Finally! Some beautiful spring weather here in Michigan! Well, sort of. A week ago we had snow, today it was over 80 after an entire weekend of beeeeeeeyooootiful weather. We are having one weird April, that’s for sure. Mother nature is off her meds. It was just perfect for working outdoors though, so late last week, we ordered a truckload of compost. We could have had it earlier, but had other things on our schedule that prevented us from dealing with another truck in the driveway.
Saturday morning the awesome guys at J & J Tree Trimming came out as arranged and took down two dead trees for us, leaving the chipped up branches for us to use as mulch and hauling away what couldn’t be chipped. The rest of the week-end, we played outside- planting the seedling trees we picked up from Lenawee County Conservation on Friday in a temporary holding bed, transplanting a bunch of day lilies, and planting my new rose bush, among other things.
The lovely warm weather finally brought out the rest of my spring bulbs, planted last November:
I finished up removing all of the lawn from this area, it is now ready for planting my herb garden. I have a few herbs I brought from the old condo, but will add in others. It’s hot and dry in this area- perfect for herbs. It is also just off the back garage door, the main door we use to go outside, I can gather what I need for cooking fairly quickly, and get back to the kitchen. I added a small amount of compost here, herbs don’t like a rich soil. Al cut the ‘lumberjack dollars’ for me to use as stepping stones through the garden.
Compost Delivery!
Look at that lovely, dark compost! This is what all of those grass clippings and pulled weeds turns into after they are hauled away from your curb. Topsoils of Clinton screened , delivered it and dumped it right next to the stump left from Saturday’s tree work. Al and I set to work right away- Al hauling the compost, I laying out wet newspapers and cardboard in the areas we wanted landscaped beds. I had spray painted lines right on the grass to delineate the edges of the beds we planned, so I only had to follow the plan. We lost count of how many cart loads of compost were hauled, but it was a LOT!!! Al dumped, and I raked it all out, trying for a uniform thickness of several inches. Eventually the grass underneath will die, the cardboard and paper will rot and we’ll have some lovely huge, landscaped beds filled with perennials. I know I will still need to do something about grass growing into the beds, weeds seeding in and the usual problems, but this is a good start.
The bed looks much smaller in this photo. This is actually a huge tree!
This side extends out from the base of the large fir tree and incorporates the crab apple tree we planted a couple of weeks ago- that straight stick at the right end of the bed. It is starting to leaf out at the top, so eventually it will be lovely.
Al carted a bunch more compost over to pile in the vegetable garden. I’ll spread it on the beds I have already completed, and then we can make another pile in the same spot.
So, Why buy compost?
Why not make our own? We are making our own, but it is just not possible to make enough for this first year’s planting needs. We added to our bins regularly over the winter- peelings, eggshells, coffee grounds, leaves and anything organic that would add to the pile. We have half a bin full so far, and letting that one finish decomposing. Hopefully, with an entire season of creating compost with our own trimmings, kitchen peelings, weeds pulled and leaves added, next year we will not need to buy compost.
We’ll be returning to our regularly scheduled spring weather later this week, in the mean time, all of those perennials we hauled here from the condo are starting to pop up, ready to be transplanted into their new ‘digs’. Let the gardening begin!
worked at the church today, the mums were huge last fall and the dead tops had to be removed. Not all show new growth yet but others are big enough to split.
When do you want plants from my yard? Don’t overdo it, there is a whole growing season ahead of us.
So true, Margot! The plants know when it is safe to poke their shoots up and start growing. Most of mine are barely showing any growth. I have to leave the dead stuff so I know where they are in the chaos of the vegetable garden. I would love to have anything you’d care to share from your garden, but especially an Evening Primrose. Al just loves ‘the show’ every summer evening. We brought one here, but it did not survive the winter. Perhaps some seedlings will show up, but who knows? As for when, who knows? In a couple of weeks or so?
We are going at an easy pace as much as possible, some jobs are tougher than others, but we don’t plan on landscaping the entire place all in the first year. Keeping up with the watering and weeding alone would kill us!
good reply, thank you, just let me know when you are in the neighborhood
Will do! And I hope you get a chance to come out this way after all the busyness of Spring planting is done for all of us gardeners. I just planted my tomato seeds- 9 kinds! I’m sure I will have extras- just one or two of each, so let me know if you’d like any. I can bring them when I come to see how pretty your garden is this year.