LysmachiaMoon's blog: Pond work

Got those two little ponds in the Jungle Cliff area cleaned out. I lifted out the massively overgrown pots of Louisiana Gamecock and Yellow water iris, and from those 2 pots I got 6 pots. Two each went back into the two little ponds and two pots went into the new big pond in the Dark Garden raised bed. Doing anything with a pond at this time of the year is cold wet work, but it was so worth it. Not only did I get nice new plants, but the cleared out little ponds are now nice and clean. I'm amazed by the little solar powered pond pump I bought a couple years ago. It's been churning away all winter, whenever sunlight hits the solar collector panel. The pump drives a small fountain nozzle and I've got it set up in one of the small Jungle Cliff ponds. It's actually doing better now than in the summer, when there's more shade overhead. I'm thinking of moving the collector panel somewhere where it will get better exposure once the leaves are out on the trees.

If I can get an hour away from my desk today, I'd like to get into the veg and plant some Chinese Cabbage and Pak Choi seeds. It's strange to think that, just a few years ago, St. Patrick's Day was usually snowy and too cold to plant the traditional peas. I found a couple of packets of pea seeds and I may put them in just to uphold tradition, but I'm done with trying to grow peas. They are just too much effort for too little return: frozen supermarket peas are almost as good, and the struggle to get peas to grow here can be heartbreaking, what with hungry baby bunnies, sudden hot spells, etc.

Woke up to the gobble gobble gobble of wild turkeys in the Asian Garden and up into the Wildlife area. I counted about a dozen birds, which all took flight as soon as they spotted me coming up the hill. Unlike domestic turkeys, wild turkeys are good fliers and these girls took off and soared from the hillside, across the road, and down into the cow pastures below us. I'd like to see them nest in the Wildlife Area. At one time, we had a local flock that numbered nearly 40 birds, but they've dwindled considerably; not sure if it's disease, predators, or habitat loss. I noticed that the big drop occurred the year after one of the local farmers decided to cut down a big stand of mature trees on a rocky ridge that ran between two of his corn fields. I know the turkeys used to roost in there. Now the trees are gone, and the soil is too rocky and steep to plant with corn so I don't know what the benefit was in that destruction. Oh wait, greed. That's right. The American Mantra; Take take take.

And apparently climate change is just not coming on fast enough for my neighbor. He's been out there every day for the past week, assiduously raking up every scrap of dead lawn grass and fallen leaf and burning them in big wet smoky piles. Ah, the fresh air of springtime *cough cough*

Tomato seeds have germinated and the plants are up and growing. I've been starting a lot of sweet potato slips. I popped one small sweet potato into a container of soil way back last fall and it sent up lots of sprouts. I've been snipping off the tallest of those, putting them in water (empty brown glass beer bottles work best!) and letting them root. I've now got plenty for next summer's garden. The bigger pan of buried sweets on top of the kitchen cabinets has yet to show even one sprout, so those might be a bust.

Debating whether or not to buy more onion sets. I've got some room for them and the weather seems obliging this year. At least so far we haven't had the torrential rain that rotted my sets last spring.

Rhubarb is coming up nicely in the veg. I moved (and divided) my oldest clump from back along the south fence to the center bed, which is mostly perennial flowers and herbs, and it's doing great there. I now have a total of 5 clumps.

I need to dig out and remove the Jerusalem artichokes that are growing along the south fence of the veg. They just aren't doing that well there, and when they do finally get going the tall stalks are flopping into the garden proper and causing a mess. I think I'll put them up along the Brush Fence. Get them out of the way, but still accessible if I ever want to dig up a few roots to eat (they have a mild nutty flavor and texture like water chestnuts).

Brainwave: Several years ago, I saw a small greenhouse built entirely out of window frames (just one frame wide on all four sides, two frames to form the peaked roof) and thought it was interesting, but could't really see any use for it other than as a cute garden ornament (which is how it was being used...I think it had a teapot in it or something). Then yesterday I saw an example of a fairly large terrarium that was designed to set out in the garden (it was sort of a vertical aquarium thingy, filled with plants, for geckos or something). Hmmm....why not combine the two? A nice little mini glasshouse to hold some lovely exotic tropicals in the Jungle Cliff garden....garden art! I've still got lots of window frames languishing in the shed and once they are dragged out, repainted, the glass re-puttied, then build a frame, etc. etc....sure, I've got time for that....

Well, I see that my flock of cardinals are getting impatient with me...if I don't get out there early every morning and refill the bird feeders, they start to mass in the dogwood right off the deck and carry on like crazy. So better get the workies on and get to it.

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