Up with trees!

Monday May 5th

In the aftermath of our lovely, sunny weekend here in NE Oklahoma I managed to get out and construct my new floating row cover over Plot 5 which houses the potatoes. I'm trying to keep these plants covered because I REALLY want to grow some spuds this year after 2 years of failure through bad planting, over watering and Carrot Beetle attacks.
I bought flexible plastic piping which I cut into 7 foot lengths and some 24 inch lengths of Rebar.
I sunk the Rebar into the soil until about 8 inches was left above ground then put the pipe over it to make a hoop. I used my newly purchased cover material, which is of a little heavier quality than the last lot at around 1oz weight, and fastened wooden lats along the sides as before. This time, instead of using nails to fasten the 2 lats together I used short screws so that, if the material ripped, I could easily seperate the wood and replace the damaged covers.


New floating row cover design




Inside Plot 5

I'm really pleased to say that the young tree saplings I planted are looking good.
These were all sent to me free when I joined the Arbor Society and I urge you to join too by visiting them at http://www.arborday.org/.
The trees are guaranteed to grow and they will replace them free of charge if they don't.
You can't get better than that. UP WITH TREES !!
The following pictures show how mine are doing and I'll keep posting updates on their progress.



Sargent Crabapple



Washington Hawthorn




Crepe Myrtle




White Flowering Dogwood




American Redbud




Goldenraintree




After all this gardening activity I decided to make my speciality dinner of Spaghetti Bolognese.
I'm the "Guest Chef" on my wife's cooking blog this week and you can see the recipe soon
here



Mick's Spaghetti Bolognese and Garlic Bread





Oh, by the way. It's raining again.................................