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Sunday, March 02, 2025

Our second spell of rain in a week; The covering of snow is gone, excepting for the areas of drift in the corners and sheltered spaces.

The front lawn this morning. Hard to see in this reduced image, but the NE corner of the gooseberry patch is sporting greenery. This surely can’t be my first dandelions, can it?

Some globs of wet ice sit atop the western daffodil bed.

The eastern, smaller lawn, is almost clear. Only the town council berm remains.

The SW corner of the back yard still has its drifts.

Check out the lake in the foreground. The soil is sodden from this thaw, but this time tomorrow the water will have drained away. The mounds of the three in-bed compost bins are now exposed to the air again.

Friday, March 07, 2025

I have found a dandelion plant from last year. The snow is still melting so this plant has survived being buried under snow. It is far too big to have germinated this year, indeed, today only we flirted with 8c, an we are already back to 1c.

Still and all it feels good to se the dandelions again, even if they are from last year.

Saturday, March 08, 2025

Spring can be said to be here! For the first time since snow fell, this morning the ground is clear below the meter!

Sunday, March 09, 2025

Two centimeters of snow overnight. One sweep with the shovel and the bitumen is bared to absorb energetic photons.

It’s called The Landfall Garden House for a reason; over winter the indoor plants come, well, indoors. This morning I noticed that one of my geranium tubs is sporting what looks like a daffodil plant that seems to have responded to the lengthening of the daylight hours.

Sunday, March 09, 2025

This is by far the earliest I have seen daffodil shoots - mid-March. Typically mid-May for us, in flower in June for a month.

Kerry's daffodils are pushing through, too.

I am amused because David expresses surprise as in "A Miracle!" but daffodils are a no-brainer; put them and walk away; no need to do anything again, ever!

This western bed was gouged out to 21" deep but I didn't get finished on the sieving and refilling, so the bulbs are in a shallow trench.

I got lucky with a very mild winter.

Hallelujah!

Thursday, March 13, 2025

We have received snow overnight in dribs and drabs. Looks like 5 cm all up. I shall run the shovel down the driveway.

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Overnight the warm air melted most of the snow; a half-dozen patches remain where snow was banked.

In the western bed the daffodils show me once again that they are survivors.

Even the pop-up bulbs that appear to have been forced up out of the ground have survived and are boldly pushing up the initial leaves.

Thursday, March 20, 2025

Started spring seeding. Today four #44 Basil seeds in a yoghurt pot, covered with a paper towel. #18 Dandelion in a small plastic cookie tray.

Friday, March 21, 2025

I think that these are tulips poking through in the eastern bed.

And these, I suspect, are gypsy garlic from last year. The leaf shoots are too long for daffodils at this time.

I spent 45 minutes making a dent in the shed, mainly on the bench.

Tomorrow I will fill that top shelf.

I need to split containers into “parts” and “Tools” or something like that.

The forecast is 12c with a few showers or drizzle; perfect day for working in the shed AND burning off scrap timber in the raised bed.

Bulbs: I can use the various kitchen sinks as nursery beds for bulbs. They will mark clearly the boundaries, can be levered out of the ground for harvesting, …

Saturday, March 22, 2025

I used the shovel to see how deep the ground had thawed. About four inches! A small Jerusalem Artichoke stalk from last year gave ME 12 ounces in four rubbers, One tuber is slightly rotten and was perhaps cut in half late last year when I was showing JAs to a visitor. I shall make an artichoke stew tomorrow, and perhaps some pies.

Sunday, March 23, 2025

By 10 a.m. the sky is blue, the sun shines, but the wind seems a trifle too gusty for a safe fire. On the other hand the ground is still wet, so I might still light a bonfire on the raised bed and dispose of a hill of wood scraps, making space in front of my garden tools. This after I have set outside the stone-fruit seeds in labeled pots.

The first rhubarb has sprouted in the original western bed. Good. I have some rhubarb.

I had transplanted four clumps last year but neglected to mark them. I do not want to rotary-hoe them under. So I have raked off the leaves from their area to give me a chance of spotting them some time, I hope, next week.

Note that those bins of grass clippings have reduced to about three inches of soil, or one-twelfth their original volume.

This year I might count the volume or and/or mass of clippings going in, and the volume and/or mass of soil coming ou1 Management Measures!.

Kerry’s daffodils are now forming real leaves.

In the afternoon I loaded seven tins with Plum kernels, and five tins with Nectarine kernels, all labeled “25/3”

This is the boundary between the two sets of tins. Tomorrow Peaches!

These are tins I loaded with soil last fall and the loose soil has settled during the winter. Of course I needed to top up the soil before impressing the kernels. I think that I would have been better served had I topped up and pressed in the kernels BEFORE snowfall; if nothing else the kernels might not have dried out by being stored in empty coffee cups exposed to the dry air. That said, seeds ARE survivors. Let’s wait and see.

Monday, March 24, 2025

I dropped a dozen capsicum seeds into a pot. And covered them with soil after I had taken this photo.

Sunday, March 30, 2025

I have fallen behind in my seeds-per-day, but this afternoon set out some of Matt’s “Canada Mint” in a circular bowl that was taking up space in my kitchen.

Monday, April 07, 2025

The daffodil plants in the western bed are beginning to resemble daffodil plants. Some tulips are pushing up and out.

The Eastern bed sports dozens of tulips, but so far, not a single daffodil. Odd!

The sole rhubarb plant has disappeared under its bed of snow. Fingers Crossed.

The raised bed is showing what I suspect are last year’s dandelions that didn’t grow enough to be harvested. Perhaps within a week I can stop sprouting mung beans and return to dandelion greens.

A brilliant scarlet sunset last night. My phone camera settings don’t do it justice.

Tuesday, April 08, 2025

TaDa! The first crocus, and when I examine the photo, what look more crocus shoots to the right. Hooray!

Wednesday, April 09, 2025

Hooray! The first flock of birds! I don’t know what they are, but I think of them as starlings , but I am no biologists.

My Little Brown Birds flock suddenly from somewhere, congregate by hundreds on a patch of lawn or ground, peck rapidly, and with the attention-span of a teenager, are gone away in two minutes.

In the foreground a solitary bird is pecking at the ground; in the background a few stragglers are clustered around a piece of lawn furniture. My arm movement seems to have frightened most of them away.

They will return and cluster on my 20-foor square raised bed in the back yard.

Thursday, April 10, 2025

A good image of my finger. It has not grown at all since the last time I took a photo of it. The daffodils have continued to pluck up courage for a burst of leaves – any day now!

The strawberry plants are visible, mainly because I used a gentle leaf-rake to remove some debris which I had left over winter to be a natural covering.

In other parts of this eastern bed I found myself raking away what looked like dead daffodil leaves, but today I see no sign of daffodil shoots. Odd!

Today should be a good day for a half-hour potter around the yard,

Friday, April 11, 2025

I hung out laundry for the first time this year; to date laundry has been hung in the shed.

My clothes-line bucket was spilt open this winter by the frost, after three or four years outside. Perhaps the sun weakened the plastic.

All but two inches of water drained out as the temperature rose and the ice melted.

The pail is hooked to the washing line which runs around a small pulley fastened to the shed wall.

I have hung out a small load of washing and the shirts drag on the ground. That pail is still empty.

Minutes later I have half-filled the pail from a water source and the line his tightened. The shirts do not drag on the ground. We can see the white chair with my blue laundry basket.

When the pail is full (which it will be after the next rainfall runs off the shed roof), the washing-line is taught even after I have hung bed sheets and towels at the far end, and other clothing all along the line.

Which leads to a little joke; visitors ask me about the pail, so I explain that sitting at my office desk I can see the pail rise up the shed wall as water evaporates from the washing and the load on the line lightens. Astonishment reigns; by golly this is a clever man!

Saturday, April 12, 2025

Today I would like to make space in the study to store the electronic equipment; it is time to sit on the couch again!

My main bed of crocus. These must be identified with coloured stakes ready for transplanting as soon as the blooms die; that means preparation of a crocus bed in my flower patch in the raised bed, and that means rotary-hoeing the raised bed, and that means extracting the sticks from David's sawdust.

Dead centre of the image, a lilac-coloured crocus.

Another purple at the foot of the rockery.

A shy bed of crocus leaves by the foot of this aspen tree.

More promises!

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Today I will sieve soil into seed-trays. I might array 24 trays under the screen and identify the fall in a quantitative manner.

I have tossed one shovel of trench debris onto the rack and already the pattern appears.

Of course this was always visible in analogue form as a cone or hill of sieved material. Using seed trays

(a) Saves me shoveling sieved soil into the trays and

(b) Formally quantifies the distribution. When the first tray is full, I can mark that spot in some way that will maximize a rate-of-fill in the future.

Never under-estimate the power of life. I have broken open the pile of compacted debris that I failed to sieve at the end of last year. I have harvested a dozen small bulbs so far, possibly crocuses but probably daffodils.

I will replant these bulbs in the western trench.

I burnt off a lot of the stick-and-bark material from David’s sawdust pile, bought two coils of cord to mock-up my pulleys for the tree-pulling, sieved some soil, filled a half-dozen seed trays, … A day of general pottering around the yard.

Monday, April 14, 2025

Thoughts on the crocus: last year I waited until the bloom display ended before transplanting, and so could not identify the blooms. I am loath to tie ribbons around each plant. I think that bloom-time is the time to transplant the bulbs into coloured plots in the raised bed. Then next fall I can make a display bed in the driveway.

This is time to plant out my Iris and Tiger Lily, yes?

After another ten minutes of shoveling I have several trays of soil; then came the rain …

But not before I’d started another layer of trays.

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

From two years ago.

I will claim that this patch of dandelions has benefited from the crude glass panes. Next week?

This patch of crocus are mainly purple. I might leave them in pace marked by a frame, and harvest them in the fall, but I could dig out the non-purple today and set them up in the raised bed.

Thursday, April 17, 2025

My trial of placing a pane over where I left rhubarb last year has worked? Or has it? Whatever, I now have one of my transplanted and one left in place, which augurs well.

The dandelions under-pane appear to be at the same pace as those outside the edge. Any day now …

Friday, April 18, 2025

I set out the first four of fifty seed trays; I made the trays late last year and sieved the soil last weekend. The next few days of rain will settle the soil and leave it compact enough for seeding.

Five tubs containing desiccated Iris clumps stored in the laundry over winter, and a tray of tiger-lily in between, The five small tubs of strawberry seedlings.

The patch at the upper end of the eastern bed.

The patch where the new Book Bin is to go.

Some of my crocus survive in the rockery. This is what I had hoped for four years ago.

A small clump of lilac crocus.

Another small clump of lilac crocus. Does the number of blooms correspond to the number of future bulbs?

Saturday, April 19, 2025

Apple puree day; I set out thirteen cans of apple cores, each labeled, but only one labeled “Apple”

Sunday, April 20, 2025

A tray of apple cores of various species from yesterdays apple puree exercise. To the right are five small tubs of strawberries that I can give away this year.

Monday, April 21, 2025

Sigh! Strong winds up to 100 KM/h predicated for this afternoon. Also snow and rain. Sigh

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Another day, another planting. This morning four more Grapefruit pips, with more to come tomorrow, I suspect. I placed rocks against the labels. I was too lazy to tip out the soil and fold the tags underneath.

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

The first daffodil buds are appeared. These are fatter than the yellow-tips on the leaves. Flowers next week?

The rockery shows more signs of what I had expected. Perhaps I will have a second shot at loading it this fall.

A pile of soil has accumulated at the foot of the screen. I shovel it back to the top and extract another half-foot of soil in the process. The scree will be barrowed over to David’s swamp tomorrow, weather permitting.

Friday, April 25, 2025

One hyacinth has sprouted. I was lax in cataloguing and storing bulbs from last year. I may still have bulbs in the shed. If I find them this weekend I will plant them – on spec.

Saturday, April 26, 2025

Kerry’s daffodils are already in bloom. I wonder how Sandra’s are getting on.

I readied the raised bed for tilling. This is the top of the three in-bed bins. About two inches of thatch, and underneath, richs soil.

I need merely lift the panes off the rest, remove my “wooden toolboc incinerator” and I can start tilling next week.