Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Wonderful weekend o' gardening

The weather over Memorial Day weekend here in Seattle sucked. Bad. It was windy and rainy and cold. Except, against all predictions, around midday on Monday the sun came out and it was fantastically warm and beautiful for the rest of the day.

I just so happened to be at my favorite plant nursery when the sun started coming out as I was on an errand from my herb boy, getting him some basil plants and a shiso for the garden. The fine weather gave me extra time to noodle around and pick up a plant stake for my arbequina olive tree which is growing very nicely.

Earlier in the weekend, in spite of the weather, I trimmed back the cilantro that was turning in a giant tree, our rosemary, which was about to eat the fence, and our rose bushes, which were just getting out of control. We have one rose bush that I've been trying to kill for years now. Left to its own devices it grows to about 8 feet tall even if I cut it to the ground.

It has this enormous root ball/stump that has foiled me for years, but yesterday I managed to vanquish it. And, in its place, I planted the cold hardy windmill palm that I bought at the nursery. Because the kids love palm trees since it reminds them of San Diego. And I also bought a banana plant while I was at it. I'll let you know how it does around here.

I'm fairly certain it doesn't bear fruit at these climes, but it does make for some showy leafiness. Both plants are quite small now, which is fine by me. They are cheaper that way but, primarily, not as heavy and I have enough back problems as it is. In any case, I'll have my Mediterranean backyard villa here in no time.

How about you? Did you get any gardening in this weekend?

Photo credits: Daisy and Graham

14 comments:

Aimee said...

You have an OLIVE tree? In seattle? No shit that's awesome!

Robj98168 said...

Can't say as I did, had to work. How did you happen to come by an Herb boy? I thought those things only grew in the south!

meg said...

I weeded, took out an overgrown lavender bush and killed a lot of slugs.
I went to my "Garden Helpers" class which was fun- checking out p-patches.
Yard- but not really gardening-I almost finished putting in a small gravel patio tucked in my yard and make a brick patio of sorts for the chicken coop to set on.
I'm sore.

Margaret said...

In Asia they use banana leaves as disposable plates. So if you ever have to feed a lot of people your banana leaf plates could end up in the compost pile rather than the rubbish bin.

Olivia said...

Up here in Atlantic Canada, spring has been playing peek-a-boo.I have nearly 30 tomato plants and some sage still under the grow lights. I would love to get them into the garden but with almost frost-like temperatures last week, I don't dare. About half of my veggie garden has been planted - peas, beans, onions, lettuce, spinach and chard - but nary a one has yet poked its head up through the cold, wet soil. The herbs are in a holding pattern - the ones planted so far have to come in some nights as temperatures plummet. Nine planters are waiting for flowers but again . . . the cold wet weather discourages gardening.

Unknown said...

Re: your small trees - I just read somewhere that smaller trees actually do better than the larger ones. Less transplant shock or something. So it's all good!

Farmer's Daughter said...

Lovely! My husband weeded the garden, and I took walks around the yard with baby Joshua. I'm pretty hands-off so far this year!

Laura said...

I got the sunflowers that I started from seed in the ground! And I made sure that our picnic blanket works. Hey, you gotta test these things! It's a dirty job lounging in the yard for a few hours but somebodys got to do it.

Vee said...

Hubby took a 5-day weekend, and we got a LOT planted, but still not nearly done. Got too burnt to do too much on day 5 so after planting my winter squash seedlings and watered all the trees we planted, we took a nap! Yes, a deserved nap!

But your posting reminded me that Hubby recently killed my banana plant so I need another one.

Sigh. It never stops, does it?

Vikki at http://vikkisverandah.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

My DH and I put up a fence around the area that will become new vegetable beds. I also picked lots of Nanking cherries, watered the container plants, and did some weeding.

Unknown said...

Yes! I can see my cabbages now....
and I planted the three Rugosa roses that have been sitting around in pots for three years. They got planted in the same beautiful window of opportunity that you got on Monday.
Our weekend was a little better than yours, though. It only rained half of the weekend.
I'm a little worried about the forecast for three to four inches of rain between now and Thursday. My creek bottom garden may end up under water. Shit!

Unknown said...

Yes! I can see my cabbages now....
and I planted the three Rugosa roses that have been sitting around in pots for three years. They got planted in the same beautiful window of opportunity that you got on Monday.
Our weekend was a little better than yours, though. It only rained half of the weekend.
I'm a little worried about the forecast for three to four inches of rain between now and Thursday. My creek bottom garden may end up under water. Shit!

Lisa Nelsen-Woods said...

I planted a gift of Thai Basil from my mother in law in my herb garden. Then I hand weeded my front garden under the watchful eye of my dog. He's a task master!

-Meleah- said...

I did a ton of gardening last weekend. In previous years, we were growing veggies in what used to be our flower beds. This year we decided to do raised beds to have less weeding work. We moved our strawberries from the one flower bed to an 8x10 raised bed. Then we built three more raised beds that are 12' long and 3' wide. We have onions, Swiss chard, okra, zucchini, tomatoes, bell peppers, sunflowers growing. I still have half a bed to fill.