harrygbutler's 2017 garden

Hi, I'm Harry. Welcome to my 2017 gardening thread, my first in the group.

I'm looking forward to an active gardening year, and a chance to talk about gardens — and books — here.

My intro from the"Meeting Each Other" thread:

My wife Erika and I live in eastern Pennsylvania with three cats — Elli, Otto, and Pixie — and a dog, Hildy.

Our home is a little over 100 years old. We have both flower gardens and vegetable gardens, as well as berries -- raspberry, blackberry, boysenberry (planted last year, hoping for some berries this year), with black raspberry planned for this year -- and a couple grapes.

We have a couple native plant beds -- one that suffered a setback because it was originally established with more shade than it has now, and a second shade garden that I started last year with some transplanted seedlings from the first bed. We'll see how well that one does. :-)

I've built raised beds for our two vegetable gardens, where we plant greens of various sorts, beans (lima and/or wax), some root vegetables, and tomatoes.

My thoughts have already turned to Spring, and your arrival is just one more red breasted robin to remind me that it's just around the corner. I just looked at your gallery, and the cats and dog are cute... but where's the garden pictures? :-}

It's a nice group of people here in in this hidden enclave of LT, and welcome to everyone's back yard fence (so to speak).

>2 Lyndatrue: Thanks for the welcome, Lynda! I've posted garden photos in my book threads from time to time, but not too many. A few highlights from the past year are below. I'll try to get some overall garden photos added in the near future — maybe I can take some tomorrow, when we are out planting our new black raspberry plants and peach tree.


The fringetree we planted a couple years ago, in bloom last spring.

A couple of plants in the main native plant bed:


Virginia bluebell.


Dutchman's breeches.


Blackberries — yum!


The most photogenic of our backyard visitors.

>3 harrygbutler: Whoa. Those are some nice looking berries.

The bluebells are very pretty.

>4 Lyndatrue: We've been very fortunate with our blackberries and raspberries, and I'm hoping we'll have similar luck with our black raspberries. Blueberries didn't do well for us, though.

Our first flowers of the year (not counting the flat of pansies I got) -- crocus beside our sheet-metal pig.

Lovely. Thanks for reminding me that Spring is coming up soon. Nice pig, too. :-}

>5 harrygbutler: Blueberries need acid soil and soft water. If you don't have that they won't do well. I keep thinking about it, but unless I grow them in pots, and use rain water, I know it won't work.

>8 MarthaJeanne: If I recall correctly, we tried the blueberries as container plants because our soil wasn't ideal for them (or maybe that was the second try :-) ). As we are on the edge of a major blueberry-growing region and can easily get a year's supply (or more) fresh from the farm, we decided to focus on alternatives that worked better for us.

Years ago I dug a big hole, lined it with wood, filled it with special soil, and the plants grew nicely the first year, I had a harvest the next year. But we had to water too often or the lime moved in from around, and the next year they started to die. However, the raspberries I had planted about a meter behind decided to move in, and did really well there.

Like I said, I haven't tried in this garden. We love blueberries, and they are so expensive, but I also prefer to grow things that will thrive without a lot of hassle. Just lazy, I guess.

Woo, I found Harry's thread!

>3 harrygbutler: love the squirrel and >6 harrygbutler: the pig! There's a local artist who does metal sculptures from junk, and I want one of his goats.

Regarding blueberries: yes, they love acid soil, but if you side-dress them with coffee grounds, they may do well in more alkaline conditions.

>10 MarthaJeanne: As we actually prefer raspberries, it was an easy decision to focus on what would thrive. This year we're starting some black raspberries to add a bit more variety. We put in boysenberries last year — largely for our cat Elli, who loves boysenberry pie — and are hoping for a crop this year.

>11 fuzzi: Thanks for stopping by! We got the pig in one of the antique malls out in Adamstown, Pa., near Reading, from a booth filled with similar creations, of various sizes. There used to be someone at one of the flea markets in western NY who also made sculptures by combining junk parts; I always liked what the person did, but at the time we didn't really have a place for anything.

>12 harrygbutler: watch those raspberries, they will take over your yard!

I'm going to see if I can find a photo of the artist's works, and share. His horses are magnificent, but too large for my yard.

>14 fuzzi: We've had both regular raspberries and thornless blackberries for several years now. Each year they make their bid for more space, and each year I head them off. I may try salvaging the starts this year, if I can figure out how to pass them along to people who might want them.

Here you go, here's a picture of a couple of the artist's goats:



His gallery is here: http://jonathanbowling.com/section/49685.html

I love his stuff!

>16 fuzzi: Neat stuff! There's a business near us that has a couple scrap-metal dinosaurs in front of their building. I've never been able to take a photo, because it is on an incredibly busy highway.

>16 fuzzi:

Those are great goats, no place to put them (for now) but I'd be tempted to buy one if I ran across it.

Now why did he pose them with a woman model?! (/soapbox)

>17 harrygbutler: maybe you could pull over into a parking lot?

Most of the sculptures are downtown, near the public library, so I have parked there and walked over to take photographs.

>18 elenchus: probably the artist's girlfriend? I dunno.

Looking at the prices of his other works, I doubt I'll ever get a goat...the horses are $10K, small bunnies are $150. :(

>19 fuzzi: I should probably do that; I forget about it until we're driving by. :-)

Our pig was much less expensive than that.

I spotted some Johnny jump-up blooms in one of our containers today. Erika saved the seeds and planted these:

>21 harrygbutler: love those!

>22 fuzzi: Thanks! We do, too.

We had a surprise visitor at our suet feeder today — a downy woodpecker. It was an unexpected pleasure, as we don't seem to have sufficient trees in the neighborhood to draw them in, particularly when there are large groves not too far away. Unfortunately she flew away before I could get the camera focused, but if she wasn't just passing through, perhaps I'll see her again.

If you keep suet handy, she probably will be back...

Ours are great spotted woodpeckers, and it more usual to have at least one on the suet or peanuts than not. We have at least three that frequent our feeders. They are the least likely to fly off if we are in the garden. The little birds are likely to fly up into the trees and complain. The starlings and pidgeons disappear. But that's fine. I'd really rather not be feeding them.

>25 fuzzi: I hope so, though that hasn't proved the case in the past here at this house. But perhaps the new suet feeder, with its cage to keep squirrels and large birds from eating the suet, will mean the suet stays around longer and thus is there when the woodpecker comes looking.

>26 MarthaJeanne: The downy woodpeckers aren't much afraid of people nearby, either.

>27 harrygbutler: I don't know what type of suet you use, but the local Wild Birds Unlimited sells a high-quality "no melt" suet block for fairly cheap. Much of the winter I make my own, but once the weather warms up, my peanut butter/lard blocks tend to get soft, so I switch to the store-bought variety.

>28 fuzzi: For years we used Hot Pepper Delight, because the squirrels would leave it alone. We've got some basic nut and berry blends to try at the moment since we have the "squirrel-proof" (we'll see) suet feeder now.

Woohoo, she's back at the feeder!

Erika was very busy out in the garden today, planting in raised beds and a planter or two.

Lettuce (leaf):
Slobolt
New Red Fire
Buttercrunch

Radishes:
Cherry Belle
Cherriette

Salad Turnips:
Oasis

Carrots:
Adelaide

Mâche (a second try):
Large-Leaved Round

Orache (this year's experiment):
Aurora

>30 harrygbutler: Lettuce so soon? I'm about to put mine in (in about a week), but I always recognize that I could have a frost, and have to start over. I do love the Slobolt varieties, though. Can Erika come over next week and help?

>31 Lyndatrue: Our season is running a bit early this year, but even without that, we usually have on hand some of the floating row cover, and if frost is threatened we cover it up.

We tried a cold frame for earlier planting, but it was a rather flimsy thing and didn't survive. I have plans to build one or two that I can move from raised bed to raised bed from year to year, but I haven't gotten around to building them yet.

I think Erika's planning a bit of a break. :-) The next batch of radishes I'll likely plant in a week or two when I move some of the strawberry plants out of planters into the ground where I've got an expanding strawberry patch. These all came from a couple escapes that I rescued late last year, and that vigorously put out runners once they were transplanted into a couple planters — indeed, I had to keep moving more planters around them to give them places to root.

Today we made our first visit of the year to Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve (http://www.bhwp.org/), a great spot a little north of us near the Delaware River. We've been members since we moved to the area and go fairly often, and we also get most of our native plants for our native plant gardens there.

Not much is yet in bloom, even of the spring ephemerals, but soon there will be quite a bit. Indeed, I found hardly any photogenic plants during this visit, but did get a few OK photos of birds at the visitor center feeders.








I do like the buds on the cucumber magnolia tree.

>33 harrygbutler: nice pics!

>34 fuzzi: Thanks! I was a bit surprised that I got any feeder pics that were worthwhile, as I was taking them through the viewing window and the anti-bird netting (which figures prominently in at least one shot I didn't post).

>35 harrygbutler: I've taken good photos of birds in cages (raptor rehab), where the wire is virtually invisible. I think if you can focus on the bird, the wire tends to "disappear".

>36 fuzzi: That makes sense. Thanks for the tip!

We've abandoned all hope of an indoor lettuce patch, as the planter has proved too desirable a cat bed.

>38 harrygbutler: That's it. You've won my heart. You are a good human. It's also a good start to my day (my days tend to start late).

XXOO

>38 harrygbutler: Mine, too!!

>39 Lyndatrue: agreed.

>39 Lyndatrue: >40 ronincats: >41 fuzzi: Thanks! We try to do right by them.

I'm just noticing a buncha threads in this group today. I'm in the same general part of the world, Lancaster PA.

>33 harrygbutler: Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve
I'd like to get there someday but it's a bit far afield for convenience. They sponsor the Millersville Native Plants in the Landscape conference, which I've been attending for several years, so I'm on the mailing list.

>43 qebo: Thanks for stopping by! We're off to Bowman's Hill again this morning for a birding walk.

Birding report, 4/8:

It was very cold when we started this morning at 7 a.m., and really only began to warm up near the end of our two-hour outing. I was glad I thought to bring gloves!

The birds weren't in a hurry to get active, either, but eventually we got good views of a few early migrants. Today's list:

Chickadee
Downy woodpecker
Great blue heron
Tufted titmouse
White-breasted nuthatch
Red-bellied woodpecker
Eastern phoebe (quite friendly and eager to be seen)
Robin
Turkey vulture
Pine warbler
Blue jay
Hermit thrush
Louisiana water thrush (heard, but not really seen by me)
Mourning dove
Black vulture
Kinglet (no one got a good view of its head to tell which one)
Brown creeper (thanks to Erika's keen eye)

A fairly short and common list, but things will pick up over the coming weeks. The Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve spring bird walks run through mid-May; last year on one I got a life bird, a Blackburnian warbler.

Garden report:

We didn't do too much with the garden today. I weeded around the kale that overwintered and seems to have sprung back; we're hoping to get one or two harvests before it bolts. I dug a hole for a second lilac, and I moved one of the bird feeder poles and put up another feeder. I've begun rebuilding the base for the water barrel we'll be hooking up to our drip irrigation for the main garden this year, but I don't think I'll finish that until tomorrow.

>45 harrygbutler: nice list!

>46 fuzzi: Thanks! I think we're going to try to get to most, if not all, of the weekly walks, so the coming weeks will, I hope, show a bit more of the less usual. If time permits we may head to the Jersey Shore for some birding at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge before the summer traffic makes a trip that way unlikely.

Though Otto has made an appearance, I realized that our other two cats hadn't yet appeared. They enjoyed the nice weather, with the windows open and birds to watch at the feeder. Pixie (Otto's sister) is on the left, and Elli (the eldest cat) is on the right. Elli especially loves the kitchen window and will stay there for hours when she can. Here she's a bit dismayed that Pixie has hopped up to share the space, as Elli prefers to stretch herself out across the whole width of the window.

Yesterday Erika planted our second lilac and did some garden prep work (chiefly pruning). I finished rebuilding the base for a water barrel; I'll have to get it set up before the next round of rain.

The finches have found the new feeders (one regular, one nyjer seed), but I haven't gotten a photo of the goldfinches yet. Here are a couple house finches from earlier today.

>48 harrygbutler: pretty kitties! Elli looks a lot smaller, is it just the angle of the picture?

>49 harrygbutler: nice pic! FYI: House finches love black oil sunflower seeds, as do most finches. During the winter I have Goldfinches all over my tube feeders, eating away at those seeds.

If you have a Wild Birds Unlimited nearby, I recommend their seed. It's more expensive than the bargain brands, but doesn't have as much chaff, and no filler seeds like millet, which most birds won't eat.

WBU has a savings club, which is a great deal if you buy seed every 4-8 weeks, as I do.

Here's some info on bird seed I think you'll appreciate: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/types-of-bird-seed-a-quick-guide/

>50 fuzzi: It is partly the angle, but Elli is the shortest of the cats. She's stockier than Pixie, but that is harder to see.

Thanks! We buy our black-oil sunflower separately and combine it (in varying proportions from feeder refill to feeder refill) with a more mixed seed for purposes of feeding, e.g., the mourning doves and especially the juncos, which we've found show a preference for other seeds.

Good to know about the WBU seed. We don't have a Wild Birds Unlimited very close, but I'll bear that in mind.

With April showers apparently on the way, it seemed a good time to get the rain barrels out. This is one I converted from a salvaged barrel and salvaged spigot last year, on a base of concrete pavers and blocks to raise it high enough to use for our drip irrigation system for our main garden. The salvaged cooler below served as a planter last year and probably will do so again this year.

This rain barrel doesn't get fed by any of the downspouts; I haul the water over from a rain barrel by the house to fill it up.

There's still a little clean-up to do back here, before I put in stakes and wire or line to support the raspberries (which are visible behind the rain barrel to the right).

Our tulips.

I'd love a rain barrel, maybe someday.

What did you use to seal around the faucet?

>53 harrygbutler: love the tulips! They don't "do well" here. :(

>54 fuzzi: We started with two that we bought from a nearby town that got them to sell to residents but had some available for others, too. We still have one of those, but the other eventually got damaged and had to be discarded. Our neighbor got me the blue barrel (which had contained soap or something similar and non-toxic); he got them one as well. I sawed off the top and added the spigot salvaged from the rain barrel that we had had to throw away. Because I had no need to make the spigot removable, I just used waterproof caulk, applied in a few layers, and it seems to have worked.

I'm hoping to make another for our annex garden this year.

You might check Craigslist or just search online for used food-grade barrels. I looked before we got the blue one, and they were pretty cheap. Of course, you do then have to get the spigot separately.

Too bad about the tulip situation there! We had a similar issue (in reverse) with passionflower. It would survive the winter and get foliage, but only in one exceptionally warm year did we really get flowers.

High winds today were a bit of bad news — they snapped our young fringe tree and took out one of the secondary trunks on the older lilac bush. On the bright side, the newly planted lilac is flourishing and the strawberries are doing quite well overall.

This coming Saturday we'll pick up our tomato seedlings from a local nursery we've bought from before.

Bird feeders are busy, but nothing particularly unusual. This Sunday we hope to go on a birding walk at a nearby preserve that is new to us, but which reportedly has a number of nesting warblers to look for.

>56 harrygbutler: sounds like plans for a fun Sunday.

I should be able to harvest our first strawberries this weekend; they were very close yesterday.

But the big show is our Zephirine Drouhin climbing rose. I was able to smell the blooms from the driveway on the other side of the house. Its partner on the left is lagging a little but will soon be covered with blooms as well.

>58 harrygbutler: lovely!

>52 harrygbutler:

The photo of your cat on the indoor lettuce bed is the funniest LT yet!

Have you found any rain barrels that can stay out through Northern Winters?

Thank you.

>59 fuzzi: Thank you!

>60 m.belljackson: Thanks! I'm not sure, but I think the blue 55-gallon drum we've used would survive OK if the spigot were removed. In fact, I think the second one we just got (not yet put in place in our garden annex) was left out through the winter with no problems, but it didn't yet have a spigot installed. Our winter was pretty mild this year, though, so it might not have been a good test.

We picked up our tomato plants today. Erika spent much of yesterday doing some prep work in their garden beds, and I'll do some more — chiefly soil amendment — this week while we gradually harden off the plants.

Our small number of strawberry plants are chiefly ever-bearing, so we don't tend to get very many strawberries at a time. What we're getting now sure do taste good, though.



My long-term plan is to expand the strawberry patch to completely fill a narrow strip between our driveway and the fence between our yard and the neighbor's yard. I may go ahead this year and get a couple dozen strawberry plants in the fall and not wait on the gradual spread of the strawberries on their own.

Nice looking strawberries!

>64 fuzzi: Thanks! We ended up getting enough for a couple desserts and then some to snack on. I've been busy spading up the area where the other plants will go in the fall; I'm planting bush beans there to keep it productive through the summer.

Our hollyhocks were hit with rust, which means we'll pretty much have to start over with them next year, but the first blooms are promising a spectacular show while the flowers are on:



They're planted in front of our main garden; eventually I hope they'll serve as a screen for it.