popular What have you done today in the Garden?

Me too! But… I had a hard time hibernating last winter… my phone kept going off.

 

Today I removed two more non-productive fig trees. That leaves four, three are very productive of very good figs. One has the best figs but not very productive, and is dwarf, low maintenance. Next, there are some apple trees on my cull list and possibly some persimmons. Also, pruning the ones I'm keeping, which is quite a lot.

I overdid it 20 to 25 years ago, starting fig trees from cuttings. At least I got to taste many varieties and see which do well in my garden. Over the past two years, I removed ten fig trees, keeping four small ones.

 

Not a day to be spending time in the garden, as it's only +2C. But I will feed the birds and check on my jukeboxes in the tea-house to make sure their heaters are working.
I'll probably just do a bit of dusting and vacuuming around the house and I've the gas and leccy meters to read.

We had a bit of drama last night. My wife lost the remote to the TV in the lounge.
It's virtually the same model as the one in the front room, but it isn't android. "You can't talk to it" and there's no wi-fi connection.
She said she'd dropped it on the floor and she was certain it had slid across the room and under her big craft/storage table.
My hands and knees search revealed nothing.
There are only on/off and volume controls on the TV itself, everything else is on the remote. Both remotes for the Virgin 360 boxes look alike. My remote wouldn't work it. It was stuck on "freeze" in the middle of the recording she had been watching.
This is not unusual. I've two analogue Humax tuner/recorders in the other room, their remotes I had to programme differently otherwise both would respond to the same remote.
So I applied a bit of Sherlock Holmes thinking.
"Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Ignoring her, frequent, "It must be under the table." I started looking elsewhere, I eventually found it. It had fallen off the arm of her chair into a box of cards and stuff on the floor.
I had visions of having to re-programme my remote to give to her to get hers working and I'd have to buy another one for my TV.
As expected, she said,"You must have put it there!" It was only a joke, but she hates ever being proved wrong.

 

Nothing at the moment, it's too cold and frosty. But i did order my seeds for the spring.

 

We had a Suttons catalogue delivered through the post today. Managed to catch the postman to give him his £5 Christmas box. Missed him last week.
He's very good. If he's got a parcel and the car isn't on the drive, so he knows I'm out, he waits for my wife to answer the door bell as he's aware she uses a walking frame and take some time to reach the front door.


There's nothing I need for next year as we've run out of room, but my wife has the catalogue at the moment, so it's a case of, "watch this space."

 

Daniel— way to go. What a worker you are! You have really done some good work over the years. Impressive accomplishments indeed.

 

It's nice looking in those catalogues.

 

Today I talked my helper into burning the tree waste. I don't have access to a mulcher, and the standard around here is to burn it. I can't, due to pulmomary problems. It's good that some people like to burn stuff. Two neighbors are doing it too.

For kindling, I crumpled up a lot of old bills and documents that had account numbers and personal info. That worked very nicely. More decluttering, successful!

I spent about two hours, cutting up branches. Also started pruning a "keeper" apple tree, the first of the winter. It's a "Liberty", very tasty, disease-free apple variety, on super-dwarfing rootstock. At 25 years old, it outgrew it's rootstock and reaches about 15 feet tall. I prune it back to about 9 feet tall each year.

 

I don’t burn anymore it’s way too smokey for that up here and it burns my nose and end up with a sore throat and we don’t have access to fire hydrants . When neighbors burn the ash and smoke gets into the house thru the roof vents and ir smells so bad outside I have to block all my roof vents to keep the smell & ash out. I just leave what I have in my burn pile and it all eventually brakes down into black soil. Haven’t burned in 6 years. Some areas of the burn pile have developed an bloomin island of its own in the middle of the pasture. Several sprouting plants from the stacked debris or bulbs critters have buried bloom. So it doesn’t look like a stack of dead branches ready for a huge camp fire. It’s green and the flowering green lush effect has grown on me over the years. The past few years I have been using the trimmings from branches for making shrub fencing blocking the deer and elk from access to my property.

Today I cut out more Douglas fir branches , trash trees like ash and wild cherry … along the perimeter of the property and stacked those branches as a shrub fence to deter the herd animals from creating new paths across the pastures. Other limbs I loaded up in a wagon for later … It may seem like a lot of work for an old lady like myself… but it keeps me in shape and lucky to have no health issues . I do a little at a time using battery op light weight chain saws and use a lot of leverage techniques to move things around. Also tying the larger branches to the tractor to pull out of tricky spots saves old muscles. I like the challenge of thinking ahead , planning techniques age appropriate to tackle garden projects. Also important to accept that it’s a slow progress at this age. It’s not about getting the job done fast but getting the job done with no time restraints with no or injuries. I’m ok with that…

 

@Pacnorwest My budget doesn't allow for me to buy everything I circle in the catalog, so I will just have to choose a few things within my budget.

I was going to work outdoors tomorrow. I will be working on stuff at church in the morning.

 

It’s a good thing your budget is not like mine or you’ll be growing everything from seed collected from touring gardens , free seeds offered from nurseries, clippings from garden club buddies and the occasional clip or 2 from the neighbors garden and oh all those fallen stems on the big box store shelves. I also have been known to reclaim plants thrown out in those large garbage bins especially after the Holiday’s.

 

Today I inventoried my seeds.




Lots of green beans there . This is a year to experiment a little, especially the Italian varieties. They won't be wasted. We eat a lot of them. The same could be said for squash and tomato varieties.

The Peron tomato was a "free gift" from Baker Creek. "Don't cry for me, Argentina".

Today I ordered handful more from Burpee. Possibly a mistake. My browser blocked at least 12 "tracker" attempts for each thing added to the basket. Six items so >70 attempts . Plus a few popups. I paid using Apple Pay. Confirmation is usually instantaneous. None arrived yet after an hour . I think this is my last order from them, ever.

A lot of the extra seeds in the packets should keep for many years. Who knows what will happen by then?

 

@Daniel W what seed company is that Franchi ? I like those Fagiano beans, the red ones.

 

Blimey Daniel, no, don't use them again and check your bank statements

I like beans

 

Daniel—What a selection! What a pleasure to see. Good luck this season.