Feb 06 2009
My Gardening Goals for This February Week-end
I’m currently container gardening but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t winter garden maintenance that must be done. I’ve a short list for this coming week-end, just to get it done. I’ll trim the four fruit trees, following the 3 D’s…remove dead, diseased and dumb branches. Dumb branches would be ones that come at too narrow an angle off the tree to support the weight of fruit without splitting off the tree, branches that turn back into the interior of the tree, and branches that cross other branches in particular to the point of rubbing. These were bare root trees last year that I potted up into five gallon buckets, so this shouldn’t take long; I don’t need a ladder or anything. I’lll check over my two grape plants, too, and see if they need a couple of snips, and thin out the Frau Dagmar rose a bit.
My next task will be to unload all the small pots off the two plywood boards that stretch between the tree buckets and finish that raised shelf project that we actually got the plywood for last year. It will be nice to get the stack of cut up two by fours out of the living room! LOL! I may, however, modify that goal and just screw a two by four to the underside of the plywood board that I did not last summer; the unsupported 16×48 inch long board has bowed considerably. I’ve been thinking about building a couple of two-tiered planters to fit the space between the tree buckets so that I can plant more vegetables this year instead of just the herbs and pretties I’ve had. I just have to decide….
Many of the pots I have are over planted; for instance, I’ve a fairly large window box that has hyacinths coming up right now through the sleeping strawberry plants. The strawberry plants were overplanted in there last summer—a little late for strawberries to be tolerating transplanting—and we got six berries from them anyway. I’ll trim up the dead leaves on the strawberries and top dress the whole pot with a mix of compost and fresh soil. In another couple of months, I’ll give it a feeding just to boost the strawberries when they start to wake up.
Once all the pots are moved, I’ll sweep out the space they sit in. I’ll make sure that all pots that don’t currently have plants in them but do have dirt get dumped out, stirred up well and have some compost stirred into it in preparation for actual planting in a couple of months. I’ll wash up all the pots, too; that’s one of the easiest things you can do to cut down on fungus problems.
I’ve got some seed in; thyme, parsley and beets. I dumped an entire package of beet seed that was dated for 2003 into a couple of pony packs, figurign that I might get perhaps ten percent germination, and I’d just stick them in a window box. I think they all germinated. Now I have to find homes (with me or with someone else!) for a herd of baby beets. I’m hoping to find some sage seed this week-end and geta start on them; they need the extra inside time to get some legs under them before the summer sun.
Are there any gardening chores you can do this week-end?
