I had a very productive day yesterday.  I cleaned (once again) the large bed around the propane tank.  There must be a permanent answer to this.  I am thinking reduce the bed by at least half and mulch heavily with the wood chips.  I would eliminate it entirely but I can't bear to lose the iris, daylilies, peonies, rudbeckia, salvia and all those self-seeded poppies.  I need help!  Cutting back is hard to do!

I had great plans  to get out early this morning.  Then our son called....that takes priority over all else.  I hadn't talked with him in a long while.  An hour later I started breakfast....DH was finishing up when our hay man knocked on the back door.  He had fixed the chainsaw (no charge), just cleaned the carburetor and replaced with fresh gasoline and it starts on first pull.    We always get into long conversations when he comes. Some time later we went back inside to finish breakfast.  Phone rang again; It was our daughter.  We  didn't talk quite as long since we talk several times a week.  By now It was around 9 AM and I was completely out of the notion of outside work.

Ergo, I did none.

I am not sure when I squeezed in the pictures....probably before I started breakfast??? don't know.

Pictures

Not much is happening in the Humming Bird Bed but the salvia from Park Seed.



and the ageratum 'Leilani', also from Park.



This is the path between the new shrub border in the front of the house and the foundation beds.  I began this border because we know we will eventually loose the old Silver Maple trees along the road .  It needs a few more shrubs to fill in and a some more years but I am happy how it is progressing.  If  I do any flowers it will be just some easy care ones here and there.



Next I toured the backyard garden,

This is the monster hill of butternut squash....still keeping my fingers crossed about the squash bugs,



and the middle of the squash row,



This is looking west, showing the entire squash row in the middle (also sweet potatoes), the tomato row on the left and the strawberry row on the far right.



I am now getting bell peppers,  I still like the old California Wonders better.  These may be Karma.  They certainly are not the 6x4 inch peppers touted in the catalog!



Still waiting on a ripe tomato,

Mulching and Mowing

We are back to hotter weather, upper 80's.  We did get a little pop-up shower of 1/4 inch a couple of days ago which was very nice.

BACKYARD GARDEN

I got out early yesterday and mulched the strawberries and was surprised to find the ground almost too soft to walk on.
You can barely see the plants but they should take hold soon and begin to grow.



I also lost complete control of myself with having the mower back with sharp blades and ran it down a couple of passes in front of the berry patch and the asparagus row!  So much easier than pulling or hand cutting those tall weeds.  I was pretty pleased with the results.

This picture is to make Sue feel good about her weeds.


There is about 3 feet of ground next to the row of strawberries that I can now till.

I may hit the asparagus next. I already clipped part of it.  Behind this area is the berry patch.

I found a volunteer melon of some sort with two melons the size of oranges on the vine.  I hope it wasn't a hybrid.  I placed some hay under the melons to keep them off the soil.

 

 

This morning I finally planted two hills of crook neck squash and zucchini.  I also began hilling up the sweet corn.  I want to plant some very old sunflower seeds but the ground still seems a little damp to till.

I cleaned out my row of peppers, mostly red and yellow cheese from Ilene last year.  I dug up some volunteer garlic and got very small heads but I didn't want them to set seeds again.

 
That's the compost pile to the right, then volunteer tomatoes and then a patch of weeds waiting for my hoe.

Volunteer dill:



This little area may become my herb bed.  That is a thyme (white flowers) just to the left of the dill.

The garden is divided into a west side and an east side with a mowed path between that I enter from the backyard.

This is the west side,  out of range (almost) is the herb bed also on the west side.



The Peppers and hoop are on the east side. 

KITCHEN

While waiting for a new dishwasher (more later), I baked our favorite Gina's Pound Cake.



 Gina’s Pound Cake (allrecipes)

This is the best and last pound cake recipe you will ever use.  etc.

Ingredients:

3 cups white sugar
1 cup butter
1 (8 )ounce package cream cheese, softened
6 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 teaspoon orange extract

Directions:

Do not preheat oven.  Spray a 10 inch Bundt pan with vegetable oil

Sift together flour, soda and salt and set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together butter, sugar and cream cheese until light and   fluffy.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition.  Pour the flour mixture into batter and gently fold in with a spatula.  Stir in the flavorings.  Batter will be very thick.
Pour batter into prepared pan. Place cake in oven and set thermostat to 350°F.  Bake for 60 to 70 minutes or until the top is golden brown and turn the oven off.
Let the cake sit in the oven for an additional 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and cool in pan for 15 minutes.  Turn cake over onto a cake plate and allow to cool while still covered with pan.

This recipe was taken originally from Allrecipes. I have found some really good ones there.  It is my go to site for anything I don't have in my files.

Lordy, this was long winded.  I am making up for lost time.