Twiggybet1's Blog
Twiggybet1's Blog
Last Post 21 hours Ago
May 11, 2008 | 6:17 AM PST
Here's a photo of a pair of ducks enjoying the neighbor's pool. The female was really keeping an eye on me, she seems somewhat wary of people. But the male just went about his business as if I wasn't there. He just kept preening himself. Perhaps he was more concerned with making himself attractive to her than worried about what I might do. I still haven't determined where their nest is, but I'm guessing it's not too far, because they have been visiting the pool every day. I know they haven't nested in my yard, and I doubt they nested in the neighbor's yard because she has a very large dog, unless they found a secluded area where the dog can't reach.
Here's the newest resident to the garden. My hubby found him while mowing the lawn, and relocated him to the garden. I hope he will be happy there and eat lots of bugs.
I cleaned up my bird houses. What a job! It took a few days, because I really wanted to make sure I drowned the paper wasps. I used a large bucket with a lid, and filled it with water and a little bit of dish soap to help remove the nests. I put in a bird house, made sure it was totally submerged, and quickly put the lid on and left it like that for at least a few hours. Then I would remove that one, and put in the next one. I think I cleaned seven in all. I have some pictures of them in my photo albums. The area doesn't look very impressive yet, but come june when the ditch lilies are in bloom it looks nice.
I planted a couple more plants in the rain garden. I put in another blanket flower, this variety called "Oranges and Lemons". I'm not sure the one I planted last year came back. I think quite a few of the things I planted in the fall became casualties of winter. *sigh* I'll have to fill in with annuals this year, until some of the stuff gets more established and larger. I need to split some peonies in the fall, which are planted in the front bed. I promised my neighbor some, but hopefully there will be enough to move a piece to the rain garden.
Well, I think my wintersowing experiment was pretty much a flop. Not only did my labels fade so I don't know what is what, but only a few of the things survived. My indoor sowing also had limited success. I do so much better with transplants. I have a favorite nursery that has absolutely beautiful, sturdy, stocky, healthy looking plants. Everything I have purchased there has done well - I don't think I've lost a single thing I've gotten from them over the years. We made a trip there on Friday afternoon, and got some tomato, pepper, broccoli, cabbage, and a couple of herbs, not to mention our Mother's day gifts and a flat of petunias to fill in some bare spots.
Happy Mother's Day, ladies, and happy gardening to everyone!
May 5, 2008 | 9:32 PM PST
Happy Cinco De Mayo! We had tacos for dinner, and (of course) used our home canned salsa. I love mexican food. Yeah, yeah, I know, what we call mexican is an americanized version of their authentic cuisine. Oh, well, I like it anyway.
The weather today was absolutely beautiful! The temperature here reached 75, well above the normal average temperature for this time of year here, about mid 60's. The sun was shining all day, nice occaisional breeze, but not too windy. I got quite a bit of cleanup, weeding, arranging, rearranging, etc. done. In other words, I did a lot of "puttering". I would have done a few more indepth chores, but I was locked out of the garage. Hubby has recently replaced the lock, and hasn't gotten around to getting a 2nd key made yet, and he forgot to unlock it for me before he left for work. So, I couldn't get to my tools and implements, until he got home. By then, it was time for dinner. I hope he remembers to get that key made soon.
After dinner, we lit a fire in the chimenia, and toasted marshmallows. And watched the bats come out. We are considering getting a bat house and hanging it on the back wall of the garage, closest to the garden. But how do you get them to move in? I don't want just another place for the wasps to nest!
My neighbor has a pair of mallard ducks taking advantage of her swimming pool. I doubt that they have their nest in her yard, though, because she has a couple of dogs. Actually, she just brought a new puppy home yesterday. Its a teensy tiny little "tea cup" poodle. I've seen bigger kittens. She had the puppy all dolled up in a pink dress with a bow on the back. It was so cute!
The weather forcast is for a nice morning, maybe afternoon showers. So I had better get up early (and hope hubby unlocks the garage) if I want to get much done outside tomorrow. Hubby has been working on moving our compost area to the side of the garden instead of the back. The neighbors have a pine tree that shades a spot along the side, and the back gets more sun, so if we move the compost area to the shady spot, I think we will be making better use of our garden space.
I need to clean up some bird houses. It seems those pesky paper wasps have made nests in some of them. I plan to submerge them in a bucket of water to drown them. (Hey! It's a better option than poison! I think?) And I plan to wear lots of insect repellant before I attempt to go near them. How in the world am I going to keep the wasps away from my birdhouses? Ideas, anyone?
May 2, 2008 | 10:19 PM PST
The weather today has been stormy, kind of matches my mood. I've been in a weird funk all day....
I tried to get a few things done outside. I got some soil mixed up for planters, in the wheel barrow. The planters needed a good scrubbing, which I planned to do when forced indoors by the rain, so on to the next task. While I wasn't watching, the dog dumped the wheel barrow over. Great. While cleaning up that mess, the wind kicked up and scattered the newspapers I was planning to mulch with. So I chased flying newspapers around the yard. Got that cleaned up just in time for these great big raindrops to start falling. So that's all I managed to do. Not very much progress today. So I spent the rest of the day indoors, working on some other projects.
One bright spot. When my daughter came home from college today, she told me she aced her final exam. She only has one more class to finish up, and that one ends next week.
May 1, 2008 | 9:24 PM PST
Well, yesterday, I got the green beans planted. I put newspaper and mulch between the rows and covered the area with a large clear plastic sheet, just in case we get another frost. Doesn't hurt that the beans just might sprout sooner, too. Today, I planted my bargain salad greens: spinach, endive, romaine, butterhead, iceberg, and mesculun mix. I watered them with the hose nozzle in the "mist" position, since most of them are sown rather shallow. I also concocted a doggy digging guard with some wire mesh and tomato cages. I have monitored the dog closely all afternoon, and so far it seems to be working (keeping my fingers crossed!)
My DH was just too tired to do anything in the yard when he got home from work. My DD was out dining with some of her college friends, and (oops) I was too busy playing in the garden to think to thaw something for dinner, so hubby and I went for some quick carry-out. We rarely do that during the week. Kind of a treat, and hubby's idea, since my idea of opening a few cans didn't appeal to him. Oh, well. There's always tomorrow.
I have a lot of plans of things I want to plant real soon. Our last frost date for this area is approx. May 10, so I can get most of my stuff planted within the next couple of weeks. I want to sow some leeks and onions, put in potatoes, and get a row ready for the sweet potatoes. Although it's hard telling when the sweet potatoes will arrive, they didn't get here until June last year. I was worried that they wouldn't have time to grow before it was time to harvest, but we did o.k. Fortunately, I had ordered a shorter season "northern" variety. To get the row ready, I hill up the soil and cover it with black plastic mulch in order to get the soil nice and warm for them.
I want to do something different with the winter squash and pumpkins this year. It's probably a dumb idea, but I want to put them in containers, line them up along the fence line, and support them with trellises, if necessary. I'm trying to make more room in the garden so we can try to grow a few rows of sweet corn. We have never grown corn before, because we didn't think we had enough room. But corn has gotten pretty expensive the last couple of years, and we all LOVE fresh corn-on-the-cob! So...we shall see how this works out. I hope both the corn and squashes do well.
Apr 29, 2008 | 9:11 PM PST
Yesterday, we got our April showers (now that it's almost May). It had been so warm and sunny for several days, then, yesterday morning I woke up to light drizzly showers that lasted most of the day. I'm glad it was a light and gentle rain because I had just planted some seeds a couple days prior. It would have been a shame for them to be washed out. In the late afternoon, the sun returned. The temperature got down to the mid thirties last night. Today, it was sunny, cool and breezy. I got a section ready to plant more seeds (beans) but I didn't have time to plant the seeds. I was still on chauffeur duty. But thankfully, my chauffeur duty is now over. The part came in, and after dinner hubby and our neighbor managed to fix the car. Oh! and hubby managed to mow the front lawn today, first time this year. So all in all, today was a good day.
Apr 27, 2008 | 5:40 PM PST
Tags: asparagus , hollyhock
Today I picked the first of the asparagus and cooked it with dinner. The weather has been so nice lately that I have to keep reminding myself that it is still April and there is still a chance of frost for a couple weeks yet. A lot of my bulb flowers are blooming, and more will bloom soon. So far, I only have a few things planted in the vegetable garden, and I really want to get some more things planted. (sigh) I am a very impatient gardener. So much so, that my father-in-law gave me a gardening book titled "The Impatient Gardener".
I have always tried to get my daughter interested in gardening. Both hubby and I enjoy it. When she was little, she liked to help me pick out flowers and seeds, and she would help me plant. One year for a special project, she was given one particular flower bed to plant and care for. She was about 8 or 9 at the time, and she had asked if she could have her "own" garden. She enthusiastically picked out all kinds of flower seeds, and when I got the annual flowers to plant in the beds, she picked out some for her garden. She watered her little garden every day (or so) and couldn't wait to see her seeds sprout. This enthusiam lasted until it was time to weed the garden. She decided having her own garden wasn't all it was cracked up to be after all. She has NEVER liked bugs, and really didn't want to play outside when the fishflies were swarming. (I really couldn't fault her for that, though, they are icky). Once she got old enough to really be a help to me, it was obvious that gardening just wasn't her thing. But she doen't mind laundry or cleaning or cooking, so there are quite a few days that she does the straightening and laundry and cooks dinner for me while I get to play in the dirt! Oh, she loves flowers, and she puts her 2 cents in when I'm deciding what to plant. Today, while shopping, I couldn't pass the seed packet display (.25 per envelope, I grabbed some lettuces to put in) She spots a package of black hollyhock seeds, and asks me to buy them for the Gothic section of the rain garden. I asked her if she planned on helping me sow them, and without a word she puts the envelope back in the display. I got the packet and put it in the cart. Then, upon returning back home, she notices that some tulips planted on the side of the house have bloomed, and she announces that she is going to get her camera as soon as she gets in the house, so she can take a few pictures of them. So maybe there is gardening in her future after all!
Apr 24, 2008 | 10:17 PM PST
Tag: rain garden
well, my av
acado tree seems to be thriving, too bad my poinsettias aren't doing as well. I guess I should be grateful, they lasted this long.
Today was another beautiful day ( this keeps up, and I'm going to be spoiled. What ever happened to April Showers anyway?). I had planned to get out in the vegetable garden and set up some rows, but didn't get the chance to do anything in the garden today. Instead, I played chauffeur. We are a 3 driver, 2 car household to begin with, and one of the cars is out of commission for the time being. I shuttled hubby to and from work, and daughter to and from college. And ran errands. The car was supposed to be fixed today, but, alas, the part didn't come in so therefore it seems I'll be playing chauffeur for a few more days. Hopefully, everything will come together and the car will be fixed this weekend. The way things seem to be going, we will manage to get the car fixed just in time for the rain!!!!
Actually, I forgot, I did spend a few minutes early this morning out there watering my freshly seeded areas, and my rain garden. I had planted a lot of bulbs and a few other things there in the fall, and I'm getting excited watching some of the stuff coming up. I have some miniature daffodils in bloom now, but nothing else is ready to bloom yet. I did try to get plants that had different bloom times, so I would have color all season long (seasons, actually). I fear some of my plants are not going to come up. Either the squirrels raided some of my very pricey bulbs, or they didn't make it through the winter. I can see that I left myself lots of room to add more things. I planted 3 crown imperials, and so far I only see 2 of them. I also planted hardy cyclamen, and I don't see those coming up yet at all. I will have to hunt for my paperwork in case I have to call and let the nursery know. If I have time tomorrow between car trips, perhaps I'll take a couple pictures of the rain garden to post here. Still looking for that bird bath/ fountain!!!!
Apr 23, 2008 | 10:22 PM PST
Tag: sweet potatoes
Today was another beautiful day, sunny and warm, close to 70. I got carrots, radishes, and beets planted. I had to move them to a different area of the garden from where I planted them last year. I planted them at the opposite end of the garden. Last year, I noticed we had some root maggots, so I'm hoping to avoid that this year by using a different area for the root vegetables.
The weather man said we were supposed to get thunderstorms this morning, but it didn't happen. I'm glad, really, because then it would have been messy trying to plant things this afternoon. The garden has just recently been dry enough to work out there. Once the ice and snow melted, it was like quick sand soggy, except our soil is more clay like. I don't ever remember it being quite that mucky in previous years, I wonder if it has anything to do with hubby deciding to till in the fall instead of waiting for spring?
There are some flowers blooming in the rain garden, and some other plants are coming up nicely. I need to find the diagram I made when I planted it last fall, so I can remember what is there. I am still looking for a bird-bath, or fountain, preferably a solar-powered one, to put as a focal point in the rain garden. My problem is I am choosy. I want yard ornaments that are American made, or at least not made in China. I also need to edge the pebble splash path. My darling dog tends to scatter some pebbles when he runs over them.
Geeze, we have so many yard projects we need to do this year! I want to put trellises up along a portion of the fence to grow my squash and other viney things, and another area of the fence needs to be replaced. The hardest part of getting to any of these projects is hubby and I agreeing on how we should go about them.!!!!!
Of all my winter experiments, the only one I think is very successful is my avacado tree. That's still doing good. My mystery bulbs seem to be a troublesome weedy thing that is also popping up all over the yard, here and there in the grass, flower beds and also in the asparagus bed! My gigantic sweet potato vine finally gave up the ghost - I think I killed it with kindness. None of my frantic efforts to save it helped. My two pots of calla lillies are obviously something else, too, because they are like 2 1/2 feet tall fronds (no flowers) and I don't recall calla lillies ever getting that big. But at least they are ALIVE!
I think tomorrow would be a good day to prepare the areas I plan to plant with sweet potatos and white potatos. I need to mound up a row and cover it with black plastic mulch to warm the soil. That is, provided we don't get those thunderstorms.
Apr 21, 2008 | 6:19 PM PST
Tags: April , Dinner Party , Spring cleaning in Yard
and April has been especially busy for us. Both my husband and my daughter have April birthdays, and my neice just had her 3rd baby earlier this month. This past weekend, my husband and I went to a Roaring 20's murder mystery dinner party - costumes required. Each guest was assigned a role ahead of time. My character was married, but not to my hubby's character! It was a lot of fun, a bunch of grown-ups playing dress-up and "let's pretend!" I ended up taking home two prizes, one for best costume...I never thought that I would win that one. Who knew? The hostess does stained glass, and the prizes were beautiful stained glass hanging decorations. (There is a photo of them in my misc. album) The food was delicious, as usual. This was the 4th annual dinner party we were invited to, and this year was the first murder mystery party. We really look forward to these dinner parties every year!
But I haven't spent all my time at birthdays and dinner parties and such. The weather has warmed nicely, and there is always much to do in the yard. Now, I had tried my best to get all the leaves cleaned up in the fall, but we got an early snow before they all had a chance to drop. So, lots of leaves came down with the snow, and therefore all the flower beds had to be raked. I spent a good deal of time the last couple of weeks doing spring clean up. I have a lot of tulips, daffodils, irises and other bulbs coming up now. The first buds of leaves are starting to show on the trees. Within about 1 to 2 weeks, they should start to look like actual leaves.
I spent the good part of one day emptying the compost piles. Of the 4, I got 2 emptied and turned, and got a wheelbarrowful of compost, which I added to one of my flower beds. Hopefully, I can tackle the other 2 this week. I managed to get the gutters cleaned and I installed gutter guards. I had wanted to do this in the fall, but we didn't get around to buying the gutter guards, I don't remember why.
Today I got my peas planted. I am about 2 or 3 weeks later than I could have planted them, but at least they are in now.
This year, I decided to try wintersowing, after reading about it in the forums and in other's blogs. Well, I don't think that I can proclaim this experiment a success, but it sure was a learning experience! I don't think I checked often enough for watering, I only have a very few things sprouting. Namely, cauliflower. I think this method might work best for me with specific things that can take the cold and require a shorter season. Because I treated this as an experiment, I also planted indoors some things. I planted the same things inside as out, and I planted a few extra things indoors.
Feb 11, 2008 | 10:33 PM PST
Geez, has it really been almost 3 months since I last blogged???? Life gets busy, I suppose, but mostly, it being winter, I haven't got a whole lot to blog about garden wise...
So, I thought it was time for another entry, and while reviewing my previous blog entries, I noticed an odd tag on my last post. One I didn't put there, for a website that I hadn't heard of before. I won't name the site, why give 'em free advertising?? I removed the tag, but I didn't think any one else could add a tag someone's blog entries. Odd. I wonder how many other people had something like that? I hope nobody who read my blog visited that website...
Anyway, since it is winter, and my vegetable garden, rain garden, flower beds and yard are all covered in snow (heck, all of Michigan is covered in snow) and the temps have been in the single digits, I have not even attempted to do anything outside. Besides shoveling snow, that is. And that, only cuz I have too, if I still want to get my mail. And I DO want to get my mail, because I have been busy looking at all those nice seed catalogs, and placed a couple orders. One of them came today.! Now I need to get out the seed starting stuff, check my calendar, and see when I can start playing with my new seeds.
I haven't been entirely idle all winter. Besides amusing myself with seed catalogs, I have a couple of experiments going. When we cleared the vegetable garden last fall, I had one huge sweet potato plant that I potted up and draped over my stair railing. I am happy to report that it is still alive, although the large original leaves all fell off when I first brought it in, and the leaves that replaced them are much smaller. So it doesn't look as lush and full as I had hoped it would. If nothing else, I can use portions of it for cuttings when it is time to plant some in the garden.
While putting in the rain garden last fall, I dug up some stray bulbs. I imagine the squirrels had buried them, but where they got them, only they and God knows! I planted them in pots and put them in my SW facing baywindow. They sprouted, but haven't bloomed. They resemble chives, but they don't have an oniony smell, so I don't think that is what they are. Maybe they will bloom soon, and then I'll have a better idea. Whatever they are, I hope they aren't poisonous, because the brat cats nibbled on them a bit.
It's hard to throw out an avocado pit, they are such an inviting growing opportunity. So the last time we had some, of course I had to put them in water (2 of them). One died, and one is growing on my window sill over my kitchen sink. It is about 10 inches tall, and has 4 tiny leaves. So now it's time to get a pot for it. Of course, it will stay in the house, avocados don't grow outdoors in Michigan. I had tried this in the past, and managed to keep a small avocado tree alive for about a year before it finally died. That one was never very healthy. I hope I do better this time....
Nov 21, 2007 | 10:15 AM PST
Tag: rain
The temperature got into the low 50's yesterday, so I spent a good part of the day outside cleaning up the leaves. Most of the trees are bare now, so I don't feel as if I'm fighting a losing battle. Every time I filled the trash can with leaves, I brought them to the chipper/shredder and ground them up. My patio finally looks clean. I worked outside until it started raining in the late afternoon. Today it has been one of those drizzly rainy days, and it is forcasted to rain for the rest of the week here, so it looks like I wont have a chance to get outside again for a while. It figures that when it is "warm" it is also wet. Much easier to clean up dry leaves than wet, I think.
I need to clean the gutters out. This year I'm installing gutter guards as I clean them. I sure hope I get another dry day before the rain changes to snow. That would be miserable working conditions. Hubby and I have discussed installing gutter guards before, and he always had some reason for not wanting to get them. Either he thought them an expensive unnecessary expense, didn't think they would work very well, etc. I tried to recall the last time I saw him on the ladder cleaning out the gutters and couldn't remember. So I asked him when the last time he took a turn at it and he told me he couldn't remember ever cleaning them. Aha! So it's settled. We ARE getting rain gutter guards.
I still haven't put a border around the rain garden. Hmm, what to do? I am thinking (changing my mind again, dangerous thing!) that a rock border would be more to my liking. Maybe look more "natural". That would also make it easier to redo the border if I decide to expand it a bit more next year. I didn't make it as large as I could have. It is hard to tell how well it is working. The area hasn't been flooded, all the water that is diverted there seems to be soaking in to the area like a sponge. Which is what I want, of course.
Nov 4, 2007 | 10:09 AM PST
Well, well, well, what do you know? Hubby decided to help get the vegetable garden ready for winter. Yesterday, he pulled the rest of the plants that were finished and tilled it up. Today, we mulch it over.
I believe we will have a couple more weeks of falling leaves. I suppose that will keep me busy.
I am thinking a brick border for my rain garden. Although this might be a more time consuming choice to implement, at least it will be more permanent than the plastic edging and (hopefully) stay where I want it. When we used plastic edging in the past, it seemed to break down after a couple of years, and move out of line.
Gee, maybe I can get hubby to go shopping with me to find an arbor and/or bird bath today.
Nov 2, 2007 | 8:47 PM PST
Tags: bulbs , rain garden , Rose of Sharon
While digging out the grassless area I decided to make my rain garden, I dug up a couple of clusters of small bulbs that I know I did not plant. They may have been a gift from the squirrels. On a whim, I picked them out of the dirt and threw them into a pot thinking that maybe if I felt like experimenting, I would plant them in a pot and set them in the bay window and see what comes up. Of course they would have to wait until I finished up my current project before I did anything with them. The empty pot I tossed them in was just sitting on the patio and got rained in, and the bulbs were sitting in water and sprouted. So now I have them potted proper. I wonder if they are the bulbs I had planted in the spring in a pot that the squirrels raided. Wouldn't that be something?
I pruned the Rose of Sharon. It is still very small, as I first planted it last fall, but the few branches it had decided to grow absurdly long. So I pruned it back to try to shape it, and saved the trimmings. I put root hormone on them and have them in a pot on my kitchen table. My sister just planted a Rose of Sharon this year that she got from her father-in-law when he was moving things around in his yard. I hope it has different colored blooms than mine, so I can talk her into trading clippings. She's a pretty casual gardener, though. She doesn't especially have the interest to spend too much time gardening, so I'll probably have to help myself to a couple clipping when I visit her. I'll have to see it in bloom first, though.
I posted some pictures in my photo albums of the rain garden, in process and filled in. Surveying my work, it seems that I planted mostly bulbs, and the other plants are really small. I am anxious to see what it looks like in the spring. The only annoying thing right now is the leaves keep falling and blowing, and I'm afraid to rake it too much because I don't want to disturb my new plants and bulbs.
I think last night's frost finally killed the zucchini. I didn't have time to pull it today, so I'm planning on getting them taken care of tomorrow. It's supposed to be clear and dry, about 60 degrees, and that's pretty darn nice for November around here!
Oct 31, 2007 | 9:32 PM PST
It's been a while since my last blog entry. I have been busy putting in my rain garden. Why a rain garden? I have a few practical reasons:
1. in the spring, there are a couple of areas in the yard that tend to get marshy and hold water.
2. we also tend to get moisture in a corner of the basement
3. it's supposed to be an ecological smart thing to do to help ease the burden on municipal storm drain systems.
So, I'm hoping my rain garden helps in all three of these areas.
I dug out a trench leading from the rear corner downspout on the house, over toward a low area that runs along the side of our yard toward the back. Then I dug out the garden part, about 12 inches deep. We have really hard packed clay type soil. Over the years, the ground settled down too much next to the house (which I think contributes to the water in the basement) and the yard really needed to be regraded. So, all that hard pack dirt I dug up, I broke up and redeposited it next to the back side of the house, so the water would drain away from the foundation. On this I planted fresh grass seed.
I lined the trench with plastic pond liner and filled it in with rocks, so the water would travel over to the garden spot. I filled in the dug out garden with a mixture of sand, compost, and spaghum moss. Then I planted all sorts of plants, many of them spring flowering bulbs. I planted a section of it with black flowering and black folliage plants, and this is my "Gothic" garden. Weird, I know, but my teen daughter thought it was a cool idea. We will see what it looks like in the spring.
We have a lot of squirrels in our area, and they love bulbs. I had read somewhere that if you use chili powder when you plant the bulbs, they will leave them alone. So, I had some dehydrated and powdered habanero peppers from...well, it could be last year, or the year before, but at any rate, it was getting too old to use in food so I mixed some in the holes when I planted my bulbs, and sprinkled some more on top when I finished planting. Lets hope that keeps my bulbs safe, some of them were rather expensive.
I still have more work to do. I have to decide what I want to do for a border. I want to get a bird bath to set in the middle of the round section. I also need to get an arbor for my climbing rose that is next to the new stuff I planted. It doesn't seem to want to stay on the fence any more. I need to make up my mind on the border soon, the other stuff could wait until spring.
Besides working on this, I also spent a day digging sweet potatoes and tending to stuff in the vegetable garden. We got about 1 and a half bushels of sweet potatoes. Yum! We had one sweet potato plant that really went crazy, with some of the vines going out over 20 feet. It was such an amazing size, I thought I gotta save that, so after I removed the sweet potatoes, I brought the vine in and put it in a pot, at the top of the stairs and draped the vines over the hand rail. Well, for a few days, it seemed it might be a wasted effort, as it seems I shocked it and all the leaves started to dry up and drop off. I removed the dead leaves, and lo and behold, I have new leaves growing, so I think it might be o.k. after all. When the vines fill in again, it's going to look so awesome!
We already had a couple of hard frosts, and the zucchini still has not given up, although the squashes aren't growing very fast. I should put them out of their misery and call it a season.
I made a batch of basil jelly. It came out good, but very mild in flavor. I still have some basil, so I may try another batch using a different recipe and see how that comes out.
The leaves have been keeping me busy too. I swept my patio clean of leaves yesterday, and today when I stepped outside, It looked as if no one had cleaned out there in ages! Oh, well, the trees are about halfway done dropping their leaves, so eventually, that job will be done too. Lets just hope the leaves finish falling before the snow starts! I'm not really expecting snow for a while yet, but you never know. Last year we got an early snow fall.
I took a day off of yard work and gardening. Just a little ways north of us is an area where there are a lot of apple orchards and cider mills (about 15 miles or so). I invited some family members over for a trip to the cider mill and orchards. So we spent a day picking apples, choosing pumpkins, and petting farm animals. Oh, and drinking cider and eating doughnuts. All the kids really enjoyed themselves, and some of them had never been to a cider mill before. I, uh, kind of hurt my back picking the kids up so they could reach the really tempting apples high up. I think I pulled a shoulder muscle. It could have been cumulative, all the digging I was doing for the rain garden. Anyway, I spent a day on the sofa with the heating pad. So I guess I actually took a couple days off of yard work and gardening.
Oct 8, 2007 | 8:11 PM PST
Tags: compost , rain garden
Yep, this is truly Indian Summer. The temperature around here has been really unseasonally warm, for at least the last week. Usually, this time in October, we expect temps in the upper 60's or lower 70's at best, often cooler. All this last week, though it has been in the upper 80's. Of course, the warm weather wont last, so I have been doing my best to get done what I can in the garden. The warm temps have fooled some of the plants, though, into putting out more blossoms and fruit, so I hesitate to rip them up yet. I put a Rose of Sharon in last fall, and I wasn't expecting it to bloom until next year, but guess what? It has blooms. I might be mistaken, but isn't Rose of Sharon a spring blooming shrub? The zucchini is still (of course) putting out more fruit. It takes a hard frost to kill that. I was all set to yank up the cucumber vines, until I discovered more blooms and tiny cukes on them. I had harvested all the ripe butternut squash, and was going to pull those vines, too, but it also had tiny baby squash and more blooms. The few green bean plants I hadn't pulled yet are setting more blossoms, too. So, as an experiment, I think I'll leaves these be for now, and see how far they get before a frost hits them.
The compost area that I emptied last week was filled again this weekend with chipped and shredded tree trimmings. We plan to use this as mulch after I pull up the plants. I also got a lot of yard cleaning done. I am still wondering how I am going to go about setting up my "rain garden". Hubby is on overtime, 12 hrs. p/day and the days are getting shorter so it is already dark when he gets home, so I can't count on help during the week. He apparently made other plans for the coming weekend, so I don't think we will get a chance to start it then, either. I suppose I will have to try to get what I can ready, the plants are ordered and on the way.
