Where did she go?

Being spring and high planting season, I should be posting like a mad woman now.  I do have several seeds in the trays and have been transplanting things as they are ready.  There are a few things that didn't get done as soon as I wanted but I have kept up o.k. so far. 

Today will be a busy day in the garden as the onions need to get in as well as the pak choi and cabbage plants that are ready.  It is also high time that I soak my peas and get those going as well.  

The weather has been cool with some night below freezing yet which has kept me from accomplishing as much as I normally would.  Life has also taken an interesting turn.  Besides a second knee replacement (on the same knee just two years later) for my husband, work has gotten interesting in a chaotic sort of way.  I have been working at my present job for almost 4 years.  When I took the job it was my dream job.  I was working with the citizens of the city and the Department of Forestry to balance the wants of the citizen with the resources of Forestry.  I was a customer service rep in the most basic terms.  The challenge was just what I needed.  Things turned quickly with the new Wisconsin anti-labor laws and economic hardships brought on by the foreclosure crisis.  I became a code enforcement supervisor and city properties manager as a result.  I never left my job, my job left me.  

Prior to what I do now, I spent 19 and a half years working in the City of Milwaukee Nursery and Greenhouses.  It was a great job, but very physically demanding.  I experienced burnout and my body was needing a break.  Times and circumstances have changed and I now find myself finding a new career challenge.  I will be returning to the nursery and greenhouse to try to accomplish the task of carrying out the spring season with the exit of the present manager and crew leader.  I don't know yet where this is all going, but the city has a very capable work force that was under utilized.  I will miss the capabilities that the crew leader brought to the table, but she has been offered a job that she just can't refuse.  It is unfortunate that she will not be there to finish what she started.  The rest of us will have to pick up and press forward to salvage what we can as a team.  I am fortunate to have the support of the other managers and staff to see this happen.

I may not be updating my planting progress much this spring, but I will continue to do what I love.  Stay tuned to find out how this all turns out.  In the meantime, keep us all in your thoughts and prayers as we move forward to accomplish the task.

My last Arbor Day program after a very good day on the job.

A very wet weekend, cold is back for now

After a week of such fine weather, we were hit with precipitation most of the weekend.  Lots of precipitation in the form of rain.  The temperatures stayed mild which made being in the yard a pleasure when it was dry.
I have a few wooden garden items needing staining, so those I pulled into the garage to keep them dry.  If I can't work in the yard on my vacation, I will get something done.  The pots and flats that were stacked on my mobile plant rack had to find a place on the garage shelves instead.  Spring will come, and I am going to be ready for it!
I wandered down into the vegetable garden and decided to pull out the strawberry boxes and pots of perennial daisies that were heeled in.  I let them sit out and collect rain for the weekend.  The strawberries needed some cleaning out of dead foliage also.  The forecast for the week is cold, sometimes below freezing, so I provided some cover between the raised beds to hold them for a little while longer.  The planter box that I keep them in is one of my staining projects, so a home in the vegetable garden is suitable for now.  Taking the boxes out of their winter bed allowed me to prep one raised bed for spring planting.  I had just put down and secured the edges of the plastic cover when the first rain drops started falling.  There is one 4 x 8 foot spot in my yard that didn't get a total wash out this weekend.
I located my parsnips that I overwintered in the ground by the tiny green shoots poking up through the dirt.  I dug those out and cleaned them up, so this would make them (technically) my first harvest of 2014!  I also put some frost cover over the few plants that made it through the winter.  I was very disappointed to find that the two baby cabbage that made it through the winter were dug out by squirrels rooting around for hidden nuts.  My yard has divots in every garden bed from their spring time digging.  I have new seedlings in the basement for red cabbage and baby pak choi.  The Brisk Green pak choi and spring seeded baby cabbage is well on its way to being ready for spring planting along with my Alisa Craig onions as soon as the weather allows.  I seeded all my peppers on Sunday and the tomatillos as well.  I am going to give them a little more time than the tomatoes this year, hopefully give them just a little more growth before June planting.

Alisa Craig onions, Baby cabbage, Brisk Green pak choi

The weather men have cold and snow in the forecast for today.  They have promised that it will not stick.  Several of the local rivers, including parts of the Milwaukee River, are at flood stage.  I consider myself lucky to still have hope for getting in the garden soon.

Hardening off the early plants

It is that time of year.  Time to start putting out those early plants to get them ready for the brutality of life in the garden.  Some of the things I will do an early start on are onions, lettuce, spinach, kale, cabbage... the cold weather crops.  You can start them indoors like I do with onion seeds for my storage onions, or start them in the ground like I do for green onions and peas.
If you start plants indoors they have the best of growing conditions.  Perfect water, perfect light...the good life.  Outdoors it is windy and cold.  The full sun is more than they are used to.  Taking plants out means doing it in slow steps.  First days are just for a few hours, out of the wind, indirect light.  Lengthen the time out, increase the light exposure, get them used to the breezes then bring them back in at night.  If you have an unexpected snow storm or cold snap into the teens and 20's, keep them in.  Within a couple of weeks they are spending the whole day outside from sun up to sun down.  The leaves feel thicker, stronger than the tender plants you started with.
The cold tolerant plants will be ready for planting out in the garden as long as the soil is workable.  If you have to chip away the ice, it's too early.  If the soil feels like a wet sponge, it's too early.  It should turn easily and hold together without water dripping out when you squeeze it in your hand.  You can use floating row covers to add some protection or a heavier frost cover if some colder weather sets in after planting.  It is surprising what cold weather crops can handle.  They are not talking very favorable conditions for my planned planting on Easter weekend, but I am going to start making my plans anyway.

A very garden weekend

I think we have finally turned the corner with the weather in Milwaukee.  We had snow flurries in the air on Friday night, which we pretended didn't exist as we were driving home in it.  Saturday morning dawned beautifully and the day was sunny and warmer.  It was an especially beautiful morning as I had been looking forward to a woody plants grafting class.  I won't go into great detail about the whole process as it has so many fine points.  I enjoyed the instructor, Michael Yanny very much.  I have heard him speak at other events, so I knew that it would be a quality class.  It also came very highly praised by other friends who did it last spring.  We got individualized instruction with just four people in each session.  He checked our technique and work to guide us through.  Time will tell how successfully we joined two plants together.  I will be purchasing The Grafter's Handbook by R.J. Garner.  We all went home with six pots that we grafted ourselves.  I was partial to the antique apple varieties we had to choose from.  I also did a lilac, amur cork tree, and witch hazel.

 Plants have started popping after a spring rain (Wednesday/Thursday) and a bit of following sun.  I can see the rhubarb poking through.  The dwarf iris are now blooming along side the snow drops.  I covered over a few things in the vegetable garden with straw in November.  I pulled that off on Saturday afternoon and can see some Swiss chard, kale, radicchio, and I think the late planted baby cabbage plants made it as well.  

 

     

It was the official first day of line-dried clothes day today.  I have been putting out sheets and light weight t-shirts most of the winter, but today was an all out, fill up the lines wash day.  Everything dried on the lines without laying them around on chair backs, so that is what makes it the official first day.  I watched birds coming and going the past couple days which we haven't seen since last fall.  Turkey vultures circled the neighborhood while I stood watch over the grill. It was just such a fine day to be outdoors.

I didn't spend as much time outside as I would have liked today.  Between loads of laundry, I was busy making more cutting of coleus, geraniums, and ibosa vine.  I cleaned out some of the old stock plants to make way for more seeding.  The coleus from the last cutting was well rooted and was put into cell packs for spring planting.  I saved a few stock plants in larger pots, back up for failed cuttings and possible starters in the garden.  I seeded my Tidal Wave Petunias and Purple Tower Petunias as they have 8-10 week start time.  I also put in some Red Acre cabbage and Bonsai Pak Choi for early planting out later.  I already have the Brisk Green Pak Choi and the Baby cabbage ready to go.  I set the plants out with my onion seedlings for a few hours today for hardening off.  There is only two weeks until Easter which is my goal for planting them all.  Welcome back, Spring!

Spring Clean Up in the Garden

The garden after spring cleaning

With a pruner and pocket and rake in hand I made my way into the garden Sunday afternoon.  It was a beautiful day in Milwaukee!  It was warm (50's) and dry with a light breeze.  The first real day of spring weather.
I got out early enough this year to prune back some of my woody perennials.  The lavender and sage were both in need of some cleaning out and sheering back this year.  No new growth yet, so I gave them both a much needed pruning.  I also cleaned out some of the dead stems of the perennials in the rain garden as I raked through section by section.  I found lots of maple seeds and horse chestnuts had gotten in among the ground covers.  I would much rather rake out seeds than to pull out rooted seedlings one by one.
The ground is still frozen so the bulbs have not popped out yet with the exception of the snow drops.  I look forward to their bloom this year without all the debris to pick out around their tender stems.
The snow cover we got this winter seems to have done a good job of insulating some of the more tender plants.  I did some moving around last fall and these plants also seem to have come through well.  I hope it didn't protect the nasty bugs as well as the plants, but I bet they enjoyed the snow blanket also.
Get out there soon and clean out the garden beds before the thaw comes and the rains turn the soil to mud.  I know I am ready for spring!

Snowdrops

Pruning trees

Many people do not realize that winter is an excellent time to prune trees.  I had a crab apple that was getting too close to the front of the house and a Ginko that hadn't been pruned since it was planted over a decade ago.  The Ginko had been very stunted by poor soil conditions in the nursery and hadn't grown much before or the first few years after planting.  A bit of compost and better drainage finally helped it take off.  The poor Ginko was over-run by a weedy mulberry and half of it didn't develop because of shading on the south side of the tree.  I gave it a year to recover and find the light before climbing up there tonight and giving it balance.  So much of the tree was over the yard and all the energy was heading north and west.  I watched it this summer and determined what was going to need work come winter.
After a little bit of ground work of deciding what should stay and what should go, I climbed up into the tree with my ARS saw and Felco pruner.  These are two of the best pruning tools I have ever owned professionally and for home.  My goal was to get a central leader going in the tree again and provide balance to the long shaded crown.

Starting from the top of the picture, I established a new leader on the tree.  I noted this summer what was dead up there and what my best option was to go with. The next several cuts were to remove branches where multiple branches were coming from the same point on the trunk.  I was also choosing to remove branches that were reaching up to my new leader and competing with it for top position in the crown.  The third type of cuts I made were to head back some of the other competing branches that were somewhat smaller but also competing.  There were too many branches to remove completely for competition reasons, so heading them back to an outward bound side branch will buy me some time while the tree reestablishes the new central leader.  The lowest cuts were to provide clearance over the shed.  I also cut off any inner branches growing straight up into the tree and crossing with other branches.

When I was done, you can now look up into the tree and see that the branches now balance out over the entire circumference of the trunk.  Number one was my heading cut to establish a new leader.  2 and 4 are cuts to remove the excess number of branches originating for the same point. (#2 is a cut which I should have taken back a bit more to reduce the stub effect you can see).  #3 is a heading cut which is on a side branch to keep it from competing with my new leader.  #5 is the cut which raised the lowest branch up from the shed.
Ginko trees tend to have more branches at a whorl (a point at the same height on the trunk, think Christmas trees) so eliminating the multiple branch cluster is not the ultimate goal.  Directional pruning to encourage outward growth is a plus with them as they can have kind of twisted branches which want to head up through the center.  Get to know your trees by species so you know what to expect when pruning.  


Here is the best diagram you can have to understand the proper pruning cuts.  Doing a 3 step cut will help keep you from tearing bark down the trunk when taking off heavier branches.  It is a good practice for ones you may also consider small branches.  Never make flush cuts!  These will not heal well because you have removed the branch collar which helps the branch cut close over the pruning wound.  Study up on pruning before you take the saw outdoors and start hacking away.  

Coutesy of West Texas Forestry Council

I will end the Pruning 101 session here as there can be more said than time allows.  I am a gardener, but I am an Urban Forester first.  If you are not up to pruning your own trees or don't have the equipment to do it, hire a trained arborist.  There are plenty of people with a chain saw and truck that can give you a bid on pruning.  It is the trained arborist that will know what needs to be done and the best way to do it.  Certified arborist can be found through the International Society of Arboriculture.  One job you should NEVER do on your own is anything around electrical wires including cable and phone.  Always call your local power company first.

Nature's fertilizer

The rabbits leave my flowering kale alone all summer and fall (it was suggested that they cannot digest highly cruciferous vegetation).  Once the weather gets deathly cold and the plants have been frozen for a couple months, they start to nibble away at them.  This spring I will have a flower bed full of rabbit droppings to turn in as the kale filled this bed last fall.  I hope rabbit droppings are good for tomato plants headed here this summer.

A quick Google search and I have my answer.  Rabbit manure is good in the garden.  How nice to have a tool that my grandmother never even dreamed of while she did her own farm garden.  Although, I bet grandma could have told me that from experience.

Grandma in her rocking chair in the old log house-thanks to my cousin, Lynn for sharing!