Welcome to the Weekend coffee share! Can I offer you some coffee? Or tea?
This is a very short and very late coffee share. The four day weekend started out great. I trimmed some bushes and cut the lawn at my garden Thursday morning. However when I was about to enjoy my well deserved lunch I had a close encounter with a wasp. A some of you may remember I had a very bad reaction to a wasp sting in California five years ago. It didn’t take me more than a couple minutes to realise this was about to go down the same road. The lady that has the allotment garden next to me called our emergency number, and the ambulance was there in only a few minutes. I spend nine horrible hours at the ER, and the rest of the weekend resting depending on some heavy meds. I am grateful. So very grateful. I don’t have the energy to write more right now, but I am doing so much better, and I am very grateful, did I already say that? I hope your weekend has been less eventful.
The new planters for the garden that I was supposed to install this weekend will kindly rest in my living room until next weekend.. Thank you Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share.
Welcome to the Weekend coffee share! Can I get you a cup of coffee? Tea? It’s 6am and I am sipping my first cup of coffee from the French press. I am excited about a fun filled day today. We finally have warmer weather. We have highs around 68-72F/20-22C and we have lows in the mid 40’s. (Yes, there is an explosion of pollen.) They are predicting a hot summer, otherwise these are normal summer temperatures. At least it used to be. It’s been sunny all week this week, next week we’re getting some rain 2-3days in the middle of the week.
I bought a new hat to protect myself.
Since it is much warmer outside, and it seems like the cold nights are a memory of the past, I decided to start the giant pumpkin seed I told you about last week. I soaked it in water for about 12 hours, and then planted it in a medium sized pot (about one gallon, slightly over three litres.) I did this two days ago. I’ll keep you posted about the progress.
On the schedule today is plenty of time in the allotment garden. I’m going to plant beets, and cornflower from seeds. I’m also transplanting a couple winter squash, and a couple summer squash from pots into the ground. It’s slightly early to plant squash in the ground, they might die, or they explode with growth with the rain expected next week. It’s not a big deal if they die, I have more plants at home, but if they don’t die they get a kick start on the growing season. Sometimes you have to take chances like that. These plants have been at the balcony 24/7 for the past ten days and are doing great there, of course they’ll be more exposed to the elements in the garden, but it is also much, much warmer. They’ve survived a couple freezing nights in a protected area at the balcony. I’m also transplanting some green onion, and it is pretty much the same thing with them, it might be too early, but probably not (and I have more plants at the balcony.) The plants that I don’t transplant this weekend is going into the ground next weekend.
Have you heard of family trees? They are fruit trees where several different trees are grafted into one. Sometimes there’s different types of fruit trees grafted together, but those often don’t live as long (please prove me wrong!) However there are many benefits if you do this successfully with one type of fruit, like grafting a few different type of apples together. This is especially true if you garden in a small space, like an allotment garden, or a small yard. Some of the benefits can besides saving space be combining good traits, like resistance to diseases, and bountiful harvests from different trees. Another benefit is that the harvest season can be stretched out during a longer period of time, and if the weather isn’t cooperative all year, you can still get a harvest part of the year, if the varieties that are grafted together are chosen wisely. Naturally there has to be a lot of challenges as well, like if the different varieties grow in different ways etc. but I don’t know anything about this yet.
Apple trees usually grow well in our area, and I’ve found a family tree suitable for our region, that have three different types of apples grafted together, with a harvest season stretching from summer to late fall. I’ve ordered one online and it is expected to arrive next week. I also ordered a plum tree suitable for our area (not a family tree.) I know where I am going to plant them, and I’m going to prepare the site today. As you can tell I have a very exciting day ahead. I better get started 🙂
How is your week so far? Tell me in a comment! Thank you Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share.
GreenDreams 