May mid-month madness

In May I always have too much going on!  It's always a rush to get everything planted (not to mention this is the busiest garden coaching month) but by June things settle down again and I can let the rainy season take care of all my new plantings, so it always feels worth it afterwards. 

But this year I'm behind because of the late spring (I haven't even finished cleaning up last year's leaves yet!) and currently I'm out of town for a week (that darned real job getting in the way of gardening again!) so I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping that hubby remembers to water the veggie garden and that frost doesn't get the tomatoes that I didn't have time to protect before I left (there was none in the forecast but you never know - it was a bit of a gamble.) 

I'm also behind on blog posts and responding to emails so I'm going to a rush job tonight of updating you on what I've been up to in the garden...

- got the rest of the veggie seeds in but not the seedlings or marigolds yet as I had planned

- had a brief distraction from regular spring activities when I unexpectedly found a bunch of Calgary Carpet junipers for CHEAP! and immediately had to plant 12 of them in my front yard (you can ony see 7 here) to fill the hole where a spruce tree used to be (more on front yard plans soon, and sorry for the shadows in the photo below, no time these days to wait for the right lighting either!)

- dug out concrete piles from where the greenhouse used to be to prepare for the new patio design as part of the north patio project (actually, I was on kid duty while hubby did this job); the section to the left of the board in the photo below is where the patio has been pulled up, which I started doing a couple of weeks ago... and look, I've already started planting! I just can't help myself - bare soil is just not safe in my yard!)

 

OK, I'm sort of caught up.  Must go rest now...

Comments

[Maureen Flynn-Burhoe]

Hi,

Do you have geotextile under the mulch where you planted the junipers?

I bought some too and I found the roots were bound quite tight. Do you massage the roots?

Thank you for taking the time to blog the everyday. As a new gardener in Calgary I need to learn all the time.

[Janice Miller-Young]

Hi Maureen,

Thanks for your comments!  Its nice to know Im helping someone with my blog!

No, I didnt use landscape fabric or anything under the mulch.  Landscape fabric isnt great for a number of reasons, but primarily for me, a gardener who likes to putter and move things around, it can be a pain in the *%^.  Typically, as mulch decomposes, it feeds the soil, but landscape fabric prevents that (and also water percolation) somewhat, so its not as healthy for the soil.  And it just looks nasty if the mulch gets moved around and a bare spot gets exposed! 

If you mulch thickly (they say 2) then that is enough to keep down weeds even without fabric or anything underneath.  Or you could put down some newspaper first if you have lots of weeds or grass you want to get rid of.  My mulch is actually leaves leftover from last fall because thats what I happened to have around.

Cheers,
Janice