Trees, trees, trees. I've lost track of how many they have cut out of our yard this past week. I know there were at least 7, but if you throw in all the little ones here and there, it's probably over a dozen. And then there is the pruning! So, much pruning.
A hard winter and an Emerald Ash Borer infestation in a huge part of the US and Canada, has taken it's tole on our yard. I'm sitting here with the windows open on a gorgeous Spring (nearly Summer!) day, and my ears are being assaulted by the sound of chainsaws.
Glad we planted a couple of apple trees earlier this Spring, although the 2 dwarf trees will hardly make up for what we lost. And thank goodness, mama Robin decided to nest in the lilacs, and not one of the trees!
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Pete built me two more garden trellises over the weekend. These are a foot taller than the ones that he built last year becasue the cucumbers went crazy and grew right over the tops of the 4 foot trellises.
You can see the shorter ones that he built last year in this photo. I'm using them for the peas this year.
One thing I love about these, is that they fold flat for easy storage in the winter.
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In true Chicago fashion, the weather went from freezing and snowing to hot and sunny in the span of a few days. The bad news is that I got my first sunburn of the year over the weekend, the good news is that I spent a lot of time in the garden.
As you can see from the photo at the top of this post, my strawberry bed was looking a little rough. This is actually just one end of the patch, which is about 3 feet wide by maybe 12 feet.
I raked up all the mulch and straw that I could, then I got to work digging up all the existing plants. After that Pete helped me add some of our homemade compost as well as some store bought mushroom compost to the bed. I mixed it all up and planted the plants I had dug up previously, keeping them nicely spaced.
I also planted a few new strawberries which, as you can see, have some crazy pink blooms! The variety is "Tristan" which supposedly sends out few runners, so I planted them on the edge of the bed.
Two of the other raised beds were also prepped with more garden soil and compost. I'm itching to get some seeds in the ground, but I'm holding off since the weather has been unpredictable lately.
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Last year I started my seeds much too early. In fact, I started some in February! This means that they were ready to be planted in April, and my planting "safe" date is mid May. I suppose I was a little eager -- ha ha!
This year I set reminders in my phone both 6 and 8 weeks before my mid May planting date and started the seeds when they should be started. So last weekend, while battling a nasty virus that I still haven't fully conquered, I started a flat of tomato seeds. Since we loved eating the cherry tomatoes and found that they gave us by far the best yields, I planted three varieties of cherry tomatoes this year: Black Cherry, Bing Cherry and a new one for us -- Matt's Wild Cherry. Only a few days later I already see sprouts! It's amazing how quickly they grow!
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And I didn't have my camera with me when I cut it up, but that's it on the right of this top photo. And the tomatillos that you see in the background -- never ending. I've made salsa -- 2 kinds -- and now I've taken to freezing them.
We also got a few carrots. I forgot that I had bought a packet of some multicolored carrots, so it was a surprise when I pulled these up. To tell you the truth, I've never had much luck growing carrots, so even plain old orange ones would have surprised me.
We're still getting quite a few tomatoes from the garden, but nothing we can't eat in a day. In fact, I have one lonely little paste tomato sitting on the counter right now. I'm glad to see that we are eating what we grow. Nice to know that my early Spring gardening decisions were pretty good ones. (Except for the many tomatillos. Note to self -- 2 tomatillo plants will suffice.)
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It's growing!
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I am growing watermelons! I can hardly believe that the tiny, struggling seedling I started back in April from little seeds are now huge and producing a bunch of tiny watermelons. I have never grown any kind of melon before and I didn't have high hopes for these. The plants were so small for so long -- then one day they went crazy. I'm ridiculously excited and check on the baby watermelons several times each day.
Tomatoes are just starting to turn red here and there. I love the bright green against the red-orange on this one. I think these are Brandywine, which I've never had much luck growing in the past. It looks like the wet Spring was just what they needed.
And we harvested the garlic! This was a new crop for us this year and I have to say it was crazy easy to grow. Pete stuck the cloves in the ground last autumn and we dug them up this past weekend -- that's it. We have laid them on a piece of fencing over the basement stairs in, what we call, our vestibule. They have plenty of air circulation, but I'm hoping it's not too hot in there. We shall see.
There is so much happening in the garden right now that I could go on and on, but I'll finish up with one last photo -- the first of many cukes is nearly ready for harvest. I think 2 cucumber plants will be more than enough to keep us in cukes for the rest of the summer. These things are prolific!
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So Pete and I built these trellises at the beginning on June. You can see the little cucumbers and watermelons at the very bottom of each trellis.
Tiny, right? Well, now it's the end of June and look what happened...
The crazy cukes are over the top of the trellis and branching out everywhere, and the watermelons aren't far behind.
In other gardening news, I've been making an effort to pick yard bouquets on a regular basis. I love how these random flowers look in my old blue canning jar.
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