CANADIAN REGION: What are you doing in April 2016?

Finally a beautiful, warm, sunny weekend in Ottawa. I spent most of it outside. And several hours in my garden. Cleaning it up, pulling the odd weed etc. No sign of the asparagus in my SFG though. Not sure if it made it through the winter. The parsley also seems to have decided not to survive. Luckily new seedlings are already started. I managed to get rid of the few bushes on prime garden real estate a lot easier easier I thought. And compost is warming up- and h beautiful soil coming out t bottom. Yay!

Kelejan wrote:

sanderson wrote:

Kelejan wrote:What I like about being retired is that often I can change my itinerary at a moment's notice

Itinerary?

Yes, the direction of travel I take through my life.i,e, gardening, shopping, walking, housework etc. When it rains, then eating, sleeping, catching up on paperwork, reading, housework, shopping, walking, gardening.

I OFFICIALLY LOVE THIS

Mimi2 wrote:Finally a beautiful, warm, sunny weekend in Ottawa. I spent most of it outside. And several hours in my garden. Cleaning it up, pulling the odd weed etc. No sign of the asparagus in my SFG though. Not sure if it made it through the winter. The parsley also seems to have decided not to survive. Luckily new seedlings are already started. I managed to get rid of the few bushes on prime garden real estate a lot easier easier I thought. And compost is warming up- and h beautiful soil coming out t bottom. Yay!

All's right with your world, then.

My world is pretty good, too.  Up early and finished  dealing with the larger pile of wood chips and all placed in the garden where I wanted them.  Now only the relatively smaller pile to finish off and barring distractions, another two mornings labour.  Two hours each sesson as I don't need to over do the activity.  After two hours I go on to do something else that is less demanding.

Now of course the grass needs cutting and we are approaching the time of year that I cut it two to three times per week. When June arrives then it is weekly.

My tulips are in full bloom but with the  heat we are having at the moment I fear that their display will be short-lived. Only yesterday they were tight buds but today the flower-heads were open wide.  I wonder if I should have tried to shade them?

Nice description of your garden and the work you are doing Kelejan! My tulip leaves are up, but no flowers yet. We have a tulip festival in Ottawa every May. It is so beautiful! I love flowers and veggies. Sometimes I feel so conflicted

Today was another beautiful day. Started work at 7:00am still shifting wood chips into plastic bags and transporting them where ever I thought they would do most good.  I have many bags dotted around the place but I am now having to deposit the contents so that I can re-use them.

I have been building up the depth of the previous wood chips to even out the surface and cover the thin spots.  When I had finally had had enough today, by nine a.m. I took my coffee outside and sat on one of the tree stumps and just sat and soaked up the sun and looked at what I have accomplished so far. 

Compared to what is was when I started, I am very happy about  the progress. The garden originally was very shaded and dominated by huge 80ft birch trees. Very little sun so that a tomato could never turn green. In addition being on the north side of a hill made it a little depressing at times. When my DH and I moved in, I did like the trees, but that was in 1996 and a lot happens to trees.  They grow and get old and dangerous. (Like me except that I am not dangerous.)

So, the trees were chopped down, and everything up to five inches was chipped; the huge tree trunks were laid parallel to the road (my land is about four feet above the road) extending my surface by about two to three feet then sloping down. That strip must have trebled my sun area as the trees took up so much space with just the trunks let alone all the branches and their leaves.

Before that first winter set in I put as much compost and as many leaves as I could on top so that the land would start building its soil web.  I also managed to get another load of chips to add on top.  I must say it all looked a right mess when the snow melted.  Before winter I had planted some pink tulips and garlic and that was about it. During last year the pink tulips flourished and the garlic was very good so that gave me encouragement. An ancient apple tree that I was going to chop down amazed me with the abundance of the harvest; I am still eating loads of apple sauce and still have a lot in the fridge and still giving it away to my friends.

By the end of the year  it was beginning to look somewhat presentable.  This year I managed to get a huge amount of wood-chips and with a lot of physical work, so far I estimated at least 40 hours shifting the chips and their  placement it is beginning to look so much better.

Kelejan ... It's absolutely amazing what you have accomplished and what you continue to accomplish. I need some of whatever it is that gives you so much energy.

I have to do something that I enjoy with my time, TD.  No DH to look after  
but I do have a DD (dear dog)

I'd like to think that my DH would be happy for me finding such pleasure in gardening, especially as I have met such a wonderful group of people on this Forum.

I had a nice surprise this afternoon. As I was checking out my goldfish pond I noticed that one of my goldfish survived the winter. In fact it looked quite healthy.

How deep is your pond?  I used to have a pond but it was too shallow so I brought the two fish inside for the winter. they eventually got too large for my little aquarium so I had to give them away.  They grew to about twelve inches long and could hardly turn round.

Fire season has started with a vengeance in British Columbia and Alberta.  I just knew this wonderful weather was going to back fire on us.

We continue to have upper 20Cs temperatures and things are getting very, very dry.  But rain is in the forecast for  Saturday,  Sunday and Monday 60% chance,  and I hope to get the rest of my wood chips shifted and put in place, then I can say that the bulk of my big project is completed for this year. I can then  get back to planting and weeding etc.

Still snow in parts of Canada. Quite a lot, in some places.

Kelejan wrote:How deep is your pond?  I used to have a pond but it was too shallow so I brought the two fish inside for the winter. they eventually got too large for my little aquarium so I had to give them away.  They grew to about twelve inches long and could hardly turn round.

The pond is only about 18 inches deep. At one time the bylaw required a 5 foot fence for anything over 18 inches. After we were amalgamated by Ottawa the restriction became 24 inches. Our shallow pond (18 inches) is not good for fish survival during our really cold winters. We used to bring the fish inside and keep them in a 50 gallon aquarium. Now we don't bother. We usually buy cheap, small "feeder" fish each Spring. Once in a while one or more survive the winter.

Kelejan - I thought of you moving all those wood chips when I saw this on Amazon.  Of course, who could afford it but it was intriguing.  

http://www.amazon.com/Overland-Carts-Heavy-Duty-8-Cubic-Foot-750-Pound/dp/B00I8K3XJO/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1461156838&sr=8-11&keywords=overland+cart

That is so thoughtful of you, Yolos.  Now you tell me.   Luckily it is out of stock so I will be tempted.

Anyway;
 

A few minutes ago at 8:00am I finished bagging all that huge load of wood-chips.

The actual bagging took me 30 hours. Placing most of them in situ is another few hours.  When I find all the pieces of paper I wrote on I will give a fairly detailed report that inlcuded time spent weeeding to place wood chips on new areas.

I have some other figures to remind me perhaps not do it all myself when I get another load in the fall.

Now having coffee and decide what I am going to do with the 93 bags I have left over after refreshing every square foot of the original BTE effort amd also putting down chips in some new areas.

For the price of the cart, one could hire some college students to haul a lot of chips for many years!

DD, DC, DF: Dear Dog, Dear Cat, Dear Fish . . .

KJ, Couldn't find any news on your Fires? Do you need any squash or potato hills?

sanderson wrote:KJ,  Couldn't find any news on your Fires?

Fires in BC
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/2016-wildfire-start-early-1.3543139

Here is my front yard SFG. The snow has finally melted. I may put plastic on the dome to protect my seedlings, but it got very hot and humid in there for my plants last year. Any ideas of what I should do? Poke holes in the plastic perhaps?

 
This is my set up for the seedlings (parsley, kale, peppers, marigolds). Once it gets a bit warmer, I haul the whole thing outside to harden my plant babies off. I put it in my car port by the brick wall . They get some heat from the house. Last year this method worked like I charm. I think the peppers will wait a little longer inside though. 

Here is a picture of some of me seedlings. They are at different growth stages depending on planting times, and a little leggy. They do fine once they get outside though. 

Very nice mimi ... I tried to start some peppers but not one of them germinated.

trolleydriver wrote:I had a nice surprise this afternoon. As I was checking out my goldfish pond I noticed that one of my goldfish survived the winter. In fact it looked quite healthy.

Today there were a total of six goldfish visible in the pond. They must have had a good winter.

Mimi2 wrote:

Here is my front yard SFG. The snow has finally melted. I may put plastic on the dome to protect my seedlings, but it got very hot and humid in there for my plants last year. Any ideas of what I should do? Poke holes in the plastic perhaps?

Do not poke holes in the plastic.  What you should do is roll the sides so that air can pass through.  Remember to roll down when it gets too cold.

The plastic should be attached so as to roll up or lift it. If it is not made that way, then you should and make it so. It means that you cannot just leave it; it is like a baby, it needs constant attention.

Thank you for the tip Kelejan. I knew something wasn't working right last year. Did you build domes too? I guess I'll roll up the sides and find something to clip them when it is hot.

mimi ... where did you buy the PVC.  It seems much more expensive here in Ottawa than in the USA.

trolleydriver wrote:mimi ... where did you buy the PVC.  It seems much more expensive here in Ottawa than in the USA.

I bought it at Lowe's. I think it cost about $7 for each piece. I got 4 of them. The role of plastic was expensive (50$!), but I have tons if you want some pieces. Also there are some suppliers in Quebec that are recommended by the market gardener that have materials to build covers with that may be more reasonable. I'll look up the web site and get back to you on that. And the Dollarama in the T and T plaza has reasonable gardening supplies including various sizes of cloches.