We are having some pretty nice weather. The 80° is a little too hot for me, but I can work in the early mornings. It is still too dry though. The nights are in the delightful 50's.
I am assuming frost is past and have begun planting the warm weather plants.
Yesterday I planted 20 pepper plants and 4 Little Fingers egg plants.
I have been watering and still have a little more to do today to get the vegetable garden soaked.
A friend mentioned that my very tall sugar snap peas may be the kind that does not fill out. I think I will begin harvesting today. Thank you Kris. I will have some for lunch today and see what the verdict is.....may become chicken feed.
The strawberries have greened up nicely and the rhubarb is sending up shoots finally. I think it will be a nice red.
The yard is needing mowing badly but the mower is back in the shop. I think the gas tanks aren't letting out the gas and the mechanic agrees. They didn't look busy in the shop so I hope he gets it fixed quickly.
If not, for the first time in my life, I will have the yard mowed! Egads!!! DH made the arrangements with our farm worker who also has his own lawn service business.
I keep getting interruptions in my days that really cuts into my gardening time and makes the catching up project fall farther behind. Two days it was a run to the sale barn with DH and then the trip to Bolivar for the mower. At least I hit Walmart there and killed two birds with one stone. They are now carrying flour in re closeable bags by Wheat Montana. I bought a 5 lb bag of unbleached white flour. I still have plenty of whole wheat and white whole wheat in the freezer. It was $3.76 which is high but I wanted to try it.
I have learned to beat the interruptions by getting out early while DH is checking the cattle and doing at least an hour of gardening before he comes up with something that requires me. That's how I managed to get the peppers and egg plants in yesterday.....I know when I get back from these 'errands' I will be too pooped to work outside and it will be too hot.
Gardening
After the last tornado, an arborist told us that the large maples out by the road in front of the house were basically hollow and would eventually have to be removed. He suggested that I start some replacement plantings now. Well the problem with that is the existing shade and tree roots. So I decided to do a mid front yard shrub and small tree border for privacy when the trees have to go.....hopefully they might outlast me! It still needs some more plantings but is coming along nicely.
It will have very few flowers and be an easy care, no trimming kind of thing. It is on the left side of the picture. I currently have an oak leaf hydrangea, a Limelight hydrangea, an Amur maple, a river birch, then a circular bed of daylilies and allium (just started them), a viburnum, a self seeded and replanted native redbud and at the end my Annabel lilac. There is a forsythia in there too that has had maybe three blooms on it. I don't have great success with forsythias and I don't know why.
I have growing in the yard in various places some more I can dig up and use: Burning Bush, mock orange, a variegated forsythia and some lilacs.
The chickens are still laying well.... a dozen a day or more.
I am assuming frost is past and have begun planting the warm weather plants.
Yesterday I planted 20 pepper plants and 4 Little Fingers egg plants.
I have been watering and still have a little more to do today to get the vegetable garden soaked.
A friend mentioned that my very tall sugar snap peas may be the kind that does not fill out. I think I will begin harvesting today. Thank you Kris. I will have some for lunch today and see what the verdict is.....may become chicken feed.
The strawberries have greened up nicely and the rhubarb is sending up shoots finally. I think it will be a nice red.
The yard is needing mowing badly but the mower is back in the shop. I think the gas tanks aren't letting out the gas and the mechanic agrees. They didn't look busy in the shop so I hope he gets it fixed quickly.
If not, for the first time in my life, I will have the yard mowed! Egads!!! DH made the arrangements with our farm worker who also has his own lawn service business.
I keep getting interruptions in my days that really cuts into my gardening time and makes the catching up project fall farther behind. Two days it was a run to the sale barn with DH and then the trip to Bolivar for the mower. At least I hit Walmart there and killed two birds with one stone. They are now carrying flour in re closeable bags by Wheat Montana. I bought a 5 lb bag of unbleached white flour. I still have plenty of whole wheat and white whole wheat in the freezer. It was $3.76 which is high but I wanted to try it.
I have learned to beat the interruptions by getting out early while DH is checking the cattle and doing at least an hour of gardening before he comes up with something that requires me. That's how I managed to get the peppers and egg plants in yesterday.....I know when I get back from these 'errands' I will be too pooped to work outside and it will be too hot.
Gardening
After the last tornado, an arborist told us that the large maples out by the road in front of the house were basically hollow and would eventually have to be removed. He suggested that I start some replacement plantings now. Well the problem with that is the existing shade and tree roots. So I decided to do a mid front yard shrub and small tree border for privacy when the trees have to go.....hopefully they might outlast me! It still needs some more plantings but is coming along nicely.
It will have very few flowers and be an easy care, no trimming kind of thing. It is on the left side of the picture. I currently have an oak leaf hydrangea, a Limelight hydrangea, an Amur maple, a river birch, then a circular bed of daylilies and allium (just started them), a viburnum, a self seeded and replanted native redbud and at the end my Annabel lilac. There is a forsythia in there too that has had maybe three blooms on it. I don't have great success with forsythias and I don't know why.
I have growing in the yard in various places some more I can dig up and use: Burning Bush, mock orange, a variegated forsythia and some lilacs.
The chickens are still laying well.... a dozen a day or more.
Hope the pea pods are tasty. As I recall they weren't really sweet, but very pleasant in stirfry.
ReplyDeleteSorry to learn your mower is in the shop. If ANYone can empathize, it's me! Maybe you just need a new fuel filter to keep the gas flowing. That's an easy fix (and cheap). In the meantime, I hope the farm worker does a good job for you.
Our lawn mower is currently spread out in pieces in the garage. Hubby thinks he can fix it, but in the meantime our grass is growing so fast we may have to bale it by the time it gets cut!
ReplyDeleteHow did you ever learn so much about flowers? Did you just teach yourself or gain your knowledge from your mother or grandmother? I adore the old-fashioned, peaceful look of your gardens. Just lovely!
I guess I would have to say my DAD. He didn't do flowers though just a big vegetable garden. For years that is all I did then the bug hit. I learned through gardening books and magazines. I have a lot of gardening books. Now we have the internet but back then, we did not.
DeleteYou know, I always plant tomatoes and pepper early, back in April and they don't grow much. I should wait until now to plant and I bet the finished product would come on at the same time and I'd save all that watering for a month! We are babysitting new grass so our water bill is going to be bad this time. I buy those flat snap peas for stir fry, they are super sweet and good. The yard is just beautiful Glenda, something pretty to look at in every corner!
ReplyDeleteI just wait until the nights stay above 50°. Cool. Mother Nature could give us a clue though. I have lots of volunteer tomatoes and they are about 14 inches tall and seem to be growing well.
DeleteI am sure glad we don't have to pay for city water!
Thanks for the Walmart tip on Wheat Montana flour. That sounds interesting.
ReplyDeleteVictoria, I havn't used it yet but will blog about it when I do.
DeleteI love your front yard small shrub and tree border for privacy. It all looks lovely and peaceful there. Hope your peas are delicious and tender.
ReplyDeleteAfter we did our errands on Monday morning I decided to go out and mow. It's a good thing I did as we've been having quite a bit of rain since then. You might get used to having someone else mow your yard. :-) I really enjoy mowing and I bet you do too.
Have a lovely weekend ~ FlowerLady
I could get used to having a 'yard man or boy!'' maybe just one day a month.....or less. You have me thinking now.
DeletePretty photo-lovely shrub border. We are so dry here and rain doesn't look too hopeful. Watering the few tomatoes I have planted-hope others will have some at the Farmers Market. The volunteers look better than the ones I planted.
ReplyDeleteI usually just water the pots on the patio so the beds that have the daylilies and other perennials have to fend for themselves. I try to water anything new I have planted at least the first year. With over 200+ daylilies plus other perennials I would be afraid I might run the well dry if I tried to water them all. The daylily foliage is beginning to look bad, like it usually does in a dry August! I sure wish our weather pattern would get back to what it used to be! Enough complaining and aren't you glad? :>)