The word of the year for the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden for 2019 is fun. So, we do not have much planned this year. After Earth Day, we only had two gardeners to complete their three hours of work equity. And April showers have kept most of the gardeners away this week. Our cherry trees are in in their beautiful, flowery glory. BUT, the bees have not been flocking to them as they have in the past.
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We just have 20 feet left to complete on our fence project this year before the brambles get too tall. We worked until dark. I painted the wood as we installed the fence. (The pickets were painted two years ago).
Ken stopped by on Saturday afternoon to pick up and dispose of two of the pallets that were dumped on our lawn last week. The rest remain and have killed the grass on the north part of the lawn.
Sabrina came on Thursday to weed and plant some lettuce and spinach. Her plot is again covered in purple nettles. She again put down black garden fabric to kill them, but Friday night’s storm ripped a lot of it up. She also had lots of volunteer daisies, so I transplanted them to make room for her vegetables.
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in light of the anticipated rain.
I also weeded the flower beds and started digging dandelion plants out of the lawn. You might notice that our front lawn looks amazing. It is not a chemical blessing; it is a yoga downward dog one. We have bent over and physically removed the dandelions (but not the violets or clover) over the years. A thick lawn keeps them from re-establishing themselves. So, every year I pick off the dandelions growing on the periphery. Yes, the bees love them, but we have lots of flowers and flowering trees that need and feed them.
Our cherry trees are blooming profusely. That being said, there was not a bee in sight (unlike Wednesday). I'm hoping that the rain was the culprit. The Granny Smith and Jonathon apples are also starting to bloom. The McIntosh apples are blooming, but not the Honeycrisp that we planted last week. It just has buds. So, there is no chance of McIntosh or Honeycrisp apples this year. The peach trees already bloomed so-so. The plums are just so-so. The elderberry bushes have quadrupled in size from last year.
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elderberry bushes and weeded a few blueberry bushes.
I have other things to plant, but it was 2:00 and I had other things to do, like cook and clean.
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