cAROL - SO happy to hear you had a day to work in the garden when weather permitted since we both know those days can be few & far between! I had to work today but took the time to go walkabout at midday and again late afternoon to see what looks good and what needs work. Yanked a few weeds along the way and noticed some things blooming I hadn't seen before. No wonder June is the month most folks like to get married--it's definitely the month of (blooming) promises!!

Sunday - Already having to water every day now. Lugging a hundred feet of hose around to water every day is a major drag. (ha ha). I enjoy watering, but dragging the water hose is no fun. The biggest tasks I did today (Sunday) were these: I pulled and dug grass and weeds and old plant debris out of one of the iris beds in the circular garden on the north side. Haven't been able to do that in several years, so it was in bad need of cleaning out. I let the water run and that made the weeds come out much easier and settled the dirt back down while watering them at the same time. There is still a third yet to do to finish that bed, but I had to stop for awhile. I got really hot and tired. When I am done, shredded wood chips mulch will go in there. It looks so much better already. BTW, my bearded irises have buds, so they will be blooming any time now. The minis irises are finished and the dwarfs have been blooming for a week. They a repeat bloomers. Later, I used my old-fashioned cultivator and prepared a twenty-foot bed in the vegetable garden. Then I set out ten of the broccoli plants there. There are probably 30 or more little plants yet to set out (somewhere). I only planted 20 seeds! How did 20 seeds grow 40+ plants? The rest went back into the greenhouse until I can till up a place for them. The soil is great in the vegetable garden this year because of all the manure-hay I put in there last year. I made one-inch collars by cutting paper towel tubes into 1-1/2 inch sections and placed them around each broccoli plant to deter cutworms from chewing through the tiny stems. I do that with tomatoes, cabbage, and peppers too. It works! I cultivated the potato beds - two 20 ft rows, to loosen the soil and then cultivated the path between one row of potatoes and the newly planted broccoli bed. The fern-leaf dill is up behind the broccoli where I sowed it earlier this month. Broccoli benefits from dill. I cleaned out the path along the asparagus bed where I planted the strawberries earlier this month too.(or did I do that in March??). Gotta keep the weeds down before they get away from me and drop seeds. Then I watered everything in there. I cut the lower limbs off the cedars on the east side next to the vegetable garden to allow more air and light into the yard and garden. I can't start the chainsaw (can't yank hard enough), so I had to use my bow saw. Ugh. The cedar branches like to et me up! I am allergic to them. Breaks out with an itchy rash and bumps like poison ivy, only the cedar's oil burns my skin too. Then DH came home and he came out and we hauled all the clippings up to the burn pile. He got out his chainsaw and cut down the big hackberry tree that was leaning over the garden. He cut all the smaller limbs off so I could throw them over the fence where he could drag them up to the burn pile too. Boy, do I hurt all over, but it looks great. Lots of sunshine now for growing tomatoes, okra, corn, beans, cukes and what-have-you. BTW, DH is going to buy me that little tiller so I can cultivate the rest of the garden. (he will probably use it too. He likes playing with gadgets and gizmos) :) Tomorrow, if I can walk, I am planting two rows of bush beans in between the two rows of potatoes. This is to confuse potato bugs when they fly over. It works. Marigolds will be transplanted on each end of the potato rows to help with repelling beetles. Garlic is growing along the other side of the potato rows. The radishes and beets are growing very well as are the onions. More onion sets will go into the garden in May to extend the green onions through summer. The strawberries are blooming and the asparagus are coming up. We will have to finish eating the rest of the strawberries I put up in the freezer last year to make room for this year's crop. Found more Morels today too. Yippee! Discovered that the Liatris bulbs I planted last week are up already. I never grew them before, so am thrilled. It was just such a beautiful day - I did not want to spend it in the house. I'd rather be in my garden. ~Annie

It needs to go dormant before a hard freeze. I would up pot it and bring it in to an area such as an unheated garage and let it go dormant. I would then plant it in the spring after the last recorded frost date for previous years in your area. My soil is red clay, I would plant it in a hole three times larger than the pot, or more. Amend the soil with compost and the soil removed from the planting hole, mixed thoroughly. If water stands, mound the soil. Plant the tree four inches deeper than it was in the pot. If your ground freezes, this will help protect the roots. Also, the buried stem will root and the plant will grow better.. You could also plant the tree maybe a month or so after it goes dormant. You must protect it from the cold this first year if you do. The figs on it now will drain energy that it needs to survive the first winter since it is not established in the ground. For any plant to thrive, you must take care of the roots first or nothing else will matter.

In my experience only if it's OMRI listed is it truly certified organic. If it's truly an organic approved compost, they'll have laboratory test results showing AB, AF, TB, TF, as well as the chemistry. Ask them for the test results. Also, ask yourself this: If it was capable of sustaining any kind of microbial life why wouldn't the mushroom grower have kept it? There's a reason it's so inexpensive and a reason it's referred to as "spent". Greenjeans