Garden Notes

Garden doings this past week (last week of April)…

• Bewick’s wren young fledged last night from the front porch house. Probably 3 young, but hard to tell. In the process of helping guide them out of the street and away from the neighbor’s cats(!), I noticed some interesting things about them. There were about six adults – definitely more than just the parents! – shepherding the young and protecting them either with aggressive flying or by masking the locating calls of the young with their own similar sounds. I’m reminded that some wildlife finds my yard a suitable place to raise young – a requirement of NWF’s Certified Wildlife Habitat status.
• Planted a poblano pepper plant on Sunday in place of the jalapeño that died. I hope this one takes. It was started by my dad.
• Tons of wildflowers in bloom in the yard: calylophus berlandieri, rose pavonia, blackfoot daisy, purple coneflower, Englemann daisy, mealy blue sage, herbertia lahue, chocolate daisy, coreopsis, bluebonnets, prairie verbena, zexmenia hispida,
• Planted some coreposis and two-leaf senna seed in various parts of the yard.
• Mom brought a few other plants on Sunday… thyme, mint, and a couple other herbs – need to ask what they are and find good places to plant them. I like the idea of having the thyme in pots on the porch, but might place them in the triangle bed.
• Decided to clean out the western side of the house and build raised beds for vegetables. There is good full-day sun and irrigation spots there, plus it is close to the downspouts should I install rain barrels. Currently there is a lot of stone, palettes and weeds there, but it could stand to be cleaned up.
• Mulched the rest of the ash tree prunings, and made about 4 wheelbarrows of  mulch. Most went near my firepit in place of the St. Augustine I killed off. Some of it went to the compost heap to add some green energy. Today I noticed the compost heap was steaming in the chilly morning air when I went to dump some kitchen scraps. A good sign!
• All the tomato plants now have marble-sized tomatoes on them.
• Wanted to put in some beans or some other vegetable crop, but it’s too late for some of the stuff I wanted to do. I’m going to focus on prepping space for Fall.