March Work in February

We had a very nice weekend so I skipped Something Rotten at the Fox in St. Louis. After a long delay, I finally scheduled my ACL repair for a couple of weeks from now. There are only so many opportunities to get this work done.

When the painters did their work last fall, they brought in a huge bucket lift which destroyed the walk to the old arbor. The first item of business was to reset the pavers.

Then we got all of the grasses cut back. This is a job which used to take a couple of days. With the Grasshopper, it takes a couple of hours.

I'm going to receive around 120 vines in March and April. While I have some good friends who have volunteered to help plant, I felt as if it was my duty to get the holes dug ahead of time. I rented a small backhoe and it took about 4 hours.

On Sunday we cut back the beautyberries and cleaned up. Now we just need some grapes.

The Start of the Garden Year

Each year, despite our best intentions, Lisa and I eventually fall behind with the gardens, sometimes sooner, sometimes later.  I can tell which years we'll fall behind sooner, because we get a rough start.  It might be weather, nice during the week and poor on the weekends; it might be travel; but for whatever reason, if we haven't mowed before the feather reed grass shows, we're in trouble.

This year, while it is not yet really spring, the start of the gardening season declared itself with a beautiful 60 degree sunny, windless Sunday.  Lisa spent much of her day strictly adhering to her pre-emergent schedule.  I tackled the mowing.

Over the years I've tried a variety of methods for cutting back the ornamental grasses.  We have the 'Karl Foerster', as well as Panicum virgatum 'Dallas Blues' and 'Rotstrahbusch', Miscanthus sinensis "Gracillimus', and several others whose names escape me.  The miscanthus is the toughest.  I've tried string trimmers, chain saws and other methods.  It turns out that by far the easiest way to handle the spring grass duties with the Grasshopper.  What used to take an entire day can be reduced to about an hour by simply mowing them down with the Grasshopper.

Unless you get stuck.

My good friend Jorgen bailed me out today, and I partially repaid him with some wine.  This morning Lisa and I bottled 6 gallons of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.  This New Zealand wine we made from a kit with QA 23.  It is a little tart, but hopefully it will settle down in the bottle.  Lisa's favorite wine.

Anyway, once pulled from the muck I went on to finish the pool beds, the liriope bed, the elderberry beds, and the grasses around the drive.  And the feather reed grass is not yet up.  In all, a good start to the garden year.

Tonight we're having steak we paid way too much for last night at the YMCA auction.  Although we resolved this morning to drink more of our homemade wine, these steaks require a red, and I don't have anything worthy.  So we've opened some wine club reds, a Spanish garnacha (Grenache) and a Cab from Argentina.

Don't find yourself in this mess.