March 18, 2011 Some Garden Prepwork

I've been away this week for training at work so I've been unable to get the update posted from all the work done last week:

Ah... the first signs of spring. After looking it up it's actually an invasive from Europe called a  "Birdseye Speedwell"  but every year in the field it's the first bit of color that shows itself in Spring.

I've installed the electric fence for the season.  Not too soon either as there have been some of the bulb flowers (not sure what is what anymore down there) had come up and then disappeared with deer evidence around the missing flowers.

The posts have been pounded installed and the chicken wire has been strung for the trellis.  All I need are the peas to start coming up - only 7 of the 40 are ready to go in. Not sure why.

I'll wait for the pictures until it is finished, but I also have a post set for the hose array.  I've purchased a handful of hose mending products hoping to not spend a fortune running new hoses. Work and crappy weather (it snowed twice this week in the morning, WTF) have kept me from finishing up.

 

The debris pile on the left got even bigger after the watermelon patch had been cleared.  I hope my landlord doesn't wish to use this area this year. It was vacant last year so I was hoping to use it for my Orangello and Golden Midget watermelons (he's welcome to all he can eat as I think there will be hundreds of pounds to go around).

 

 

 I took a walk around the orchard to see what was doing.  The trees look a mess and have what looks like some kind of black fungus or knots on all the branches.  Fortunately it's not my problem.  During the walk I noticed that the electric fence needed some work after all the snow over the winter.  The fence has two strips of conductive cloth strung between the posts - the bottom one was completely covered by flattened grass.  It took some work to get it all cleaned up, the posts straightened, and the fence material restrung.

Before

After