Arbor Day in review

We celebrated Arbor Day on Friday.  The fourth Friday in April has been set aside to celebrate the importance of trees.  There were celebrations in each district in Milwaukee, some earlier this week, many on Arbor Day.  Some were big with the Mayor and other dignitaries present.  Some were small with parents and children watching, for the first time, a tree planted for their future enjoyment.

I had the pleasure of attending five of those celebrations with different schools and libraries on our side of town.  The teachers and kids do a great job of putting together their own special programs.  There is singing at some, poetry at others, and proclamations read from the mayor designating this day as Arbor Day.

Our Forestry Department employees put in a lot of hard work to get the trees in the ground ahead of the celebrations.  Some of the kids were able to watch as the trees went in the ground from their school windows. The kids do a ceremonial planting by mulching and watering the trees which have been planted for them.  

Even though the things they do are more ceremony than function, they learn about the trees and their importance in our environment.  They know that the air they breathe is because the trees turn the carbon dioxide around them into oxygen for them.  They appreciate the shade and learn to climb the trees that have been planted years before they were born.  They will enjoy the colorful leaves in autumn as they play on their school grounds.

After all the ceremonies, the kids are given a spruce tree to take home and  plant themselves.  It is great to see the smiles and laughter. The kids enjoyed on a sunny day made perfect for Arbor Day.

Reused-repurposed-recycled

If you have read more than one of my blog entries, you are aware that I use whatever works.  I have somethings in my gardening gear that I bought new and paid a dear price for it.  Those tools have been worth the extra money I have spent.  I still have the same two trowels I bought 25 years ago, and they are not showing any signs of giving out.  Other times I use found items to work for my gardening needs. Plastic sheeting from old greenhouses is still good enough for drop cloths and tarps.  Containers are tops on my list.  Do not be too proud to stop and pick through someone else's discards.  People put good containers at the curb because they changed their color scheme.  Other items found at the curb that weren't made for plants can also be used for potting up.  Just make sure there is drainage out the bottom, make a hole yourself if you have to.

Rummage sales are the next best place to add to the garden treasures.  My tomato cages were twenty-five cents a piece and still going strong two decades in. Plant stakes can be fashioned out of all kinds of things.  I have bamboo salvaged from a garbage heap.  The orange snow fence was found in a ditch from an old construction site.  This year it is a pea trellis.  Our city forestry department has wood chips for the scooping at their self-help disposal site.  Other communities near-by compost their leaf collections and put them out on a first come, first served basis.

Our gravel base has moved twice in our yard.  It was put down by the previous owner around the pool.  The pool came out and the gravel and sand went into different piles.  The lumber from the deck has been used three different ways already.  The latest project is a wood rack for the fire pit we recently updated for our backyard.  The wood to 

fill it has come from downed trees and branches removed from our own yard.  (The wood still has to be moved from the old location.  Might get the teenager to do that.)
There is still a stack in the garage with various projects in mind.

The previous owners also invested a bunch of money into tons of Lannon stone, a local commodity.  We have dug it out of collapsed hills and walls to rebuild the terraces in the yard.  My husband put in block steps which were from a display at the local stone company, purchased at a fraction of the original price.  Materials are every where if you just look.

With a little thought and creativity, you can do some fun things with the right materials.  Do some reading and learn how to do it right so you don't have to do it again. My neighbor told me how a landscape company put in the original Lannon stone walls.  They didn't do it right which is why they were buried under eroded slopes instead of holding them back.

Be on the look out for things at the curbs and alleys at this time of year. People are cleaning out their garages and yards, so the materials will be out there for the taking.  Even if you get just one season out of an old chair, it just might make a great plant stand for that urn you found over on 14th Street.  Bed rails can be a bean trellis.  Garden gates could hold up your cucumber vines.  Use discretion.  You don't want to become Fred Sanford.  

In the end...were all compost

my compost bins

I have a compost bin, well two compost bins.  They are tucked into that same corner behind the garage as my very lovely, blue rain barrels.  My husband is not fond of their appearance, either, but is fine with their presence in our yard.  He built them for me by just a description of how I would like them to be.  I can change the front boards from side to side by just sliding them up from one and down into the other.  He is a genius when it comes to making things work for me.  In return, he gets to dump the yard clippings in from the grass cutting.  I don't do grass if I don't have to.

Compost tools

My compost tools are simple.  I have a good sized wheelbarrow, a garden fork and a screen with 1/2" size or so openings (they are actually rectangles which are about 1" long).  Size doesn't really matter unless you want your composted screened fine enough to put through a lawn spreader for your turf areas.  The screen should be framed out to hold it stiff over whatever you are sifting it into.  They even sell screens that fit over 5 gallon pails so you can tote the compost wherever you need it.  Making them is cheap enough.  Once again if you don't have the tools, you can always bake the cookies. (See roll out the rain barrels if you don't get what I'm saying.)

sifting the compost

The process is quite simple for sifting out the compost.  From the side that is mostly ready, scoop out a heaping helping onto the screen.  Gently move it back and forth with the garden fork to sift out the good stuff into the wheelbarrow.  The larger leaves, food bits, and a few worms will stay at the top.  

red wigglers

Do be gentle as you want to save the worms to either head to your garden bed or go into the unfinished bin to help you make compost.  Dividing worms does not make more worms even if they are broken where they can heal.  Only one part will live so...be good to your worms.  I have a few larger crawlers in my pile but the bulk of my worm population is red wigglers.  You can buy worms but I found mine and added them to the heap years ago where they have been forming a happy community since they were introduced.

unfinished bits

Once you have all the finer, composted bits  sifted out, dump the unscreened materials into your unfinished compost.  If you only have one compost bin, just set it off to the side to put back into the bin when you are done.  A small tarp or piece of plastic will work as then you can just pick it up to dump it in when you are finished.  
Keep repeating the process until you empty your bin or you have as much compost as you need for the day's work.  The beauty of two bins is that I can do a little compost each time I need it.  My husband will add clippings into my unfinished side and I dump our kitchen scraps bucket in there as it fills.  The bucket we use is just a repurposed plastic pail with no cover.  We dump coffee and filters right in along with egg shells, vegetable and fruit scraps and all other kinds of rotten stuff.  Avoid meat and fat as it may attract rats which neighbor's will frown upon as well as the city.  (Yes, there is an ordinance against this in our fair city.)  But I digress...

finished compost

With a little bit of work, you soon have a whole wheelbarrow full of lovely, nutritious dirt and worms for your garden beds.  I am not a very dedicated fertilizer applicator.  Compost is my main fertilizer in my gardens.  They really don't need a whole lot more.  A soil test could prove me wrong, but who wants to pay to be told they're wrong.  Actually, I have normal plant growth and coloring so I don't see the need.  Now if I was trying to grow blueberries in our alkaline soils, I might be more inclined to analyze this deeper.  I am not dedicated enough to home grown blueberries for that...yet.
There are all kinds of "recipes" for the best compost.  I don't buy anything to try and make sure my bin has the right balance of brown and green.  The green comes in summer, the brown with autumn leaves and plant material.  I will add in the pea vines as they wither in the summer heat and the compost pail is emptied in at least once or twice a week. I will dump my pots into it in the fall as well as any plant clippings I take off during my greenhouse operations.  
I do mix it up very occasionally to oxygenate the pile, but I am not dedicated enough to be a religious compost pile turner.  If the weather is dry, I will add some water from the nearby rain barrels to keep the worms happy and digesting my potato peels.  Avoid too wet as worms will not like that either.  My bin has very little wood on the sides.  It is lined with 1" chicken wire to keep the stuff in, consequently it doesn't hold a lot of moisture.  I have covered it with plastic sheeting during extremely wet weather to keep it from getting totally soaked.  Purchased bins often come with a cover.  It is quick and easy but not cheap.  I priced one out several years ago at over $100.  That was not in the budget.
With a little bit of work and waste, you can start your own compost pile.  The benefits of having really good soil are worth it.

So, what's up?

I kept myself pretty busy with gardening this week.  So much is happening inside and outside the house now.  I will do a quick run-down on the seeds I have gotten in and what has sprouted so far.


Seeding


On 4/9 I seeded agastache, hollyhocks, petunias, impatiens, thunbergia, radicchio, and lettuce.  The hollyhock were up on 4/12, petunias on 4/14, radicchio 4/12, and thunbergia on 4/18.  The impatiens have also started sprouting but very spotty.  That does not make me happy.
On 4/7 I seeded some of the garden seeds. Flowering sweet peas and garden peas were both soaked 24 hours and then into the ground.  The garden peas are up as of 4/18, nothing with the flowering sweet peas yet.  I seeded more outdoors on 4/12, green onions, beets, Swiss chard, radishes.  The radishes were up by 4/18.
On 4/15 I seeded tomatoes, peppers, marigolds, asters, zinnia and nasturtiums. Tomatoes, marigolds, asters and zinnias were all up on 4/18.  
I have one more round of seeding this next week for indoor plants.  I will get the soybeans in the ground this next week along with some of the direct seeding of flowers.  I put the first round of cilantro seeds in the ground over the weekend.  Let's see if I remember to get a few seeds in every couple weeks this year.


Transplanting


This weekend I was able to transplant the earliest seeding from mid-March.  I started them before going on vacation and they had less than ideal germination without someone checking on them twice a day.  I do not hold this against my eldest as she did bring some of them through for me.  The viola germinated the best, and I was able to transplant 36 good seedlings.  Heliotrope came through with 6 plants.  We won't talk about the mammoth stock which are not living up to their name.  I also moved my coleus into larger pots so they can put on a little more growth before May garden time.

Transplanting viola seedlings

Misting in the seedlings

Transplanting coleus to larger containers

If you find a good misting head for your hose, it is a good investment for watering your new transplants.  They stand up to the watering better and are less likely to be washed out until they can put on enough growth to stand up to the regular watering heads.


Some things I have learned this spring...

• Wash all your pots and flats before winter.  It is so much easier to do this job outside than it is in the basement and it keeps the extra dirt outdoors and out of your drains.  I am finding out the hard way that I should have done this.  I have been using bleach and also some leftover pool sanitizers for this job.  Follow label recommendations for use.
• Make a seeding chart, even if it is simple.  I have done a much better job of keeping on task with seeding and transplanting because I had a schedule in my kitchen as a reminder.
• Think about numbers.  You may get 100 seeds in a pack, but if you only want 12 plants, seed only about twice that.  You will go through a lot less guilt over throwing out the ones you really don't need or cannot pass on to someone else.
• Save money on containers in several ways.  Buy containers at the end of the season when they are discounted.  I have saved many pots through the years.  I can't imagine how much I would have spent if I had to go out and purchase everything new.  Even cell packs can stand up to a few seasons of use if you treat them gently enough and clean them up for reuse.  Check with local greenhouses and nurseries if they have containers they are going to dispose of that you may be able to get for free.  Check the curbs in June.  Many people set this stuff out next to their trash in hopes that someone will come along and take it for reuse. 
• Salvage items from the curb for trellising your garden plants.  You never know what you will find for free.  Check out my pieces of orange snow fence that are going to trellis my garden peas.  I also have some curly willow stuck in the rows of sweet peas to add some interest and support.

A Garden Walk After a Nighttime Rain

Snowdrift crabapple

Lilac

Alpine strawberry

Indian Summer Crab ?

Woodland phlox

Bleeding Heart

Galianthus and Forget-me-not

Variegated Jacob's ladder

Hen and chicks with Candy tuft

More lilacs

Homemade bird bath

My garden puddle before spring clean up

Coral Bells

Astilbe

Snowdrift crabapple

Burn those weeds with the Weed Dragon Mini!

Last year for Father's Day, I bought my husband the Weed Dragon Mini. Check out the demo at http://www.weeddragon.com/   As you can see, it is fun for the whole family. My daughter is able to weed the garden beds and text her friends at the same time!  Seriously, though, it has been a good tool for cleaning up the yard.  As you can see in this picture, we have a county park on the other side of our fence.  Weed control is not in their budget so it becomes our responsibility if the weeds are not going to over-run our yard as well.  Garlic mustard has made its way to this side of the fence this year.  I went and did battle with the beast myself earlier in the day.

Creeping charlie a.k.a ground ivy is here to stay so we do our best to keep it at bay.  It has a pleasant aroma as it goes up in flames.   It takes a couple times to really knock it back, but my main goal is to keep it out of the flower and vegetable beds.  My husband does battle with it in the turf by hand pulling it for the most part.

Caution is recommended when working around flammable objects like dried leaves and weeds, wooden fences, your house, etc. It really is a great tool for the areas under our chain link fence as that hasn't caught fire once. My daughter was having fun melting last year's garden tags that I hadn't pulled out of the garden.  Keep teenagers away from garden edging as that is not something you want to replace sooner than necessary.  Keep a garden hose handy, just in case, but not too close!  You can also use it with a small propane cylinder making it very easy to maneuver.

When you are all done with the days weeding, just aim your torch at the charcoal grill.  In no time at all, those coals will be hot and the burgers will be cooking.  Bon appetit!

Onion transplants

It has been a busy weekend but I promised photos of onion transplants and since that might be on your list too, I have to share these first.  I pop the whole pot of onion seedlings out of the pot and gently pull the root ball apart so I can pull the individual onions apart.

There are two ways of setting your seedlings, one way is to dig a trench about 2 inches deep the length of your planting area. Pull the soil to one side so you can push it back over the roots as you put each onion in.

The second method is to use a digging tool to pull the soil forward, set in your seedling, and let the soil fall back in the hole over the roots of the onion.  With either method you need to gently firm the soil around the roots.

If you are doing longer rows, a straight edge of some sort will help maintain the line as you go.  I like to lay out my seedlings for each row ahead of myself so I can just move down the row planting seedlings.  I just keep repeating the process until I have all the onions in that I want.  Last year I did the onions 3"x3" apart and pulled every other one as green onions to make them 6"x6" for full growth onions.  This year I spaced them 3" apart in rows that are 6" apart.  I will still take every other onion in each row out for green onions, but the row space is set ahead of time.  I ended up using more space this way, but I wanted to try a different method to see how it affects my harvest.

I ended up with 6 rows of 25 in the 8' beds.  This will be my bed for my late lettuce crop in summer.  The anticipated afternoon rains never came, so I still had to water them in.  I was pleasantly surprised this morning by perky little onions as we did get about 1" of rain overnight.

Roll out the barrel (for rain, that is)

My rain barrels are simple.  I saved them from possibly living a life as garbage cans for greasy rags and broken parts.  They were liquid fertilizer barrels in their previous life.  Having them live out their useful days in a dusty garage seemed too cruel.  Someone had even suggested hauling them to a landfill!  It still makes me shudder.
The first barrel was my most eager attempt at capturing the water from my garage roof.  There is a spigot at the bottom.  I savaged an old brass faucet from a junk box, and not only does it work, it doesn't leak.  They don't make them like they used too... A nut and washer hold it to the inside, and on the outside, it functions just like any other faucet.  A little elevation off the ground and I was in business!

The second barrel is my quick and dirty model.  Like the first barrel I cut out the top to capture the water. This time I cut the hole as close to the edge as possible so I could use this one for filling my watering cans quickly and easily. 

The first one I had left a lip for fastening screen to the top for keeping out mosquitoes.  The second one has two layers of screen. The top one keeps out the bugs. The stiffer bottom piece of hardware cloth provides support to the finer screen and keeps out the critters.  I found out the hard way that chipmunks would be stupid enough to climb the barrel and fall in.  Not a pretty sight.  I figured I better do something stronger. The sharp edges also keeps out the neighborhood kids, which is good, as I do like most of them.  Mosquito dunks (a.k.a. Bt cake) can be floated in the barrel to also keep mosquitoes at bay and is not harmful for you or your plants.
Barrel two sits at ground level and is fed by barrel one as it overflows through the garden hose coming out as close to the top as I could get it.  I could fill both faster by having them on the opposite sides of the garage, each being filled by their own downspout.  Spouse number one is not fond of the blue barrels.  To keep peace in the house, I keep the barrels out of sight as far as possible.  They reside with the compost bin on the far side of the yard and all is well.  We don't have neighbors on that side so everyone is happy.

I am very fortunate, in rain barrel terms, to have a multi-level yard.  The barrels sit at the high side and gravity feeds the water down hill to most of my gardens.  A gardener could not ask for a better set up.  If I want to use a hose in the veggie garden, I attach it right to the rain barrel spigot and run it down hill.  The flow is just right for watering.  I can also use a pail to transfer water from barrel two to barrel one and use both barrels through the hose on barrel one.

I added a second feature to barrel two last year.  In previous years the water just over flowed the top after the barrel had filled.  Last year I took a short piece of hose with a male end that I salvaged from the bad hose pile and added an over-flow to the second barrel.  The male end is on the ground side and I was able to put a piece of soaker hose on that and transfer water to the planting area behind my garage.  It's not a perfect water transfer system, but it is better than the over-flow method.  
I put the barrels up yesterday as they are calling for a rainy weekend.  It is a good idea to keep some weight in the barrels to keep them from blowing over in a strong wind.  I put a couple gallons of water in the bottom of my empty barrels which is more than enough weight to keep them steady if we should have wind with our rain.
It is possible to go and purchase a rain barrel and be in business with the first good rain fall.  It is good to have a few tools at your disposal to shorten the downspout to barrel height.   If you construct your own from found materials, a saber saw or saws-all is helpful in cutting through the heavy plastic sides.  Larger drill bits are needed for spigot and hose over-flows.  Ask around the neighborhood if you don't have them yourself.  If you aren't good with tools, barter future veggies and flowers for the help in constructing the barrel.  Most people won't turn down homemade cookies as payment. It also helps your neighbors understand why you have that hideous thing sitting in your yard (can you believe that some people would think this???).  
You should also do a quick internet search to make sure your community doesn't have regulations or permit requirements first.  If you live in a newer subdivision, you might also have signed a covenant which will prohibit you from doing anything sensible in your own yard.  It may take some education to get changes there.
Good luck on your quest for rain water storage in your own yard.  The water has no chlorine or fluoride treatments which your plants don't like any way.  The sky is the limit on what you can accomplish!