2021, Baboon Achievers, gardening, Gatherings, home, Kids, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Gardens Galore!

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(Sorry picture is fuzzy – I don’t have the original….)

In the past ten days our yard has gone from the scourge of the neighborhood to the envy of everyone.  I don’t chop too much down in the fall on the theory that the old stalks and leaves hold onto water and protect the spring buds.  (I don’t know if this is actually true, but I cling to it… especially since I have trouble getting motivated for autumn gardening.)  YA and I have gotten everything cleaned up, spread about a ton of mulch (well, it feels that way, anyway) and turned our eyesore into a lovely garden.  The fact that the daffodils and tulips are in bloom on the boulevard doesn’t hurt!

As we’ve been working, I been looking at some of the plants that I’ve been lucky to receive from baboons on the trail.  Lovely hostas in the backyard from PJ, raspberry canes from Linda, a massive hosta display on the front boulevard from our tim and, of course, my lovely Prairie Smoke from LJB.  It’s made me think that although our baboon troop was initially brought together by music, we’ve also bonded over gardening.  Helping out PJ with her garden after the accident, the great chainsaw gathering at Steve’s, filling in Anna’s spot with various plants, Ben bringing us bales and poo, Jim providing seeds and loads of gardening talk over the years. 

As always, I’m grateful for all the fabulous friendship over music, books and gardening!

Any gardening projects in store for you? 

38 thoughts on “Gardens Galore!”

  1. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    I am sitting here in Iowa awaiting my visit time (11am) with my mother. Her facility is open now, but they are still limiting the number of visitors in the building, which is a good idea.

    Prior to my visit here, Lou and I did a garden project. We thinned out the raspberry patch which had become weedy and overgrown. Then yesterday before I left for my trip, Lou spread chicken poo from farmer Ben in the patch. After a few years of chicken poo fertilizer these raspberries, as well as the dandelions and the violets, are vigorous and productive.The raspberry plants we removed now will live in Iowa in my niece’s garden where she has a patched prepared and ready for transplanting the raspberries later today. (I inspected them before reporting for the pest I describe below).

    My other project was planting the new cold frame for the first time. It has proved to be a gem. I have soil that reaches 75-80 degrees, ideal for germination of seeds. Tomatoes, kohlrabi, radishes, snapdragons, BIR’s marigolds, nasturtiums, sunflowers, and lettuce are all up. In a week I will start transplanting a few of these.

    In the Master Gardener materials I have learned of a new pest to be aware of: Jumping Worms. These look like earth worms, but they eat everything in sight, hanging out beneath mulch. They destroy root systems, and multiply rapidly. If you get plants from other people, wash off the roots first. They are being spread through plant sharing and you do not want them in your garden. If you buy new plants at a nursery ask if the potting soil is sterile.

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  2. I think my gardening project consists of keeping up with the weeds! I have imported some plants from friends, and I plan to get some herbs for my little herb garden, may add another perennial out front. Three blocks away is also my Community Garden 4×4 plot where we will grow winter squash.

    I did transplant some goldenrod along the fence that lines our (very close) neighbor’s driveway, in the hopes that it will provide a sort of living boundary later in the summer.

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    1. We love Goldenrod. I mow a large open field near me that is part of a residential development. The guy who hires me would prefer it just mowed off flat. I leave patches of milkweed and goldenrod. Took a few years to convince him Goldenrod is NOT Ragweed.
      There is one spot right near the road, a patch of something that’s blooming and pretty in June when I mow around it, but 2 weeks later, dead and brown and terrible looking. I still struggle with whether to leave it or mow it.

      I got my straw bales prepping. I’ve bought some seed potatoes. But that’s as far as I’ve gotten. Kelly is talking about going to the local gardening place today.

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      1. The thing that looks nice in June and then looks terrible might be waterleaf. It’s a native plant with purple blossoms. Gets pretty droopy by July and the flowers turn brown.

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        1. I still rue the day when I thought it was a good idea to plant some Virginia waterleaf in my garden. The window of time during which it looks nice is too short for the amount of work it takes to prevent it from taking over everything. My trillium, wild ginger and Jack in the pulpit that I planted at the same time, though, I still enjoy.

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  3. My gardening days are over. Fortunately, I think, husband has become quite the enthusiastic vegetable gardener the last couple of years. He has already planted sweet onions and tomatoes. I’m pretty sure he has seeded some corn, beans and radishes, as well. Unfortunately, he doesn’t listen to gardening advice from experienced gardeners. How hard can this be, seems to be his attitude. So we shall see.

    My main ambition with regards to the garden, is to plant a few containers with some colorful perennials. I have two geraniums that have wintered in the house the last few years, they’ll be in the mix. I’m sure I’ll find some inspiration at the Farmer’s Market.

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  4. No gardening here. I am semi-weeding dandelions. Budgies are supposed to enjoy the leaves. Mine love lettuce so I’m outside now picking some to mix in with other green veggies. The flock is always suspicious of new foods so it’s necessary to trick ’em.

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  5. One of the odd gifts Trail Baboon has given me is an awareness of how pleasurable gardening can be. Not for me, but for those who understand and love it. My mother was totally obsessed with the beauty of our homes, but that absolutely did not include the property outside the dwelling itself. My dad had been forced to tend a garden when he was a kid–a small kid in a large garden–so he loathed everything about gardening. If you breed a garden ignorer with a garden hater, you get me.

    Thanks for teaching me that something I ignored and dreaded all my life can be such a joy. And tasty.

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    1. Steve, I find that actually doing it is very satisfying and enjoyable. But it’s best if I think of it as a miniature farm, my real calling.

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  6. All of the plants I got from you all last fall have come back and at least one is blooming (I have it marked… it’s something with deep blue/purple blossoms). Along with what has been split from Baboon gardens I have things from a few other friends as well – and it all makes my heart happy to see a garden that was built on community and friendship. I got most of the leaves raked off last weekend and have one tall thing that needs to be cut down now that it’s spring (like VS, I like to let the tall stuff stay over the winter – though if it’s good for the plant, that is just a side benefit to how pretty even the dormant things look against snow in the winter).

    it’s too early yet to get the annuals I usually put into pots every year – so the next few weekends will be pulling weeds and tidying up beds. And pulling more weeds. We have something that I can’t remember the name of that spreads and spreads – deep tap roots that are hard to get and just pulling the top bits of the root systems doesn’t really get rid of it. Nasty stuff. I am loathe to use chemicals, but may have to in parts of the yard to really get rid of this stuff – it’s pernicious.

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  7. The tomatoes, peppers, and cabbages we started are doing well. The cantelopes are yet to germinate. We started the cantelopes in peat pots so we can plant the whole pot without disturbing the roots. Husband has been carefully planning our church’s vegetable garden, too, which is grown in six, waist high, raised beds. Other church members will help with watering and harvesting the produce for the Food Pantry.. He will have tomatoes and peppers in pots there., too. He has enriched the raised beds with soil amendments and worm castings. He also bought lots of bags of manure and compost/manure for both gardens.

    It is snowing here today. We welcome the moisture. We never plant the garden until Memorial Day , as you never know when the last freeze here will be. Husband has raked and cleaned out the flower beds and the raspberries and strawberry patches. I hope to till the vegetable garden next weekend. Then we can put up the bean poles and pea fences, lay down the soaker hoses, and put the bunny fence up around the garden perimeter.

    The dahlia bulbs arrived from Swan Island Dahlias this week. Those will go in the ground over Memorial day, too.

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  8. Husband is very particular about the seed and plant varieties that go in the church garden. They must be container friendly. We started one sweet pepper variety and two container tomato varieties for church. They will go in eleven very large pots.

    We started Chimayo peppers and Joe Parker New Mexico peppers for our home garden. They are pungent and not too hot. The turn red when ripe and make great enchilada sauce. We also started Spanish Giants, which are large, red sweet peppers.

    We started San Marzano and Brandyboy tomatoes for our home garden. The San Marzano’s are wonderful and make the best sauce. They are prone to blight and fungus, so I have to spray them throughout the summer, along with the roses. The Brandyboys are enormous, with the most wonderful flavor. They are a hybrid and far less prone to disease. All the tomatoes go in cages, which are at the ready along with the bean poles.

    The cabbages are a small savoy type called Alcosa. Our bedding plant choices here are very limited, and, to be honest, we are both pretty fussy about the varieties we like to grow, so we need to start them ourselves.

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  9. A weather system is going through our region this weekend bringing rain and snow. It is so wonderful sitting here this morning seeing rain and melting snow drip off the deck. The drought has been relentless here, and I don’t mind being in the house. The garden can wait. I will make a large pot of poultry/beef broth this weekend, clean house, and watch things green up outside. The birds at the backyard feeder are so excited and active in the rain this morning.

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  10. We have had .63 inches of rain today. Husband took a close look around the yard and got all excited, and we headed off to our favorite greenhouse and came back with a rhododendron and three ostrich ferns and a large rosemary plant. We already had planted a big pot of lavender and three pots of pansies.The scillas and Glories of the Snow are blooming all over the yard. The tulips are just starting , and everything is popping up in the perennial beds. There are multiple shades af brown, green,and rusty red in the ditches and creek beds around town with the rain, as the grasses are allowing themselves to grow.

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  11. I know there are some baboons who haven’t met all the baboons in the photo above (which, by the way, was taken by Steve). It’s from the “garden party” where baboons showed up to do some spring clean-up in my garden after my fall in 2012. From left to right: Bill, ljb, Robin, BiR, Lisa, Linda, Krista, vs, and yours truly. What a crew. Too bad that the baboon who has documented most of these baboon outings isn’t in any of the photos.

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    1. Remember, PJ, I’m the guy who hasn’t had the courage to look at my image in a mirror in many years. The photographer who documented some baboon events was happy to be on the “safe” side of the lens.

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  12. Happy Mother’s Day, friends. This special day was an ironic joke for my mother. She would have liked the attention Mother’s Day is supposed to bring, but the men in her family were always gone on Mother’s Day because it was also the day of the Minnesota Fishing season opener. On the day we were supposed to worship motherhood we instead pursued northern pike and bass.

    Now I wonder if I should regret the candor with which I’ve discussed my mother on these pages. I’m an analytical person, so I’ve explained things in ways that weren’t entirely flattering to my mother. She was not a perfect person, just as I was not a perfect son. I understand now that some aspects of her mothering will be with me as long as I live.

    What remains clear is that she gave motherhood her very best effort. She loved her two children passionately, and she never relaxed as she addressed the challenges of raising us. I love you, Mom, and never for a moment doubted that you loved me.

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    1. Steve, I don’t know if any of us know a perfect person. I’m not really sure there is such a thing. But what I do know is it your mother raised a bright, sensitive, kind and generous man that I am glad to know. And that makes her as near as perfect in my book as you can get.

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    2. I’ve worn a corsage only once, and I was self-conscoius about it the entire evening. It was one wasband (or probably his mother) had ordered for me for the wedding party they held for us a few days after I arrived in the US. It was one of those you wore on your wrist. The memory of that party still makes me cringe, and not only because of the corsage. Red flags all over the place, and though I saw them clearly, I told myself I was wrong. As it turned out, I wasn’t.

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  14. We have had .85 of rain since the weather system moved in yesterday. I don’t think it is enough to lift the burn ban, though.

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  15. Happy Mother’s Day everyone. I got the cutest gift from my little neighbor next-door this morning. It’s a little jade plant in a ceramic bear pot. I love it.

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  16. So, we are placing a seed order to Seed Savers today for herbs. Husband thinks we also need annual asters seeds, since we have spare pots that we just can’t leave unused.

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  17. I’ve realized that I’m not much of a garden planner. I really can’t imagine my gardening projects until about now, when it’s warm enough that I actually spend extended time out in the garden spaces. Yesterday I was out for a couple of hours weeding between the bricks on the boulevard and cracks in the sidewalk. I realized I could make one space into a little rock garden. This would probably not have occurred to me from inside the house.

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  18. I have some seeds from last year’s sunflowers that I plan to plant soon. Also some bright lights cosmos. That’s about the extent of my ambitions at the moment. Perhaps inspiration will strike later in the season.

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