Friday, July 15, 2011

Progress

John called yesterday and asked me if my raspberries would like some well composted manure.  John had been over to the Peace Abbey where he acquired several buckets of the wonderful stuff.  It was fun to show John our humble garden, the Grow Camp, and the worm composter.  John has always enjoyed hobby farming, and he remembers what our own garden looked like before life crowded out my time to work in the garden.  We will probably never have a veggie patch as big as that one was years ago, but this one is manageable and productive.

So, this morning I side dressed all of the raspberries with the manure, and put a little by the rhubarb and the tomatoes as well.  Henry and I have finally cleared all of the weeds out of the space under the deck stairs.  The space there is about 14 by 7 feet.  I went round to the north side of the house and dug up some clumps of hosta.  Later this morning Henry and I will plant them in that space under the deck.  It will take a few years to fill in, but it will look much nicer than all of the weeds that were there.   Hostas originated in Asia, and so I know Wendy, my family environmentalist, will not be too happy, especially given my plan to turn the rest of the back yard over to native species over the next few years. Hostas are easy to control, though, and perfect for that space, and I already have them, so this is cheap!  Perhaps I can tell her I'm raising them for food.  Apparently every part of the hosta is edible.

Later in the day:

I know this is not the best time of year to move hostas, but in the spring I had NO time. We were able to move four clumps of the variegated hostas,  but the large elephant ear hosta has such a strong root system and so much foliage we found it impossible to divide or move.  We have left a large space in the middle for the big hosta, and hopefully next spring will not be as crazy for me.  In the meantime we will just have to weed and water until the hostas fill in the space.  We also left a sunny corner just outside of the deck stairs to plant a clump of rhubarb.  Our rhubarb is not happy where it is.  It gets too much heat reflected off the house, and tries to bolt early in the season.  We'll divide it when the time is right and put a clump in the spot we left.

Okay, I've changed my mind about the hostas.  I found a site online that says July and August are the best time to move them, and gave tips for dealing with the big ones.  Maybe next week...

No comments:

Post a Comment