Ladybug Eggs

Despite the fantastic weather, I haven't made much time to work in my garden -- but my seven-year-old son found these ladybug eggs on our Japanese maple tree.

Cleaning up the Crabapple Tree

We had 4 glorious days of sunny summer weather over the weekend and I didn't even spend 15 minutes in the garden.  I was too busy with other things.  Well, the clouds have returned but I finally have time for my garden.  I got lucky to find a sunny patch of the day to tackle a needed pruning of my crabapple tree.

An arborist told me I could invigorate the elderly ornamental in its battle against moss by removing the base sprouts often.  You can see that I waited a while between prunings this time as some of the stems are nearly three feet tall.

Before I got started on the tree itself, I pulled out all the miscellaneous weeds at its base.  There was a lot of dandelion and the weed below.  I don't know its name.

Then I got to business clipping of the sprout stems as close to their origins as possible.  If you clip them too high, they host multiple new sprouts in a few weeks.

To get this done in 15 minutes, I had to work at a fast pace.  It was a bit like Boot Camp but it didn't last as long.  I must say I am looking forward to when I can spend some leisurely time in the yard.  But that wasn't today.  In the end I had a bucket of weeds and a pile of stems for the yard waste bin.

 And a spruced up tree for spring.

Making Quick Work of Weeds

One way to make quick work of weeds is to identify and target problem areas and ignore the rest (they will become the problem on another day.)

That is what I did yesterday while pruning the wildflower bed that lines the fence at the edge of my property.  I clipped stalks and took note of unruly plants that might be trouble in the bed.

Another step in making quick work of weeding, especially if you have limited experience like myself, is to verify that what you see is what you think it is.  Which is also something I did yesterday.  I clipped with my shears and snapped pics with my phone.  And later when I had a few minutes, I sent the pictures off to Seattle Tilth's garden hotline.

And they got back to me.

Nothing I photographed was actually a weed.  My weeding project over and done without a minute in the garden.  

And now I can look forward to the following lovelies blooming over the next few weeks:

Arabis is a spring bloomer and a common plant in rockeries.  I was worried it would overtake my daisies but it turns out Arabis could be an ally instead.

Forget-me-knot is a weed to some, an wildflower to others.  If it gets too aggressive, I can pull it before it goes to seed to make room for other plants.

Columbine is a wildflower -- the reason I planted the bed.  I mistook it for a geranium and worried over whether it was the good or bad kind.  The smothering kind grows in my strawberries -- I will have to take a closer look so I can distinguish the two.  I can look forward to it blooming this spring and summer.

I am back....

I changed the name of the blog to reflect the true nature of my efforts.  So much is keeping me so busy -- but I don't want to give my gardening up.

Today I sent myself outside for just 5 minutes to clean up my "weed bed."  I took down all the tall stalks from last year's wildflowers now that new growth is emerging.  After a mild winter there are enough things blooming elsewhere for birds to feed on -- so I can go back to pleasing my neighbors....

My five minutes took a half hour and gave me a sense of accomplishment.  Tomorrow's yard waste bin will go out full.

I also have a few things to add to my list of things to do:

1. Slug and snail management.  I found at least 10 and I wasn't even looking! I figure now is the time to thin the population so that in a couple of months the strawberries on the other side of the fence won't face incoming hordes.
2. Weed management.  Basically I have to re-educate myself on what is a weed and what is a wildflower.  Technically, the wildflower is the wanted one.  I just can't remember which plants are garden pests.  Now that the ground has turned green with sprouts, I should figure out which plants are on my eviction list so I can get them out before they get big, or heavens forbid, flower.
3. Edible seeding.  I need to get started.  Nature isn't waiting, so neither should I....

Now, which will get my efforts when I find another 15 minutes of free time?  Stay tuned and find out.

Cutting my loses

Yesterday I reduced my tomato crop by 1/4 (I only have 8 plants so I took 2 out.)  They hadn't produced any fruit yet (not even the green kind.)  I figured they couldn't produce fruit in what remains of the season and were only sucking up precious resources from the containers they were planted in.  Hopefully the existing green tomatoes will ripen soon.

Today I hope to thin out my squashes for the same reason -- better to get some crop with fewer than no crop with many. 

My garden has been largely overlooked lately.  It has lost the fight against young kids, camps, camping, and houseguests.  But as little as I have been able to put into it (or harvest from it), it still offers some great rewards.  Like whenever I look out my kitchen window and "catch" the kids snacking on strawberries.  Although I got very ambitious about my garden for a bit and later disheartened that I didn't come close to reaching my vision, getting to watch my kids forage is a pretty great reward in itself.

Making sad tomatoes happy again

It has been a tough few weeks in my garden.  Mostly I haven't found a lot of time to be there.  It's funny how gardening has become like exercise -- you forget how much you enjoy it until get a chance to do it again....

Lately my garden has me worried because everything seems to be growing behind schedule (and what else can you expect in a cool summer.)  I was particularly worried about my tomatoes above.  I thought they caugh tomato blight because the leaves were drooping and yellowing.  I started removing damaged leaves and contacted the hotline at Seattle Tilth for confirmation.  They surprised me by writing back that they thought it might be an iron deficiency due to an inability to take up water.  (The darkened veins and the yellowing from the edge inward led to the diagnosis.)  Well, it sounds like a more optimistic prognosis to me!

So today I finally got back into the garden.  As they recommended, I added an inch of compost to my pot (mushroom compost was what I had handy.)  I sprayed the leaves with kelp water to fertilize.  And I added coffee to the soil.  Seattle Tilth recommended adding coffee grounds -- but all I had was some unused, unwanted ground coffee.  Hopefully, the plants will make a great turn around and I will see no more yellow leaves while the fruit ripens.

Good bugs

And thank goodness, because I left these two alone....  These soldier beetles eat soft-bodied insects including aphids, catapillars, and slugs -- all known to frequent my garden.  I am glad to see some soldier beetles consider my raised bed home.