Good morning, and it's time for a change. Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.
In Denver this week, it's been like it was last week, and the week before: warm, dry and windy. Except not quite as windy, and even warmer.
Wind speeds topped out at 39 mph — at least it stayed below 40 mph.
Temperatures, well — 74° on Tuesday, 75° on Wednesday, and 76° on Thursday. Yesterday the warmth broke, and we topped out in the low 50s, and today the outlook is for clouds and — if we're lucky! — a bit of drizzle. The week ahead calls for more seasonal weather, with highs in the 40s and 50s, and lows dipping down below freezing.
The warm weather has caused everything to wake up earlier than usual, including the clematis in the front yard. I guess it's appropriate that Daylight Savings Time starts tomorrow so we'll all — well, except for Hawaii and Arizona — be waking up earlier tomorrow morning.
Despite the wind, on Wednesday I took advantage of the warm weather to clean up the veggie patch. It's somewhat protected back there, what with the fence and the house blocking the worst of the gusts, although the wind did lead to a few exciting — and uncomfortable — moments.
Step one was gathering all the dried plant material from last year — clippings from the perennials, dried tomato and squash vines, corn stalks — and spreading them in a somewhat even layer across the grass patch. Then out came our little Lawn Pup electric lawnmower and I mowed over it all, chopping it into bits. We have an electric chipper, but it is very heavy and a pain to move, clogs too easily, and it's more time consuming than using the lawnmower. Maybe I'll put the chipper on Craig's List and get it out of the shed.
I'd spread a tarp next to the compost bin to put the chopped debris on... unfortunately the wind kept catch the tarp and flipping it up, or flinging bits of dried plant matter in my hair, face, and down my shirt. Made for some uncomfortable moments, but after two or three batches from the grass catcher, the wind could no longer move the tarp, and it got easier.
Next came prepping the compost. With my favorite garden fork, I lifted the soaking wet winter's load of kitchen scraps off the top layer of the compost bin, dropped it on top of the chopped debris, mixed it up then shoved it into the tumbling composter. The bottom levels of the compost bin were more broken down, but very wet and compacted (it always is by Spring), so it was mixed with the remainder of the chopped debris and forked back into the bin.
It was a long day's work and my back was not thanking me by the end of it — but as of yesterday, the cooking temperature in both the bin and the tumbler were up to the target let of 150° — high enough to kill most insect eggs and weed seeds.
I still have to get the rest of the bulbs out of the storage area and into the ground, and despair of when I'm going to get that done; with early, fast warm up its getting quite late to do it. It was just way too windy to work in the front yard during the week. I did get the remainder of the perennials plugged back into the ground, and moved a few things to the new planter boxes last Sunday. Today will be too wet (at least I hope it will be too wet; we really need the moisture). Perhaps tomorrow I'll be able to do a quick job of throwing them into the ground, and worry about planting them more artistically next fall. Well, except I'm likely to be called into the office... again. The bossman's prepping for a huge arbitration hearing, so there's lots of after-hours work to get done.
That's what's happening here. What's going in your gardens?