Yesterday it hailed 2x, and luckily despite all this hail the plants are still doing well. I saw the first of my Sunflowers this morning while removing the few cloches I have. I quit drinking all soda recently so between my wife and I we have very few 2l bottles to make cloches from. Our pet cat went to the vet again today like yesterday. No more bandages for her, but she has to continue wearing an Elizabethan collar for a while.

Today I am planning to work on a worm composter that will fit under my new garden cart. I hope and plan to use this as mulch for the vegetables this year as well when planting new things. I still need to make or find a way to recycle a cold frame to help start more vegetables and some watermelon for my wife.

Personally, I think watermelon is good for 1 thing.... to hide a bottle of vodka in the meat of the fruit, or to be a show piece when presenting fruit salad. I digress, and got a small blow to helping the orchard out. The buckwheat I ordered is now back ordered. Hopefully it will be here in time for use this spring. I wanted to plant it now so it would be green mulch. In fall I plan to use seed balls method of adding clover, vetch, and some other cover crops, some of which may be odd to you. These cover crops would include daikon radish, mustard, & kale to name a few.

When I chop and drop the vegetation next spring, it will be green mulch under the canopy of the orchard and make the soil better as well as crowd out weeds, well, just simply make everything healthier.

Well, one more note then I am off to work. Yesterday I went for a walk in the more forested area coming to where we plan to put in a pond at the end of a grey water recycling system. I noticed the usual kinds of mushrooms and fungi I see, but then I came across the image at left. Exotic huh? I have no clue what kind it is and have no plans of touching it. Live and let live I say. To me it looks like bleached coral but that is my creative mind coming through again.

A day of planting

Short and sweet today. While demolishing more of the greenhouse area I finally moved the climbing rose and planted:

1 Anise Hyssop
9 Napa Cabbage
9 Brocolli
9 Spinach
9 Early Jersey Cabbage
5 Garlic
4 Strawberries
& 3 Violetta Precoce Artichoke

No Hail!!

Yesterday was the first day that it hadn't hailed several times in one day allowing me to scramble outside and work till I dropped from pain.

I continued demolishing the new greenhouse area. I started with removing many plants to the herb spiral area and elsewhere as well as planted a Flowering Gooseberry. I also kept removing stones & pebbles, bucket by bucket to the small formal Asian garden area. I am looking to eventually grow some shitake mushrooms in this area.

Then I found some broccoli munched heavily by slugs, so they were moved to a safer area and wood ashes spread around. When I checked this morning they appeared to be doing better.

I also built a stair (one of a great many) in the orchard area since the land slips eastward, which leads me to the easy work I did. I ordered some organic buckwheat seeds. These will be broadcast sown in the orchard area upon arrival. After flowering it will be chopped down and used as green mulch as it crowds out weeds.

Right now I am taking a pet to the vet and it is raining. I am unsure how the weather will be today and how much outside work will get done.

Had to take it real easy...

I had to take it easy this week since I am getting over my cold. Almost all the work I did this week I did today. First I removed some brush and the old owners vegetable garden. There I planted some wild flower seed. Then I removed some large logs from a blackberry bush followed by railroad ties.

We had some family friends visit, and a gift of a large toolbox with a tin foil hat in it today. Later in the day, amidst the 4 hail storms we had today (over 20 this week) I pruned a few alders of sucker trees as well as finished pruning the grapes. Since I am starting to feel better, I might actually get some work done tomorrow.