Planting Trees and Other Things

A few days ago, I received some trees from the Arbor Day Foundation. They come with very thorough planting instructions and a color coded guide to what kind of trees you have been sent. The only problem is that the guide is intended for people who are planting the trees in the ground (in their permanent location). We will be buying a house next spring and so we wanted to be able to take these trees with us. I called the Arbor Day Foundation (they were very nice and helpful, by the way) and the woman I spoke to told me that it was acceptable to plant them in pots for a short period of time (1 year or less).
So I had my husband go get some buckets from the store and then my brother in law drilled some holes in the bottom. After the tree roots had soaked for about 5 hours, I divided them up into their buckets. I am really very excited about it and I hope they will do well.

We have 2 each of: American Redwood, Japanese Dogwood, White Flowering Dogwood, Crape-myrtle, Crab-apple, and Hawthorn.

Trees soaking to get the silica gel off.

Filling the buckets with soil. 

Trees with dry leaves for mulch.

 


While the trees were soaking for five hours, I got started on our main garden. Today I planted beets, kale, carrots, marigolds, nasturtiums, zinnias. sweet pea plants, a gogi berry plant, and coneflower plants (dormant I hope, otherwise I planted something dead).

The tilled garden

I would like to show you what the garden looked like this morning when I got started. Daniel tilled not too long ago and then we have had a lot of rain lately. The soil here is just fantastic. I kept digging up earthworms and there are pieces of pond scum and grass clippings scattered throughout. However, there were like literally a MILLION rocks. I spent a few minutes picking them up and then I just decided to do that as I planted my rows.






There were rocks galore all over the tilled area as well as a lot of ants. I got bitten several times.

A closer picture of the soil. SO MANY ROCKS!

 

This is only some of the rocks I collected from a very small area. It got to where I could not even move the wheelbarrow!

 Since the soil was tilled and moist from the rain, I just quickly went through with a spade and loosened the soil in a few rows. Then (this is always my favorite part) I sifted through the soil with my hands to separate out as many rocks as I could. Then I put those seeds in the ground!

From right to left: Tomatoes (not planted yet), beets, kale, peppers (not planted yet), purple coneflower, carrots, beets again, sweet pea plants, gogi berry plant, peppers (not planted yet), and further to the left (not in view) zinnias.   

 Here is a lovely photo of the baby sweet pea plant:

 And here is the gogi berry plant:

 I also planted some cherry lemonade coreopsis and zinnias in front of our apartment.

 

Meanwhile, Mr. Mistoffelees played in the trees. :-) He's a jungle kitty! 

A beautiful picture of a rainbow.

Smudged with dirt - but I had a great day!  

 This is what I looked like after six hours of gardening...
I'm going to be sore tomorrow! Now I'm off to take a shower! I am hoping to plant watermelons, cucumbers, okra, green beans, potatoes, herbs, and gaillardia tomorrow.