Saturday, June 11, 2005

11June2005 Rain, Desert Style planters

I got out some seeds. Soaked Parsley and Bush beans and Sweet Pea and Squash. It all started this morning when I finished the cereal. This particular cereal comes in a plastic bag of substance. I hate throwing these things away. Since I got up early and mowed the lawn, I found the chair in the shade mighty comfortable long about noon. This is dangerous for me, as I usually let my mind wander under these circumstances. It has been so hot, like July dog days.
I left that empty bag on the breakfast table and it must have been sitting heavy on my mind. So I got out some twine and rigged it up, put soil in it making a hanging planter to grow some bush beans. The stacked pots full of Kale and Tomatoes are working so well, and the ground is so dry with the heat, and no rain, and no snow pac this spring, that I figure I may as well hedge my bets and have some desert style planters I can water easily in case everything else dries up.
Then it rained.
I have some flats full of sunflower seeds that number two son sprouted to make sunflower seed milk, but he let them get too big, so he gave them to me to put in flats for sunflower sprouts. Sunflower sprouts are very goodfor the vision. Unfortunately these sprouts are too big for that too, so I called Cindy from church who has been trying to interest me in the big empty spot in her yard they had to have dug for repairs. I haven't been much help to her, but she thinks maybe she'd take the sunflowers. I think that is a good choice this time of year. In the fall, she can put in perennials, or something, but this time of year, sunflowers will be obliging and fool proof and the neighbors won't complain about them. They might even admire them.
Maybe I will put some in at the church too.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

4June2005

4June2005
Now that it is June, it is time to choose. There is fecundity in the garden, no doubt, but things are getting bigger. If I don't choose, ones that I don't want so many of, invasives and weeds will win. I also pulled out the hose for the first time since winter. I was on the wall, in it's hanger, I hauled it to the back and put it on the tiniest trickle and set it to water the newly placed tomatoes, one at a time.
It will spread out and get to the raspberries around the edge of the back garden. They are flowering now, extra moisture would not go amiss. I do have to move the hose every 15 minutes or so, but the drip stuff I put in one year is in the garage somewhere, waiting for me to get it out. I might, but it seems a low priority, especially since I am around anyway to do the moving. It seems like a good thing to go in and out of the garden, noting what needs to be done. later in the summer, I might not be so enthusiastic.
We are getting Lettuce and Kale out of the pots and stacked pots. The greens are too close together to let them go until maturity. I get to take young leaves off and not feel the least guilt. I will keep in thinning mode as long as I can, until they all go to seed, perhaps. I have been making salad: adding what ever is around, emptying the cupboards, adding lemon, herbs, cheese, beets, nuts oranges, and considering myself queen.
The Basil seeds I started in paper towels and plastic sprouted. I put them in a pot yesterday. Basil seeds have sticky substance that makes their seed coat gluey when they sprout. I managed to put them all in the dirt.
I found a few Spinach plants, I'd tucked their seeds in a mixed pot and they did sprout. I don't know why I didn't think of putting greens in pots to keep them from the GH, before this. It was a gardening mag that showed some pretty pics of lettuce in pots that got me thinking in that direction.

2June2005

2 June 2005
The weather has turned mild, as it seems to every year come June. Weddings and graduations abound and the weather is not yet too hot, though many have begun using AC.
All of the left over plants in flats and small containers cry out for permanent locations. Their roots need to go far, find water for the dry summer. I still have perennials in pots, waiting for homes. Daisies were wilting in their little, dry pots when I watered. I found myself mowing early, before it got too hot. Time for indoor activities in the heat of the day. Late bulbs bloom. Chaos and anarchy have taken over the garden as plants get big and vie for light and air.
I learned to sharpen the push mower this year. It was a good thing, as my husband has a broken finger, and would be having a fit if he couldn't mow and it didn't look just so. It was very satisfying, actually I didn't so much learn to sharpen as to realign the blades. Rotary blades need to cut like sissors, one against the other. If they don't touch each other, as in my mower's case, they don't cut everything and the job looks shabby. When I learned how to readjust the rotor part, my job looks like it did when the mower was new.
Mowing calls to mind the edges, the transition points in the yard. When someone else took care of these,I didn't take them seriously, and only thought about edges when I felt the mower took too much. I am more careful to keep a space for the mower wheels, don't plant to the edge of the grass. I let the raspberries spread way past their bed into the grass and mow around them. I'm freer to decide where I want the edge to be. It is a time when I think about things. I like doing the mowing.
I do run into neighbors, have to have conversations with them. Power mower users don' t have to stop to talk. Their machines are too loud and likely to spew rocks and nobody goes near them. I do like my neighbors and like to keep tabs on doings around here, it is not all bad. I have the excuse that I want to get done before it gets too hot too, now that the solstice is almost here.