Month: April 2006

April 21, 2006 – Planting Raspberries

highhopesgardens April 21, 2006

Today, among other things was raspberry planting. I ordered about 75 feet of fall berries, golden and red, along with 75 feet of blackberries. We hope these spread our berry season out a little more and offer a little more variety.

Here I am using the wheel hoe to make a shallow trench to plant the berries. Yes, I do feel like a horse. The berries are being planted in the place we had the paper and straw laid down on sod last year and had tomatoes planted.

Here are the newly planted berries. The new plants will come up from the roots, not necessarily from these stumps.
H

ere’s Claire helping put a little mulch along the side of the berries to conserve moisture and help keep weeds out. We lucked out and had some calm winds at nightfall, so were able get the paper down and mulch.

Martin had an interesting few days. We had been getting him ready for Kindergarten roundup today and he was very apprehensive saying he “didn’t want to sit at a desk all day.” He goes to day care two days a week and is home the rest of the week, and at day care, he was hugging everybody and saying good-bye (including getting in trouble with his friend – see here at this blog entry) by hugging her and not letting go! He thought he was saying goodbye to eveyone at Tiger Tots forever as he thought Kindergarten was starting today, not next fall. In his mind, he was saying good-bye forever, and everyone else thought he was saying good-bye for the day. At any rate, he was excited about school after going through an abbreviated day of books, recess, singing, and snack in the lunchroom.

April 19, 2006 – Lawn Work

highhopesgardens April 19, 2006

Here are the tulips up against the compost pile.
Today was a day of some “lawn work” is what people in town may call it. I don’t have a lot of time for the lawn, although I have a lot of it! Today was the first lawn mowing of the season – a day I face with some trepidation. It means lots of wasted time and points out to me that I haven’t yet implemented enough food naturescapes. Each year we lose a little lawn, but not fast enough.

One of the big tasks was moving the walnut logs that were cut up. I rolled many of them out of the way, hauled some of them away on a low trailer, and dragged the biggest one down the burn pile with the tractor. It’s nice to have the open space there to access that part of the farm without squeezing between trees or drive over the septic tank.

April 18, 2006 – Bees Finally Working

highhopesgardens April 18, 2006

Now that spring is here and things are starting to bloom all over, the bees are out in force after waiting patiently all winter.

Here’s a bee on a plum tree. The tree was abuzz with insects, mostly on the lee side of the tree to stay out of the wind. The unbottled fragrance spilled downwind from the tree.

Even the less showy maple flowers were attracting the bees, although not in this picture.