Mad Dogs and English [Wo]men

Megan, Ann and I arrived at the old house Saturday at noon. 

We were greeted by the first bloom of the season.

We got to work right away. It took a lot of effort but we weeded the garden leaving only some garlic, onions, flowers, and what I'm pretty sure is zucchini but might be cucumber. John showed up shortly thereafter and cut the small patch of grass out back with the push mower that decided to work now that there wasn't a front lawn to cut. We threw out all the things that needed throwing out, and cleaned the whole house.

Results of the tidied-up back yard.

Final Harvest

I got sun sick and had to take some Tylenol and nap with an ice cold beanbag to get rid of the headache that was bad enough to make me queezy... but I'm glad it's done.

Back Garden

So here's the idea on this one:

The beds with a diagonal line though them indicate a change of crop in the August-to-October-ish time of year. There's two kinds on cauliflower. One planted early in the spring that ripens in the summer/fall and another we're planting in the fall to overwinter and produce very early next spring. 

As you know from This Post , the garlic is already in bed 4 and should be ready in summer/fall. Bed 9 was WAY too wet for the carrots, onions and tomatoes planted there last year because of the rain barrel run off flooding it off and on. This year we're using it as a pollinator attractor and moving the hosta from the front garden where it got sun burned to this less exposed spot. The zuchini we're planting isn't the standard vine. It's called Ambassador and actually grows up on a central stalk.

Close ups of the beds:

Beds 1 and 3

Beds 5 and 7

Beds 2 and 4

Beds 6 and 8

Bed 9

What do you think?

Jack Frost is a Busy Guy

Winter's definitely here. There's icicles, snow, and freezing winds.

Down spout icicle

I removed the paper and sticks. The garlic bed looks a little drier than the others because it had that layer of "protection" from the early morning frosts and such but it's not overly dry. It'll be interesting to see how much we can get from this one bed.

Garlic hibernation.

Evil White Stuff

Seems the snow is starting even though winter is still officially about a month away. Going to get the newspapers and sticks up before they get buried under a few inches.

Sheilds Have Been Breached!

Looks like the squirrels got curious. Damn. I don't think any of the garlic was disturbed though so that's good. Fingers crossed that because they didn't find anything they'll leave it alone now.

Squirrel? Cat? or Raccoon?

Sheilds are Holding Cap'n

Made of nothing but a layer of newspaper and a few sticks to keep it from blowing away, the squirrel shield seems to be holding! It's been at least 18 hours now and no signs of trouble. Knock on wood but I think this just might work!

What do you use for critter protection?

GARLIC!

Got the garlic planted today. Good thing too because the ground is bound to start freezing soon. I planted twelve blocks of nine so 108 all together.

Sorting/Counting on the table.

Each set had some old(sprouted) and some new.

Newspaper and sticks laid over the bed to discourage scavengers.

Hopefully my plan to cover the bed for a week or so with newspapers(and sticks so they don't blow away) will keep the squirrels from digging it up. I know they're not digging by smell or they'd know they don't want to eat the garlic before they dig it up. If this doesn't work... I don't know what we'll do next year... chicken wire?

Garlic Harvest

The tops of the garlic didn't really flower, it... budded.

 They look like little cloves and I'm going to plant them this fall.

These are the four garlic heads from the front of the house.

They're VERY dirty and don't seem to want to come clean. 

I may have left them in too long because the stems came right out of the center.

Small head gave 4 cloves once peeled.

They smelled and tasted delicious. A bit more "fresh" or "green" tasting than I'm used to with store stuff but this was store stock so... *shrug*.

Lovely Afternoon

Out is the garden, weeding and tidying:

These are radishes,

and these are garlic.

As I was digging a worm just kinda popped up nearby and started squirming away.

Run-away worm!

Closer view.

When the weeding was done I started to tackle the piles of sticks, papers, rocks all over the grassy area.

Too much stuff is/was on the grass making naked dirt.

Hopefully it'll green up again easily

Raked, watered, seeded.

And that was my afternoon. How's your garden coming along?

Spring Has Sprung (pic-splosion)

Neighbor's Crocuses

Someone's Daffodils

First Seeds in the Garden

The lighter spots are vermiculite in the seed holes to maintain a nice moisture level.

It's still technically winter.

Bulbs Front and Center

Seems the front garden's doing well with me ignoring it.

Edging Complete!

Beautiful border around the garden. 

 There's a weird little corner here, but I 

finished what I started two weeks ago.

Figure I'll mark off all the beds tomorrow, put down walk ways, and get some of the garlic in for an early start.

Ran Out of Light, and Now Rain.

Yesterday I woke to find:

Friday night we had visitors.

And the neighbours had visitors of the human kind.

I reburied the scraps. Everything they've pulled out has been from when I cleaned the slimy stuff out of the fridge and I haven't seen any bite marks. I'm hoping that finding inedible stuff is teaching the critters to leave the pile be... if not it's a squirrel buffet and as long as they don't spread it too far I don't care. :)

Busy, Busy Friday

This morning has been fairly full of ideas, plans, purchases, revelations, etc.

When I was scooping the kitty-litter this morning(it's the very first thing I do every morning, even before putting the kettle on) I topped of the box with the last of the litter from the container and realized.... the empty containers would be perfect for indoor planters.

Look at the perfection. I could fit carrots in there.

And this window is far to perfect to go to waste

Things Are Growing!

Remember how just yesterday I said I hoped the garlic was growing roots? Well...

The Garlic is Levitating

Well, for lack of a better term. What would you call garlic rising out of it's bed?

I knew I should have had it exorcised first.

I'm gonna get some more soil and top it off so the poor cloves don't catch cold... but I hope this means they're growing roots. :)

My Empire of Dirt Begins!

Without proper seed starting medium (or seeds for that mater) I still wanted to plant SOMETHING... but what could I do that wouldn't get dug under when we set up the beds in the spring... then I thought GARLIC!

There's cloves of garlic in there waiting to sprout, I swear it.

So the idea is I'll get them to sprout then move them out to the front garden(where we're gonna do flowers & herbs anyway) to winter in the ground so they can grow early and well next spring.

Do any of you over-winter anything?