A glorious day in the NW!

My arms are sore from spring clean up and it feels good. We lost a couple trees in recent winds so chopping those up has occupied my time along with amending soil and weeding: buttercups abound! I would need about 100 gallons of vinegar a month to get rid of all those monsters.

Are you noticing how much later it stays light? Wonderful time of year! Won't be long til you can garden til 9:30. oooh!~

Well, am glad you had a good day outside.
It was nice for awhile here in Oregon but then later it rained and got and windy.
I love to garden up to late at nite but it sure has to warm up first!!!
Carol

Annie, I'm right there with ya. My whole body hurts from working outside today, but I feel alive again! I was lucky enough to get out there before the rain came. Cleaned up all the branches from my messy willow tree, mowed and edged the lawn, swept the sidewalks and then did other miscellaneous things outside. I'm eager for warmer, lighter nights!

It was a beautiful day! I just wish I didn't have to work. I did stay out and put up an additional 100 feet of deer netting after getting home. I'm in the process of expanding my fenced in area... a few more days like today and I'll have it finished off!
Portia

I usually work M-F, but yesturday was so nice, I called in "sick". Sick of being inside that is! I planted a mess of onions and pototoes and a bit of asparagus. My DH helped me install some edging on Sunday, so the yard is looking pretty good! I can't wait until the first real flowers start to bloom! not that the bulbs aren't great, but since the whole flower garden is new last year, I want to see what it will look like all in bloom.

I'm awefully sore today as well. How can so many muscles all over be that sore?

come on time change!

It was a beautiful day. Today wasn't too shabby either. Too bad I had to work inside both day.

What kind of deer netting did you put up?

jb

Hi portie aw, How tall is the deer netting and how do you support it? I had deer bother my perennials for the first time last year- monsters! Now I know why people complain about deer. My yard is such that fencing is impossible, so I'm just curious.

What are people's experiences with repelling type sprays for deer?

We've tried a few types of fencing to keep out the deer. I wanted the area near the house to look nice, so we built an 8 ft tall cedar trellis fence. It's beautiful, and it works well, but its expensive. We limited the length of this type of fencing. Along the back property lines, we used the tallest metal "t-posts" we could find. They are 8 feet tall before you sink them about 1 - 1.5 feet. We string out field fencing to reinforce the base and add structure, and then run the heavy duty 7 ft tall deer netting along to achieve a height that will keep the deer out. There are three "weights" of this netting available... the lightest is best used to keep birds off blueberries. The middle weight is adequate in areas that aren't very overgrown and may not be "tested" very much. I went up to the heavier stuff because we are running this stretch of fence through some rougher areas. I've had good success with the 7 ft deer netting keeping the deer out of my garden and orchard areas for the past 5 years. The area we are working on protecting now includes my shade beds, my start at a cutting garden, and the sunny area around our back deck where I've got some roses, strawberries, and mints that the deer would prune daily if I didn't have them caged. After we get the netting done, I can take down the wire cages I've had to resort to. I can't wait!

We gardened in a new site for 2 years before we got tired of loosing most of anything we planted. The year after the fence was up you wouldn't believe how everything grew! The best thing I ever did gardening was my deer fence. When I built mine I used Gas pipe. They are cut in 10' length and are heavy steel 2" diameter. I dug down 2 feet and put a 1/2 bag of concrete and poured in the water.
Make sure you put in gates to all the neighbors or the fur will fly when they want to get their stray dog home.

LOL soferdig, "fur will fly." Gates in fences are a great idea. Lots of work you did there digging and pouring/mixing cement. Glad to hear it was worth the effort.

If we dig anything here, post holes, gardens etc you better have a pick axe or a chisel and hammer for the clay and rocks. It is just hideous soil.

I had to dig 56 holes in a glacial moraine. There were 3 holes that took over 3 hours each. I use to live in woodinville so I know what you are up against. Lots of work. It took me almost 2 years to do mine and I had 2 sides of the property already in Elk fence. But it is the best thing I could have done. All of the fences are covered with Virigina Creeper and the deer keep the outside pruned very well.

The 8ft deer fence was just about the first thing we did. We moved from a garden in town that we'd worked on for 5 years and brought with us some of our favorites. They sat in pots behind a short fence for two years. We fenced approx 2 acres. 15 gates! :)

For two years we had to control our urge to head out to a nursery. The day the last gate went in we had a great sense of accomplishment, did a little dance and headed for Flower World.

jb

Flower World is one place I want to visit someday. I've heard it is so big, you really can't cover it in a day.

2 acres and 56 post holes! You guys sure aren't afraid of hard work. One of my most fun jobs of youth was working for the DNR one summer building/maintaining trails, building docks, cutting trees etc. I foolishly commented on the wonder of the post hole digger as a tool, having never seen one before. So guess who got post hole duty all summer long?

I went to flower world when it was only 3 small greenhouses. I lived next door. I was there 10 yrs ago and it was huge! I loved it. Hey JR I fenced 3 acres. So there. HaHa

Flower Land sounds like a wonderful place! Wish I were closer to it. :-(

Soferdig, I meant to ask how far apart you spaced your posts? I used 10 foot Tposts every 20 feet and a treated 4x4 every 100. So far it has held them out. Your idea of 2" gas pipe is genuis.

And Portia, we also did the lattice 2x2 fence up around the house, but it is indeed expensive.

We've got very rocky ground. Not as rocky as Soferdig. No 3 hour holes, but there we're some I tried to get 4 feet deep that were close to an hour. I built a greenhouse this summer and sunk 4x6's in holes that were 34" deep and 18" wide. Three of them were too close to untilities and had to be hand dug. Deffinitely over an hour, but I got lucky and didn't hit any big rocks. Nor the utilities. Phew.

jb

Hi Poochella, I'm new in here but I had to respond to your buttercup coment. We lived in Arlington,Wa. for many years before we moved over here to the east side 10 years ago. I had a gazillion butter cups and we named our farm the Blasckberry patch.( a gazillion of them to) Any way when it was getting time to move into the new place I had started digging up plants left and right to move over here. Well without even knowing it I transplanted a buttercup with one of my Peonies, and a blackberry in Lord I don't know! The neet thing is over here is they only get water when I water them or a far and few between rain shower, and with the colder winters they don't take over everything like they did over there.I keep them in check and it reminds me of the old farm. Debbie

Well, welcome Happy. If I were you I'd change my name to HappyIHaveFewButtercups! Few and far between rains? Between that and controllable buttercups and Ruth Olive's photos I might have to look into Tonasket for a potential retirement area! Sounds great.

There's got to be some drawback: snowstorms? prolonged freezes? tornadoes? quakes? big mosquitoes? stampeding elk in the back yard? I'm off to research Tonasket facts as I know very little about that area.

Welcome to the NW forum!
Annie

LOL pooch, we do have some draw backs! It does get cold here, and depending on if your down here in the main valley where I am or up in the Mt.regions will determon how cold and how much snow.No Elk that I know of but a few Moose showing up more often in the highlands.I don't know Ruth Olive or where she lives tho. This is a small world.I would love to meet her and see her gardens firsr had tho. But the Okanogan is a wonderful place to live. It is hot too. Aug. we pray for rain or even a cool breez. Doesn't stay in the 3 digets much tho, Thank God! I'm going to put some of those lovely buttercups on the back high bank around my pond I put in in Aug. They can go to town there for me to help hold the dirt from erodding. Thanks for the welcome. Debbie

I placed my gas posts every 20' and stretched the fence tight from each corner with a tractor. All my corners are welded angled gas line pipe so they will never move. The steel in these pipes is 3/8" thick. The rust color is pleasant to look at in the winter in the few areas that I can see it. I learned how to build from the Elk guys. I bought my fence from them. My 3 hour holes had a glacial rock somewhere down and had to dig out the entire perimeter. One I had to rent a jack hammer to move. We had a big problem with the native elk coming into our yard and eating everything during the hunting season. They were called in by our bugleing captive bulls and the girls would line up on our side of the fence. The elk is a grazer and eats anything.

Flower World is one of the nurseries in the Snohomish nursery hopping option for the PNW roundup, so get over there and vote!

Gwendalou

I trust there are NO complaints about the weather this fine day in the NW? WOW- you can feel the heat building up daily. Spring fever is over,the waiting is done- it's here! My trillium are poking up- and that is my indicator that Spring has officially arrived.

Enjoy your week everyone, sounds like it's going to be nice.

No complaints! I toured the garden with my digital camera today (and pruning shears) and I'm amazed at all the new buds and sprouts just since last Sunday. If I hadn't been fighting an infection and fever I would have spent the whole afternoon getting delightfully dirty. ;~)

It was great ALL DAY here in Beaverton. It felt so great to get outside in the garden.

No complaints from over here either. The first day of spring was glorious.To bad I had to work, and didn't get off tell 8pm. Way to go Kathe Mac!

Debbie

Ditto! I spent the day with my arms in the pond and enjoyed every minute of it! Let the gardening begin!!!

Pixydish, What size pond do you have? Last year I put in a 16'x21' and I'm getting eager to get things going. I left my pump and 12' falls going all winter and had a wonderful ice follies going for awhile. My fish should be wakeing up any day as the temp down there is hovering around 47 to 50. I can hardly wait to start feeding again. Debbie

Hi Debbie,
I think mine is about 13 by 20 or so. With the little falls and creek, plus the veggie filter, it's about 4500 gallons. My fish are active now at night, but they were scared into hiding by a kingfisher recently, so they are still in hiding during the day. I had him visit the pond once a month or two ago, put a net over the pond, then didn't see him again. So I removed the net and he didn't come back until this past week while I was in California. Fortunately, I had put a very large flat rock on top of two cinder blocks at the bottom of the pond, so they had some good hiding spaces. They also have little caves to hide but I think the rock makes them safer. When my son saw the kingfisher hovering over the pond again, I knew I had to do something else until the plants start to grow. I made some floating islands out of heavy styrofoam insulation. I just used some squares we already had and cut a couple of holes in the middle for pots. Then put pots of marginals that needed planting anyway into the styrofoam. Now they have pleny of cover, and the kingfisher doesn't have enough room to dive for them. I checked tonight, and they are all accounted for, so I know we thwarted him yet again.

someone last year on the pond forum said she uses a regular toilet brush to clean off the rocks in her pond. I tried it and it works just great!!! The brush grabs onto the algea, dead and alive, and gently scrapes it off the rocks. Twirl like spaghetti, and it all comes up in a big clump. I had a great time!

Yes, a tolit brush works great. A king FisherYikes! I'm hopeing I'm far enough from the river I don't get the unwanted visitors up here. Like Blue Herin and Coons. So far in all the years I had the little pond I didn't but this is much more obvious. I haven't subcribed to Daves Garden so I can't go there. There are so many other places I can go without paying and I just can't afford to put out more right now. Funny, I have some thick styrafoam squares I was going to do the same thing with. There again why pay 20 something and I can make them. It's much to cold yet to plant over here tho. I did throw my Barley straw planters in empty tho to start working.I'm told it's great for water clairity and keeping down the algae. Are you in the Lakewood North of Seattle or south of it? We lived in Arlington for years. Debbie

I'm in lakewood south of seattle. It's so confusing having two lakewoods!