What I did in my garden this week

Feb. 17 -22nd

I decided to start a weekly entry for now hopefully I can keep caught up this way. I believe that the more I write about what I am doing the more motivation I will have to improve and keep going. I wanted my garden to be awesome last year and it was definitely  better than the year before.  This year I want it to be enjoyable to look at as well as producing lots.

I cut down my dried up flowers in my front flower bed (between the sidewalk and the road) and cut the iris greenery down so I won't have a lot of dead matter this spring to deal with. I had covered my mums with dry cut grass in hopes that I will have them again. I know it was a long shot but it was worth a try.  Every time I clean up this flower bed the youth that walk by our house decide it is okay to walk there now, I have tried solving it various ways.  There is always a space of time when there is little there to suggest that there are still plants growing. I want to propagate a ground cover in hopes there won't be as much bare soil,  the one I planted there died back and I don't know if it is coming back this year so it is not ideal for that spot even if it survived.  I do have bulbs growing on one end but always end up with bare soil. Maybe a miniature rosebush or something of the sorts would get the message across.

I also collected dried weeds from among my bushes in front of a bedroom window and cut down all the suckers around our two trees in the front in hopes that I won't have as many problems with that this coming season.  Our flowering plum send up suckers every year. I have been trimming them before they get more than 2 ft. high or so and it has seemed to decrease how many come back. I notice them at least 2 to 3 times in a year. I  spread my columbine seeds all over the front flowerbed by our front door.I did start to trim my rose bush in the front and only got so far with that project. I have one more flowerbed in the front to clean out and make weedless.   The rosebush is in the last flowerbed in the front that I need to work on.

I know last year I got some early gardening in and I believe it did help decrease my weeds. The weeds are still not under control and it makes it so I don't enjoy my gardens as much. I tried Preen but realized that I like to grow flowers from seeds so that has not been real helpful since it is designed to make sure seeds don't grow which is great if they are weed seeds not so much if they are flower seeds. I did spread some in my garden last year when I tilled so I sprouted the seeds then planted them I believe that it helped speed up the growing process a bit. It was almost like planting a young seedling but I didn't have the plant shock and didn't have to harden the plants off it was great. I might do this instead of growing seedlings this year. I just put them in a bag with a damp paper towel. I want to make seed stripes this year because the sprouted seeds were all in a clump and hard to separate last year. I think you can do this with any seed so even plants that don't transplant well can be sprouted then buried to grow.

I will need to get my eggplant growing that is one I have to do a seedling for since the growing season is so long. I will see about my watermelons to one I believe has a shorter growing season. In two to three weeks I need to clean up my hanging baskets and plant them I hope to have them spectacular by May. They were a disappointment last year. It was my first year trying to grow seedlings myself to put in the baskets. I had better luck growing then in the basket to begin with.

One other observation about my garden and I want to make sure I continue doing this is when I dig up grass around the edges of my garden if I just flip them over so the roots dry out it doesn't grow back for a very long time. I did it in about Aug if I remember right and it still hasn't grown back in it was bare since I have done it. I hope this helps keep the grass out of my garden and raspberries better. I will do this when ever there is no danger of digging up the plants I want to grow.

Flower Patch

I finally got everything planted in my Flower Patch. The greenery to the right are bulbs (grape Hyacinths, miniature daffodils and mini tulips). The white flowers are from Snow-in-Summer. Then there are two green mounds in the middle they are Stonecrop Sedum Autumn Joy. Then I planted some white and yellow Iris's then there is the other white fence panel. We added the white fence panels because we had a lot of foot traffic through my flowerbed. I believe it was the teenagers walking home from the Junior High close by. They were fairly big prints they left behind. It reduced the footprints left drastically I think since we have put the fence panels up I have only seen a set of foot prints once. I also planted Cosmos between the side walk and Sedum, they have sprouted up and are doing quite well. The section between the Sedum and the road I planted Zinnias. I haven't seen them come up yet. It is a hard section to grow anything but weeds in. If they don't grow I will try some plants that aren't as sensitive to salt and dry ground. That is the section that gets a lot of salted snow piled up on it during the winter.

Coming soon I will be posting a picture of one of my flowerbeds. It is a very dry spot and I always forget to water it. I would like any suggestions of what to plant there. I have purple grape Hyacinths there but they die down so I need some kind or ground cover or a plant that doesn't mind sharing the space for a time.

Flower beds

I have flowerbeds as you can see. They were put in by the previous owner. I have one thing to say about flowerbeds. When people landscape and put in flowerbeds they go with what looks good not what can reasonable be weeded and taken care of. Some of them are easier for me to work with than others. Since they have nice curbing around them I don't want to get rid of them. The one in the back with the exception of each end where there are trees are set up reasonable for the most part. Some of it goes to deep in my opinion. I have started putting stepping stones in key places to make the back more easily accessible. Since I like the square foot gardening whenever I step on my flower bed soil it really bugs me. I also try to grow big garden plants in places where the bed is big with not much in them. I use to have a ground cover growing which was also chosen by the last owners. I thought I liked it until it started taking over the flowerbed my grass around the beds and weeds would grow in the ground cover and make things impossible to manage. Also unless I plan on spending lots to fill the beds in with flowers I have to do something else with them. I have planned what to to with the back. The front two I am still planning what to do with

I plan in the back to split it up into sections using the pinetrees to help divide each section. I already have a section with Iris'. I also have planted lettuce in the part that is too shaded by the globe willow to grow Iris'. I plan on moving my wild strawberries and have a section of just those. I also have rose bushes some of which aren't looking very good right now. I don't know if one of them will survive. Also the last section will probably be planted with some garden vegetables each year. Tomatoes this year will go there. In front of the middle pine I planted peas and where the strawberries will eventually go I have a zucchini planted. All of this will take a year or two.

If you have the I want it now the way you want it expect it to cost a lot of time and money. I plan on being more gradual with any changes to my landscape. It helps spread the cost out over time and it also gives me time to decide what I like and what I want to change without being hasty and waisting money.

Enough rambling I better get back to my kids and garden.