Melissa in Australia Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 Tackling the blueberry garden. It has waist high grass over the whole lot , And wild blackberries the blueberries are hopefully there are still blueberries plants under everything. Poor DH couldn't do everything while I have been ill. So didn't get to the blueberries. I can't do much. Not only do I still not have much energy, but I had a hernia repair surgery just over a week ago. But I hit on an idea. Dh pushes the wheelbarrow to the blueberry patch for me and I cut the grass off at soil level with secateurs so no actual pulling which I can't do cause of surgery) And fill the wheelburrow. Dh takes the full wheelburrow to the compost and empties it when he has time. 1 wheelburrow a day. So far I have discovered 9 plants still alive and 3 dead. Slow and steady and we will get there. I have hit on the perfect way to get the twins to help in removing the tomato plants summer veggies leftovers etc. to the compost. I stand there and tell them how strong they are, how amazing, look at their muscles ripple as they pull out the plants and shift them to the compost and at the finish they get a pickle for each wheelburrow load. I had got chocolate as the reward, but they requested a pickle instead. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faith-manor Posted April 24 Author Share Posted April 24 10 hours ago, Melissa in Australia said: Tackling the blueberry garden. It has waist high grass over the whole lot , And wild blackberries the blueberries are hopefully there are still blueberries plants under everything. Poor DH couldn't do everything while I have been ill. So didn't get to the blueberries. I can't do much. Not only do I still not have much energy, but I had a hernia repair surgery just over a week ago. But I hit on an idea. Dh pushes the wheelbarrow to the blueberry patch for me and I cut the grass off at soil level with secateurs so no actual pulling which I can't do cause of surgery) And fill the wheelburrow. Dh takes the full wheelburrow to the compost and empties it when he has time. 1 wheelburrow a day. So far I have discovered 9 plants still alive and 3 dead. Slow and steady and we will get there. I have hit on the perfect way to get the twins to help in removing the tomato plants summer veggies leftovers etc. to the compost. I stand there and tell them how strong they are, how amazing, look at their muscles ripple as they pull out the plants and shift them to the compost and at the finish they get a pickle for each wheelburrow load. I had got chocolate as the reward, but they requested a pickle instead. Melissa, I am so sorry you are still struggling. But, I am so impressed with how you are finding ways to be involved, and especially to keep the twins engaged. You are an amazing woman, and I hope you know that! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faith-manor Posted April 24 Author Share Posted April 24 Here is what Mark rigged to save our apple trees. Due to those 70 degree days in March and early April, once again, my Apple girls have been in danger of blossoming too soon. He built it on the weekend and we tested it Sunday night when it was going to get down to 30°F (1.1C). It worked like a charm, creating icicles on the blossoms which insulated them at freezing preventing them from a hard freeze. No damage at all, and blossom looked beautiful. Tonight is going to drop to 26°F (-3.3C) so it will be turned on at midnight and allowed to run until 8am when our temp gets just above freezing so the ice can melt. Though the sprinkler is mounted at the crown of one tree, it throws water far enough to completely coat the apple tree next to it. I don't know if you can see it going up the center of the tree, leaning against the trunk. It is just two 10 ft piece is lumber screwed together with the garden hose run up the middle, secured with zip ties, and then the sprinkler screwed on at the top and a few tie downs so it doesn't work it's way loose from all the vibrations and of course wind since it had been crazy windy here. It didn't cost us anything because it was scrap lumber that we had in the shed, zip ties we already owned, and my mother's sprinkler. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aggie96 Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 Couple of pics of one of the front beds. The daylilies have all started blooming. The salvias have been blooming since early March. Pics don't do the gardens justice. We moved here in in 2020 and the beds were a mess with diseased plants and ineffective sprinklers They had been so neglected. So we replaced almost everything ourselves in mid-summer 2020. Then Winter Storm Uri hit in Feb 2021and wiped out everything (including the pool). We spent 2021 repairing big-ticket items from the freeze so the landscape went neglected. In 2022 for the first time, I hired professional landscapers to design, build, remove, and plant the beds in the front and back yards. I was determined to ONLY use plants that were native AND cold/heat hardy well beyond our zone since the Mother Nature has lots her mind. 🙂 Of course, just as the plants were installed, we had one of the hottest and driest summers on record. I hand watered constantly, but the new plants really struggled. Then that multi-night hard freeze happened early in the season in Dec 2022. Lost about a third because so many plants just were not established well enough. In 2023 we changed out sprinklers to use micro-sprayers and really tried to build up the nutrients in the dirt before replacing plants. It worked! This year is stunning! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faith-manor Posted April 24 Author Share Posted April 24 16 minutes ago, aggie96 said: Couple of pics of one of the front beds. The daylilies have all started blooming. The salvias have been blooming since early March. Pics don't do the gardens justice. We moved here in in 2020 and the beds were a mess with diseased plants and ineffective sprinklers They had been so neglected. So we replaced almost everything ourselves in mid-summer 2020. Then Winter Storm Uri hit in Feb 2021and wiped out everything (including the pool). We spent 2021 repairing big-ticket items from the freeze so the landscape went neglected. In 2022 for the first time, I hired professional landscapers to design, build, remove, and plant the beds in the front and back yards. I was determined to ONLY use plants that were native AND cold/heat hardy well beyond our zone since the Mother Nature has lots her mind. 🙂 Of course, just as the plants were installed, we had one of the hottest and driest summers on record. I hand watered constantly, but the new plants really struggled. Then that multi-night hard freeze happened early in the season in Dec 2022. Lost about a third because so many plants just were not established well enough. In 2023 we changed out sprinklers to use micro-sprayers and really tried to build up the nutrients in the dirt before replacing plants. It worked! This year is stunning! Marvelous! I love it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissa in Australia Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 Looks fabulous Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faith-manor Posted April 25 Author Share Posted April 25 Big happy update: We used the sprinkler system last night. Though it got down to 24°F (-4.4C) which would have been a 100% kill rate because our blossoms were at the pink tip stage, the ice coating seems to have worked. 2/3 of the ice has melted off, and the blossoms look really healthy! We had young honey bees yesterday afternoon. I bet they were feeling rather confused and unhappy by the time the temp got that low. It is warming rapidly. We have a low predicted of 33-34°F (.55-1.1) tonight. But that is okay for the blossoms. Then the ten day forecast is nothing low at all, and some nice, warm spring days which makes me happy. I have row covers, so I think if the raised beds that are covered with windows have reached 55° (12.7C), I will transplant the seedlings I have been hardening off except peppers and tomatoes. Those will wait another couple of weeks. I am going to move the windows to the tomato bed though so that soil can be warming faster. I am also going to sow the radish, carrot, and scallion seeds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 On 4/2/2024 at 10:18 AM, Faith-manor said: Yesterday, we worked outside in dd's raised bed garden in northern Alabama. We planted tomatoes, cucumbers, mild banana peppers, basil, and mint plus marigolds, snap dragons, and petunias that our grandsons chose. Then we made a pallet strawberry bed. We found some heat treated, but not chemically treated pallets for $2.00 each. I underestimated how many plants we could put in the pallet so I need to get 4 more plants. We sowed seeds for radishes, and once the rain clears, I need to set up the green bean pallet and seed that for her. We have been double layering burlap under the pallets as a first year or two weed barrier. Some of her gourds did dry out really nicely. I am going to try to turn them into bird houses, and hang them from hooks near the garden. She gets a lot of not beneficial insects, and I am hoping that birds will come live there and keep the pesty insects down. We will see. Tomorrow we are setting up a 31 gallon galvanized trash can on cinder blocks, cutting and bending down spout, and fitting it into a hole in the lid to create a rain catchment system for watering the garden. Last year she had to use city water (no well here) during the dry snap, and it killed her veggies and strawberries. Since it is a small garden, and she uses drip hoses and mulch, I think this will be enough to overcome a short dry spell. The hugelkultur in the deep bed helps retain some moisture. We have mosquito dunks to keep that from being a problem. How do you use mosquito dunks on the garden? Sorry if that’s a stupid question! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faith-manor Posted June 9 Author Share Posted June 9 Just now, madteaparty said: How do you use mosquito dunks on the garden? Sorry if that’s a stupid question! The mosquito dunks are for the rain barrels. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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