Saturday, 20 April 2024
The dogwood outside the kitchen window is having its moment of glory.
On the windowsill, a tomato is emerging already, after only five days! See far right by re-used Annie’s tag.
I bravely took a garden walk from front to back with cane instead of rollator and filmed a rather vertiginous video for you. It is a very shaky video (sort of embarrassingly bad!), probably because I was more anxious than I even knew about walking with a cane instead of a rollator. Nevertheless, at least for anyone whose curiosity is strong enough to endure, it can sort of explain how the garden fits together (since I am still daunted by drawing a garden map). Don’t worry about the shaking; I don’t have palsy (yet), just nerves.
I filled green jugs with water (formerly cat litter jugs) from the various rain barrels because I want the barrels to refill with rain. It has been so dry.
I planted the three Nicotiana langsdorfii that had arrived from Annie’s Annuals and then decided to try to sift some compost for the driveway garden. When I weeded it yesterday, I noted that the soil there is very tight. The weeds hang on and don’t slip out nicely. It seems to be the way that the biosolids mulch that I got from Long Beach locks together.
I have not used compost out there before because I wanted to avoid getting horsetail in that bed…but the horsetail has slowly appeared anyway and so now compost will be key to loosening up that soil.
A beloved old flannel shirt has finally become so tattered that it is unwearable. It will be memorialised as compost.
I only managed to sift this much before the rain came.
Before:
After:
I hope it helps.
I think in the autumn, I will undo all of the concrete vaults, and, with Allan’s help, reposition them, each on a concrete paver to keep weeds from coming through from the base.
Faerie napped the rainy and windy afternoon away.
I was glad to have a break from gardening and used some of the time to catch up on the Tootlepedal blog.
Long Beach
Allan took advantage of a free appliance dump day to get rid of an old washing machine for our neighbour Alicia, took another look at the now empty parking lots berms east of downtown Long Beach, and returned with a concrete vault that had been discarded along the way. He also photographed a weedy garden bed in Veterans Field…
…and one in Fifth Street Park where camassia used to bloom at this time of year. The restroom building is being resided and repaired, which is hard on gardens.
Eventually, he may lose interest in bringing back these rather mind boggling photos!
Dare I say if the time spend tearing parks out (of course, he brought me another photo of the former parking lot bed) was used in weeding them and making them nice, perhaps it would be wiser? Time will tell…
If he didn’t bring me these photos, I wouldn’t be thinking about our quarter century of the Long Beach job at all except to be grateful that I’m working in my garden instead. He needs to process his feelings about it, though.
Thank you, thank you for the garden video! Wow, you can really hear the wind whipping thru’ the trees, and all the bird song. Look forward to part two, and dare I say a series? Loved it!
Question, why would composting your driveway garden bed mean the arrival of horsetail? Because spores have gotten into your compost boxes? I mushroom manured my veg boxes a few years ago, a gardening friend had over ordered a bulk load and offered it up for free. A year later, horsetail.
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I figure that I MIGHT accidentally put some in the compost. However, I think it just spread in nature’s determined way up along the driveway into the driveway bed. That why when I give plants away I tell my friends to wash the roots. And when propagating for my plant sale, I throughly wash the roots of any divisions and usually propagate in autumn so I can watch for any horsetail popping up in pots (which it never has, I’m that careful). It is the rare garden around here that doesn’t already have it, especially in Long Beach where it even pops up on cracks in the pavement.
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P.S. Interesting it came up in mushroom compost. I bet the compost for sale was sitting in the open and horsetail grew up through it or was nearby.
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Thank you so much for that video tour! Even with the wind, it felt so peaceful there. I have a better idea of the entire layout now and am even more impressed than I have been throughout the years I’ve followed your blog. What a wonderful spot in this world you have created. And Skooter gives great color commentary. 🙂 Loved every moment.
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Thanks! My plan is to do this once a month. I hope that now that I know how shaky I was, I can do better next time. Or maybe somehow get Allan to do the filming. Will figure it out!
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I enjoyed the video tour. What a wonderful garden!
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Thank you!
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I really enjoyed walking through your garden with you. It gives me a good idea of what you are talking about in other posts now. I like your bendy grass paths.
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Thanks so much, Mr T. Garden map or sketch at least may occur sometime this year as well.
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Oh, I should have avoided the last picture! I suppose I could go back to Skooter’s performance in the garden tour.
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Skooter can be quite comforting.
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I enjoyed your video. I felt like I was right there, walking alongside you. Thank you for braving the wind to give us a tour. It is fun to see all the different sections, and of course, to see Skooter!
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When I get a new phone, it might have some kind of anti-shaking adjustment for home movies!
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