Diary

Back to Diary_2024_04

Thursday, May 02, 2024

More rain. We seem to get 2 to 4 mm each day, which keeps the ground sodden; too muddy to dig, to sieve, to till.

I spend part of today drafting notes for a Construction Mesh Garden , originally for the southern end of the shed, then an impressive 4:1 area gain on the raised bed.

I will probably start with a half-dozen vertical beds, four-foot long, and see how they cope with wind and moisture.

Sunday, May 05, 2024

This afternoon I was outside digging up the last of last year’s artichokes from the driveway bed.

But first O re-raked the shed bed (North)

The large rectangle outlines two paths raked across the top of the bed, with two small rectangles showing the resulting piles. The lower-left corner has part of the rakings from a week ago, rinsed a little by the rain.

These raked rocks can be tossed onto the propped rack laying flat, just a quick-sieve.

I set up the propped rack in the driveway bed with a sheet of galvanized iron hooked to the construction mesh behind the sieve mat of fine mesh.

I have outlined one s-hook, but can’t see the other.

A barrow of plucked stalks. Secateurs trimmed the dry stalks into 18-inch lengths to start a small bonfire, on which I burnt down limbs, branches and twigs from Kerry’s back yard.

A second curved sheet serves to slow down the artichoke tubers and prevent them rolling all over the bed as they chute down the mat.

I gained a half-barrow of tubers-and-soil; probably a bag of tubers. I noticed that many of them are already sprouting.

Monday, May 06, 2024

Bernard arrived late yesterday afternoon and wrestled the roto-tiller around two beds. Here is the driveway bed with the major part tilled, ready to be raked, after which I can plant out my gooseberry cuttings, some of which can be seen in the lower-right corner of this image.

IN theory each of the slotted white sticks represents TWO rooted gooseberry cuttings. I layered lower branches with slotted sticks last year. The sticks bend and break or bruise the branches which send out roots as a response.

I haven’t had fresh gooseberry pie since 1955; that’s almost seventy years!

Here is the raised bed, with all of last years grass clippings and saw dust mixed in; that gave the worms an awful scare.

The contents of the compost bins will be barrowed to the four-foot wide strip at this southern end, tilled in, and then be ready for seeds and seedlings.

In the far corner you can see the red stakes which protect my tiger-lilies and irises

Our first warm and sunny days in three? Weeks. The yellow crocus have responded, but the purples seem to have given up hope.

Tuesday, May 07, 2024

I determined to catalogue a new batch of seeds. The catalogue can be seen here .

I use old DVD cases labeled with a serial number. In this case is a reused envelope ( SUFE ) with a brief history of its source. In case 62 are Pumpkin seeds from a pumpkin re-used from a house porch last fall after Halloween.

Here is my set of updates prior to going into my seed cupboard.

The cupboard will now be full; I consider moving it out to the shed; it should not matter that the seeds are exposed to -20c temperatures. After all, I am interested only in seeds that can germinate after a winter (or two) in Newfoundland.

Jennifer potted half the plants from the gooseberry seedling patch. About 50 pots here on the table and on the ground.

Close-up of pots on the table.

Google images gives me a variety of names as guesses based on the photo above.

I think that last year I called this “Saxifraga cotyledon L. (Saxifragaceae)”, but I need a better method of identifying plants.

Google images?

PlantSnap?

LeafSnap?

The plot is only half emptied of the Alyssum? But that’s enough. Today I start transplanting gooseberry cuttings.

Friday, May 10, 2024

The Iris are now in their third year. I scavenged one small clump from the road works at the end of the street in 2022? And in 2023 we had about six blooms.

A rubber tyre has identified and protected them from the ravages of winter and rotary-hoeing and today I split the clump into fourteen pieces; thirteen are transplanted and one has gone to Kerry in the hopes that she will keep it alive as a backup clump.

We shall see … Now I am waiting for the Tiger Lily to present itself, then it too will be subdivided and planted out.

Thus begins a flower plot within my raised bed.

Sunday, May 12, 2024

Rain starts around 7am and continues …

Three packets of seeds arrive from Vesey’s. Jennifer ordered them. Jennifer can grow the coleus indoors, but I don’t know where she plans to plant the squash.

I am working my way through a packet of pitted dates and of course I come across a seed. On the left the seed is soaking in room-temperature (19c) rain water, replaced daily. Then I thought about the corn that grew last year, spread by the crow family. So I retained the too-hard-to-bite kernels from last night and am soaking those.

I doubt that corn will mature in time (although I might breed a strain if I went after it year by year), so the seeds on the right are there just to keep this date pit company.

Which of the two sets do you think will first sprout?

(Wednesday, May 15, 2024 found and added a second pit to the jar)

Monday, May 13, 2024

I planted out about twenty potato chits in a single row about 18 inches in from the north side of the raised bed. In most cases I think we were down to the old lawn level, so the grass sod and roots may inhibit the depth of any potato crop. I have about six chits left over; where to plant them?

Tuesday, May 14, 2024

The first tulip bulbs have appeared, scarlet, but no purples yet. Yesterday was sunny but today we are back to three days of chilly, cloudy, rainy weather.

Which is why I dug up my Tiger Lilly clump from two? three? years ago. Tiger Lilies grow from bulbs , although the clumps of bulbs look like corms to me.

I separated and planted out about eight bulbs, left two for my neighbour across the street.

The last one I planted in a hanging basket (the white with a green tape around it)

Wednesday, May 15, 2024

I am still lacking energy or stamina after my bout with the latest virus. I can manage about 30 minutes outside, then feel compelled to sit down inside for a while. You will know of that “pain in the knee joints” that signals the presence of a cold or the ‘flu.

Yesterday morning I transplanted Tiger Lilies and that was it for the morning; around four o’clock I headed back outside and moved the contents of one compost bin into the raised garden bed. The emptied bin holds the shovel.

Once all the bins are emptied I will turn the roto-tiller loose to fragment the base and to dig away some of the ground. I would like to have a level line of bins this year.

Well, compost looks like compost in every other video or photograph. Yesterday the demarcation line was quite evident, but this morning, after a shower of rain, all the bed is changed from a brown colour to a dark grey.

I have drawn a line to show the limit. Each barrow-load is wheeled to the bordering plank and then tipped vigorously into the bed, covering about a three-foot wide strip.

I hope to empty one bin each day, and so I should be finished in two weeks time.

I pruned the four gooseberry bushes by snipping out central stems; these original four bushes may prove difficult to harvest this year.

I plugged about three dozen cuttings into a large pink pot; let’s see how they fare.

Then I put six “ Sweet Mama ” squash seeds in a tray with no holes, covered with a plastic bag.

Thus begins my restricted daily program of work: yard work (empty a compost bin), and plant work (plant seeds and/or cuttings).

I attack another compost bin; it takes me much less than 30 minutes, and I am glad I put on my old gardening shoes. The compost is wet, sticky mud.

I am surprised to find crust/thatch arriving from the back of the bin. Note too that when the shovel dislodged the panel, the foot of the leg snapped off. Normal wear and tear, I suppose, coupled with a weak leg.

I barrow away the lot, including thatch which I will rake out, the odd rock and bits of whipper-snipper. My theory was that I would sieve the compost atop the bed, but delays of weather and illness have robbed me of the time to wait for dried compost. I reason that the benefit of the nutrients far outweighs the odd rock or bit of garbage.

What a mess it makes of the strip of lawn! Once the bins are emptied I want to disassemble them completely and run the rotary hoe in there to break down the hump that runs along this fence line. That should provide loose soil for the bins when I re-assemble them and start loading grass, only this year the layers of soil will be fully laden with bacterial growth and worms. Hooray!

Now we can see the places where barrows of compost have been dumped along the south side of the garden bed.

I use various plastic bins scattered around the bed to serve as collectors for pebbles and rocks. A sieve collects plastic scraps destined to find their way into this year’s (!) garbage bag.

This day I emptied another bin, tilled the southern end of the shed, biked to Foodland, and by 18:00 was clearing up part of the driveway.

The wet area above was a pile of soil and artichokes from the driveway bed before I populated it with gooseberry bushes.

The old wheelbarrow tray collects most of the artichoke tubers; a few have rolled free, but now I need sort only through a half-tray of tubers.

And under the sieve is a shower of fine soil. That would suit sprinkling on Jennifer’s and Kerry’s daffodils.

Davis has returned with two wheels, about 12” or more diameter, pneumatic.

Also an axle rod about 60” long, too long for our purposes.

As I thought he would, he has thought about the job since buying the wheels last night; he will use a sleeve axle to hold the shaft. Says he can do it all tomorrow.

Hooray!

Monday, May 20, 2024

A bucket of 3 ½ inc galvanized flat tops fitted nicely into a ½ pint ice cream jar.

The tulips are in bloom.

David brought me three tubs, $50 each, for my rainwater project.

A great day; 5 barrows compost to Mervyn; I cleared the driveway, re-screwed the lid on the log bin, burnt scrap wood, soaked artichokes, tilled Jennifer’s raised bed areas,

The red tulips are in bloom; they straggle. A week or warm sunny weather will see them all out in bloom.

Hundreds (thousands?) of worms in the compost; each shovel dug yields about two dozen worms.

…

Tuesday, May 21, 2024

I took three photos of my border plants stock to send to Connie.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Late yesterday afternoon I raked the bed, barrowed stones to David’s trench, and then placed and filled my two “pot bins”

The soil area is now ready to receive quantities of sawdust, grass clippings, and old soil for sieving and mixing into compost bins..

Here is the view from the street. I need to flatten out the collections of trees, but essentially a straight run in for anyone using a truck or a car.

All my indoor plants are now out of doors.

And I did a quick first-weed of the eastern bed.

Friday, May 24, 2024

I rise to a steady series of steady rain. Not a great soaking, but a soaking nonetheless. Work indoors today, perhaps in the shed.

Saturday, May 25, 2024

The first of six Sweet Mama seedlings appears.

Bonnie’s patch of daffodils and tulips.

Sunday, May 26, 2024

I complete the first study of mass reduction in vermicomposting and devise a rough guide:-

The mass appears to be stable at 7 ounces, from 26 ounces over 50 days. A rough guide therefore is that a mass of kitchen scraps reduces to 20% of its original value in two months.

Monday, May 27, 2024

My rhubarb is up and healthy, but only one thick-stalk plant has survived these past two years. I will move these to the raised bed sometime this week then roto-till this side of the house; one solution for weeds.

Dennis doesn’t harvest his rhubarb, so I will dig up this third variety and bed it in my raised bed.

I made a map of the raised bed. Orientation is North (you are facing my new windows).

Half a row is planted with Iris, Tiger Lilies, and my potato chits.

The second row is set aside, six pens for each of six seed potatoes, but that seems a bit much. Maybe three seed potatoes in each of two pens; then work along that second row with rhubarb.

I can burn a load of scrap in each pen each day. The four apple trees must be transplanted; the hamper of plastic garbage tossed out, and the rock vases re-sited as I work in the bed.

Running between two pegs (brown lined edited in) is a red cord that shows how far I used this northernmost row.

This is a large space to fill. I must get into my seed catalogue this week, and take advantage of the rain.

Tuesday, May 28, 2024

Today is full sunny. I will plant the six seed potatoes from Horse Lake Farm Co-op

I decide that the plants will fit within a single four-by-four foot plot.

The next plot in series (I am using plots west to east within north to south) holds three containers: A wooden carton to receive absolute garbage – mainly scraps of plastic tape from composted cardboard cartons; a kitchen sink (thanks Bernard!) to receive scraps of wood that can be burned for the minerals in the ashes; and a green plastic bin to receive stones – which will be barrowed across the street for David’s driveway.

As I work in one plot, I toss unwanted stock into the three containers in the adjacent plot.

The 24 plots are too many for an old man to level all at once. So I focus on just one plot at a time.

I cut the few weeds that have survived the tilling, rake the plot level, and set out the seed.

I will end up with 24 plots, each of them level, rather than a 384 square foot bed completely leveled.

Here is the plot with six wooden grave markers showing me that the plot is seeded. Once the potato plants are established I will remove the markers. Planted just in time for tomorrow’s rain in the late afternoon.

Thursday, May 30, 2024

24c, they said. It came close to it.

The newly hinged propped rack with everything in place.

That remaining coil at the foot of the mat interests me. As a spiral (or cone-like object) it can channel rocks off to one side. Is this a way to separate rock from wood?

I used a new shape of s-hook on the deflecting pan.

Hooray! Gary Marsden dropped off nine bags of grass clippings and I used three (above is the first one) to christen my new receiving yard.

Search