Sunday, April 03, 2016

Ah, Domesticity! Or is That Urban Farming?

It is that season when many of us are inspired to put seeds in the ground or otherwise get busy playing with dirt and the out-of-doors.  My first offering of the year was a small planting (half a seed-pack) of snap peas a few weeks ago.  It took only the slightest of requests to interest granddaughter Jardyn in helping me yesterday plant out some scarlet runner beans and another allotment of snaps that I had soaked overnight.

The fava beans and garlic I planted late last Fall are coming along nicely, the former just threatening to bloom.

The wife has been intent on adding at least one raised bed in the front yard, which gets maximal sun in our location.  I was a little chary of this but finally conceded there could be some distinct benefits both in terms of sun exposure and in having the planting surface a couple feet elevated, sparing my lower back.

In the process of settling on a trough roughly 2'x6'x2' I also was able to track down a new saw blade for my pole pruner, allowing me to more-or-less finish taking the remarkable 8' water sprouts out of our most vigorous apple tree.  I am definitely feeling the effects of hoisting that pruner overhead for an hour+ yesterday and today.

Marg has been doing yeo-woman labor on the weeding of our flower and shrub beds, not to mention some tidying of the spillover of my pruning debris.  I still need to spend a couple more hours on the magnolia, being late in getting to that this year, but finding it possibly a bit easier after the bloom is done.

And I also today stripped the arugula and mustard that was headed for seed out of the new bulkhead planter Sean built for us last year.  Originally I was just going to get a start at some new seeding there, but when all was said and done it's full again: beets, three different lettuce and mesclun mixes, and interspersed poppies, cosmos, and malva.  It will be interesting to see how my last-minute frenzy plays out.

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