The project for which I was hired is nearly done, and I am now free to go out and play again.
It took me about a week to rest my eyes from screen. The first few days, I'd just sit in the garden, gazing, with no desire to get up and do anything, just breathing, soaking up the sun, plucking up a random weed here and there, and nothing more.
Existence in its purest form...
Soon after, I got back in shape; some plants needed some extra attention, some new seeds were sown, and some had to be removed...
I can freely say it's an energy draining period behind us and it's about time to ground again aka.get our hands dirty and continue doing what we are enjoying the most.
Spinach, moment before we dig it out. It happened over night, surprisingly blooming stage (considering we planted it last year in late November or even December, not so early), but it seems time fly's fast! However it's not just about blooming, laid eggs of flies appeared and that was final end - it has to go.
Luckily, a week ago I sowed some more.
At first we thought that she had inhabited all the greenery, so we started searching further, it was a huge relief finding out they laid the eggs on spinach only, green salad was at the safe place!
The freshest, crunchiest May Queen lettuce sort is ready for consumption; we keep nurturing it and care for it with frequent watering; the heads are slowly forming, therefore thinning is recommended at this point when planted densely.
Lettuce in combination with no less crunchy radishes, pinch of salt and a bit oil, is a real treat.
In addition to this variety of lettuce, I have two more planted that will arrive one after the other.
(ant's came back never more)
The last time you saw the pea tirelessly crawling along the newly laid twines, now we are in the flowering stage. One more hoeing before harvesting, and that's what concerns the demanding nature of peas. What is favorable for this yummy plant is tucking the steam deep in the ground, same way as you do with tomatoes and potatoes. Plucking weed will no more be possible around the pea as they will be all messed up.
Among the laid eggs flies in the garden, in orchard we also have flower eater.
This beast is unstoppable, it attacks everything that flowers, eats the fertilized flower and so on until the flowering season passes and leaves nothing behind.
Nothing helps with it, except for the manual picking and controlling. Blue and yellow colors are attractive to it, so many use the method of blue/yellow buckets filled with water in which they will potentially drown.
Dear darling says that the method is tried and unfortunately ineffective.
Currently the choke-berries are the most interesting as they are the only one in full bloom right now.
What contributed to the infestation of these pests?
Warm and mild winters that we have had for years. Unfortunately, there is no more frost while the plants are buried under the snow cover. All larvae are laid in the ground at approximately 5cm, at that depth they have the perfect incubation temperature in case of a mild winter, but when the frost freezes the ground deeper than that, few parasites manage to survive.
I was amazed at the forms of the larvae that I found while we were still in the tillage phase.
This variety of pear is the only one that I like to eat, it ripens early, it can be eaten in the early stage of fruit ripening, although if you wait until it really ripens, I can't promise you that you will get your turn from the bees.
It is incredibly sweet, not overly fruitful, and has a columnar shape. The perfect fruit tree for a small garden.
On the side note, pumpkins failed.
I gave a couple of seeds as a gift to an acquaintance and hers are almost ready for transplanting, so I decided to pre-soak the second round before planting. A couple of times I found a seed lying on the surface as if it had jumped out of the ground, I'm not sure what it was about.
We'll see if I have more luck this time.
