Archive for the ‘Trees & Shrubs’ Category
Sunday, July 5th, 2009
Today, we splendidly enjoyed ourselves over at Belltown Hill Orchards in South Glastonbury, CT picking blueberries. Boy, I hope I don’t get sick of all this fruit. There are a bunch of months left to pick-your-own.
Since we had never been to this farm before, we had to use the GPS for the last few miles. The farm is actually located right across the street from Rose’s…the one we went strawberry and raspberry picking at last week. It’s right off Matson Hill Road. If you decide to visit this farm, beware that the driveway is kind of steep.
This farm offered a nice tractor ride up to the blueberry fields. I read a little sign on the back of the trailer that said, “Tractor runs on bio-diesel.” I thought that was kind of neat. I kept trying to smell Chinese food, but all I smelled was exhaust. I guess it wasn’t running on Chinese food.
Okay, to the blueberries. We met Laura’s friend up at the bushes (by the way, one more hangout with the three of us and she is my friend too). She was already picking away. She is a blueberry fanatic, like I am. You can honestly never eat too many blueberries. The best part about picking these things is that you can get handfuls of them and stuff them in your mouth right there in the field. It’s gross, but worth it.
These blueberries were really huge. They were like small plums, they were so big. I hung a little bucket around my neck and picked and picked and picked. Towards the top of the bucket, my neck started to hurt. I am guessing that I had about three pounds in there because overall, we had about five pounds. Three pounds hanging around the neck gets to ya after a while.
You can pick blueberries all the way into August, which is cool because we will probably end up getting more.
I am really enjoying visiting all the farms around here for their pick-your-own fun. There is really a good variety through the Summer and Fall, like apples, blueberries, cherries, nectarines, peaches, pears, plums, pumpkins and blackberries. Some farms even have cut-your-own Christmas trees, which is cool.
Here, check out some pictures of blueberries.
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Blueberries on blueberry bush
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Blueberries in carton
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Blueberries
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Belltown Hill Orchards pick-your-own schedule
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Belltown Hill Orchards farm address
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Sunday, July 5th, 2009
Do they have a 4th of July in Canada? haha. Old joke.
So it finally stopped raining. I am hoping this lasts for more than just a few days, but I doubt it will. It’s about 70 degrees outside and I would say that it’s perfect, perfect weather. You can’t get much better than the 70s and sunny.
A few nights ago, I was telling my mother about all the rain. I said that while it has been raining a lot, it really hasn’t been all too annoying. For some reason I have been able to work around it. Timing our walks around thunderstorms does get on my nerves though. Two days ago, we almost brought our rain coats with us, just in case. At the last second, I looked at the online radar and discovered the storm was South/West of us, so we were okay. We did hear the thunder though. It kind of just kept on rumbling. I have a slight fear of being evaporated by a bolt of lightening, but since the clouds were far away, I felt it was safe to walk.
I do remember a show on TV one time telling me that you can get hit by lightening like 20 miles away on a clear day. Hey, thanks guys. Just something else to worry about. Now we have that and a nuclear warhead coming from over the Pacific.
We went to a 4th of July party yesterday. It was a big step for me because trying to move my butt over to a get-together where I don’t know anyone is a chore. Congrats to Laura.
The party was thrown by a friend of Laura’s son. He and his soon to be wife bought a house with a pool about two months ago and decided to have people over. Since I didn’t know anyone (including Laura’s friend), I really didn’t know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of everyone who was there. They were very personable folks. We are actually going blueberry picking with Laura’s friend this afternoon.
I have to mow the lawn today. It is growing quite nicely from all the rain and now sunshine. I am back to fertilizing by my lonesome because I severed my relationship with the service that was coming out to do it. Let’s just say I feel that I could do a better job than them. We’ll leave it at that. I am a particular person when it comes to certain things and when I get the feeling that other people aren’t as particular as I am, I get particularly annoyed.
I had three tons of pellets delivered yesterday. I will take a pic and post that next.
Peace out. I gotta hop in the shower and get ready for some berry picking.
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Sunday, June 21st, 2009
Man, I have been a busy boy these past few weeks. It’s been raining a lot and I seem to get myself into a bunch of work when I sit at the computer. Writing blog posts hasn’t been part of the work, if you haven’t noticed. Believe me, there’s guilt about the blog thing. I think it is going to ease up in a while, but that’s what I always say. Being creative on the internet is good, but let’s just say it doesn’t help the social life. Perhaps some sunshine could get me outside a bit more.
A few days ago, we were walking around outside and a light bulb went off in my head. I really hate it when that happens because I get a weird stare and start walking towards the garage to get some sort of a tool. I am not much of a planner (I think people call it spontaneous), so when I get an idea, I just start doing it. I actually have fun doing things that way.
This time, I got the great idea that the woods would look a heck of a lot better all cleaned up. If you remember back to last summer, I started taking down some of the smaller trees on the left side of the driveway. Well, I am going to finish the job this summer. I already took down a few more trees and need to remove about 6-8 more. It’s really cool because it doesn’t get any more sunny over there, it just gets cleaner looking with a nice “ceiling” provided by the very tall Oak trees.
I started raking part of the area and moved the wood piles over to their (hopefully) permanent home. I am going to have more fresh wood so I’ll have to figure something out for that. The reason I am moving the piles is because one of the trees that the current pile is leaning against is going to come down.
Here are some pictures of what I have done in the past few days. Do you know I would really like? I would like a little plow for the front of the tractor so I could just push all the layers of leaves down the hill instead of raking them all. That would be swell. Oh well. I’m not about to go buy another lawnmower attachment. I already have enough of them. Raking it is.
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Looking down the driveway to partially cleaned out woods
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Looking into woods at wood piles and trailer
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Looking up driveway at partial pile of firewood
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Sunday, May 24th, 2009
Last Autumn, I dug up about six rose bushes from the hillside out front and transplanted them to a more reasonable area down in the front yard. I am now mowing the hillside and having those rose bushes with their sharp thorns is really a thorn in my side (haha). I get snagged all the time and I don’t enjoy it much.
Initially, I didn’t know if they were going to take, meaning survive. Well, this Spring I noticed a bunch of new growth on some of the branches, but mainly from towards the bottom of the bush. I pruned out all the dead branches and the rose bushes are beginning to look pretty good. This is surprising because I wouldn’t say I did a great job of transplanting these things. I almost just ripped them out of the ground and plopped them in a dug out hole.
If you have not had the pleasure of seeing what the roots of a rose bush look like, let me tell you that they are pretty substantial. Rose bushes grow quite a bit under the ground and I have seen roots longer than six feet. I am not saying that I have seen this in a previous life, I’m saying that I saw this yesterday. Right at the base of the bush, if it is a few years old, you’ll find a gnarly root with a bunch of finer ones all tangled up.
If I had it to do over (which I actually did today), I would first cut the rose bush down to about a foot tall and then transplant it. This way, the plant is easier to work with and I won’t get my hopes smashed as I watch all the nice green growth wilt away.
As I said above, I transplanted six more Rose bushes over the past few days and I did it just the way I said I would, by cutting it down first and then transplanting it. Rose bushes are good at growing very, very fast under the right conditions.
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Garden with three transplanted Rose bushes
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Closer look at Rose bush transplants
Before I started writing this post, I did a little online research on “How to transplant a Rose bush.” You would be surprised at what I found. On one website, there was about two pages of instructions. They wrote all about the classic, “dig the whole twice as wide…compost…fertilizer” blah blah blah. I read this type of stuff all over the place and really don’t know who writes it. I get the feeling that the faster and dirtier the transplant job, the better things grow. I’m talkin’ pickup truck and chain style. The minute you stop and spend all sorts of time and money transplanting bushes and shrubs, they die.
Here is my advice when transplanting a Rose bush from my own experience:
1. Cut the bush down to 12 inches
2. Dig around the bush to remove as much soil as you can
3. Push the shovel under the Rose bush as much as you can and rock it back and forth to loosen up the plant
4. When it’s nice and loose, grab the roots and pull until you rip it out
To transplant:
1. Dig a hole
2. Plop the bush in the whole and cover with dirt
3. Water a few times a day for about a week
One word of warning for when you are trying to get the Rose bush out of its originating spot – You are going to sweat, get dirty and if anyone is driving by, laughed at.
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Sunday, May 24th, 2009
10 Ways Gardening Can Help You Through A Recession
Costs add up fast in the produce aisle. Save some of that money by growing food yourself. Most herbs and vegetables grow great in containers – so they’re perfect additions to a sunny deck, patio, or balcony.
5 Homemade Chemical Free Bug Repellents That Work
Not only can insects be a nuisance in your garden, but they can ruin a perfect picnic or hike. Here are a few totally green, home remedy suggestions to repel insects without using toxic chemicals.
250,000 Tiny Greenhouses, Each Containing One Head Of Lettuce
During the early 1900s, Parisian urban gardeners employed the bell jars — called cloches — to protect their plants and raise salad greens early in the season. This was known as a practical guide to “intensive” farming the French way.
Company Designs And Maintains Organic Farm In Your Backyard
Most environmentally aware Americans would love a personal organic vegetable garden, but how many people actually have the time to cultivate one?. Thanks to a San Francisco-based company called MyFarm, Bay Area denizens can pay a weekly fee to have a backyard garden designed and maintained by professionals.
Tea Tree Oil: An Amazing And Versitile Substance
Tea Tree oil is a great multipurpose treatment to use on a number of ailments. Whether you are looking to repel insects in your garden or if you are looking to clear up your acne, tea tree oil is a great alternative.
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Friday, May 22nd, 2009
It’s that time of year again. Time to take a whole bunch of pictures of the baby birds living under the porch and see which ones come out okay.
I was wondering if these bird families were going to come back this year. Well, they are probably new families, but you get the picture. We have three nests under the porch (two are occupied) and one in the front of the house in a small pine tree. The two occupied nests under the porch have baby chicks and the nest in the front of the house has four little eggs. They are really cool.
Take a look at the photos.
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American Robin (Turdus migratorius) chicks in birds nest under porch
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Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) chicks in birds nest under porch
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Empty birds nest under porch
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House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus) eggs in birds nest in small pine tree
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Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
There are two lessons I have learned about shrubs that I would like to share with you.
1. Only plant Boxwood.
2. Only plant in the spring.
There you have it. Now, let me tell you what the heck I am talking about.
I know I have probably said this before and have trouble following my own advice, but I really mean it this time. I am only going to plant Boxwood from now on. No matter how “deer resistant” you think a shrub is, it probably isn’t. Everybody says that Holly is deer resistant. Guess what? It isn’t. Deer like to nibble on the ends of the branches. It drives me up a wall. I had to go out today to pick up some of that deer netting to put over the Holly bushes. As far as I know, Boxwood is the only shrub that’s deer resistant (well, besides Juniper), and I am going on personal experience here. I have never had a deer nibble on any boxwood shrub I have ever planted. Everything else…yeah.
The next lesson has to do with when to plant your shrubs. I have planted in both spring and fall, but spring planting works out much better, in my opinion. See, if you plant in the spring, the plant has time to grow and mature its sensitive little twigs that were over-fertilized by the nursery. All that new growth has time during the growing season to harden up. If you plant in the autumn, all that new growth dies. Period. It just does. Those nights in mid-January that offer us those wonderfully chilly sub-zero temperatures do a wonder on new shrubs. I have about six Boxwood shrubs sitting outside in the dirt right now with dead top halves. It’s pretty funny to look at. Top half brown, bottom half green. The good thing is that I expect these plants to take off this year and will most likely grown right through the dead areas.
Okay, since Home Depot had Boxwood shrubs in stock and it’s spring, I decided to grab a few today. Actually, I grabbed eight of them. I am going to plant three of them in that new mulch area next to the driveway and five of them in a row almost under the porch in the back yard. They are going to look really cool when they grow larger.
Oh, and just in case you were wondering, the Green Velvet Boxwood is “a hybrid of Korean Boxwood (for hardiness and compactness) and Common Boxwood (for excellent leaf color in both summer and winter).” You can read the rest of the description here.
Here is what I bought today.
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Green Velvet Boxwood
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Buxus Green Boxwood plant label from Home Depot
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Common Boxwood label from Home Depot
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Friday, March 27th, 2009
Okay, today is no doubt the nicest day of the year so far. It’s mid 60s and sunny. I can’t complain about that.
Yesterday, I had 15 yards of mulch delivered from the place down in East Hampton. I got it for $22 per yard, plus $8 for delivery (per yard). That’s $30 per yard for the cheapest stuff they had. Considering I paid $120 to have yesterday’s mulch delivered, I am considering getting a sweet little trailer. After all, I did have a trailer hitch installed on the new vehicle for a reason. What a treat it would be to drive down there and pick up mulch for $22 per yard. Either way, I got the 15 yards and still need about 5 more. I’ll have to think about this a little before I order the rest. I have a severe allergy to throwing money out the window for delivery.
The task was to mulch the small garden in the front, the stone wall garden in the front and the side garden that I just expanded. I didn’t think I was going to have enough for anything else.
It took about a half day to get those three areas done. When I was finished with them, I had about 4 yards of mulch left over. I decided to spread some around at the end of the driveway. When it rains, the runoff from the driveway erodes the ground there. It isn’t the prettiest thing. I figured that mulch was the answer. Also, I decided that I could tackle some of the back garden as well. I would say that I got about a third of that finished.
Hey look, I even took some before and after photos for you.
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Pile of Witch Hazel mulch – 15 yards
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Small garden in front before mulch covering
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Small garden in front after mulch covering
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Stone wall garden in front before mulch covering
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Stone wall garden in front after mulch covering
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Side garden before mulch covering
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Side garden after mulch covering
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Garden in back of house about a third of the way covered with mulch
Talk about weed control.
What I am trying to accomplish here is a nice base. I think that light yearly applications of mulch will keep the soil nice and black and the weeds down. If that happens, I will be happy.
Now, I need to order 5 more yards of mulch to finish up the back and then it’s off to get flower bulbs, plants and shrubs…and a hammock.
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