Chore Log - First Week of July

Each week, I jot down a To Do list of garden chores on my blotter.... 
This week, I kind of thought maybe I would share these lists with you...
You never know, might be something helpful in there sometimes, something new or different for you to try... or might just make you decide that all this garden work is for the birds ;)

Front Deer-Resistant Garden -
- weed and finally cut back the rest of the daffs and alliums
- deadhead Rhodos, Azaleas, Roses, Lilacs, Bleeding Hearts and Brunnera
- add a few more perennials to this bed, plus Crocosmia and Choca Mocha Cosmos
- top dress around trees and shrubs with chicken manure and perhaps some Gaia Green
- mow lawn

The Potager
- strawberries are ripening... pick some every day!
- make strawberry jam & jelly, freeze the rest for pies
- harvest the last of the rhubarb, chop and freeze for pies and cold soups
- continue to harvest garlic scapes
- cut back the towering herbs! Parsley and Cilantro are growing wild with all this rain, give them a haircut!
- kill weeds in pathways with vinegar spray... if we get a dry and sunny day.
- prune bottom leaves off of tomatoes
- plant more carrots... somewhere, hahaha, good luck finding some space...
- Good time to sow some more Cilantro, carrots, basil, pansies, and Swiss Chard (ick!) for those who like it.
- plant a few more Romano Beans
- pull out all the volunteer potatoes from the 'Three Sisters' ( aka corn, beans and squash) bed
- stake or prune back the asparagus foliage
- remove suckers from strawberries to promote better fruiting
- cut back, remove, or goodness me, do something with the Dianthus thugs!
- rip out bolting spinach/lettuce

Lots of Dianthus...

Lavender and Cream Perennial Bed

Lavender and Cream Perennial Bed
- weed! Remove all those weeds that blew in and rooted into the new mulch! Thistles, grrr
- cut down tulips! 
- plant more Liatris and late spring blooming perennials
- finish building the rock border
- clean up the mulch left over from the huge pile that was by the gate

Fruit Berm - blueberries

Back Fruit Berm
- keep an eye out for weeds in the new mulch and spray immediatly
- prune out any straggler raspberry canes

Birch Bed
- on hold this week... even though it is in dire need of weeding and mulching

Long Perennial Bed
- remove Salal and Mahonia
- top dress lilies with manure and Gaia Green
- remove weeds by compost bin
- deadhead roses

Greenhouse and Nursery
- pull out the tall dead weeds (sprayed wtih vinegar last week) between fence and raised beds
- plant low growing perennials in front of greenhouse
- push small branches around the Dahlias to support upcoming blooms
- foliar feed tomatoes, cukes, roses, and baskets with Reindeer Liquid Seaweed. ( The best! I love it! and nope, no one pays me to say that ;)
- start winter veggies and herbs - onions, sprouting broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, parsley, rutabagas
- take cuttings of Dianthus, Fuchsias, Geraniums

Take Geranium cuttings...

Just for fun...
Here is a recipe that I found this week and am trying out... what to do with all those sweet baby veggies in the garden

Perpetual-pickles- Partially fill a large jar or small crock with half water and half vinegar, a few peeled garlic cloves, a few sprigs of fresh dillweed, and pickling salt to taste. Toss in small cucumbers, peppers, tiny onions, baby carrots, cauliflower florets, green beans. Keep in a kitchen shelf and snack at will. Add new vegetables every day or two. Discard the old brine and make a fresh one every two or three weeks. (Use the discarded brine for household cleaning.)

This recipe is from http://www.almanac.com/blog/natural-health-home-tips/more-veggies-menu-yes