The Fairly Quiet Gardener Blog
How to Create and Maintain Tree Mulch Rings
The main benefit for maintaining mulch rings around your trees, especially young fruit trees, is to significantly reduce or eliminate competition for water and nutrients from grass and weeds growing around the root zone.
The Benefits of Winter Cold in the Garden
I think it has become fairly common knowledge that there are several benefits of winter cold in the garden. This may help to offset a portion of any annoyance felt by avid gardeners who would rather be digging around in the soil and basking in the warmth and green of the garden than waiting out the cold and gray until spring. Even if there are plenty of 'off-season' tasks that can be done and probably need doing, as they were put off until later during the warmer growing months.
This Week in the Garden: December 7, 2024
It has been a very foggy, frosty week in the garden and it looks great! While the ground is slowly freezing under foot, I have still been at it busy with all sorts of activities. As the weather has made progress on the storage shed almost grind to a halt, I've focused more on the potting shed / greenhouse / blackberry beds area. This has mainly involved hauling half frozen sod rolls over to the new corn / pumpkin / melon bed and continuing to unroll the sod (grass side down) into layers.
This Week in the Garden: November 25, 2024
We've been lucky to get a ton of moisture and then a bit of sunshine and warmth, here at the end of November. After a brutally hot summer, everything needs a moisture recharge. Several beds were cleared of corn stalks, cosmos and zinnia stalks, and weeds getting it prepared for the next step in their evolution.
This Week in the Garden: November 17, 2024
This week I removed about 1,200 square feet of sod to make way for the continued evolution of an area of the yard. I should say garden because I consider the entire yard (front and back) as a garden that happens to have areas of lawn. This particular area, off to one side and tucked into a corner of the yard (ahem…garden, that is) has had several plans drawn for it but none have really worked or stuck. However, this time the layout will stick and it feels 100 times better than previous iterations.
"Lines of Desire"...aka Pathways
As humans we typically like the most direct route to pretty much anything in life - travel, money, completion of a task...and certainly garden paths. In his books and television programs, Monty Don has often talked about "lines of desire" when it comes to routes taken within a garden. People will find the most convenient or shortest path to wherever they are going. This is 100% accurate for me in my own garden as I'm walking around to various areas. In the central cottage garden there are several intersecting grass walkways. If I'm doing anything other than a casual stroll through the garden to enjoy it, I find myself cutting across a bed and through a gap in a hedge that isn't fully mature or striding right next to the edge and corner of a path to shave a pace off the journey.
This Week In The Garden: November 2, 2024
The last of the holdover warmth of summer that lingered late into October is now gone and true fall weather has fully arrived. The leaves have their lovely autumn color and are becoming more sparse along the tree branches.
This Week in the Garden: October 21, 2024
The weather has been wonderful, including the day we got some much needed heavy rain. Since then, we have enjoyed mild and mostly sunny weather. There's a patch of lawn in the front yard that I have marked out (unintentionally looking like a giant's footprint from above) and allowed to grow as long as it wants. I had originally intended to remove the sod and build up a bed with some trees, shrubs, flowers. However, I like the shaggy island that it is there in the middle of mown lawn and I know it's good for wildlife. I plan to turn it into a small island of 'wildflower meadow' in the middle of the neatly kept lawn. I think I'll plant lupine and daffodils, perhaps some species tulips and daisies. We'll see what else makes its way into the mix.
This Week in the Garden: October 13, 2024
We made another trip to one of the local orchards to pick apples (our burgeoning little orchard is still in its early years and pickings were slim this year). This particular orchard was quite large and there were tons of apples; however, I suspect that spraying was minimal (which is totally fine) it was just difficult to find good apples. We were in a section of golden delicious and the apples were very big but very few in number that weren't compromised in some way. With so many trees and apples though, we were able to fill two flats with good apples.
Quail in the Garden
We're fortunate to have a covey of what appear to be California Quail that live in the brambles at the back of our property and frequently cruise around the garden (especially in the morning and evening) scratching for food and taking dust baths. I hope they're eating as many insects and weed seeds as they can fit in their plump little bellies.
Corn Earworm Infestation :(
I had great hopes for our sweet corn harvest this year. I planted, diligently watered and weeded, and watched as the corn grew amazingly. The plants looked healthy and happy. Then, while visiting, my sister noticed that the silks were looking odd. They were stunted or falling off. They were shorter and drier than they should be given the time of year and size of the corn. She thought the corn might have a worm problem. I pulled back the husk on one to discover little worms feasting on the silks and moving down into the kernels. As far as I know, this is corn earworm. Every single plant was infested. Forty plants ravaged.
A Visit to The Butchart Gardens
We had the opportunity to visit The Butchart Gardens near Victoria, B.C. during our trip to Vancouver Island. If you've heard of it, visited or seen pictures of it, you'll know what an amazing place it is.
Book Recommendation: 'The Orchard Book' by Wade Muggleton
The Orchard Book is very approachable and immediately useful for beginner orchard enthusiasts. It is also relevant and full of useful information for the more seasoned orchardist. Filled with lovely color photos throughout, the book is organized in a way that leads budding backyard orchardists from reasons to have an orchard to harvesting and managing the orchard for the long term.
Book Recommendation: ‘My Roots: A Decade in the Garden’ by Monty Don
Monty Don is a gardening hero for many across the globe, and that certainly includes me. While probably best known for being the lead presenter of the BBC's Gardeners' World program, he is actually a prolific and gifted writer. 'My Roots: A Decade in the Garden' is, like many of Monty's other books, a personal view into his gardening life and, to some extent, his personal life.
