Everyone has a hated chore in the garden. One of mine is cleaning up after everyone else's cats. I am not a cat person. I do appreciate them catching mice in the garden. They do. Well Molly does at least, who is the townhouse mates' cat. But cats can be a pain. They like to dig and leave their poo all over the place. I always have to put something like netting or bamboo poles on the soil so they don't contaminate it. Cats carry parasites and I don't want that in my food.
AfterAlso to encourage them to go elsewhere I give them a spot for it. It is under a small overhang so it keeps the soil dry which the cats like. But after all winter, cleaning up after them is not a fun chore. I was kind and only showed you the after photo. The before was pretty disgusting.
In that above photo you see my hose reel. I got both of them out and connected up. Sometimes it takes me a while to get it done, and sometimes I'm pretty good about it like this year. I think the nice weather has really got me doing my chores in a timely manner.
Yesterday I found some ramps being sold at the supermarket to eat. But they had their roots on them. So I figured I could plant them and see if they grew or not. I didn't get to them yesterday, but did today. I put them under the maple tree with my townhouse mates multiplier onions.
Yesterday the strawberries also came. I tossed them in to the fridge for the night. I only ordered 10 of them. I already had lots in the garden. But they die off over time. So I've been ordering more every year to fill in sections. I tend to like Earliglow as they don't die off as quickly as some others. Whatever diseases have come in, they seem at least moderately resistant to it.
Raspberry bedAnd last but not least I got some of the yard cleaned up. I tidied up the perennials. And fixed the raspberry patch. The massive snowfall made the posts lean over. I put them back up and trimmed off the dead spots from the hard winter. They are starting to leaf out. I also noticed they are starting to spread again. They almost died off the year before last due to lack of rain. It isn't that we don't get rain, but that area is to the southeast of the house. A lot of our rain comes in from the northeast. Last year I put up a soaker hose and ran it when we had little rain. Usually raspberries are weeds around here, but I guess they don't like being dry. I'm really happy they are spreading again. I missed the bumper crops of berries.
I transplanted ramps last spring from NH. Dug them up in the woods near my daughter's and planted them here in MD. They came up this year. I'll let them multiply before I try any.
ReplyDeleteThankfully we rarely have a cat in our yard. But I have to clean up after Coco. I think our raspberries do better too when we get more rain. Nancy
ReplyDeleteMmm raspberries are one of my favourites, I've been tying mine in this week, a job I'd normally have finished ages ago but weeding out all the couch grass roots that have crept in to the bed has taken a long time.
ReplyDeleteIt's very nice of you to give the cats their own litter bed! I guess if you make it easy for them they won't try and get in your veggie patches as much.
Having had several cats, I can honestly say that cleaning the litter box was right at the top of my most hated chore list. That is so awfully nice of you to give them a spot to "go".
ReplyDeleteSome of my berries came this week. We were away when they came & the box was sitting outside for probably a couple of days in fairly cold weather, from what I hear...I'm hoping they make it to Saturday when the weather improves enough for me to get them into the ground.
I'm planting some ramp bulbs as well, don't know they'll survive here, it's a try.
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