Winter and Spring is playing hide-and-seek. Winter is trying to embrace the land to her bosom in a last-minute attempt with light snow-dust, gusty chilly wind and temperature at night dropping to twenty degree Fahrenheit; but, Spring is winning all the time. Squirrels are chasing after each other, up and down the trees and across the lawns to find a mate and a suitable nesting place; birds are chirping louder and louder; sky is becoming light by around quarter to six in the morning with the sun peeping its head out of the night-blanket by six; crocuses, irises, daffodils and sedums are stirring up beneath the ground and poking their heads, soon to welcome the Spring in their full glory and galore. Days are gorgeous with bright sunshine and temperature hovering between forty-five and fifty degree Fahrenheit.
It is very difficult for me to stay inside the house now. I am feeling like running wildly around the garden, shouting, just like the birds and the squirrels, but since that would result in me being forced into a mental-asylum by my neighbors, so I have to contended with working in the garden. Sigh!! I dug out all the grasses from the four raised bed. I don't know why I call them raised beds because they are not raised beds in a typical sense; they are only 6'' in height. I created those (actually my hubby made those) to have a kind-of-border around my vegetables and that my dogs do not run over them. I then covered them up with black garden-sheets to kill weeds, grasses that might be left behind, protect the topsoil from wind and sun and also raise the temperature of the soil. It was really a back-hurting job; my respect for farmers and farm-animals of past years, before the invention of all these farm machineries, got renewed.
HolleyGarden of Roses and Other Gardening Joys and Christina of Organic Garden Dreams is inspiring me to take care of my roses. So, I with the help of my hubby, pruned all the roses and other plants and shrubs; then, I fed my roses and other plants with some organic fertilizers. I need to prune them some more and feed them some more, especially with alfalfa. Hubby build the pea-fence and I planted peas and chitted-potatoes. The not-at-all-impressive green in the second picture below is actually a small potato plant.
But, the surprise and the joy of the day was waiting for me at the compost bin. The compost bin was lying there at one part of the garden for the last one year; I would shove in it all sorts of craps - kitchen craps, weeds, grass cuttings, leaves - anything that can be put inside. I never stirred it. I watered it only twice or thrice. I didn't put any worms or any such beneficial creatures inside it; it was a forgotten, neglected entity. I needed to move it to the back of the garden; since it was too heavy, I had to open it on Sunday, empty out its content so that it could be lifted and shifted. As I started working with it, I got the shock of my life; my jaws dropped open and my mind got blown. Now, you have to realize that I was born and brought up in one of the largest metropolis of the world, with bricks, cements, cars and about twenty million people; to me, nature was that small patch of grass in the children's park. Being a science student, I know theoretically how everything works, how microorganisms decompose everything and bla..bla..bla...but experiencing the process, seeing it in real-life was an other-worldly experience for me. There inside the bin - lo and behold! - dark, rich compost with that earthy smell; no traces of orange, onion, garlic peels, tea-bags, mango-seed, egg-shells, leaves, twigs and branches, weeds, absolutely nothing, N-A-D-A. Rather, it had some worms. How did those get in there!!!??? I have now enough compost to feed my vegetable gardens, and have become very inspired to do more composting :-). So, that was the weekend of March 3 -- March 4, 2012.
It is very difficult for me to stay inside the house now. I am feeling like running wildly around the garden, shouting, just like the birds and the squirrels, but since that would result in me being forced into a mental-asylum by my neighbors, so I have to contended with working in the garden. Sigh!! I dug out all the grasses from the four raised bed. I don't know why I call them raised beds because they are not raised beds in a typical sense; they are only 6'' in height. I created those (actually my hubby made those) to have a kind-of-border around my vegetables and that my dogs do not run over them. I then covered them up with black garden-sheets to kill weeds, grasses that might be left behind, protect the topsoil from wind and sun and also raise the temperature of the soil. It was really a back-hurting job; my respect for farmers and farm-animals of past years, before the invention of all these farm machineries, got renewed.
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HolleyGarden of Roses and Other Gardening Joys and Christina of Organic Garden Dreams is inspiring me to take care of my roses. So, I with the help of my hubby, pruned all the roses and other plants and shrubs; then, I fed my roses and other plants with some organic fertilizers. I need to prune them some more and feed them some more, especially with alfalfa. Hubby build the pea-fence and I planted peas and chitted-potatoes. The not-at-all-impressive green in the second picture below is actually a small potato plant.
 |  |
But, the surprise and the joy of the day was waiting for me at the compost bin. The compost bin was lying there at one part of the garden for the last one year; I would shove in it all sorts of craps - kitchen craps, weeds, grass cuttings, leaves - anything that can be put inside. I never stirred it. I watered it only twice or thrice. I didn't put any worms or any such beneficial creatures inside it; it was a forgotten, neglected entity. I needed to move it to the back of the garden; since it was too heavy, I had to open it on Sunday, empty out its content so that it could be lifted and shifted. As I started working with it, I got the shock of my life; my jaws dropped open and my mind got blown. Now, you have to realize that I was born and brought up in one of the largest metropolis of the world, with bricks, cements, cars and about twenty million people; to me, nature was that small patch of grass in the children's park. Being a science student, I know theoretically how everything works, how microorganisms decompose everything and bla..bla..bla...but experiencing the process, seeing it in real-life was an other-worldly experience for me. There inside the bin - lo and behold! - dark, rich compost with that earthy smell; no traces of orange, onion, garlic peels, tea-bags, mango-seed, egg-shells, leaves, twigs and branches, weeds, absolutely nothing, N-A-D-A. Rather, it had some worms. How did those get in there!!!??? I have now enough compost to feed my vegetable gardens, and have become very inspired to do more composting :-). So, that was the weekend of March 3 -- March 4, 2012.
