So this morning , as usual, I really just wanted to be lazy, but early morning is better for transplanting so I decided to just do the 6 lettuce plants I bought yesterday. The bed was all ready, just enough spaces left, my new drill planting augur right on top of the mess and next thing was just walking outside.
On the way was the extension cord, ready to plug in for the water pump, so I did that, then I turned the valve to put some fresh water in the pond, and proceeded up to turn on the generator to fill the cistern, and while I waited decided to bring down some bulrushes that overwintered in a bucket of water. After planting them down in the biofilter I noticed another shallow pot of bulrushes and they got replanted too.
Soon the spring box was out of water so I could turn off the pump. But my travels had reminded me, and soon I was sorting and washing small river rocks to add to the biofilter–not too many, that process is tedious and boring. Finally on the way back inside the lettuce got planted which meant bringing out the watering hose.
Of course that meant watering the tomatoes and peppers in the 4 packs which led to bringing out some empty pots with soil in them from the greenhouse transplanting a couple tomatoes and a tumeric root into different pots, watering misc others, and finally watering the original lettuces I went out to plant. Guess it’s time to put the row cover over them.
Oh, did I mention the angel wing begonia that was getting leggy, so I snapped off about 10 of the “legs” and stuck them in wet sand down at the biofilter–easy enough to do, and if they root I could possibly sell the plants later–or just enjoy the flowers.
So, almost 11AM and things have slowed down a little. some more transplanting /separating Tumeric roots, washing and adding more rocks to biofilter, and lots of just sitting by the ponds feeding the fish. They were spawning the other day, hope they will do as well as the goldfish did at reproducing. Keeping the adults well occupied with feeding may make them less inclined to eat their young.
I carried tree seedlings and post hole digger down to the middle pond, but holes are difficult to dig by hand, so time to get the backhoe down there which at least helped with some of the worst roots. The rest were all put in just locating easy spots and using the post hole digger. There was also have some landscaping to do down there with the backhoe on a garden space there,
I got 12 redbud trees in at the swimming pond and tore up the garden space down there removing a tree stump. Serious manicuring of the space can wait. A little more energy and I’ll see about fixing it up- later. Lot’s of rotting logs and briers to deal with, A little hand labour and lot’s of machine work, but with a little luck the logs will help as a boundary while they rot into the soil at the pond edge holding back the existing garden soil. Likely there will be a blueberry, persimmon and mulberry tree planted on that edge. It may also get a grape vine started, and a few annuals as well.
I think there were a few other odds and ends that have been forgotten, but this is most of what happened on one day in the Spring of 2023.
This post was just a fun experiment to document some of the activities that make life so interesting here. But some of the things happening, maybe most of the feelings involve watching past activities mature. The lettuce bed for instance went through several iterations- on it’s way to reasonable soil, The bulrushes were purchased long ago, nearly driven to extinction, and now thriving in these new pond biofilters.
Everything has a story behind it, and a future ahead of it and I get to be here in the middle remembering, guiding, enjoying. And likely the best part of it all is simply witnessing the abundance all around me.
REMEMBER, IF YOU’RE NOT HAVING FUN, YOU’VE GOT THE DESIGN WRONG 🙂