Monday, April 11, 2016

Pruning done, now the dirty work begins

So, that rainy period we were expecting? It never showed up which gave us a chance to get some pruning work done on the fruit trees. It's a necessary task to keep the trees in check, but as we were working on the persimmon, I could only see a great loss of what could've been a wicked stash of leaves for kakinoha zushi. (Sure, like I would know how to make persimmon leaf sushi anyway.) Wait a minute. Actually, they make it look so easy on youtube!


The dirty work in question is having to pick up a cubic meter of soil from a local nursery. The dirt in our garden is primarily clay with lots of pebbles, so every time we need to loosen things up, we have to source some dirt, dig it up into buckets, and haul it all back home. It will cost us 1-2€ per bucket, and MotH says we may need up to 50 buckets for what we'll be planting this year. Unfortunately it does not include this weeping cherry tree that looked so pretty when I spotted it while passing the nursery.



Today's high: 20°C / 68°F

Friday, April 1, 2016

April showers


1-month old Cherokee Purple tomatoes (potted at 7-day old germinated seedlings)

In the first half of April 2015 we saw a lot of sun and temperatures between 18-25C° -- amazing weather that I hoped would repeat itself again this year. Well it looks like we may be in for a damp month but that's okay as long as it doesn't rain buckets. On the first sunny day that arrives, I need to get moving and plant some Aloha and Hawaii in the garden.


Summer dahlias: Hawaii, Duet, Aloha

Today's high: 13°C / 55°F