In the Garden, At Last

Weather report:  High 55ºF, blustery, overcast with the look of winter coming back.   However, ProfessorRoush just doesn't care.  He's back from a relatively short vacation and, while it may not be a great day to kneel on the wet and cold ground to clear the winter debris from beds, there are still things that can be done.  Done if the will to garden is strong enough and the gardener's soul has enough fortitude.




 And besides, I have a Dutch crocus blooming!  And Scilla!!! One single crocus so far but I'm sure that more will come soon.  In my records going back to 2005, I don't specifically note the first Dutch crocus every year, but in only one year, 2014, was my note of the first crocus later (3/25/14) than this date.  In 2006 and 2012, I saw these blooming on 3/6 and 3/8 respectively.  So, right now, I'd estimate spring at around 2 weeks later than normal.

If crocus and scilla are the first signs of life in my garden this year, they are not alone.  Today, as you can see from the pictures posted here and below, early peony buds are breaking ground, and the ornamental Alliums are up and healthy.  I must get the Alliums protected from the deer soon!

I can already see that there are one or two minor drawbacks of my plan to post more often  so that you can experience my garden activities with me  each time I garden:  some of the posts are going to be long!  And the photos will be smaller to account for space concerns, but if you click on them, you'll be able to see the detail you desire.   Today, I spent about 4 useful hours total in the garden.  And what did I accomplish?

I started by planning to mow down my "rain beds" of prairie grass near the house so that they will green up faster and allow some extra sun to the early prairie forbs.  Mowing, however, was a longer chore than I anticipated as I started with a "surprise" flat rear tire on the tractor that had to be fixed first.  You can see Bella, above, running in the taller grass, but here is a photo of the back yard before mowing:

 And after:  Already I feel better!  One spring chore off my checklist!

Then, I moved on to clear debris from the asparagus bed and weed it.  I'm sorry, I didn't think to take a picture until I was halfway through clearing, but the photo at the left will give you an idea of what it looked like when I started.







And the photo at the right will show you where I finished; the asparagus bed is mulched with around 2 inches of aged straw that sat out all winter.  That should help suppress the weeds!  The next green things I should see in this bed are some delicious asparagus spears rising above the golden straw.

Other than the usual puttering around that includes picking up the occasional down limb or blown-in-city-trash, my last major accomplishment of the day was in keeping with my goal to garden smarter this year.  For the benefit of others who have the same problem, this is my solution to "pole-migration" in my shade-house over the strawberries.  You see, my shade house is on a slight slope from front to back.  I've noticed over the last couple of years that the long poles that run on each side, and to which the canopy is stretched, have a tendency to slowly slip from their sleeves out the lower side, extending sometimes past the electric fence and out of the garden.  Up until now, some occasional pounding with a hammer every few months would shift them back into place.  I noticed today, however, that one pole was very very far (as in 8 feet or so) out of the canopy sleeve, leaving it in grave danger of ripping off in the next wind.  So, I got a length of good old, stiff #9 baling wire, made a hook in one end to place into the pole, and then wound it around the upright so the pole...hopefully...won't be able to migrate.  A minor brain-storm to fix a now-minor but potentially major problem.  Let's hope it works.

Sorry about the long post, but it was a good few hours in the garden today!  I'll leave you with the promise of these deliciously burgundy-colored herbaceous peony buds, just breaking ground.

Slow Starts

ProfessorRoush promised all his readers this year, that he would post as he gardened; keeping you alongside for a year on the prairie.  Well, March 10th here, and this picture represents my first garden activity of the new year; the indoor planting of 3 anemic Walmart-sold daylily starts, Hemerocallis 'Final Touch'.  There are two other miserable starts of  Hemerocallis 'Naughty Red' in the pan beside these.  These are not what I really wanted to start the garden year with, but the five starts were only $10 total (well, $10.90 with tax).  Apparently I'm so desperately starving for the touch of dirt, even that of mere packaged potting soil, that I could not resist these spare excuses for live plants.

It must have been the 45º weather and sunshine that thawed out my gardening core, even if it hasn't thawed out the earth.  Our last snow is gone now, except for a few small remnants in deep shade, but the garden is a swamp of muck; puddles of melt water and two-inch-thick messy mud over still frozen subsoil.  There will be no digging nor drainage of the snow melt until that ground thaws beneath.

The starts above are safe for the present in the basement window, where I hope they will green up and survive until the ground thaws and the risk of frost is gone.  That will be sometime in late July, likely, at the rate things seem to be warming.

Winter On!

If you are wondering about the title, I'm shouting it in a tone similar to urging you to "push on," "plow through it," "soldier on," and so on.  Because we don't really have any alternative during this seemingly ceaseless season of snow and suffering, do we?

My photo today is the most garden-ey thing I could find related to the outdoors right now; the salty paw print of my precious Bella as she pads back in from the salt-strewn pavement out our front door.  It is pretty tough on Mrs. ProfessorRoush to see these paw-print-ey trails across her oak floors and likely the salt is tougher still on the sensitive toe pads of poor Bella. 

The rest of my garden is still in the deep freeze.  Here in Kansas, on February 19th, we've had 20.6 inches of snow already this winter, with 3-5 more predicted tonight and two more days of snow in the ten-day forecast.  It does melt off between snows here, with the result of leaving the gravel road leading to the house in the worst condition of the entire time I've lived here. Still, our average snowfall by this time each year is 13 inches according to the KMAN news article I linked to.  Yes, I know, that the 58% increase in snow to this point is JUST WEATHER, not global climate COOLING.  Keep telling yourself that for another few years.  All this gardener knows is that this time last year, I was outside on the weekends clearing garden beds in shirtsleeve weather.

 ProfessorRoush, he just keeps staring from the windows this year, primarily assessing whether the straw over the strawberries is still undisturbed and counting the upended garden ornaments in his back garden.  Sooner or later, I suppose the weather will warm and we will receive sunshiny hope again.  After all, I've seen bluebirds looking for nesting sites recently.

I know I haven't been writing much, but I have resolved, in my discontented winter's mood, to try something new this year in the blog; shorter, quicker updates on a more daily basis during the growing season with the goal of placing you beside me whenever I putter back into the garden.  A Growing Season in the Life of ProfessorRoush, as it were, beginning whenever the weather warms enough for the ground to thaw.  You'll have to let me know sometime if you liked it.

On the Bluebird Trail

January 5, 2019.  Dear Garden,

As the temperature reached 55ºF early today, on its way to a high of 64ºF at 3:21 p.m., I was easily coaxed into the garden under the bright sun for puttering and the more puttering.  My gardening readers may be ringing your calloused hands over climate change, but if my 64ºF day is evidence of climate change, then I'm happy with it.   As you recall, Garden, my main goal for the beautiful day was to clean out the bluebird boxes, in preparation for another bluebird nesting season.


I've posted before about my bluebird trail and my own NABS-approved bluebird box, so you know already that this is one of my gardening focuses for normative ecology and species survival.  What I haven't pointed out before is that one of the reasons you MUST clean out these boxes annually is to eliminate paper wasp nests from the boxes.  Wasps and bluebirds don't get along.  You can't just swipe out the remnants of the nest, you have to look high into the boxes (photo at right) and remove any wasp nests.  In 22 bird boxes, there was evidence of 11 bluebird nests.  That doesn't sound too spiffy, but I have a number of old boxes in areas where I don't expect bluebirds to nest (near the woods).  There were 6 other boxes filled with nests and 5 empty ones.  All the empty ones had enormous wasp nests and about half of the bluebird nesting boxes did as well.

It was a great day to be out and to increase my Vitamin D production, but my happiest surprise of the day was the discovery of some beaver activity in the pond.  Not a huge number of chewed trees, but one substantial one around 8 inches in diameter (photo at left), and a few other smaller saplings in the process of removal (photo below). It's been about 15 years since the last beaver lived in the pond and I think the late fall rains brought them upstream into wetter-than-previous areas.  If this one stays or brings his family next year, I'm all for them clearing the pond of all the willows that have sprung up on the shoreline in the past decade.

After my bluebird-inspired hike, I puttered away a number of small chores that need to be done in preparation for spring.  A large orange pot, evidently not-frost proof, had disintegrated and needed to be trashed.  A little barbed wire needed to be re-stretched.  Some apple tree rootstock sprouts had to be pruned away.  A few unsightly, dead petunias needed to be ripped up and thrown on the compost pile.  All in all a great January day with February weather.  Here's to hoping we are planting peas early this year!