Gardening With The BeesWatch our garden (and knowledge) grow!

Got a lot done this weekend!  I finished pruning the remaining fruit trees – my count was incorrect… there were 3 apple trees remaining, plus the plum.  That was a lot of work.

Ryan backed our cars out of the garage and set to work improving the rickety shelves in the garage.  Two 12-foot shelves are done… 2 more to go!

Besides pruning the fruit trees too late, I broke another rule this weekend… I planted fall bulbs in spring.  We’ll see what happens.  I ran out of time last year to get them in the ground.  I kept the bulbs in the garage so they would be nice and cold all winter.  I saw them beginning to bud already, so I figured I may as well give it a try – I hope they do okay!  I accomplished this by digging the first few inches of unfrozen soil from the bed on Saturday, and letting the sun warm the ground for a day.  This worked well – come Sunday, I had a few more unfrozen inches, so I amended the soil and dropped the bulbs in with some fertilizer.  I’ll let you know how it goes (grows).

On Sunday, Ryan got the chainsaw out and helped me trim a shrub (fun stuff!) and then cleaned up the lower dead branches on a big pine in our back yard.  Looking better every week!

We took the dogs for their first morning walk of the season this morning.  Yay!

Our house came with a brand new mailbox on top of 3 rotting boards on top of a rotting post inside a rusted milk can.  UGLY!  But again, the mailbox is very nice looking, black, sturdy, new.

This was a rough winter for our mailbox because every time the snowplow would drive by throwing tons of heavy snow against it, the rotting boards would pull apart and tip just a little more.

Well, Monday’s snow was the last straw.  I came home to find the brand new mailbox in the ditch, still attached to the 3 rotting boards.  The rotting post still stood proudly in the rusted milk can, having won the battle with the plow.

Ryan planned the solution Monday night and got the mailbox back on the rotting post Tuesday night (thanks to Daylight Savings).  Just an interim solution until warmer weather, but it sure is sturdy.  We got our first mail for the week on Wednesday.  Yay!  Netflix can now resume.

We got to it a little late, but at least we got to it.  Ryan and I managed to prune 2 apple trees and the pear tree before we were caught in a complete white-out of snow today.  We have 2 apple trees and 1 plum tree left to go.

The pruning should happen while the fruit tree is still dormant – I could tell we were late because there are already buds all over the tree!  Very exciting to see.  (But I did feel bad lopping off branches with buds.  Gotta be cruel to get the best fruit.)  

I’m new at this, so if anyone has any info on pruning fruit trees after buds are formed, please share.  Otherwise I’ll finish the job next weekend.

So I totally geeked out on Thursday and made a Seed Inventory list… what seeds we have, their age, which to start indoors, and which we need to buy this year.

On Saturday, we caught the end of the Menard’s seed sale (20% off, plus 40% off) and tried not to go crazy with our selections.  They already had onion sets!  Can you believe it?  We’re both in the gardening mood now, and it’s disappointing to come home and see our garden drifted over with a foot of snow.

Think spring!  Meanwhile, we compost.