Chip Chip Hooray

It starts out with a pile of sticks and branches collected from the woods. The goal is to minimize the pile with Chip, the chipper.  Chip is my favorite piece of lawn equipment. Today I needed to make enough chips to cover the area between two raised-bed gardens. It took about an hour to collect the pile of sticks and I will probably need another pile of equal size.

A carpet of cardboard.

My colleagues at the Chamber of Commerce have been giving me all the empty cardboard boxes for a month now.  I use them to cover the grass between the raised beds - a weed barrier. The plan is to cover the cardboard with chips.

Pete starts up the chipper.

Maddie Jo watches

In about an hour the pile was gone and the area was covered with an inch thick layer of chips.

Another inch, another day. Maddie toasts the progress with Pete.

Cheers

When I'm an old woman, my garden shall wear purple.

Flowers Purple, Andy Warhol
1974

I've been looking around my gardens and noticing how much purple there will be once the perennials grab hold.  I have lavender, cone flowers, violets, salvia, hosta, blueberries, chives and Russian sage. I have some pinks, yellows and whites, but mostly purples. I love how the purples look up here.

Russian Sage in bloom

I wanted to work on a particular area near the entry steps to make it look as though purple was flowing down the small incline like water.  I decided to use Russian sage for the space.  Russian sage, or Perovskia atriplicifolia, is a very hardy perennial that likes full sun and poor soil. It grows to be about three feet tall with silvery stems and small lavender-blue flowers. It blooms towards the end of the summer.


We were talking about Russian sage last night at the Woods and Blooms Garden Club meeting. We were wondering if it was really a sage and how to pronounce Perovskia.  I decided to do a little research.  Turns out it isn't really a sage, nor is it Russian.  The botanist who named the plant was Russian and named the genus after a Russian governor. The plant is actually native to Central Asia. The sage reference may have come from the similarity in smell when the leaves are crushed.

The pronunciation? 

 per-OFF-skee-uh

Future site of
Russian Sage River

I went over to Stoney Creek Home and Garden and took advantage of their 30% off sell to stock up with four Russian sage plants.  I placed them where I wanted and will plant them sometime this weekend.  Soon they will look just like the photo below taken at the Morris Arboretum at the University of Pennsylvania.

Rounding Morris' Russian Sage photo:Rusty Kennedy

I planted three Perovskia plants last summer.  They came through the winter, but they really didn't begin to rally until mid-July. I'm not sure if they didn't get enough sun or if the soil (cranberry compost mix) wasn't quite ideal.  They are only about 18" tall and are just now beginning to flower.

Russian Sage
planted last year

In reading about caring for Russian sage I learned that leaving the plant alone is probably the best thing to do.  After making sure it gets enough water the first year to establish its roots it needs very little water during a normal summer.  Pruning it back a little in the spring or early summer may encourage growth and make for a fuller plant - I will try that.





I decided to try to propagate a few plants through cuttings.  I took four cuttings, two from the new plants and two from the old, and applied a bit of root stimulator and put them into peat pots with soil.  It is supposed to take two months for the roots to appear and take hold.  I keeping them in the basement on our lighted plant racks.

Four little Pero plants

An Apple Today

Pete and I had been planning to put in some fruit trees and we did a little research online and determined that we could plant apple, cherry and pear varieties that would be hardy enough for zone 3.  We don't have the patience of Johnny Appleseed to wait for small seeds to turn into big trees and luckily we don't have to because Joe and Gwen generously sent us a gift certificate for Northern Pines Greenery Nursery. We set off this morning for Minocqua in search of fruit trees.

This little bulldog and his owner helped us find two nice apple trees at Northern Pines. If you expect to have apples you need to have two trees and they need to be different types. We found the Honeycrisp that we wanted and then came upon another variety also developed by the University of Minnesota, SnowSweet. Both cultivars are midseason ripeners and cold hardy.

Pete strapping down
the apple trees

The Honeycrisp has been around since 1991 and in the last few years it has really become popular up here. SnowSweet was first introduced in 2006. We really enjoyed the Honeycrisp apples we picked up in Door County last fall and it will be great to have our own some day. SnowSweet apples have been described as sweet and buttery - they had me right there - love butter, love buttery.

Loading up the lilac

We headed south to Stoney Creek to check out their fruit tree inventory. Northern Pines didn't have any cherry or pear trees. Stoney Creek had a sour cherry, but no sweet cherry trees.  After talking to one of the nurserywomen we found out they would put us on their wait list. In the meantime we picked up four raspberry plants and a pretty Purple Lilac in honor of Gwen. Again, we pulled out a Stoney Creek gift certificate from Joe and Gwen. Thank you very much!

Pete waiting for our order

Before we headed home to Mercer Pete and I decided to try out the much talked-about, newly-opened for the season, Hoggie Doggies. Pete had a Chicago Dog, I had a grilled cheese sandwich and we both had the greatest fries I've had in awhile. We ate outside and enjoyed the sunny afternoon.

Pete, Chicago dog,
fries and a Coke

I always wanted a big pink pet
pig and this may be the 
closest I get for awhile.

Back home on Payment Lake to plant our trees.

Pete dug and dug,

and dug some more.

Gracie dug and dug,

and Asher dug too.

While Pete dug the holes in a sunny, lakeside spot the dogs had other ideas. They headed into the woods and decided to dig a huge Redwood size hole in another area.





In the end, Pete provided the perfect placement and the dogs' hole may turn into a root cellar.

"I guess it looks okay here."

 I hope we'll get a cherry tree soon and we're still on the lookout for pear trees. Stay tuned for news of our little orchard.

Food from Near and Far

 

I am so excited to finally see organic produce at the local grocery store. For the past two weeks Snow's Family Market has had an incredible variety of organic lettuce and greens. I've been buying as much as I think we can eat and more to encourage them to keep it coming.

Asher has been doing his part too. He loves salad - it's the oil in the dressing he really loves.

Now that summer is approaching I hope the farmers markets and our own garden will provide us with some good produce. 

A big thanks goes to Jere for helping us out through the winter with a gift subscription to Harry & David's Fruit of the Month club.  On Thursday we received March's selection - a box of carefully packed strawberries.

We also found that the local SHARE Wisconsin non-profit food buying club/co-op had a nice box of organic vegetables and vegetables that we could order once a month. You don't really know what you're going to get, but it was always good and I often bought two boxes.

Gwen and Joe also helped us out with hard to get items. We were delighted by the packages of coffee, nuts, Pete's beef jerky and especially the dog's favorite Costco dog treats.

One day UPS delivered a box from California and I just put it on the table to wait for Pete to come home. Maddie kept circling the table and wouldn't settle down. I finally put the box on the floor to let her see it. Seeing is not believing - she needed to get inside. She wouldn't let Asher help, but he could watch.

Her efforts were rewarded when she found two boxes of doggie jerky from Gwen and Joe. She  protectively carried one of the boxes around the house.

This summer we should be harvesting food from our very own garden.  The radishes and spinach are coming up.

Radishes

Spinach

On Sunday I planted two varieties of peas, arugula, nasturtiums, ten asparagus plants and two rhubarb plants. As the weather gets warmer more will go into the garden - stay tuned.

Pea Poles

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day
from the Weimaraners

Happy Mother's Day Gwen! We're thinking about you and wishing you a great day. Have fun at Laurie's house. We'll celebrate with you this summer.

I was thinking about my mom today and I decided to head to the Warehouse and pick out some flowers to plant in her honor.  

The Warehouse opened their garden section on the 7th. They have beautiful annuals and perennials including lots of Mom's favorites.

A number of years ago Dad put in two raised beds in the Friendly Forest. We have planted perennials with a preference for partial sun and shade in the beds the past few years.

 Some have done better than others, but I could see quite a few starting to break through the soil.  With the help of Asher, Maddie Jo and Gracie I cleared out the leaves and planted a small selection of new flowers.

 

We put all the flowers in the beds, added a little water and hoped the snow and freezing temperatures were truly behind us.

The finished product - two gardens filled with red, purple and pink deer resistant perennials with a scattering of pink petunias and blue pansies. Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Mom with Freya and Ginger in Mercer
date unknown

Dig In

Gracie and Asher

Last weekend I looked out and saw for the first time in five months there wasn't any snow covering my raised beds. It was time to start the garden.

You can see the soil

Where?

I made a quick trip to one of my favorite local nurseries with a gift certificate from Joe and Gwen in my hands.

Stoney Creek in Minocqua

A slim selection.

I stocked up on radishes, carrots and spinach.  Most guides say you can plant these seeds around April 15th, even in northern Wisconsin. I was a week early, but I decided to chance it.


Radishes will be ready well before carrots. I planted the two together, in the same rows. The radishes will come up first. I can thin them and see how straight my rows are without worrying about the carrots. The carrots will start appearing a quite a bit later, so the radishes won't interfere with them.

I picked varieties of radishes and carrots that grow well in the North. The carrots I planted include Royal Chantenay, Little Finger, Scarlet Nantes and Red Cored Chanteney. I planted Early Scarlet Globe, Sparkler, Cherry Belle and French Breakfast (Mr. French is not sure he approves) radish varieties.

Carrot and Radish Bed

I was a little worried about birds scratching up the seeds, so I tried to bird-proof the beds.

The Clothes Line
Criss - Cross

Finished with
miniature chimes

This functional, decorative feature may keep the birds out, but it doesn't really work if you want to keep out the dogs.

Where are the carrots?

The weekend was great and we were thankful that Spring had finally arrived.

Pete made syrup

Mr. French came out to help.

Asher enjoyed the mild wind
on his face.

Gracie is more of an
Earth dog and
enjoys mud on her
face.

Evidently, this was just a taste of spring - a teaser.  When we woke up this morning I looked out to see my beds covered with a thin layer of snow.

Raised Beds on April 16th

I thought you said it was Spring Time.

We have a spring in our step.

The radio is reporting a Winter Weather Watch. I'm watching now and snowflakes are falling.