Lawn Care

Now that we are in April, it is time to start thinking about our lawns.  At this time of the year I begin my 4 step lawn care process.

The first step is applying the right fertilizer to prevent crabgrass and enrich the ground.  What I use is the Jonathan Green 4 step process for my lawn.  Here is a link to their site where you can learn more about the 4 step process and their philosophy.  I personally would rather buy from them instead of the larger more industrial firms.

Look around for where you can buy their products.  If you live in the greater Boston area, Mahoney's garden center carries the product.  Mahoney's has a variety of locations.  I bought my 4 step process at the Mahoneys in Winchester MA.  They are located at:

242 Cambridge St.
Winchester, MA 01890
781-729-5900

Hours
Monday-Saturday 9am-6pm
Sunday 9am-6pm

Pruning Lavender

This past weekend I spent a good amount of time pruning back my Lavender plants.  Along the north side of my house I have 10 Lavender plants that grow like weeds.  Each one grows close to 3 ft. high.  The area gets a lot of sun in the late spring and summer months during the morning hours, but then is in shade most of the day. 

After the long winter, what I do with my Lavender is trim it back 1/3 to 1/2 of its size.  Simply take your pruning sheers and grab the top portion of the plants and cut back.  This is the second year now that I've taken such an aggressive approach towards pruning and the Lavender responded very well.  I would say that this pruning led to my plants growing more vigorously this past year.  If you do not have lavender in your garden, you should consider it.  It grows well here in New England.  It lasts well into the fall, and has a great aroma.

Also another tip for you.  I took all of the lavender clippings, bundled it together and then tied it up.  It looks and smells really good.  I left the bundle out in the area of my container garden for my wife to enjoy.

Cleaning the graden beds

It was a busy weekend for me.  I was successful in accomplishing my goal of cleaning out my garden beds and getting them partially ready for the planting season. 

Here is what I did. 

• Raked up remaining leaves
• removed any access dead plants I did not pull up in the fall
• Tilled the ground and then raked if over again

What is really encouraging is that after doing the first raking, I noticed I had some growth of arugula from last year as well as mixed salad greens.  I was careful to not till the areas where I had the new salad growth coming back.  This will make part of my job easier when I begin planting more lettuce.

My plan for this coming weekend will be to add fresh compost to the beds and begin to plant additional lettece.  In addition to this, I am also planning to add some wood ash to my beds.  Lastly I intend to put some netting around my garden beds as well.

There are two cats that the neighbors next door own that love to use my garden beds as a toilet, so I need to keep them out.  If you have any ideas on how I can keep cats away from my garden, please share.

I will post a few photos of the cleaned up beds later this week. 

Garden Pests!

I have many garden pests.  So many that I think I need to have individual blogs entries about each of them as the growing season begins.

While it is still early in the year and I have not planted anything yet, the most recent pest that is on my manure list is either a squirrel or a skunk.  Why?

In late September I can sometimes tolerate the squirrel's stealing a tomato or two in preparation for the winter.  But I am quite annoyed at them right now for digging up my tulips and eating the bulbs.

Background on why we like Tulips 

A few years ago, I created two flower garden spaces for my daughters to plant and experiment with getting their hands dirty.  Together with them, we planted a series of Dutch Tulip Bulbs.


I can't recall the exact names of them, but they were Dutch and both Pink and Orange in color similar to the ones you see here.

My oldest daughter Gemma was born in April in Portland Oregon and at that time of the year the tulip fields are exploding with flowers.  Right before my wife gave birth to Gemma, I had purchased a bunch of tulips that we took with us to the hospital when she went in labor.  They were used as a focal point for my wife while pushing and since then have been very special to us and our daughter.  So you can see why I'm not too pleased about my garden pest eating my tulip bulbs.

My approach for keeping the squirrel or skunk away.

This may not be the most elaborate method, but since employing, I've not had any more damage done to my tulips.  On the side of my house I also have a few rose bushes.  What I've done is prune back the rose bushes and then taken the the thorn branches and laid them next to the line of tulips as to prevent the squirrel or skunk in the positioning themselves to dig up the bulbs.

Here is a picture of what I've done

So far, so good.  No issues to report.  If you do have an organic means of deterring these critters go for it.  Also Please comment on how you keep these animals away.