Earth Day

I saw a website this morning that said to hug a tree or play outside to celebrate Earth Day. If you can hug a tree while you plant it, we have plans for both!

We bought some trees last weekend that still need planting. This blue atlas cedar is going to take some man power, I'm afraid.

 We replaced our limber pine, and it was a more manageable size so I could help plant it last Saturday.

We also replaced a crabapple, and we bought a beautiful weeping redbud and a tri-color beech that we need to find perfect places for.

I will also be enjoying the blossoms bursting forth in the yard! Everything is beginning to show its colors.

Oh how I love Basket of Gold and Candytuft, spring blooming groundcovers. 

The ornamental pears are on the verge of blooming, along with the fruit trees (apple, apricot, and pear).

 

And playing outside will be a pleasure, since we put up our new playset over the weekend! The kids just can't get enough.

 

If you look hard you can also see we had our backyard graded with fill dirt last week, and topsoil spread over that. On queue this week is raking, curbing, and finally hydroseed! I will post all the picture of the process coming up soon.

Strawberry Patch

This was the year to start our strawberry patch! I have been wanting to do this for ages, but the timing was never right. A friend of mine gave me her family's inside information on strawberries from a guru named E. Gordon Wells, Jr.

He suggests planting them in early April, and the variety he likes best is Albion, and ever bearing variety that produces first in the spring and latest in the fall. He says it produces large berries abundantly, instead of small berries with lots of seeds. We went on a field trip to Cooks Greenhouse in Orem to find them. 

They had them in flats, but the nice guy at Cooks gave me a little lesson in bare root strawberries and suggested I buy them 25 bare roots per pot, which is much more cost effective.

The wagons were so fun. That place is a gardener's paradise! Everything in the greenhouses is already blooming and just tempting you to bring something home. We spent a good hour wandering and admiring.

They don't look like much, but each pot really did have 25 baby bare root strawberries banded together. 

We weeded and prepared our plot under the fruit trees. The soil was amended last year with some mink manure, so we didn't add anything this year. Mr. Wells suggests adding peat moss and sulfur, but the Cook's guy told me to try what we've got and if the strawberries start turning yellow, we can always add sulfur or ammonium sulfate later. We have yet to get drip lines to each plant, so for now we are hand watering.

Sometimes gardening makes me nervous because you spend a lot of money on the front end, and just hope and pray that things are "fruitful"! But spring is full of promise.... we shall see!

Tiny Treasures

We all love nice days when we can walk to school to pick Maddie up from kindergarten. The world is waking up and the kids are noticing! Each of them stopped many times along the way and collected treasures along the sidewalks.

Our yard is waking up too! The first hyacinths are blooming and the grass is turning green.

The seeds in the garden are sending up tiny sprouts. Lettuce, spinach, and peas are up and we are still watching for broccoli.

Meanwhile, Mike is working hard on finishing sprinklers in the backyard to prepare for topsoil, grading, curbing, and hydroseeding in the next few weeks!

This is what our evenings have looked like lately... I love the kids' imaginations when they play outside, although I could do without the shoes full of treasures!

Early Veggies

It was time we planted our cool-season veggies. We squeezed some garden time in between all the Easter festivities.

We planted our peas, broccoli, spinach, and lettuce from seed. Mike fixed some problems with the drip sprinkler system and got it all running. We're in business!

This little guy is all about digging in the dirt. Such a good helper, huh?

Welcome Spring

The first day of spring looked like this! It was cold but I had a daffodil blooming for the first time ever! I think some of the new ones I got from a friend were earlies.

Three days later looks like this! March is sure fickle.

As my preschool daughter reminds me often, in like a lion, out like a lamb. Here's hoping!

Forget Me Not

 

We have been buying seeds this week. I like to let my girls each choose a flower packet to plant along with all our vegetable seeds, and Ella chose Forget Me Nots.

I love these sentimental little flowers. They remind me of my mom's flower beds back home, and the flower gardens where I worked. 

They also remind me of the sweet talk given by Elder Uchdorf a few years ago. He used the five petals to remind us of five things to "forget not". Here are some excerpts I found poignant...

1. Forget not to be patient with yourself. 

 "God is fully aware that you and I are not perfect. Let me add: God is also fully aware that the people you think are perfect are not. 

And yet we spend so much time and energy comparing ourselves to others—usually comparing our weaknesses to their strengths. This drives us to create expectations for ourselves that are impossible to meet. As a result, we never celebrate our good efforts because they seem to be less than what someone else does. 

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. It’s wonderful that you have strengths.

....be thankful for the small successes.... Our journey toward perfection is long, but we can find wonder and delight in even the tiniest steps in that journey."

2. Forget not the difference between a foolish sacrifice and a good sacrifice. 

"We can ask ourselves, 'Am I committing my time and energies to the things that matter most?' There are so many good things to do, but we can’t do all of them. Our Heavenly Father is most pleased when we sacrifice something good for something far greater with an eternal perspective."

3. Forget not to be happy now. 

"The lesson here is that if we spend our days waiting for fabulous roses, we could miss the beauty and wonder of the tiny forget-me-nots that are all around us.

This is not to say that we should abandon hope or temper our goals. Never stop striving for the best that is within you. Never stop hoping for all of the righteous desires of your heart. But don’t close your eyes and hearts to the simple and elegant beauties of each day’s ordinary moments that make up a rich, well-lived life."

4. Forget not the why of the gospel. 

"My dear sisters, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not an obligation; it is a pathway, marked by our loving Father in Heaven, leading to happiness and peace in this life and glory and inexpressible fulfillment in the life to come. The gospel is a light that penetrates mortality and illuminates the way before us.

While understanding the “what” and the “how” of the gospel is necessary, the eternal fire and majesty of the gospel springs from the “why.” When we understand why our Heavenly Father has given us this pattern for living, when we remember why we committed to making it a foundational part of our lives, the gospel ceases to become a burden and, instead, becomes a joy and a delight. It becomes precious and sweet."


5. Forget not that the Lord loves you. 

"You are not forgotten.

Sisters, wherever you are, whatever your circumstances may be, you are not forgotten. No matter how dark your days may seem, no matter how insignificant you may feel, no matter how overshadowed you think you may be, your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you. In fact, He loves you with an infinite love.

Just think of it: You are known and remembered by the most majestic, powerful, and glorious Being in the universe! You are loved by the King of infinite space and everlasting time!

He who created and knows the stars knows you and your name—you are the daughters of His kingdom."

Pruning Trees

It's that time of year! The sun comes out and teases us that spring is on it's way, even though the world is still white and cold. From my years working in the gardens, that combination whispers "Pruning!"

I am no pruning expert, but I do follow a few basics that guide me through most trees successfully.

1. Cut out any dead or diseased branches so the tree can heal over, also preventing further pest/disease problems.

2. Remove branches that are crossing or growing into the tree. I tend to be conservative on this so as not to cut out too much wood. If you can tell that a branch will only ever grow into the canopy and cause trouble, or that branches are already crossing and rubbing, exposing and weakening the bark, remove them.

3. Remove suckers (from the base of the tree) and water sprouts, which are young (you can tell new growth by the color difference) and tend to grow much faster than the other branches. This may be a difficult thing to identify, but some ornamental fruit trees--pears in particular--tend to have tons of water sprouts that take over the tree. They need to be nipped back to a lower, outer bud to keep the canopy open and re-direct growth.  

My young ornamental pear trees haven't water spouted too much, but they did have some crossing and erratic branches that needed guidance.  The idea is to direct all growth of the buds up and out, to keep the trunk open to light and air.

I don't know how well this illustrates, but the second picture is taken after I removed some crossing branches and nipped back a water spout on the left.

My trees are still very young and don't require much attention, but all trees should be examined at least once a year for problems. As mentioned before, pruning is typically done in the winter or early spring before buds swell, as soon as you can get to them with ladder and tools.

I have yet to attack my fruit trees, which are a whole different ball game, and with which I am still unfamiliar! All I know is that pear trees have to be shaped very differently than apple trees! For this information, and basically anything else I don't know, I like to turn to my state extension service website, which is through Utah State. Here are some great guides they put out with lots more detail and information:

Pruning the Orchard: http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/publication/HG_363.pdf

Pruning Landscape Trees: http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/publication/NR_FF_004.pdf