It's been a month since I last posted anything here and lots has been happening at Rose Villa. The third snow storm of the winter I wont even mention as it was such a small insignificant event compared to the snow storm before Christmas. Instead I'll talk about the exciting new developments in the resident vegtable gardens.

Mainly that I have been assigned 6 garden plots to use to supply the main Rose Villa kitchen with produce this summer! Which is exciting because despite having worked in the landscape maintenance industry for well over 35, almost 40 years, I have only actually had maybe 10 or 12 vegtable gardens. And while I know the principals of growing plants are the same I also know there is a world of difference in growing plants for ornamental reasons and growing plants for food.

So the first photo is of one of my plots after I had put 4 to 6 inches of compost on it and then worked it up into raised rows. As soon as I get some more dry weather, newspaper and straw will go in between the raised rows for pathways and then more compost on the raised beds and then they will be ready for planting. It is a modified no-till / intensive gardening method, which, once you get the beds created shouldn't require the regular tilling or digging up that most gardens need. We shall see.

The second photo is of a compost bin I built from plans I found on the local Metro website. It's three bins with removable slats in front for ease of working. The grounds dept will be suppling me with appropriate material to get the composting operation going. Leaves, small clippings, dead weeds, other select material that will work in a bin that is only 3ft by 3ft.

These next two photos are of one of the three big fir trees in Rose Villa's entrance circle. All three of the trees will be taken down because they are all in varying stages of terminal root rot. Which is soil disease that is fairly common in firs. It's too bad to lose them, but it's better to cut them down now rather then wait to have them fall over later. The photo on the right is of the top of the first tree, it was topped maybe 25 years ago and you can see what happens when you top a fir. The tree tried to 'callus' over the cut, but the cut was so big that is started to rot out right down the trunk. Looking at the next several cuts I could see that the rot had proceeded to make it down about 8 feet into the trunk.

We got about 4 1/2 cords of firewood from this first tree, anyone want to buy some firewood?

The next photo is of the last section of the tree being cut down, it landed between the blue spruce and the big piece of trunk already on the ground. Really precision falling. The next two fir trees in the front circle will also have to come down, they are are even more badly affected by the root rot. However, because they are so close to the electric wires special rules apply to working on them. We will have to get a different company that has different training and insurance to clear the wires. So it will be a week or two before they come down, but come down they will.

The final photo is what I saw in my walk around today. If you look really closely you can just make out the eagles mate sitting about 6 feet down the tree. I talked with one of the people who live here and she told me that she and her neighbors have been watching these two bald eagles hanging out in this tree all winter. I wonder if they will be nesting here? I'll keep you posted.