Saturday 23 November 2007
*Sigh* Since I'm waiting for next spring, here are some galleries of this summer's garden, organized by date. You can see
either thumbnails or the full sized photos by clicking on the picture.
Sunday 18 August 2007
My goal this year was to keep an ongoing journal of everything that I did in the garden.
It was a nice dream. Unfortunately, I've spent most of the summer actually in the garden, and when I wasn't in the garden, I was
painting the inside of the house. I've been good about taking photos, though, so throughout the winter I'll post here and
there about the gardening. Maybe next year for the garden blog, though.
Saturday 14 April 2007
The garden actually started last year. Up here, we have a very brief spring, so most of the
soil preparation and tilling of soil takes place in the fall, just before the soil freezes. I make sure that all the weeds and
garden equipment is picked up and stored in a safe, dry place, and then it's just a waiting game.
We had a relatively cold winter, especially in February and March, when the temperatures went down
into the -40s often at night. The upside was constant sunshine. The house plants always perk up when the days grow to eight hours or more,
so I fertilize everything indoors for the first time on Feb. 14 or so. Many of those house plants have good sets of leaves
already; the fig tree that I purchased from Logees has already set two figs.
I cleaned out the greenhouse about three weeks ago and planted the peppers and the eggplants at the end of
March. A lot of the flowers, tomatoes, cole crops, and other veggies got planted in early April under the lights in the office.
Sprinkling the dirt on the snow
Something I've discovered over the past several years is the dynamic impact of dark matter on the
snow. Last year, as an experiment, I sprinkled a light dust of potting soil and steer manure on the snow atop three rows in the garden;
one row was left as the control. Within a few weeks, and during a spring in which he had no daytime temperatures above freezing well into
mid-April, the rows with the sprinkling of dust were completely free of snow. I found that the steer manure particles melted
snow fasted than potting soil, too.
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