohosh, trillium in bud and ramps (or wild leeks!). About a month early for everything.

Blue Cohosh

Hepatica

 We happened to have a spare "doggie bag" and so were able to pick some leeks. Ramp foraging is quite contentious both because they are an at risk species and very slow growing. It can take them 8 to 10 years to propagate by seed.  Division by bulb is faster and that is the source of the controversy. Quite often foragers have felt it necessary to pick the bulb since the leeks are so small. Ramps have disappeared from Manitoba and commercial harvest and sales were banned in Quebec a few years ago.

Ramps on the woodland floor

Alex knew we needed to pick by pinching the stem at ground level (leaving the bulb)  and taking just a few from each clump.

We used them to make a fabulous vichyssoise with some of last year's Yukon Gold potatoes and chicken stock I had canned a couple weeks ago. Tonight we had some lightly sauteed in olive oil as an accompaniment to salmon. And tried a wild leek pesto to freeze for a taste of spring next winter.

Here's an interesting blog post on wild leeks - scroll down to the third entry:

http://www.10in10diet.com/a-note-on-garlic.php

And finally, a great sighting, the first in 22 years - two trumpeter swans. Apparently they mate for life, certainly their movements were sympatico. They were like synchronized swimmers.

A Pair of Trumpeter Swans

building hot boxes

My daughter Alex and I took a long weekend at the farmhouse to make 3 hot boxes. The original concept is Victorian. Fresh horse manure is used to heat the boxes which are placed against a south wall to collect the reflected light and heat. I'm hoping to use them for peppers and eggplants with which I've never had much success.

We both liked the idea of using materials at hand and salvaged so we got the pallets from Timber Mart and the local garden centre. We had a roll of heavy gauge plastic in the basement, stakes left over from election signs and a bag of nails we inherited with the house.

Alex cutting the stakes to size

The first step was to come up with a design.  We decided to place the first pallet on the ground and use the stakes to nail the plastic in place. The pallets are approximately 40" by 48" with major emphasis on "approximately". The sides would be 30'' so we placed the second pallet that distance from the first and again nailed the plastic to the pallet. 

Hitting my stride....

Then we stood it upright. At this point it was three sided. The fourth side was then nailed in place from the inside of the box. We decided we would have to break down and buy wood for the two narrow sides. We decided on 1" by 8" roofing pine. Since we needed 24 pieces each 40" long and had nothing but hand tools we decided on treating ourselves to paying to have the wood cut to length.

Screw it!

Because the pallet wood was so weathered we decided on #8 1 1/2" wood screws rather than nails. So a box of screws was our other purchase. As it would turn out we were short three screws. We scrounged around and made do with some larger screws.

Done!

The whole project was way harder than we had anticipated. The pallets were not remotely square and the wood on the pallets kept splitting. My aim was pretty true for most of the hammering but I accidentally punctured the plastic when I started to get tired.  It took three days and neither of us could believe how every muscle ached and we could hardly keep our eyes open each evening. But ultimately we felt a great sense of accomplishment - akin to a surviving a wilderness trip. Blame the whole thing on Canada Blooms - many displays used pallets and it caught our imagination. 

Victorious!!!

The next step is grading the ground so they are level and then filling them. But that's for another weekend and another blog.