Is it spring yet?

I can hardly wait for spring!!!! Meanwhile, work continues in the yard.

Yesterday was not rainy as I had thought it would be (the dark ominous clouds I saw on my way home from Watsonville on Saturday afternoon must have had other places to go!) so I was out in the yard by 9:30. What took me so long? I spent some time buying blueberry plants! (More about them later.) I had big plans to spend the day playing with compost!

I have two Bio Stack compost bins (Thanks Aunt and Uncle!) and I love them. One was full of compost that was ready to go and my plan was to use it in the camelia garden and down on some chlorotic plants in the ravine. The bin yielded 3 wheel barrows of compost and then I took the other bin (what had been the "working bin") and pitch forked the contents into the empty one. Now it is the "finishing bin" and the other one will be the "working bin." I really like this system. When the bins are really working hard, I make more compost than a yard with native plants probably needs. I am not a Master Composter (yes, there is such a thing!) and my compost often causes squash and tomatoes to come up around the yard (free plants!), but I am still pretty proud of my lovely, dark, rich compost, teeming with worms and sow bugs. I am careful not to put oxalis or bermuda grass in it. I try not to let calla lilies get in it either. I had obviously ignored that rule in the last bin, because at the very bottom as I moved the "working bin" there were about a dozen yellow strands of something growing. They turned out to be calla lily bulbs. The plants were attenuated and yellow, not healthy by any means. But the fact that they were growing under 3 feet of compost tells you why these plants are so invasive!

I also did something that I feel a little apologetic about. I used Miracle Grow! I have quite a few chlorotic plants. With all the compost, that seems a little odd to me. From what I learned in class, it may be deficiency in calcium or iron rather than nitrogen. In the case of the camelia, it is likely that the soil is fine, but that the roots of the plant are having trouble due to compaction or something from the construction. There is another possibility, too. In both areas of chlorotic plants, there has been quite a bit of high carbon material incorporated directly into the soil. Maybe, I theorized, the straw that was covering the construction mud and the sawdust from the tree removal are decomposing and robbing the nitrogen from the soil while they do. Eventually it will go back, but while high carbon things are decomposing, they tie up a lot of nitrogen. Straw and sawdust are hundreds of time more carbon than nitrogen, I learned while reading the other night. So, when I saw the Miracle Grow in the well house (left here by the previous owner), I decided to use it up. I like my healthy foods, but occasionally enjoy the taste of a Pop Tart. I figure this is the equivalent for my plants. Fortified with 8 essentials vitamins and minerals, don't you know! I will report how it works.

I had another bit of propagation luck yesterday, too. The pink flowering current is getting ready to bloom and as I was down looking at it I noticed growth coming out a long way from the plant. When I investigated I found a branch that had been broken from the bush had rooted in the ground! I took it up carefully and found lots of roots. So I cut it up and put rooted pieces in pots to propagate. What luck!!! I'll have to post about all my propagation sometime this week.

About the blueberries, I have been debating for quite awhile about blueberries along the garage wall. There was a sale at Peaceful Valley Farm Supply and I still debated. I debated so long, I almost missed the sale! A couple of the varieties I wanted were gone. But in the end I bought 5 blueberries. Three different varieties that bear in mid season and two plants of the same type that bear early. All are varieties that my MG book says will do ok with low chill in California. They scare me a little because it sounds like they are very picky about their soil. But they are pretty plants and if the birds and I get a few berries along with that, I'll be happy.