We've had this monster rose for years now, and it looks pretty in bloom, but the thing just tries to take over and Bill has to constantly trim it back. We have other roses, nicer, friendlier, less Audrey-II-like plants, so...it was time for the monster (as we affectionately refer to it) to go. We can also put that spot to better (i.e. vegetable-growing) use. It gets a great amount of sun, compared to areas of our raised bed that miss out on a lot of morning sun because of the enormously tall trees to the east.
So on Sunday afternoon, Bill removed the monster. Including miles of roots that stretched into the yard. We know there will be little baby monsters popping up in the area as the season moves along, but they can be dealt with.
You can see the freshly churned soil in the picture above - that's where the monster was. I think Julia's job here is to rake the dirt so it lies flat again. Bill is on the other side of the fence digging up one of the monster's particularly long roots. You can also see, on Julia's side of the fence, the slender baby red maple...we're going to be moving that this year, too. There's a spot in the front, near the street, where another tree USED to be - a very large, very old, very rotting-from-the-inside-out tree that would drop a limb or two every time we had a snowstorm or heavy rain or anyone bumped into it by mistake. Finally, finally, finally, after many phone calls from us and our neighbor, the town sent people out and they cut down what was left of the poor thing. So at least now no one in the area needs to worry about it falling on their homes any more.
Next step there is to have the tree people come out and grind up the roots. (We thought they were coming yesterday but apparently not.) Once that's done, we can put some good soil in and move the red maple there, where it'll have lots of space to grow and it won't be shading out potential vegetable-growing areas.
Oops. Julia's getting a bit overzealous with the rake. That dirt doesn't do much good sitting on asphalt.
Oh, and those buckets?
Those are the peas. Two kinds - sugar snap peas and...those flat ones - we just call them pea pods - we eat them whole or use them in stir-fry type dishes. Anyway, Bill planted them earlier that same day. He also planted the first round of seedlings in the little seed pots in our basement. Here's the set-up:
And inside there are arugula, pac choi, cilantro, swiss chard, red leaf lettuce, green lettuce of some kind, rosemary, chervil, parsley, radicchio, and two tomatoes - Brandywine and San Marzano. Eventually, when they're all up and have started their first real leaves, Bill will move this whole enclosure up to the south-facing window in our dining room. He built the frame to fit the windo perfectly, and the wire mesh is to keep the cat from snacking. Pretty cool, huh?
But let's go back outside...
While Bill and Julia were working
and Alex was bouncing along...
I wandered around the yards (front and back) to see if anything new was coming up...
Yay! The white peony has started poking up through the ground! This is one of my absolute favorite plants...those gorgeous enormous white flowers and their sweet, addictive fragrance...
More and more and more tulips poking through...
Another hyacinth...
This year Bill's growing the strawberries in a recycle bin. The little spot where they've been growing since we moved into the house isn't great - not enough sun, and it's also right there in the playing area of the yard. So last fall Bill dug them up and put them in one of the old recycle bins, and more recently he added better soil and raised them up so there's all sun and no shade from the sides of the bin. So we'll see how they do this way.
Here's a view from inside the yard. There's the blue bin with the strawberries, and the green bin will probably have a zucchini plant eventually. The cherry tree is a little bigger, but Bill wants do something different this year as far as protecting the fruit from birds. Last year he draped row cover around the whole tree, and that worked really well at keeping birds out and fruit in...but he says the branches look bent a bit from the weight of the cover. So this year he's thinking of running a pole into the ground next to the tree - something that's taller than the tree is, and then having the covering hang from that and drape over the tree and tie up underneath. At least that's the initial idea. We'll see what final shape it takes a bit later in the spring.
And here, in front, is the original raised bed Bill created 6 years ago. This year he removed a lot of the soil because it's probably drained of all the nutrients that our vegetables require. So he's moved that dirt to the boat garden in the front yard and will be putting really really good new dirt and compost in the vegetable bed probably some time this week.
And here's more of that raised bed...and Julia, who for some reason is scooping dirt out and putting it in that whiskey barrel. Just behind her is where the asparagus bed is. I looked, but nothing's coming up there. Yet.
And here are some shots from the front yard.
Those flowers blooming? They've been like that ALL WINTER. They're crazy.
Here's the boat garden. It will have some work done this year - we're going to raise it up a bit, for one thing, and figure out which plants really do well in this spot.
And that's about it for now. As of this past Sunday, anyway.
