We've had absolutely wonderful weather the last few weeks here at Rose Villa. Sunshine, warm days with cool nights. Hopefully the last few mornings of frost, I have gotten real tired of scraping frost off my car windshield in the morning!
The garden plots I am getting ready for planting are finally ready for planting, just have to wait till time to start popping seeds into the beds. It took longer then I had figured to dig compost into the beds and create raised rows and put newspaper and straw on the pathways. It's called no-till vegetable gardening. Which at this point I find rather a humorous choice of words. Between spreading compost by shovel and wheelbarrow, digging it up into raised beds, putting down newspaper and straw and then wheelbarrowing and shoveling more compost onto the raised rows I've spent a good long time with a shovel in my hands. Here's before and after photos of the same bed, just a different angle.
But it's done now and the first thing I will be planting are the strawberry starts I got from a nursery down the valley about a week ago. I'm thinking I will need at least twice the starts as I first purchased which was 25, so that will give me a chance to get something different. I'm trying to get at least two whole rows of ever bearing strawberries going so we can have lots and lots of berries as time goes on.
Otherwise, I'm starting to hang out at seed displays at the local garden centers, it's amazing to me how many different kinds of beans, lettuce, corn and etc there are, how I am going to decided what to get and what to plant is still a guessing game. I'm leaning toward fast maturing veggies and veggies that can be companion planted together. Things like onions in with the strawberries, at least until the berries start to take over the row. Which shouldn't happen till next year.
Another project that is getting started is the cedar split rail fence going into the English Meadow. I will be planting and espaliering 9 fruit trees on this fence. I know that this year I cant expect a very large fruit crop, but by next year and the year after we should be able to harvest a goodly selection and quantity of apples, pears, and plums from this fence row.
The big news from Rose Villa however is what's been going on in the front entrance area. We have had three full sized Douglas Fir trees and a medium Blue Spruce tree in the front circle lawn area since before the Villa was built, back in 1959. The firs were between 3 and 4 feet in diameter at the base, unfortunately they have been battling a root rot disease for at least the last 10 years. After several treatments for this disease we came to the decision that the trees were not savable and needed to be cut down before they fell down. So after some rather spectacular work by the tree climbers who cut the trees down and several days of brutally hard
work by the grounds crew splitting the wood into firewood the trees are gone. Here's before and after photos of the front area from the side, I think it appropriate that it's raining in the after photo.
Only stumps and mounds of sawdust left now. And what stumps, they all showed signs of rot but this one was particularly spectacular. That's all punky wood in the center of the stump and it went at least 20 up the center of the tree. So now we have around 10 cords of firewood curing down in an empty garage and the entire front entrance looking, well, pretty bare and unlovely. Now it's up to the Grounds boss to re landscape the front area and make it look good again. I'm thinking this will be a dramatic change from what's out there now and what was there before the trees came down. Something to look forward to for sure.
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