Working outside

in Ecency8 days ago

The garden

In Vermont, Spring is time to get outside! Our garden draws alot of our time in the spring.

New Cold Frame

We start our plants inside. A great addition to this process is a cold frame. Our neighbor gave us the basics - the frame and the window. I attached the window with hinges, added chains to hold it open, a handle and a thermometer. Also built a frame around the old window because it didn't quite cover the box.

Hanging baskets

Step one in the garden, add some color! Well not really step one but we like to put out some annuals early on in the season.

Posts for nets

The blueberry bushes have put on little blueberries so I put up some new posts with cross bars to hold up netting. The blueberry bushes are too big for the netting set up we used last year.

Landscaping fabric

We have been fighting horsetail in our front flower bed. Its tough to get rid of... we finally decided everthing goes except the shrubs and trees.

All done

Then covered the whole bed with landscaping fabric.

Mulch

Bought some mulch.

Mulching

And covered it all up.

Finished

We made a pledge to each other to leave the bed empty for two seasons. Hopefully the horsetail will not find its way through... then we will start digging down, cutting the fabric and adding plants back in. I was supposed to put lime down under the fabric. Adjusting pH helps discourage horsetail. But my wife is out of town and I forgot 🙄. Hopefully the fabric will do the trick 🤞 And yes I know some people like horsetail, others tolerate it, but we live in a pine swamp and the horsetail loves the acid, wet soil. It will take over the whole place if given the chance.

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Wildfire smoke from Canada is too heavy here to spend much time outdoors. My air purifier is getting a workout.
The garden is looking great. I'm so envious of your blueberries!

Thanks for the support 🙏 🙏 My wife is in Minnesota and said the air is bad there also. The blueberries were planted three years ago and are really looking good this year.

Spring is a busy garden season, so rewarding though in a few weeks. In about 10 days I will be back home. Haven’t seen the garden since end of April. I know we will have tons of work… lots to catch up on haha
The front bed looks good. I hope the fabric will help.
Have a beautiful weekend!
!HUG

Thanks. We are going crazy with the landscaping fabric. The horsetail was in the rock beds we have as an apron around the house under the drip line from the roof. We moved all the rocks, weeded, put down the fabric, and moved all the rocks back. That was a lot of work 😅 then you are finished and it looks about like it did before lol

You are welcome.
That’s definitely a lot of work especially when rocks are involved. Haha I can imagine. But it will hold off a lot of unwanted plants and weeds in the coming time.

I did some fabric around the new veggie beds and old strawberries rows but the horrible grasses came still through it. We took it up again and I pulled all the weeds and grasses out with roots. Was a few weeks of work. The strawberries I pulled up and went down about half a meter till I didn’t find any roots anymore from the weeds, replanted all the old and new strawberries babies that crawled through the paths. The patch wasn’t maintained for years. I am curious how it will look when we are back home.

went down a half a meter

!!!!
that is a lot of work. we tried to pull out completely but didn't go deeper. I know the horsetail rhizomes are still in there. I'm just hoping they don't make it up through the fabric

Yes, I so hope it did work out. Will see if… when I get home next week.

I am crossing my fingers it won’t come through the fabric. 🤞🏻

How do you manage to have those annuals out in Vermont? Here in Western Mass, we had low 40's at night for days on end and I didn't dare! I'm just now starting to put delicate things out, and now we are to have 40's again for 3 nights next week, so they say. Very odd spring this year...

Its been pretty mild since we put them out. 50s mostly. It is going to get cold this weekend 🤞 We have out tomatoes planted already. Old time Vermonters refuse to put them out before June regardless of the weather.

Manually curated by the @qurator Team. Keep up the good work!

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Curated by ewkaw

Thanks to @ewkaw and @qurator for the support 🙏 🙏

Looks nice and orderly, but have you seen the innovative gardening technique from Seattle yet?

😂

nice and orderly

Thats the dilemma. We had a much more natural look with grass, lavender, blackeyed susans but the horsetail was thriving more than what we planted. Its a tough bed because it faces north in front of our two story house. Only gets sun when its directly overhead and only gets that in the summer when the sun comes back up north. We inherited the lavender and blackeyed susans but they never did well. When we put plants back in we will be planting shade lovers.

I'm just starting to take the plants outside, the nights were still cool. But it's always cool to have a little garden corner, it puts your mind at rest.
Have a great weekend

Finding serenity in nature keeps me sane 🙂