That’s crazy that someone stole the tree! Didn’t even occur to me as a concern. Do you have a camera?
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not on that side we don’t no. it’s along the street, people leave it alone mostly- I plant sunflowers along there between the trees and sidewalk with a sign telling people to feel free to pick a flower
I’ve had a garden gnome stolen once from out front, but never an entire tree! it wasn’t even leafy, I’m wondering if they were a bit drunk and thought it was just a stick?
I’m sorry! People are crazy.
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I really enjoyed seeing how you have slowly transformed your property. It’s great! I draw up great plans and then try to tackle everything at once…your approach is way more sustainable 
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I do take on too much at times. and I move things around more than I ought
this year my biggest project is to reshape and move this bed, AGAIN
it’s right up a foot from the greenhouse and I want it easier to access the center and a few feet away so I can plant figs along that wall of the greenhouse, it’s moving so much dirt and building walls and making an actual shaped raised bed and
… ugh
also planting out natives out in front, and trying again to get anything at all to grow in the devil strip coffin
the chip drop times are the big work times for me. though I also put in enough aged horse manure to make ten long mounded beds, two years ago. watering is also a constant issue, I keep thinking I should build in drip but then that’s maintenance, so I end up with a sprinkler or 3, or hand watering, etc
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You can do it! I revamped my garden beds this March deciding they needed to be perpendicular to where they were, more of them, etc.…it was a lot of soil being moved around and bulk drops. It sounds like we move things around a similar amount 
I don’t think there’s a tree I have planted that hasn’t been moved once!
I feel your pain on the chip drop work. I am putting it off until Mid May because I still remember the pain of moving one all alone last March!
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I’ve done chip drop enough to know I’ll have blisters
I’ve got one pending now but I asked for no walnut or cedar so it might be a while.
I took the time to get some photos of the front and side today.
I’ve got to chop whatever grass is poking up through all my mulch out there. there’s five or six of the ditch lilies barely surviving in the devil strip.
reposting for my own memory next year. April 26
pawpaws just waking, ark black in leaf, gravenstein putting on a blossom, asparagus JUST poking up (green, purple has been putting up a tiny shoot or two for a few days);
…winter banana, Johnny appleseed, Granny, all in full bloom, and a lamb abbey graft blooming. braeburn just starting.
mulberries just now breaking bud, lilacs getting ready to flower.
tulips nearly finished, staghorn leafing out, bleeding heart a foot tall.
oh and comice started blooming a week ago.
it’s young to bloom, I guess
I said these tulips were doomed, what the hell do I know anyway
prairie sage twice as big as last year. and spreading
trailman, serviceberry , harrow delight in flower
wickson (?) and Chestnut crab and, the native plum actually in flower. these were sad aphid magnets that never flowered out back so I’m glad I moved them to the front. I didn’t much care if they made it or not but they seem happier
Illinois mulberries leafing out, golden currant, black lace elderberry, a dusty miller that survived the entire winter all alone, and nootka rose spreading out thankfully
“pristine” apple which I don’t have high expectations for, hunza apricot leaves, scout apricot just starting to break bud this late, a “veteran” peach that got weed whacked to the ground and grew back from the root stock (I’ll have to figure out how to graft into that, whatever it is) and reliance peach flowering.
planted this burr oak on request from my stepson, thought it had died but no. it’s alive. in the second worst spot on the entire property
(the devil strip is the worst)
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Everything looks happy! I love black lace…it (and laced up) are some of 3 non natives on my property because it’s just so frickin gorgeous in bloom and the dark lacy foliage makes other things pop.
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I was really happy today going to get photos. I met a neighbor too, from diagonal across the way- she gave me a little maple tree and wants to try things on the devil strip (she doesn’t have one), I told her of all the failures I’ve had there. she seemed undaunted, so I told her to have at it
she was very nice
edit
reminder to my future self- there’s room for peach, and for plum, and a pear graft next year, but no more room for apple until the year after. (did a looking today). also: split them tulips again and maybe get more when they go on sale?
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first harvest basket for the year, may day.
I’d already been picking bits of onion greens to chop and some dandelion and a little kale/big cabbage leaves here and there, plus herbs, but this was the first time I got the basket out this year.
some full views to compare with later.
also worked over what will be this year’s tobacco bed, (last year’s melon patch). moved a lot of dirt off from the greenhouse edge inward about two feet, dug up as much bindweed as possible, added 16-16-16 a bit and started planting out with golden wilt.
have to do that other side of the bed tomorrow. I need enough space from the greenhouse to get two figs in there, dead center.
greenhouse emptying out, and the starts I’ll give away on Sunday.
I’ve got to rearrange, the high shelves are no good for me I’m too short and they get too warm. I’m thinking I’ll plant in ground my little olives and two avocados along that east long wall to the right, run shelves lower down center and along the west wall, and level a small work table or build one in along the north wall. still trying to decide how I’ll set up a swamp cooler in there for summer for those trees. if they need one. not sure yet.
I could use a small space heater that will turn on from the rainbird - the one I have now, if the power cuts out it won’t turn itself back on. it’ll keep it above 40F automatically but I would really like warmth that feeds from the rainbird somehow. I haven’t unpacked the cooler yet to see if it’ll do that. hope it will
last picture for the day.
radish inspector
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an update, salad number two, a helper
everything but a few stragglers is in the ground, grafted, tied, etc etc. I have some seed to sow over the next week of course but I’m mostly all done now.
now the cleanup. ugh
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You’re giving away those 100 starts on the ground?!
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I did, yep. I planted a round dozen of each thing I wanted to grow, and gave away all but 3 of each thing. I only have so much room!
this was the free table at the start and end of the day!
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That’s so generous of you! So much of your time and love went into babying all those plants.
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it’s super fun, I get to talk to people about plants all day and there’s always a bunch of new people who are learning to grow stuff. plus the old heads who come to see which of the weird stuff I’m trying
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