My Gala and Granny Smith Apple trees were being attacked by aphids a couple of weeks ago. I sprayed them off the leaves with the hose and the ants were really putting up a tough fight, but there were lots of them and the leaves were starting to curl. Since this is the first season I’ll get apples from these trees, I want to give them the best chance I can. I ordered 300 ladybugs from Amazon and was so psyched when they arrived.

We released them as soon as they came. My son kind of freaked out when I let them go because he wanted to be involved and wanted to help but he had the woogies because there were so many BUGS (I think). So the release wasn’t quite as fun and lengthy as it could have been because by the time we were done, he was basically screaming. (ay yi yi)

The next day, I saw maybe a dozen of them lurking around on the trees. The day after that there were fewer and now, if I look, I might be able to find 3 or 4.

After that I sprayed 2 tbsp hand soap mixed with about 2/3 of a gallon of water all over the trees 2 days in a row. A LOT of the aphids were gone, but there were still some left. I went out to check the trees with Abbie the next day and while I was inspecting the leaves and worrying and wondering what to do, she starts gently taking the leaves in her hands and rubbing the aphids off with her fingers. “Look Mommy, I can take care of these for you.”

Hahaha! I couldn’t believe it. Why didn’t I think of that? My little girl is such a smartie. I’ll keep spraying every couple of weeks, but I won’t hesitate to remove them by hand now either.

It doesn’t look like there is much planted in there now, but those tiny plants are going to fill in all that space real soon. I’ve planted various kinds of peppers, nasturtiums, cabbage, escarole, strawberry spinach, kohlrabi, radishes and a couple of marigolds in the keyhole this spring. I’ve already got a volunteer squash or watermelon and some borage popping up in there too. I wish the squirrels would stay out of it though. I don’t think they are eating anything, but every time I put in new plants, they seem to think I’ve buried a WONDERFUL nut right underneath it. Buggers.

They do love the kale though. I’ve got 5 plants in the front yard and each one has about 6 or 7 butterflies dancing around it at one time. The kids don’t seem too interested, though Abbie was the first one to notice them early this afternoon, while she was looking outside the front door. I can’t get over seeing them everywhere. I’ve NEVER seen so many butterflies in one place at one time. I keep stopping in my tracks as I walk across the yard, just to watch.

I feel a little bad because the greenhouse door is open and I noticed that about 20 of them seem kind of trapped in there. They are all up there fluttering near the ceiling! I hope they can find their way out again.

Egyptian walking onions look different every season, I swear. I don’t remember them doing THIS last year, but then, this is only the second spring I’ve had them growing in the garden. Don’t they look weird? Those little pouches started out down at the base of the plant and moved up to the top over the last couple of weeks. I watched them daily and thought to myself “something’s coming”. Don’t ask me why, but it kind of reminded me of those big bat people from the movie Beastmaster. I’m so weird. Now they are busting open and there seem to be little onion plants inside. I guess these will fall over and replant themselves, but I wonder when those little bunching bulbs will happen on top of the plants. I can’t remember, is it in the fall?

There are aphids on my apple trees. I ordered 300 ladybugs from Amazon the other day and can’t wait for them to come so they can feast on those pesky aphids. I was looking into companion plantings for apple trees and I read that chives and dill are good to plant in an orchard as they attract the beneficial insects that feast on the bad guys. Today was misty and overcast all day, perfect planting conditions! I planted dill beneath my apples today and as soon as I get my hands on more chive seeds, those will grow there too.

I planted seeds for brocolli raab, carrots (tendersweet) in one of the veggie beds. Flat leaf parsley in with the asparagus, which I read was another good companion. I put nasturtiums and marigolds in the keyhole garden and here and there throughout the vegetable beds.

The garden twine I used to string my cucumber trellis came apart after our first good rain, so I used some plastic fencing on the trellis instead. That should hold, but I’m not sure if the tendrils on the cucumber will mind the sharp edges of the plastic. If they don’t, maybe I’ll use it for cherry tomatoes instead.

I’ve started spreading the load of mulch I got delivered last week. I’ve decided to use the wood chips for paths and front yard perennial beds and borders and use leaves and grass clippings on the hugulkultur driveway bed, the keyhole garden and the backyard veggie beds. I read Ruth Stout’s book Gardening Without Work and her methods just sound fantastic to me. Instead of hay, I’m using leaves and grass (I have access to LOTS of those) and we’ll see how it goes. I don’t know where I can get my hands on cottonseed meal, the only fertilizer she recommends, but I’m not opposed to spreading some manure around the beds every once in a while.

The more permaculture techniques I can use in the garden, the better. I intend to get more versed in companion planting to help with pest problems, but heavy, year round, permanent mulching to enrich the soil, cut back or even eliminate irrigation and weeding and to loosen hard soil is what I’m focusing on this spring. Ms. Stout passed away when I was a little girl and she gardened this way for many years. Her book is the first non-fiction I’ve read that had me laughing out loud in parts and wishing I had actually known the author. There was so much info that as soon as I finished it, I flipped back to the beginning to reread.

I’m also looking forward to trying her suggestion of sprinkling wood ashes on the leaves of squash and cucumbers while they are still wet to repel cucumber beetles, squash bugs and squash vine borers. That, along with tin foil wrapped around the stems, will be my defense against those creepy little buggers. I am NOT going to be cutting into my vines to dig out bugs this year.

Though it will get colder near the end of the week, I am taking the chance and planting cucumber seeds today. My friend Angela came over for coffee and I coaxed her out to the garden to help me string up a new trellis and put some seeds in the ground. We planted Poinsett 76 and Marketmore. I decided not to plant the smaller pickling cucumbers this year because I wasn’t fond of them last year and the plants wilted before I got a satisfying amount of fruit off of them.

My father in law gave me 2 extra early girl tomato seedlings he bought for his own garden, so I planted those this morning. This time, I laid the plants down on their sides in a shallow trench and covered the stems up to the top set of leaves. I plan to mulch heavily this year so I didn’t want to plant too deeply as the soil is still pretty cold the further down you dig in these beds. The trench will allow roots to form along the stem of the seedlings, but the plants shouldn’t suffer too much shock because the soil is fairly warm near the top of the bed.

My greenhouse is all opened up today. I don’t want me seedlings to cook!

Also, husband set up my solar frog puddle yesterday in the front yard, right next to the keyhole garden. The panel is very sensitive, so if you make a little shadow on it with your hand, or if the sun goes behind a cloud, froggie stops spitting, but in direct sunlight, he becomes a happy little fountain. I hope the birds and frogs LOVE it. I can’t wait until the keyhole is full of plants – very soon now!

I used up the whole pile to mulch my front yard garden beds and put him as gently as I could on top of one of the beds. I don’t think he’s gonna make it because he was barely moving by the time we went inside for the night. No more vacancy at the Mole hotel. I wish they weren’t so cute and squeaky. My 4 year old daughter became obsessed with him and kept running back to the garden to see if he was ok…

UPDATE April 26: Thanks to the lovely commenting visitor below, I took a look at some pictures of shrews online and this looks a LOT like one of those. Actually, I’d say it’s a Northern Short-tailed Shrew. The habit seems very similar, as it was found in the bottom of my long, undisturbed compost pile. I’m a little freaked out because I read that the saliva is venomous and it’s bite can KILL mice within 3 to 5 minutes of being bitten and for a human, bites will swell and be painful for days. Good thing I wouldn’t let Abbie touch it. The good news? They eat SNAILS, and other garden pests. They also eat earthworms sooo maybe NOT so good in the garden after all. *sigh* I guess I’ll be welcoming the neighborhood cats into the gardens and make sure the kids know not to touch the poison shrew.

Last year, G brought home a wax begonia for Mother’s day. I planted it in the garden and that sucker lasted ALL season and flowered happily right up until frost. I hope these lovelies do as well.

I also bought and used Hollytone organic fertilizer to use on my acid loving plants. The side of the bag says it works well with lots of plants I had in the  yard so I gave some to my amaryllis, blueberries (which haven’t really been doing all that well), lingonberries, phlox, pierris, rhodes (which also seem to be struggling), azaleas (these seem to be fading too), lily of the valley, golden shadows dogwood, ferns, and bleeding hearts.

I caught Kylie out there tasting it later in the day. YIKES! She drank lots of water this evening. I hope she doesn’t get sick. I watered it into the soil around the plants in the back (after I caught her). I should have done that when I first put it down.

Also, I used one of my best kitchen knives to cut some intruding turf away from the edges of my asparagus bed today. Don’t ask me why I did it, I couldn’t stop myself. Sometimes I think I’m such a lunatic when I’m out there. I rationalized it because I didn’t want to damage any of the little asparagus coming up by trying to do it with a spade or a shovel… it was precise work. I hope my knife is none the worse for wear.

I put down a layer of compost over the patch and picked and ate my first asparagus spear from my 3 year old Mary Washington plants right out there in the garden. Ahhhhhh, it was so good. I LOVE asparagus. Another probable reason to sacrifice my best knife for the good of the bed.

I planted some radishes, a few lettuce and kohlrabi seeds in the keyhole garden today. It’s go time! Grow, grow, grow! I’m also starting another flat of eggplant and tomatoes. My tender starts aren’t starting very well out in the greenhouse, so I’m just going to set up a zillion of them. If a few make it from each tray, I should have enough for the garden.

I know I must have tossed some bolted lettuce into my compost in the fall because I have pretty baby lettuce popping up all over. I am praying that it works the same way with the chocolate cherry tomatoes I had coming out of my ears last year. I only had a few seeds left and they failed to germinate this season. I’m crossing my fingers for some volunteers. I think I’m going to have to leave a whole garden bed open for volunteer tomatoes because I’m not going to want to toss any of them!! I’ll have a tomato growing in every container! haha!

The kale that lasted beautifully through the winter is bolting now and about to flower. I’m going to save seeds from these. I made kale chips today (I should have taken a picture!) so I could get some good use out of the plants before they flower. The first batch was just perfect, but I left the second batch in for 2 minutes too long and they burnt to a crisp. Seriously, those suckers burn fast. 13 minutes is PERFECT.

Kale Chips

• A bunch of Kale leaves
• Olive oil
• salt / seasoned salt

Preheat oven to 400* Wash and dry the kale leaves, then tear the leaves off the stems and rip them into bite size pieces. Toss the stems into the compost.

Put the leaves into a large bowl or container. I used a tin roasting tray. Drizzle about a tablespoon or so of olive oil onto the leaves. Sprinkle them with salt and/or seasoned salt to taste – as if you were salting a bowl of popcorn. Massage the salt and oil onto all the leaves. Spread them out in a single layer on a cookie sheet or two. I used tin foil to line my sheets, but I don’t think that’s required.

Bake for 13 THIRTEEN minutes (or so, depending on your oven). STAY CLOSE BY and stay off Facebook (ahem) around the 13 minute mark so you can be right there when they are done. They are very tasty, salty and crispy when they are done.

I wish I could say my kids ate them, but they didn’t. So I finished them myself. Sooo good, and really crazy easy to make.

I transplanted a small clump of snow on the mountain from my Aunt Kathy’s yard last year. It’s spreading out like crazy and I just love it. It makes me smile every time I pass by. How CUTE is that?

Miller Nursery sent me replacement Paw Paw trees after the 2 that I got last year didn’t like their new homes and up and died on me. I planted these in the BACK yard instead and hope, hope, hope they make it. The fruit sounds delightful from the descriptions of them and I’m going to be watching these trees like a hawk, waiting for them to start producing (and, of course, not DIE). I needed two trees to pollinate and I put them in the far corner of the yard, next to the 2/1 Asian pear tree, which is self fertile.

I got 4 new packs of seeds from The Seeds of the Month club today!! Cress, cucumber, borage and cauliflower. I’m excited about the cress because I’ve never grown that before. I don’t intend to use them as sprouts, but may nibble a few plants early to be able to taste the difference between young and mature plants. If I like them, I’m going to have to figure out how to harvest seed from them because there only seems to be a small amount in the packet. I’m not complaining though, I am loving my monthly seed deliveries!

The lapin cherry tree is blooming and I hear it’s supposed to get VERY cold tonight. Don’t freeze, don’t freeze… the gala apple has big buds too and I don’t want the blossoms to get damaged.

I still haven’t gotten a mulch delivery, though I have been emailing tree services from craig’s list and asking around.

My tomato seedlings are pathetic out there in the greenhouse. I started another egg carton of beefsteak tomato seeds because I’ve only got 4 seedlings out of the 20 something I planted a couple of weeks ago. Bah. The eggplants aren’t starting any better. I’ll need to start more of those this week too.

The potatoes are starting to peek through the soil at the bottom of the trash can!

Oh, and I pre-sprouted some mammoth sunflower seeds and planted them around the flag pole to replace the lambs ears I dug out and gave away on the free-stuff craig’s list board. Talk about completely opposite plants! haha! I can’t wait to see the sunflowers. I’ve always wanted to grow those, even before I really wanted to garden. I used to work at a flower shop and those blooms were so stocky and hardy. They lasted a long time too. They were like a lovely peasant kind of flower. Hard working but beautiful and so big and substantial compared to other flowers.  

I had considered planting pole beans around the sunflowers and letting them climb up the stems, but I did some searching online and found that other gardeners haven’t had much success with this process. The stems don’t seem to be bean-stalk friendly and neither plant ends up doing well. So beans will get a trellis and the sunflowers can grow on their own.

**update 3/31** I just took a look around out there and TWO sprouted sunflower seeds had been pulled up out of the ground and left there. Damn birds. I need some screen to protect the rest.

**update 3/31** This is the first spring this rhubarb has gotten to bust up through the garden and say hello.

I took pictures for this post a few days ago, but some of the plants have bloomed and already look completely different now, so I’ll need to go out in the morning and take pictures to post. I heard the weather is supposed to be gross tomorrow (cold and rainy) but I’ll go out there and take the pictures anyway. It hasn’t really rained here all week so I’m actually hoping we do get at least a short shower.

Wish me luck on winning the HUGE lottery so I can promote and fund organic, non-GMO farming initiatives (and be filthy rich too).