Pinepig's Virtual Garden

I need to do the bills and want to do a few final tweaks on my book before uploading it but decided to procrastinate to post this update, since I didn't get to it last night.

I spent a couple hours outside yesterday doing more chores. We had mostly sunny skies with rain later in the evening. The ground is SATURATED. I've got a puddle in the same place we always get them, back by the fence to the neighbor's property. The grass in the section I have to walk over alongside the lemon tree has been completely mushed from my weeding and pruning in that area yesterday and I almost fell after slipping in the mud today trying to retrieve some lemons for our friends.

I took advantage of the then-dry and mostly calm weather to spray some copper on the roses, citrus, peaches, nectarine, apple and berry. (Thought: it rained last night so did I waste it or maybe, hopefully it did a tiny bit of good by knocking back any fungii or mildew???)

I weeded a section by the berries, which made me think about planting something along their base instead of just mulching or having to weed it often. Should I put some orange berry down (althought that says they're reluctant fruiters so I can't guarantee fruit)? What about the native Fuschia Procumbens? I'd considered strawberry but don't really see that as a weed supressor, which is my ideal. And the fact that supposedly you're supposed to rip out strawberry plants and replace them every few years isn't ideal. I've also got a blank spot and need to think about if I want to propagate some of the berries and put them in so the whole back fence section will be covered sooner than later, or if I want to put 3 or 4 bean plants and some bamboo supports in a rough oval.

ysabetwordsmith introduced me to an interesting concept in her post about rain gardens. These are areas that you can recognise as needing help with drainage, such as downspouts or my area in the back that puddles when it constantly rains. There are some links in her original post and she has some great pictures of the rain garden she's made too! I'll post more thoughts about it later.

I planted some winter veggies yesterday too. I put about 10 each of an heirloom spinach ("Bloomsdale") and winter lettuce. I took a look at the seeds I've got, when they need to be planted and those were the only ones I could safely plant outside right now. I'm trying to pre-think spring planning. I picked up a book about permaculture (again, thanks to ysabetwordsmith for this concept!! If you're over at LJ, she posts more often there and then recaps her posts here) so check her out!) and want to read through it keep some of the concepts in mind for spring/summer instead of just plonking seeds in where I have a spare bit of soil.

Boring stuff under the cut that I want to just make note of for now so you can skip it if you want.

( Read more... )