Today was the day I was going to follow the advice of a blog reader that suggested I mulch around my fruit trees. I only did the new apple and plum tree because my father thinks the pear isn't long for this world. So this morning, I started the day with this...
And working several hours with my favorite pick axe, a shovel, landscape fabric and three of those four bags of compost...
I got this...
I'm not sure if leaving a bit of landscape fabric against the trunk of the trees, but I am under the impression that it's bad to let the compost mulch touch the trunk. If I had decent topsoil I'd put it around the base. I may still steal some from my cleaned up rose garden (thanks to my wonderful aunt!).
I've only got four roses left, but the one in the center is by far the biggest and it's awesome that it's in centerpiece (even though I'm partial to the deep red ones in the far left of the picture over the centerpiece pink ones). By the way, the green foliage in the front of the bed is a mature Irises that my aunt cuts paths between patches. Every year they grow back together. Good thing they transplant well. She's repopulated the bulbs she removed from the paths to the side of my house. They're perfect there.
I also separated the bunches of earthworms that I had put in the raised beds in clumps yesterday. Apparently they didn't spread out on their own. They didn't even leave the shredded newspaper medium they were packaged in. So I dug them up and moved them individually all over the beds. Hopefully they'll survive. Some of them weren't moving all that fast. They've got a wonderful new home. 15.5 inches of great soil material. But then I think, they've got 2 inches of amazing material, so why do they need to move down? I'm afraid to fertilize with my 5-10-10 veggie mix thinking it will burn the worms. Hopefully if they don't like it they'll move down below the top 6 inches where I plan to work in the fertilizer with a claw fork prior to planting.
Speaking of planting. I ran out of time to plant seeds or seedlings today. That's ok since I think Chris Smith actually said that planting should be Mid-March, not the beginning of March.
Other things I accomplished today included getting a new (to me) upright freezer to replace my small apartment fridge in the garage. My brother was getting rid of it so I took it. We have enough space between two refridgerators and a chest freezer, but with all the fruits and veggies I hope to grow this year, I expect to freeze up some. Now I have a place to put them in an organized way. We put the small fridge on Craigslist, first for $30, but then for free since I just want it out of here. I got only one call, to use it as a keg fridge, but it was too small.
I also went on a 3.5 mile power walk after catching my breath. I started out strong but peetered out in the end. Finally we went to Red Robin to celebrate my pre-birthday. Don't you hate mid-week birthdays. Go and Grow!
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