A Weeding Challenge

We have been reasonably successful in minimizing weeds on the property. 

Burdock has been kept at bay by deadheading the flowers/burrs before they go to seed. Since it is a biannual, the amount of burdock is considerably less than when we started with this procedure in 2016. 

Motherwort has been minimized over the last couple of years by handpulling it before it goes to seed. So far, so good.

BUT this one is a different story. Can anyone tell me the name?

A Weeding Challenge

In the areas where we were able to handpull it this spring, none of it has grown back. However, in spots that we overlooked or were distracted by higher priority tasks, it has flourished and has now gone to seed. We pulled quite a bit on Wednesday but, as you can see above, the burrs are very aggressive. We may have to abandon these areas until next spring. I will try this once more using rubber kitchen gloves. Perhaps the burrs will not stick as readily.

Perhaps rubber gloves will work better?

Plant Tags: Keeping Track of Plants at Riel House

Plants Tags in a Trading Cards Page Holder

There are many planting areas at Riel House and it has become quite onerous to keep track of what has been planted where and if there are specific maintenance tasks that need to be carried out. Putting the tags next to each plant is fine when the plant  is new, but after a couple of years of growth, mulching and potential removal, tags have a habit of disappearing. Placing the tags in an envelope encourages the envelope to be lost somewhere in the shed.

A solution: plant tags stored in the page holders used by collectors of trading cards (thankyou to woodyoak zone 5 Canada). As well, I will also attach a photograph of each page holder to the description of the bed in question.

Every spring, one reviews the details on each tag and then schedules any maintenance.

That's the plan!

(and of course, some of the larger plant tags require some judicial trimming and folding)

Blossom Time

If you recall my earlier post of June 13 titled Gardening by Walking Around, there is always much to see in a garden. If we consider the period of time when a plant is in blossom, or when it displays interesting foliage, it is time to walk around again.

Blossom Time in the Right Entrance Bed

We are going to create Blossom Time charts for each of our planted beds. In our first example seen above, the Weigela shrub is an early bloomer in the garden along with Columbine, Cranesbill and Bleeding Heart. Our goal is that over the summer, something will always be blossoming in the bed, the last being the Powwow Wild Berry Coneflower. Blossom times are represented by the purple boxes. 

Foliage, the green boxes, can also be interesting. The Nannyberry, Ostrich Fern and Virginia have colourful foliage until the end of October.

The Seasonal Interest page contains the blossom time charts for each bed.

Refreshing the Entrance Beds

Since their initial planting in 2013, the Left and Right Entrance Beds had started to lose their vibrancy.  Last winter took a toll on plants in many gardens including our Entrance Beds. The left bed lost its yarrow and most dianthus (pinks). The right Entrance Bed has suffered over the years from underplanting": few plants scattered across wide areas of mulch. It was time for a refresh.

The refreshed Left Entrance Bed

Here are all the refreshed plants in the Left Entrance Bed:

Bachelor's Button 'Bowl of Beauty' Peony Clematis Jackmanii Creeping Speedwell Daylily Dropmore Blue Catmint Dwarf Spike Speedwell English Lavender 'Frosty Fire'  Pink Iris Perennial Sage Powwow Wild Berry Coneflower Purple Dome Aster Three Flowered Avens The refreshed Right Entrance Bed

Here are all the refreshed plants in the Right Entrance Bed:

Black Leaved Thrift Bleeding Heart 'Bridal Falls' Hosta Dropmore Blue Catmint Dwarf Spike Speedwell English Lavender 'Gold Standard' Hosta Iris Little Trudy Catmint 'Loraine Sunshine’ Heliopsis McKana Giant Columbine Mourning Widow Cranesbill Nannyberry  Ostrich Fern Powwow Wild Berry Coneflower Prickly Rose Virginia Creeper Weigela 'Wishing Well' Hosta

As we have learned from our native plant beds, we intermixed species while recognizing that shorter plants should be closer to the viewer, larger ones further back. From a techniques perspective, we positioned the taller ones first so that we could gauge their impact on the overall viewing of the planting area. Our goal is to deliver an impact of lushness to the viewer. Nothing is more depressing than seeing a single plant stuck in the middle of a sea of mulch, unprotected from the wind and the sun.

Finally, the plants we selected blossom at different times during the year, May through September. There is always something of interest to see in the garden.

An Experiment with Corn and a Sister

As we know, gardening must be viewed as an experiment. You try something new and witness the outcome much later: in a month, by the end of fall, perhaps by next summer.

Our Three Sisters planting of corn, squash and beans has never been successful. The squash and beans have almost always failed to grow. And why?

RABBITS

To demonstrate that rabbits had been consuming two of our "sisters", we planted four corn in a bean bed that we had protected from rabbits by chicken wire. Here we have bountiful beans growing, and they are growing up the corn. It's too late to add squash into the planting for this year.

Corn and Beans: Two of the Three Sisters

So: next year, we must protect all the Three Sisters beds with higher chicken wire. Or ideally, all the Produce Garden with higher chicken wire.

A Sunny Day in the Parking Lot Garden

A Sunny Day in the Parking Lot Garden

I took this photograph around 11 in the morning with the native plants backlit by the sun in the southeast. Lots of insects in the blossoms, crickets "cricketing" about me. 

This is a good example of interplanting: plants of varying heights supporting each other. And no mulch to be seen. the native plants have grown together, covering the mulch, forcing out the weeds.

Braiding the Garlic

Garlic is harvested in summer when the tops turn yellow. Once dug up, garlic can be left on the ground to dry. We decided an alternative approach. Braid the tops together then hang them in the shed. Our braiding effort was ~okay. We'll have to plant more and get further practice next year.

Here is the result:

A "Lee Valley" Moment

Renewing the Road Garden

On July 2, I wrote a blog about a design issue we had with the Road Garden: if plants are grouped in blocks, then, after they have blossomed, there is nothing new to obscure spent plants. Also, if the plants fail, then an entire area opens up to weeds. In the Road Garden, areas committed to Purple Prairie Clover, Yarrow, Prairie and Showy Goldenrod failed.

Road Garden planted on 1 June 2015

Left areas

Right area

   Here is our solution to that issue: intermix plants.

Road Garden replanted on 16 July 2018

We have intermixed several varieties in each area. They have different coloured blossoms and bloom at different times. And they vary in height. We planted the tallest ones first so that we could get a sense of where the "bulk" of the garden will be present. By the way, you will notice that the new plugs for the right hand area were intermixed with the existing Three Flowered Avens and Prairie Dropseed.

Here are the after photographs. Frankly, you do have to look closely to see the 180 plant plugs. We should start to see the results next year but, as you know, it takes native plants three years to come into full growth.

Left area after replanting

Right area after replanting

An Issue with Garden Design

In 2015, our two native plant areas, the Road Garden and the Parking Lot Garden, were planted in different styles. Three years later, one style is demanding more maintenance from us. 

Plants in the Parking Lot Garden were positioned randomly - we literally opened up each five-pack plug case and tossed the plugs here, here, there, here and over there. The resulting bed is a confusion of multiple layers and colours:

Parking Lot Garden in 2017

For example, Three Flowered Avens blossom in May. After blossoming, here are the grey-pink seed heads of Three Flowered Avens showing through other plants that will soon grow above them.

Mid June: grey-pink seed heads of Three Flowered Avens just showing above the surrounding plants

Plants in the Road Garden were arranged in individual clumps and positioned front to back based upon their heights. Here is our original layout - creases, mud, comments and all. Notice that the Three Flowered Avens were eventually planted in the lower right hand corner:

Here are Three Flowered Avens in the Road Garden this spring:

Now at the beginning of July, the Three Flowered Avens have gone to seed. There is nothing else to grow in this area and, indeed, some of the other plant groupings have failed. There are now unsightly blank areas filling with weeds, demonstrating gardening failure. These need to be weeded and replanted - right now!

Yarrow and Goldenrod gone - and, off picture, just to the right of the Giant Hyssop, spent Three Flowered Avens

The spent and failed areas of the Road Garden are filling with opportunistic weeds. Actually, that is exactly what weeds are - opportunistic. Whereas in the Parking Lot Garden, when spent plants and failed plants occur, these areas are smothered by surrounding native plants. One does not notice this natural activity in a randomly planted garden. In a tightly designed planting area, any failure is totally obvious.

So, in conclusion, plant randomly and let nature do the maintenance.

One caveat, there is random and then there is random. But that will be the topic of a future post.

Heat

Recently, while preparing a gardening article on Riel House, we were asked if we believed that climate change was influencing our activities. It was a curious question and got us to thinking: 

Had we seen any evidence of climate change?

Well, in reviewing our weather charts over the past several years, the low temperature, in comparison to 1886, stands out in most months - it is definitely higher. See for yourself at our Weather page. Now perhaps 1886 experienced unusually cold low temperatures. That combined with high daytime temperatures and lack of rainfall contributed to the crop failure of 1886. 

Certainly, this year, the heat has made our growing conditions more beneficial and it will be interesting to see this year's increased rainfall can assist in creating a good harvest.

Gardening by Walking Around

you find things out by walking around and observing what is going on

Managing by Walking Around. 

I first encountered this concept through work. Here is the definition from Wikipedia:

• a style of business management which involves managers wandering around, in an unstructured manner, through the workplace(s), at random, to check with employees, equipment, or on the status of ongoing work. The emphasis is on the word wandering as an unplanned movement within a workplace     . . .     The expected benefit is that a manager, by random sampling of events or employee discussions, is more likely to facilitate improvements to the morale, sense of organizational purpose, productivity and total quality management of the organization, as compared to remaining in a specific office area and waiting for employees, or the delivery of status reports, to arrive there, as events warrant in the workplace.

I hadn't associated this concept with gardening until I came across the YouTube channel Bealtaine Cottage whose author posts daily half hour videos of her walks through her three acre property. I was amazed by the beauty and complexity of life unfolding in these daily journeys and began a similar activity on my own property. Gardening by walking around.

At Riel House, sometimes we get very focused on accomplishing our gardening tasks and lose sight of how industrious nature can be. How bountiful. How beautiful. 

Yes, it is time to walk around .  .  .  and stop and smell the roses .  .  .  

Rose in the Theatre

Wild irises in the boggy end of the Parking Lot Garden

Cranesbill geraniums flooding the Right Entrance Bed

... stop and smell the roses ...

ps the spider in the first image is a female thin-legged wolf spider with an egg sac attached to her abdomen

Waiting for Raspberries

This dragon fly is sitting on one of the posts in the raspberry patch. I have blown up this picture to maximum size in order to show the detail in the wings.

Blossom Time

Lilac overlooking the Produce Garden - 6 June 2018

This is the lilac just to the west of the Produce Garden. It has come into bloom much later than other lilacs on the property.

Here are the lilacs on the east side of the Theatre area. This photograph was taken May 25, almost two weeks ago.

Lilacs and Red Chairs - 25 May 2018

We're thinking of setting up a spreadsheet to record when each of the plants bloom at Riel House. As you can see from these lilacs, it is not on the same day. Blooming varies by location which, of course, is influenced by sun and soil conditions.

What is This?

What is This?

Okay look for the eyes. Is that enough of a hint?

This is a wood frog that hopped through while we were weeding our corn beds. I actually had a problem in the first picture locating him in the screen of my camera. We look upon this frog as an indication that we are creating an hospitable environment at Riel House. No chemicals, lots of habitat (leaf litter in this case) and sufficient food - probably worms and insects. And yes, from our weeding, we are seeing lots of worms in the soils at Riel House.

You can read more about our visitor in this Wikipedia link regarding wood frogs.

Starting on Onions

This year's onions are Dutch Yellow, a medium size onion with strong flavour and aroma. One of today's volunteers offered "I guess we're planting onions today" before seeing the sack that contained them.

The way we plant onions is a bit of a tough slog (and may not be historical). We have used our square foot planting grid and planted four onions in every square. We were able to plant two 4 x 22 foot beds today once we had finished weeding all six onion beds. We should be able to finish planting the onions in the Produce Garden by the end of Wednesday.

This year, the onions will be in Produce Garden Beds 21 - 26. Also in Kitchen Garden Beds 6, 7 and 8.

For the record, this year we purchased five pounds of onions. We'll see if that is the correct amount for the number of beds that we have planned for onions.

Heritage Tomatoes

Gosh, it looks crowded. we have planted 27 heritage tomatoes in the Kitchen Garden Beds 3, 4 and 5. Thanks DD for your time, generous energy and grow lights. As instructed we planted each tomato half way up its stalk after removing the lower leaves. This way, more roots develop from the plant and help it to thrive in the soil. By the way, this year's soil is dark, friable and filled with worms. As you can see, we have mulched the beds to keep the soil moist and weed free.

Because these tomatoes are vines, we have given each one its own stake, manila plant tag and, of course, a jar to protect the writing on the tag from rain, but especially from crows who like to rip at the tags for nest material. By "heritage", we mean plants that may be referenced prior to 1886, the year to which Riel House has been restored. Here's a typical description from Heritage Harvest Seed of one of our tomatoes:

• Red Fig Tomato (1700’s) A historic variety that was grown since the 1700’s as an ornamental and for preserves. In the 1840’s "tomato figs" became popular because it was an inexpensive way to create a substitute for figs. The Red Fig Tomato is 1-1 ½" in length and pear shaped, resembling miniature bowling pins. They are an excellent addition to salads or eating out of hand, not to mention essential for making old fashioned "tomato figs". Very productive. Indeterminate, regular leaf foliage (70 days from transplant) 

I will admit that there is one cheat in this year's crop, but you will have to go on-site and read the Kitchen Garden plant list to see which one it is.

PS an "indeterminate" tomato plant means it just keeps growing and producing tomatoes until frost, as opposed to a "determinate" tomato which will only produce a certain number of tomatoes before it shuts down and dies.

Precipitation Back on Track

On almost the last day of May, we had just under two inches of rain (the yellow line above). That has brought our precipitation up to the levels of 1886 (black line) which was a drought year. Prior to the rain, soil in the Produce Garden where last winter's leaf mulch had blown away pored like sand through our fingers. However, where our leaf mulch stayed in place, the soil underneath the leaves had a vague amount of moisture. With the end of month rain, our soil is in great shape.

The rain has been good for the beds in the Kitchen Garden and Produce Garden. We anticipate that the rain washing into the two native gardens will really help with the growth and flowering of our native plants. Last year was the sleep-creep-LEAP year for our native plants planted in 2015. We anticipate that there will be more native plant leaping in 2018.

Temperature-wise, we are somewhat warmer than 1886:

You can see all of the May charts in the Weather folder.

Observations 2018: 27 May - 3 June

We are being rewarded for our work and patience over the last several years. 

Soil
In 2015, we created raised beds in the Kitchen Garden and Produce Garden. That meant defined paths in between beds upon which we no longer walked and compressed the soil. We have added approximately thirty yards of aged cow manure into the gardens; we have mulched with six hundred bags of leaves. Last fall, we laid down thirty bales of wheat straw into the paths. Here is our dark and friable result:

Dark soil and worms

Last year's leaves mulching the Kitchen Garden

Native Plants
In 2015, we replaced a dismal dandelion-infested strip of grass in the centre of the parking lot with a full suite of randomly planted native plants. Although there are still some dandelions - and we recently spent at least one full day weeding them - the native plants are beginning to grow together and crowd out the invasives:

Goldenrod and Three Flowered Avens Coming Together - less room for weeds

Dense canopy of native plants - remaining dandelions just off camera to the right

Dark Soil; Lots of Worms

When planting tomatoes on Friday, we encountered many worms during our digging. This year, the soil is dark, friable and full of worms. It is easy to plant. It has been easy to weed. After three years of adding leaves, compost, and most importantly, refraining from severe digging and turning over the soil, we are having soil success.

Here are some  more soil pictures:

A shovelful of soil and earthworms

Dark soil underneath last winter's mulch

Check Out Our Photo Gallery

Don't forget to check out our latest photographs in our Photo Gallery. All our photographs starting in 2014 are stored there. Also check out the captions in the information area. Typically, the older photographs have more captions.

Bleeding Hearts (Lamprocapnos spectabilis) in the Entrance Beds

Potatoes and a Bulb Planter

Strange Bedfellows

Instead of the typical method of digging a hole with a shovel or trowel in which to plant potatoes, consider using a bulb planter.

Here's how we do this using square foot gardening.

Lay the grid on the four foot wide bed. Position the sixteen potatoes; one per square foot. Flip the grid for the next sixteen potatoes to be positioned. Keep going like this until all the potatoes for the bed have been positioned. Meanwhile, the two planters, one on each side of the bed plant the eight potatoes in front of them, then move to the next eight potatoes. And of course move, then replace, the mulch as you plant. Because of our mulch, today's soil was slightly damp and full off earthworms despite the hot weather and only one inch (25 millimeters) of rain since the beginning of April. 

The person positioning the potatoes will have just enough time to finish the bed, halve and position the potatoes for the next bed before the planters are ready to move to that bed. We planted seven 4 x 22 foot beds in just over an hour. Only three more beds to go.

With this method, we planted a fifty pound sack of Russet Burbank potatoes for every five 4 x 22 foot beds. And, as an FYI, each 4 x 22 foot bed takes 44 potatoes split into two; 88 halves in 88 square feet.

Green Stakes

To assist our Parks Canada Tech Services staff, we have used green stakes to identify horticultural areas that we want to protect. This way, Tech Services will refrain from weed whacking some interesting plants. Of course, weeding these protected areas now is our responsibility which is fine with us.

Here's an example where we have planted virginia creeper (parthenocissus quinquefolia) around one of the fence posts that delineate the "1886 area" of Riel House. The creeper is starting to grow along the horizontal sections and will help to soften the look of the fencing surrounding the property.

no weed whacking svp

Yes, the grass and the dandelions in the immediate vicinity of the green stake belong to us.

Upon Weeding the Parking Lot Garden

"Weeding" is a misnomer. We removed dandelions. 

Also, if we encountered any maple seedlings / trees, we removed those as well. Last year, we were more generous with maples thinking that if we selected the ones best positioned in the Parking Lot Garden - let's say one in the east, one in the central section and one in the west - they would eventually grow sufficiently to provide some welcome shade. This year we realized that, yes, shade was good - but - they would also produce massive amounts of seedlings and eventually overwhelm all our native plants. So, out went the maples.

We forgot to take a before picture as we always just want to get going. But here is the after picture. A bit bleak but definitely dandelion and maple free:

We noted that the native plants are starting to grow together and fill the open spaces that weeds inhabit. Weeds are pioneer plant that naturally inhabit open spaces where nothing else has started to grow or areas with weak plants (think lawns). Once other plants, healthy plants, enter the area, weeds will start to disappear. Here's a good example from today.

some dandelions - but - 

Yes, there were indeed some dandelions here prior to weeding, but, as you can see, the native plants are starting to flood the area. By next year, we should see very little open mulch.

Observations 2018: 20 May - 27 May

This week it has become apparent that spring is here.

After our weeding work was finished for the day, we went to see how our new nannyberry was doing and realized that the lilacs were in bloom. What a pleasure on a beautiful spring day.

Lilacs and the new Nannyberry

Now we looked about with new eyes. Walking east, here is another view of the lilacs.

Lilacs at Riel House

Walking to the west, we realized how extensive are the groves of chokecherries at Riel House. Chokecherries are a traditional Indigenous and Métis food. From Lawrie Barkwell's Wild Fruits, Nuts and Plants Traditional Métis Foods document: 

Chokecherries are called Takwahiminana by the Cree and Michif people. They call crushed or pounded chokecherries Pa-kwa-mi-na-na. Alternately the Metis refer to them as lii grenn or lii siriz. 

Chokecherry Blossoms

In the Parking Lot Garden, here was a new blossom for the season:

NORTHERN BOG VIOLET Viola nephrophylla