This Spring 2024 Garden Kalendar is composed of edited excerpts from my daily, hand-written garden journal entries from April 2 to June 30, 2023. These passages are accompanied by occasional parenthetical commentaries in italics. The journal records my work in four gardens:
• The Alumni House Garden at Coe;
• A half-acre vegetable garden on a small farm adjacent to the Wickiup Hill Outdoor Learning Center near Toddville (a garden typically identified as the Wickiup garden);
• The gardens and landscape at Buffalo United Methodist Church, a small church not far from Mount Mercy College;
• The gardens at my home on Elmhurst Drive in Cedar Rapids.
This Kalendar constitutes about 50% of my journal entries in the second quarter of 2023. A map of the Alumni House Garden map is posted on the website’s “map” page. What follows is a sample of entries from April of 2023. The complete Garden Kalendar will be posted at a later date. ~Bob
2 April (Palm Sunday). I just returned from the garden studio, where I downloaded 78 photos taken earlier today at the Coe, Buffalo, & Wickiup gardens. It was a good day for photos because of the “soft” sunshne–which meant the crocus were open. Yesterday we all went to New Melleray for Aurelia’s baptism. Since the abbot who had agreed to conduct the service could not be found, an elderly brother was eventually convinced to serve as the baptizer. Despite the delay, all went well, the baby was baptized, and she was not upset by the ordeal. After the baptism some of us drove to Dyersville and visited a microbrewery–where Aaron and MJT sampled several different brews while MVM & I had a coke, a flatbread pizza, and some delicious pretzels with a cheese sauce.
Today the weather was quite pleasant and after shooting photos at Coe and Buffalo, I drove to Wickiup, shot my photos, and gardened for four hrs. I transplanted garlic and sowed an 8' row of 30-day snowpeas in the “H1" bed. In preparation for the sowing, I mixed into the bed a mixture of my organic 4-4-4 fertilizer, John & Bob’s Maximize soil additive, a bucket of compost from a compost bin, and bone meal mixed with peat (to keep the bone meal from blowing away). It was difficult shoveling the compost because the pile is still frozen in the center. Once the peas were in the ground, I removed the mulch covering the two big round beds closest to the garden gate. Assuming they dry out sufficiently, tomorrow I’ll sow more peas in the bed closest to the gate. I also need to print out a vegetable garden map so I can record what’s being planted where.
3 April. A good day for gardening. Overcast, temp in low 50s, threatening rain several times, and temp getting cooler in the afternoon with north wind. In the morning at Coe, I removed old sunflower stalks, hyssop, and other vegetation from the “A1" bed. Pulled up last year’s coleus in the urn planter. I then switched to the “D” bed. Trimmed old flower stalks (goldenrod, stonecrop, obedient plants) and dug up two unwanted saplings. Pulled up all the plant supports and repositioned them to create a single curve around the Joe Py weed and whatever else comes up in that area. I hated to cut back the small stonecrop–their dark reddish-brown seedheads still looked in good condition, but new growth is on the way. I removed a lot of old leaves and stems from the Lamb’s Ear, which looks much healthier than the two Lamb’s Ear in the “K” bed. Took a few minutes to remove oak and apple leaves trapped in the Bevan’s cranesbill. I suspect this geranium was planted in 2015. Since then it has received no care from me, but has been quietly doing its own thing and has been quite successful, quietly extending its territory. This may be the first time I’ve ever trimmed this cranesbill. I was surprised by the pleasant fragrance released by the leaves while I was trimming their branches. This cranesbill is much better at handling summer’s adversities than the nearby astilbe. Here are a few other notable moments in the Coe garden:
• Twice I heard/saw a cardinal at the top of a flowering crab apple, singing with full-throated ease; with my new hearing aids, the singing seemed remarkably loud, even though he was quite far away.
• First daffodil blooms have opened, the daffs in the west end of the I” bed, the spot in the garden that receives the most direct sun; some are the tete-a-tetes, others are an older yellow.
• When I arrived at the garden, the lawn crocus blooms were closed; by 11:00 they had opened up, making a dramatic difference in the appearance of the lawn; a lot of the tommies have emerged but no evidence they will bloom; fortunately some of the Crocreation crocus have multiple yellow blooms.
• My student assistant had moved the two newest benches back to their summer location in front of the patio; she left a handwritten sign warning drug users not to use the garden while shooting up; her warning informed them the garden’s cameras would record their activity. :)
• A single rabbit in the “D” bed was watching me clean up the bed; I saw no evidence the rabbit had been nibbling on the crocus or any other emerging flowers.
• The Imperial Fritillary are coming up; I had no problem catching a whiff of their skunk-like fragrance in the “E” bed.
4 April. After lunch to Coe for the afternoon, planting dahlia tubers that have been stored in two bins stuffed with peat moss. Many tubers had sprouted, but I only had to trim a couple. A few rotten tubers but most in good condition. I filled pots about half full with a mix of old and new potting soil, added the tubers, and then continued pouring more of the soil mixture until the tubers were covered. The new soil mix combined top soil, compost, coco noir, vermiculite, organic fertilizer, greensand, and John & Bob’s Maximize soil conditioner. Big challenge is lack of space in the greenhouse. The work bench is full, plus I’m using the three plant stand shelves in the shed. I did 15 dahlia pots today and some I’ve had to leave on the floor. Mostly of the dahlias were unnamed, but I did pot one Kelvin Floodlight and one Cambridge. The Bishop’s Children tubers looked good, but they had not yet sprouted so I set them aside for potting up later.
5 April. Day began with leaving the pickup at Keenan’s auto to replace door seals and check on possible coolant leak. After a short stint at Coe, preparing new potting soil mix, I drove to Buffalo and met with Patience and Emmaly of Feed Iowa First and Patience to discuss Buffalo vegetable garden arrangement. We agreed to widen the garden area by 15', remove oregano patch and rhubarb, move four raised beds, and put rock border around strawberry and herb beds. First Iowa will double till the garden. Buffalo will provide tools, seeds, and vegetable plants–if needed. While Patience will encounter many challenges because she does not have much familiarity with Iowa climate/weather patterns, she appears to have some knowledge of gardening and a good attitude toward the project.
After the meeting at Buffalo, I returned to Coe. I intended to work outdoors, but there was a nasty wind chill (temp about 40 but overcast and a strong wind). In the greenhouse I finished transplanting the remaining Hidcote Lavender to two large pots and potted seven more dahlias. I also worked on Anya’s poem submission for The Garden Quarto, mostly cutting out unnecessary words and rearranging several lines. The new version strikes me a good enough for publication. I also started a draft of this week’s Mondary Morning Garden Report (MMGR). I began the first paragraph with a quote from Richardson Wright on the distractions while gardening. You plant to pursue one task, but then you notice another problem, and at the end of the day you’ve done things you never intended while never completing your original job.
7 April (Good Friday). After potting more dahlias in the greenhouse, I shifted my attention to the outdoors. I cut back the hyssop and elderberry outside the garden shed, trying make the area more orderly and civilized. In the garde, I cut back the switch grass in the “H” bed, making it easier to see the daffs that are beginning to bloom. Daffodil blooms are now open all over the east, west, and north side of the garden. A lot of tete-a-tetes in bloom. In contrast the recitulated iris, snowdrops, and winter aconites are about done. The big golden-yellow crocus in the east0side lawn section look good. Many tommy crocus have produced green foliage but so far very few blooms. Elsewhere buds are opening all over the garden: the crab apples, honeysuckle, viburnum.
8 April. In the afternoon to Wickiup. Jim & Don were tilling the south half of the West Field so I stayed in the East Garden until Don left (about 3 pm). I hoed, fertilized, and raked the “E1" bed; also gave it the broadfork treatment and added two sacks of compost/manure. I then planted 20 Zebron Shallots, 20 Talon F1 onions, & 45 Red Long of Florence onions. Planted so they alternated 3 & 4 plants across the raised bed; the soil worked quite nicely in the bed where the zucchini were so productive last year.
After Don left, I walked over to the West Field, and Jim & I planted potatoes. He dug holes while I fertilized and placed seed potato “seed pieces” in the holes. Jim dug 23 holes/row, the holes spaced 2' apart, the rows approximately 50' long and 3' apart. A few potato planting observations:
• Planted 23 hills of red Norland & 23 of Kennebec.
• My planting procedures is mixing in fertilizer with soil into the hole, then layer of soil, add cut seed potato with at least two eyes, cover with soil, add second cup of fertilizer mix, and finish covering with soil. Once a row is planted, I rake the bed so it’s relatively smooth and slightly elevated.
• This year the potato planting was one month ahead of last year when we had a wet, chilly April.
• Today I only saw one grub and just a few earthworms; I wonder how destructive the tillers are on the earthworm population.
• The soil was relatively weed free, with the exception of the quack grass at the south end.
• While planting potatoes I was thinking of the field of potatoes I planted in 1963 for our neighbor Judd Alexander, his entire garden nothing but potatoes.
• I’m curious why I never see any potato beetles in the soil. How deep do they go for the winter? Are they only buried in the area where the potatoes were planted last year?
• Since today is Holy Saturday, I was thinking about Jesus and wondering if he was a gardener and not a carpenter. He never refers to carpentry, no imagery from that kind of work, but he has many images from agriculture and the natural world. On the morning of his resurrection Mary Magdalene mistakes him for a gardener. When he comes to Jerusalem, he goes to a garden, the Garden of Gethsemane. He chooses to be arrested in the garden. Seed planting is a re-enactment of our faith in the resurrection, that new life will emerge once we bury the seed. Perhaps we should start a tradition of decorating Easter Potatoes.
12 April. I finished the day after supper at Wickiup. One task was planting oregano next to the salvia in the herb bed. The oregano came from the Buffalo garden, where I worked for four hours this afternoon, preparing the area to be planted by our new immigrant gardener from Africa. I cleaned up one raised bed so it’s ready for seed sowing, but most of my time was removing hordes of oregano that had spread across half of the herb bed. A lot of it I just ripped out of the ground, but I saves a half dozen mounds. One I’ll replant at Buffalo, a couple I’ll plant here at home, and a couple I’ll separate into smaller clumps, pot those clumps, and donate them to the church rummage sale. Fortunately Gary showed up at Buffalo to help move a pile of cement slabs to create a long walkway border separating the garden from the lawn.
This morning I had to finish the income tax papers and deliver them to our lawyer’s office. I started at 7:00 a.m. and suspended my tax operation four hours later. I should be able to finish tomorrow morning. At 11:00 I went into the back yard and enjoyed the glorious display of daffodils in the two long beds, by far the best display we’ve ever had. What’s missing is a full row of daffodils in the back and a couple of solid clumps in the two triangle beds, particularly the SE Triangle. Although it was still a lovely array of yellow and white blooms, this hot wind may make this bloom cycle short-lived. I recall one year when I left home the second week in May for a May-Term trip, and the daffodils had not yet entered their peak bloom cycle. We’re easily a month ahead of that schedule, and it’s likely the daffodils will be finished by the second week in May.
The temp in the greenhouse was up to 90F, so I moved most of the seedling trays outside for the day and gave everyone a thorough watering. Yesterday in the small veggie bed, I sowed a row of Viroflay (sp?) Spinach and transplanted 15 Rouge d’Hiver Romaine lettuce seedlings that I started from seed in early March. The romaine and red head lettuce had grown enuf so I could harvest some leaves before setting them outside. We had fresh lettuce salads last night for supper. One forgets how the fresh lettuce is so much more tender and flavorful than what we buy at Hy-Vee. I am also pleased to see that the kale and radish seeds I sowed in the veggie plot have produced two rows of tiny seedlings. This morning an animal (squirrel? coon?) had dug up a lettuce transplant, but the plant and its roots were undamaged and I quickly replanted it. The invader also dug out one of the Sweet Peas next to a trellis in that bed. These sweet peas are supposed to be fragrant, but it will be two months or more before we know if those claims prove accurate.