Garden Trails

Here in Victoria, the snow has just left us, and yet, the Dandelions are are already blooming! I have seen a lot of Facebook posts sayi mg to leave them as the first food for the bees, but the bees are too smart to be out yet, (we will probably start seeing them in March), so if you don’t want these first flowers seeding all over the place, pull them now.

It is always tempting, when things warm in January, to go plant things. The last couple of years have taught me the wisdom of waiting until March....

Oak trees in the wind at a client’s place. I couldn’t manage to catch the infrequent, strong gusts we were seeing on video. With large dead branches up there, this was a no go for us this day. Even if we had hard hats, this would have been too dangerous to work under.

Here in Victoria, we had smoke for around two weeks. A couple of days before the smoke arrived, it was summer, and I was hit by headaches that caused light and sound sensitivity. Between the two, I did not go outside. When I did emerge, it was fall. The cold had nearly killed my tomatoes, almost all of which were still green. I attempted to save them with pruning and clear contractor bags over the cages. The green tomatoes made an excellent chilli. As I step outside thi...s morning, the air is crisp, and I am reminded that it is time for the following things; Cleaning up perennials to put gardens to bed for the coming winter, Winterizing hoses and irrigation systems, Harvesting ripe fruit, and removing the ones that you won’t eat, Mulching to maintain soil warmth and cut down on the winter weeds, Taking a look at fruit trees before they drop all of their leaves, and tagging branches to remove in the spring. I have probably missed something, but that is quite the list to start with! Edit - it is also time to plant winter vegetables, onions, garlic, kale, some lettuces (especially if they have cover!), cabbage, broccoli, and brussel sprouts, to name a few! See more

Today, we are regretfully not working. The smoke from forests and towns burning in the United States has us at a 10+ on the air quality scale, and I do not want to risk the health of myself or my employees. I cannot even imagine how people are coping in the fire ravaged areas. Usually, evacuation centers, or reception centers would be set up to handle the evacuees. How can that be done during a pandemic? Our thoughts are with those evacuated, those threatened, and those fighting the fires.

Well, this was an interesting thing to come across. Who knew that the hostas everywhere I look are potentially edible?! https://www.ruralsprout.com/eat-hostas/

Today, we (two of us) reduced a small tree that had the potential to interfere with power lines to a large shrub. Some of the highest branches would have touched wires during high winds. We estimated the height at about twenty five feet. We reduced it by about a third of it’s height. This took us about three hours, including clean up. This was an easy job on an ornamental. Pruning a fruit tree is much more involved.

I found these interesting (creepy looking) creature is several of my water buckets last year, but kept forgetting to look them up. Yesterday, I notice mosquito larva and these in two water buckets, and finally looked them up. These are drone fly larva, a pollinator. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eristalis_tenax