It’s tree blooming time. Plums and wild plums appear to be the first to bloom.
And then I might place my money on the cherry trees, but the red buds aren’t too far behind. The crab apples have sprouted small clusters of leaves. I’m not sure, but I think they will leaf out more before blooming. The plums are very fragrant, or they would be if it would stop raining long enough to smell them. We did need the rain, but I’d like to have it stop now for a bit.
A lot of times when I say I’m out there “gardening”, I am actually converting grass into planting beds. The weedy grass in between the mulch paths in this photo will soon be gone and more interesting or edible species will reign in its place. These beds and paths were made by laying down heavy landscape fabric directly over the grass and covering them with either mulch or straw. It is extremely laborious. And costly. Enough so to make me compromise my principles and use Roundup for the rest (I won’t plant anything edible in that area).
At the end of the comfortable season last year, Anne cleaned out and trimmed back an unruly and overgrown corner of our property. In the process, some attractive trees were exposed and the space was transformed from eye-sore to natural wonderland. But it was a dead-end wonderland as the trickle of the stream isolated this spot from the rest of the property. All we could do was turn around and walk back along the same path. The solution was to incorporate some railroad ties into the landscape.
With the addition of the bridge, the steps beyond seemed like a natural extension. Now we have a wooded/shade garden area to consider. I can smell the hostas blooming already.
Peaches, the barn cat who showed up at our door about 2 months ago, has recently relocated to the shed presumably to get away from big old Barney, the more senior barn cat who can be a bully. Or that may not be it at all. We will probably never know.
As I’m partial to Peaches, I like the fact that she’s in a cozier space now with more windows and a little sun porch. Al and I made a sturdy space for her in the loft and I bought her a soft padded “kitty cube” that she actually sleeps in! (as opposed to our dog who stubbornly refuses to use anything purchased with his comfort in mind)
I don’t like to think of myself as a half-asser – just get the job done kind of guy, so I had all kinds of justifications on why I thought planting the endposts for the trellis system more or less verticle would work. My rows were way shorter than the rows in the books. My posts were bigger and planted nice and deep (3 feet). My earth anchors were strong and the black paint made them look even tougher. But when I began adding my trellis wire, I slowly discovered these justifications were a bunch of crap. My endposts were not doing their job. As I tighted the wires, the posts pulled in and the wires never seemed to tighten. So after completing three rows of loose wire, I finally came to the conclusion I needed to fix things.
I went back to the books. According to the experts, there were two options: lean the endposts back to a 60° angel or insert another post with horizontal post between (H post construction). The first option seemed a whole lot easier, and according to the books, H posts are recommended for rows longer than 100ft. Our rows are about 70ft on a good day. I also found sources suggesting the anchor wires should be doubled up, and they do indeed feel much stronger and tighter this way.
Digging behind the endposts is a little awkward, but it’s doable. The worst part of constructing this trellis system is the amount of time it takes. It takes me over an hour to complete a single row. Only six more rows to go.
