Spring is such a strange season here where I live. The last week in March it dipped below freezing again, and I was worried that I had set my tomatoes out too soon. Now I'm dealing with bolting bok choy and cauliflower.
So many gardening questions running
through my head. So many decisions to make! I never did get a definitive answer on prepping the soil in the next phase of the Fiesta Garden - the beds that will hold mostly native perennials and shrubs. And, seeing as how I already had a lovely American Beautyberry, anxious to be snuggled back into the earth, I had to bite the bullet and make a call. I went with John Dromgoole's recommendation to leave the native soil as is (though I removed as many rocks as I could and put down a layer of newspapers to help smother weeds), top it with a layer of compost, then top that with mulch. He warned against filling your planting holes with compost though (no more than 20% should be mixed in with the backfill) as that could cause your plants to become rootbound.
That long top bed is all I'm likely to get planted this spring. Our summers are much more stressful on new plants than our winters are, so fall is actually the optimal time for putting in new perennials. That way they have plenty of time to get a nice root system established, before they have to deal with summer's horrors.
Well, spring was nice while it lasted, but I guess it's time to buck up, yank those bolting brassicas, and decide which heat loving veggies to plant in their place. I suppose I'll get the remaining two perennial beds prepped, and just let them sit for a while, get everything mulched, fill all my pots with bulletproof heat lovers, then adjourn to the Blue Hole, to float the summer away...
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5 comments:
You're definitely best using your native soil, especially for native plants, which usually don't do well with amended soil (they grow too fast, look pretty for a few years, and then die young just like over-fertilized nursery starts).
Fall's a great time to plant, because the soil stays warm enough for perennials to get in some good root growth and thus be more likely to weather the next summer's heat and drought-stress.
Spring hasn't exactly arrived here yet--we had a week of it, but today it's snowing on the peaks again and where I live in the valley it's cold and windy. So if you want to cool off, hit the road for southern Colorado!
Susan, that's exactly what my family used to do when I was growing up. Every August, when we just couldn't take the heat another day, we'd pack up the station wagon and head for Creede, CO. My dad was mad for trout fishing there. We met up with several other families, stayed in cabins with no water or electricity, cooked over campfires each night, and I'd sit and listen to the river for hours at a time. Probably has a lot to do with why I ended up here in the hill country, amidst all these rivers, and living this kind of life. Haven't been back since my kids were small and Dad got to frail to make the drive, but have really been getting the yen lately!
Oops. Make that "too" frail.
"then adjourn to the Blue Hole, to float the summer away... "
Sounds like a terrific plan! BTW, is that a Mexican Talavera pottery steer head? It's beautiful!
Me: It sure is. We used to sell a lot of that at the nursery where I worked, and as soon as I spotted the Longhorn, I knew John HAD to have it!
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