Gardening 2010 at FBF

Okay, friends and neighbors, I admit to being terribly negligent about posting prose and pics of this year's gardening efforts - mostly because this has been the most challenging gardening year I've ever experienced due to the uncooperative weather - mostly cool and/or rainy. I found that some things I've had for years died this year (probably due to late, late frosts that reached 16 here!) and other things thrived in ways I had not expected. Everything was slow and I'm fully a month or more (more like two) behind my usual schedule.


This is where I began - last year's vegetative debris - sunflower stalks, dead bean plants and marigolds and weeds and all the trellises from last year.





I'm delighted with all the vegetative matter that has enriched the soil and given it remarkable tilth.









This is what I call the "cool" garden, so named because it has the least sun of the day and is excellent for those things that like cooler weather: peas, brassica family, greens, beets, carrots, parsnips, chard, kale, onions, garlic, leeks, artichokes. I'm very pleased with all the vegetative matter I worked into this part of the garden that was overdue for some amendment.




Fruit trees bloomed lushly only to have the tiny fruits frozen in the cold that hit. Very little fruit this year. I moved the strawberry bed from its location of about 20 years or more (didn't seem to matter in terms of production - gallons every year) so I won't have a huge crop this year though the plants are looking great and just needing some sunshine and a little heat.


Even the peas, lettuce, spinach, beets, carrots, and cabbage family members that usually thrive in the cool were slow this year. I planted on April 7 and I'm just now getting greens and baby beets, the peas are finally starting up the trellis and broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage plants putting on some growth.








I gathered curbside bags of leaves from Ontario and Vale last fall, let them sit out in the garden for the winter (where they partially decomposed in the bags) and spread them all over the garden. Then I hauled loads and loads and loads of mushroom compost to cover the garden also. I tilled this in along with last summer's straw mulch and the soil has never looked better.







The upper orchard in bloom on April 25. Note also a wonderful year for daffodils and tulips.




The lower orchard is creekside. Pink blooms are almond and white are Asian pears. The late cold cost me four or five roses so I decided to rework some of my perennial beds and concentrate on those things that I know do well in my location. The beavers cut down one of my new, proud Asian pears (their second year in the orchard), complete with little baby pears on it. However, the stump is sending out shoots and I have put wire cages around all the trees in the lower orchard, next to the creek -something I knew I should have done a long time ago.













Above is weeping, flowering peach, an ornamental.






I set out tomatoes last week - tiny seedlings only an inch or so in height - but they have really jumped in the walls of water I provided for their comfort. You will see them in the background in one or more of the photos (they are green pyramids). Now with some real heat to warm the soil I will expect the pole beans and marigolds I planted to germinate this week. Potatoes put under straw in May are doing well and I'm ready this week to set out the peppers and eggplants and get the rest of the seeds in the ground (melons, squash, dried beans, amaranth, sweet corn, herbs, flowers, etc.). I'll hold off on basil till I know the ground is really warm.

Did I mention wind? Days and days and days of really, really strong winds. Made it impossible to work outside for any extended period of time and just sucked up the moisture out of the ground. So lovely, much more than average rainfall is balanced (negated?) by incredible winds.

Mixed with the leaves I brought home for my garden were apricot pits. I have a nice crop of apricot seedling about six inches in height everywhere in my garden. These are being carefully transferred to better locations. I also found a very nice seedling peach hiding in a flower bed and gave it a new home. I'm hoping some cherry seedlings might emerge.















My iris collection was gorgeous again this year and the virus that had affected them last year is gone, I am happy to say. Now it's the Flanders poppies that are brightening the yard and garden, self-sowing very prodigiously. I also find Nanking cherry seedlings absolutely everywhere, thanks to the birds. I love these little trees and use them in landscaping, for windbreaks, just for beauty. Their bloom is lovely, they are very hardy, and the fruit is really quite nice made into sorbet, the best sorbet I've ever tasted. I'm sure it would make love jelly and tarts and pies as well, though the fruit is small and the stone is large.

I worked over the landscaping on my "water feature," made from a discarded sink and bathtub, to make it more accessible (to humans only - the corkscrew willow cuttings are designed to keep dogs, cats and other critters from stomping on the plants in order to drink from it) and to mature into lusher foliage to soften the lines. Planted grasses, shrubs and Virginia creeper and have more to do - a work in progress and lots of fun. Now to add a few fish and/or tadpoles from the creek.