[gardeners] Sunday in the garden
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Sun, 07 Feb 1999 15:02:51 -0600
Started a new compost heap today with chopped leaves, horse manure in
rice hulls, and the newly mown rye grass and the leaves of old cabbage
and cauliflower plants. Think we got the ratio of carbon to nitrogen
correct, should be able to tell if it's steaming in the early morning of
the next few days.
Got the jicama vines tossed into the big garbage can for the trash folks
to haul off. Didn't want to take a chance on composting them and getting
a bunch of new vines coming up from the seed pods.
Had a strong urge to plant something today so I started some oregano,
dill, and chives seed my son and his family gave me for Xmas. Started
them all but the dill in pots that will stay up close to the kitchen
door. The dill went into the herb garden where some volunteers from last
years seed are already up and growing. Also moved the store ginger from
a 5-gallon bucket, where it's been the last few years, into a prime
shady spot east of the lemon tree at the top of the herb garden. I'm
still a little leary of planting to much this early.
Put some orchard fertilizer around the fruit trees and watered it in
well. The aprium is leafing out already, it was replaced by Stark Bros.
in October and is doing well so far. The pluot and the pear will not be
far behind as they have small buds showing. The fig tree is close to
leafing out and, of course, the lemon and the kumquat are evergreens.
Will be fertilizing the blueberries soon, they're budding out and will
be in full bloom this week. I'm anxiously awaiting the revitalization of
the DormanRed raspberries, we've never tried to grow them this far south
but I'm willing to take Stark Bros. word that they will grow and fruit.
Certainly hope they do better than the thornless boysenberries they
replaced.
Having fun!
George