popular What have you done today in the Garden?

Only a little...

 

Today I pruned the Saint John's Wort in the front area.

Before


After


It's a very nice small shrub, no trouble except annual pruning. Deer don't touch it. Never needs watering.

New shoots were already sprouting. If there is a hard frost, I don't know what will happen. I imagine it wont hurt.

The scent while pruning reminded me of curry plant.

 

Daniel— good work. Those are very popular over here. They are not expensive and require little attention. They are often used in municipal plots. I really like them.

 

Here's the pic I neglected to take the other day of the peat pots planted in the raised bed. I still have room for a couple cabbages in the center, once they're big enough to plant.

 

Looking good Anniekay

I only ventured out to the greenhouse to check on the Dahlia tubers that are drying out. I have them safely covererd with fleece.
It's been too wet and windy to do anything else.

I made a start at logging the sowing dates for the first round of seeds on to my online calendar. This way it's ensured that I will get plenty of reminders.

 

It turned cold here over night. I was chilled taking pics outside.

I am very, very bad at keeping a garden log but, this year, my New Years resolution was to do better at keeping a log. I actually recorded everything I planted, the date and how many pots of each I planted.

 

My downfall every year is not labelling ( if I actually do then I somehow always lose them) my seed trays.

 

Me too !! If I label it, which I tried very hard to do this year, as soon as I put the plant outside in the ground, the label either gets lost or the indellible markings fade away in the sunshine.

 

Nice looking, Annie. It looks like a good begin.

 

Today I hauled all of the rose prunings and st john's wort prunings to the fire pile. The job isn't done until the clean up is done.

I got help to clean the chicken house. Now Mt. St. Helens is rivaled in height by "Mt. Chicken Manure". It will get spread when I'm working on the kitchen garden beds.

Then I cleaned up four of the strawberry planters. They were very productive last year. Big, juicy, red, flavorful strawberries. Ozark Beauty, everbearing.

Before cleanup.



I cut off the dead leaves, removed the old arborist chips, and mulched thickly with new arborist chips.



These are in their third season. I don't know how long they live. I will see how they do this year and not worry about it.

Some might go onto the patio. The temperature moderating effect of the concrete seems beneficial. On the other hand, I can't run the drip lines there, so the patio plants require daily watering. Arrgghh.

Three more boxes of Ozark Beauty, then a few boxes of Alpine strawberries, and I'll be done with those for the season. Yay!