Garden 2025 Update #4: Oh Hello, Fake Spring

Right on cue for "Fake Spring" the weather here runs the gamut from frozen wasteland to mild & sunny and then back again... then it starts all over again for the next 6 weeks or so. 😁 This is our normal. 

Thankfully, Fake Spring includes a few days here and there to really spend a good part of the day working outside to get the garden ready so I've been taking advantage of it as much as possible! Here's the run down of how it's looking this first week of April:

OUTSIDE update: Showing beautiful signs of life so far this spring is my garlic, lemon balm, rhubarb, strawberries & tons of new of elderberry buds on my two bushes.  

My last surviving apple tree (Honey) and prune tree (Harry) both got a wee wine goblet shaped prune just to remove any inward or crossing branches & to give the new growth this year plenty of room for proper growth & air circulation. 

Also, yes, I've named my fruit trees. 🍎 It made more sense a few years ago when I had many fruit trees but it was a fun habit that just stuck.  I hope to have many more fruit trees in the future so I'll just keep naming them. My Italian Prune tree is named after my grandfather Harry, because he had one he planted in his back garden that we all enjoyed for many, many years. 

My last surviving apple tree is Honey, just because it's a Honey Crisp apple. Honey produced quite well last year but Harry hasn't yet, so I'm hoping this is a good year for them both. I'm very much looking forward to sweet, deep purple Italian prunes this year.  

INDOOR seedling update: onions, peppers, tomatoes and ground cherries. This is my 2nd year of attempting ground cherry seedlings indoors and sadly my 2nd year of 100% failure. 

My onions, peppers and tomatoes have done above and beyond my expectations.  Ground cherries were sadly a 100% germination fail so... I won't be attempting them indoors again but I will attempt an outdoor sow this spring and hope for the best! 

One new seedling this year that's really made an impression is the sturdiness of the stalks of the Tomato plant Tiny Tim.  I'm already very impressed with how well it's doing. Instead of being thin and leggy (the usual process for me with indoor seedlings) this one is far more thick and stout. I grow all my cherry tomatoes in 10-12" pots on the deck, so I'll be eager to see how it does up-planted come time to move it outside. 

Speaking of up-planting, I've already had to do that with one Roma tomato plant and have at least two more that will require it before they're ready to be planted outside. The growing conditions in my laundry room-turned-grow room are so good, my seedlings just tend to grow like mad. Not a problem I'm complaining about at all. I'm incredibly thankful for it and keep trying to plan my seedling starts around it. 

WINTER SOWING UPDATE:  a process that was brand new to me this year. I'm not sure how I'd never heard about it, but once I did I knew it was something I needed to at least try, for my very short growing season. 

I sowed Purple Coneflower (Echinacea), Chamomile, Milkweed, Sunflowers & Yarrow back in January and by the end of the first week of  April what's germinated and come up is Sunflower, Chamomile and a wee bit of Yarrow from last fall's saved seed.  None of the purple coneflower or milkweed. I'm not clear on why that didn't work out, so I'll just be buying some plants this year from my local nursery to make up for it and get planted in my wee garden for returning attractions year after year. 😍 

I've discovered I didn't create nearly enough holes for rain/snow to get in and/or enough holes for drainage in each container. But that aside, there are Sunflowers, Yarrow and Chamomile so I'm calling it a win, just for those! I'll fine tune all the water intake holes and water drainage holes and try this again next year for sure! This is really a wonderful type of "hands off" sowing, since the seeds just know when it's time to germinate and come forward. 

RAISED BED update:  I knew it would happen sooner or later but the first 8'x4' raised bed I ever built 3 years ago, is starting to fall apart at one of the joints. I used what I could at the time and that was untreated lumber so I'm calling it a win that it lasted 3 growing seasons before any issues came to light. I've patched the damaged area and will still use it this year but will hope to replace this bed at the end of the growing season, Lord willing. 😊

I avoided "treated lumber" on both of my current 4'x8' beds, mostly due to outdated advice at the time. I've since done some research this MicroPro Sienna treated lumber appears to be rated for safe garden beds. So I'll be using this for 2 of my 3 new raised beds for 2025.  

I've already bought some untreated lumber, so that will be my new strawberry bed for a few years, before I have to eventually replace that with the same treated lumber I'll be using for my other beds.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you're encouraged by what you've read here, and if you have any thoughts or suggestions please feel welcome to leave a comment. 😊