What did you do in the garden today?

[flowerbug]

i didn't do anything in the gardens today, but for the gardens i checked out some of the worm buckets and made sure they had enough vegetable scraps, shredded paper and moisture.

so far the tiny spiders are working out ok - they are doing what they are supposed to do, which is make sure any stray fungus gnats get captured before they can start a population explosion. in a covered bucket it is amazing what can happen... hundreds of thousands of fungus gnats. when i need to open those buckets i have to take them outside. so last year i found some very small spiders in the mulch outside and brought enough in to put them in some of the worm buckets to see if they would survive let alone help keep the fungus gnats under control if they happened to try to start up. sometimes there won't be an issue and then you have one bucket where you harvested some mulch/humus outside and happen to bring some in with the rest of the bucket contents. so it is good to find a helper bug for that and they're pretty darned cute too. very tiny. when small barely over a mm across. as they get full sized they make it up to 2-4mm from leg tip to leg tip. and they do spin webs and seem to get along with each other at least to the point where i can have hundreds at the top of the bucket. they don't put their webs right on the mesh fabric i use so when i take the cover off there's a layer of web there that i have to move aside and also keep track of any of the small spiders that try to crawl away.

who ever knew that i'd be a spider wrangler along with being a worm keeper? there's a lot of other soil community creatures in the buckets too so it is always interesting to me to see what is going on. i have some very big wood lice that might work out for steaks some day...

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

Picked and ate some juicy rhubarb, scuffed up some weed seedlings out of the wood chips, fashioned a new garden gate out of an old section of picket fence.

It frosted heavy here last night and supposed to do it all again tonight, but nothing looks the worse for wear out there. The lettuce and other greens seem to love this cold weather, of course.

Let's have a broader answer
What are the duties of a gardener?
Gardener responsibilities include monitoring the health of all plants and greenscapes, watering and feeding plants, trimming trees and shrubs, fertilizing and mowing lawns, weeding gardens and keeping green spaces and walkways clear of debris and litter.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Most importantly: a gardener is a steward of his soil, and the organisms that live in his soil.

 

[flowerbug]

heard the first cardinal calling of the season this morning. they can get loud enough to be heard through the walls/windows here. sunshine is out. we have a few birdie treats to put out (tie up one the fence so we can see them) and i have some old seeds to scatter on the snow. not sure they'll eat them, but we'll find out...

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Love cardinals!

 

[Daisy]

I love the birds in the morning here, its one of the best things about the place. I was out watering early this morning when the flock of pink and grey galahs decided to watch me from the powerlines. Then the ringneck parrots (who go for the fruit trees) snuck up behind me while I was looking at the galahs and tried to get into my fruit tree netting! I squirted them with the hose and they left, but probably came back when I was inside.

I picked a bunch of apples that had dropped and about 40 tiny nashi pears. The nashis are smaller than usual and dropping off, but they appear ripe, even at that size. The tree was loaded and I didn't use much fertiliser this year, I just let the chooks and ducks do that. They are too small to do much with so I might boil them up and feed them to the ducklings. The apples are divine though. I want to take some to my neighbour and hope some last for when my mum visits in a few weeks.

My second sunflower is half open, taking a lot longer to fully open than the first. The others are not quite at flowering stage yet. I planted them staggered in the hope they all flower one by one before the first frost.

 

[flowerbug]

Love cardinals!

we have a spot where they like to perch and sing because the contours of the house and tree make them sound bigger. kinda like how some wood peckers will use the side of a house with a hollow spot behind it to make themselves sound bigger. luckily they've not done much of that here... yet...

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

Picked and ate some juicy rhubarb, scuffed up some weed seedlings out of the wood chips, fashioned a new garden gate out of an old section of picket fence.

It frosted heavy here last night and supposed to do it all again tonight, but nothing looks the worse for wear out there. The lettuce and other greens seem to love this cold weather, of course.

We just cooked today... Plants seem to be ok today, just the normal watering. then we just ate in the gardens..

 

[Daisy]

I didn't do much in the garden today either. I moved the duck and ducklings into the back "courtyard" to go bug hunting. They hadn't been in there before and were a bit hesitant. I don't think they explored the whole area, the ducklings seem quite lazy haha. I went out and gave them a squirt with the hose about lunch time and they had a little splash in their water bucket then seemed to sleep the rest of the afternoon until it was time to go in the coop again. They are just starting to get real white feathers but are still yellow tinged. They are so cute and starting to get their "quack" instead of tweet.

I dropped some apples and nashis to a neighbour this morning and had a chat. I always like to see his garden. He has the same issue with some plants as me - its almost like a magnifying glass has targeted the sun onto just one plant. All the other plants in an area will be fine, but one will be fried, dried and almost dead. Its a really odd phenomenon, both of us notice it will happen even if the plant has damp soil. We theorised it may be the plants that were heavily affected by the frost last year, weakened types.

I am jealous of his new grevilliea, a "Lady O' it has dark pink/deep red flowers and I cant wait to see it grow. I love grevillieas and so do the birds!

 

[flowerbug]

I didn't do much in the garden today either. I moved the duck and ducklings into the back "courtyard" to go bug hunting. They hadn't been in there before and were a bit hesitant. I don't think they explored the whole area, the ducklings seem quite lazy haha. I went out and gave them a squirt with the hose about lunch time and they had a little splash in their water bucket then seemed to sleep the rest of the afternoon until it was time to go in the coop again. They are just starting to get real white feathers but are still yellow tinged. They are so cute and starting to get their "quack" instead of tweet.

I dropped some apples and nashis to a neighbour this morning and had a chat. I always like to see his garden. He has the same issue with some plants as me - its almost like a magnifying glass has targeted the sun onto just one plant. All the other plants in an area will be fine, but one will be fried, dried and almost dead. Its a really odd phenomenon, both of us notice it will happen even if the plant has damp soil. We theorised it may be the plants that were heavily affected by the frost last year, weakened types.

I am jealous of his new grevilliea, a "Lady O' it has dark pink/deep red flowers and I cant wait to see it grow. I love grevillieas and so do the birds!

sometimes with a lot of heat a plant can have something called vascular collapse happen. other times it may be a root problem or fungi within the plant itself. sometimes you just don't know for sure.