Peach Buzz | DearDiary.Net

On Sunday, Hub Man helped me prune the beleaguered peach tree. He did in 15 minutes what would have taken me an hour. There's much to be said for manly muscles.... I say beleaguered because it has been struggling to be free of disease for three years now. As you can see, we lopped off a large branch that was unbalancing the tree and gave it a severe pruning. It looks like it has a crew cut now. He then sprayed it with dormant oil spray of sulfurous malodor. I will spray it once more before it blooms and hope for the best.

[album 65561 Peach Prune.jpg]

We are in the bleak gray days of February now. The soil is cold and compacted by rain. This is not a pleasant place right now for a gardener. But I have plans.... ;-)

The seed orders have started to come in, and as soon as I can get a bed dug up, I'm putting in Sweet Peas.

In other news, Snoopy has been declared conditionally adoptable, and we are checking our list of applicants to see if there is someone who could take him even with his propensity toward grouchy/snappy from time to time.

And whose idea was it to read through all my old journals any way? I want a word with you. I don't know how I survived my own life. Truly I don't.

(I TOLD you not to do it. But you never listen to me.)

No, you have that wrong deary. I can never STOP listening to you...

[album 65561 GoofyHen2.JPG]

Digging in the garden sounds like a good thing to do. Get your nose out of those journals and find the shovel. Get crackin'!

Comments (5)

allimom (Legacy)

Do you spread newspapers out in your garden area to give it a little bit of a start on the upcoming years preparations?
Alli

InStitches (Legacy)

But you did survive it...... that's the whole point! ;)

allimom (Legacy)

Spread them out open, anything from a page or two to a whole section. Either anchor it down with some thing or put a few shovel-full of mulch on top of it. Keep it wet (not hard this time of year) and in a couple months there will be little or no weeds and soft soil to dig in for planting. You can remove the newspaper or keep it there while tilling or otherwise working in the soil to add to it and improve the soil.

This is just one layer of the lasagna gardening that improves soil, cuts down on weeds, and helps hold moisture in the soil as the weather starts to dry up.

During the summer, as you mow your lawn, spread the clippings in the garden, put a layer of newspaper over it, keep it wet and repeat. The idea is to layer wet (nitrogen items like grass clippings and manure) and dry (carbon items like chopped up leaves, newspaper, straw, wood chips).

The idea is to layer it like you would lasagna:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/1999-04-01/Lasagna-Gardening.aspx

-Alli

mamallama (Legacy)

We gave our peach tree the same type of pruning a couple of years ago. Radical man.

I like the lasagna gardening tip from Alimom!

I was pawing through the seed catalog this morning. It's almost planned out!

Salamander (Legacy)

How would you know how far you've come without remembering where you were? I've cringed at some of the oldest journal entries I have (burned the ones from my teen years, I'm afraid, but still have some from my twenties) but being reminded of who I used to be can be the "kick in the butt" I need to keep going some times.