13 posts tagged “gardening”

COME ON, BRAIN!  WAKE UP!  If we do what needs to be done today, we'll be sitting pretty for tomorrow's meeting.  *SLAP* WAKE UP!!!

Twitter is vexing me.  I still don't know what I have to say that would be worth twittering, and with only two tweets out there, I'm collecting more camera whores, skanks and spammers than I have real friends following me.  I'm not sure if it's even worth the trouble to keep blocking these people, but I HATE that they're there.  I wish that when you blocked someone, they'd drop from your list of followers.  I've heard it said that with twitter, like with almost everything in life, you get out of it what you put into it.  Fair enough.  I just don't know what to put into it.  I'm not a talker.  Blogging is one thing: I see it mostly as talking to myself.  Tweeting feels more like shouting at the world, ...and I got nothin'.  I am enjoying following Eddie Izzard, Wil Wheaton, Nathan Fillion and Neil Gaiman, but even then, catching up on tweets when I've been away for a few hours feels like such a timesuck.  I'm thinking this is one service that's just not for me, but I'm going to ride it out a while. Maybe something will eventually click.

It's cold this morning.  I have on socks, pants, and a sweatshirt, and I've gone back to hot coffee.  It's weird for July.  My brain knows it's July, but I keep slipping into September.

Still no rain.  I hope we get some.  My garden isn't terribly dry, but I'm sure it would still like some rain.

Speaking of my garden, I have flowers on my peas and tomatoes, the zucchini is ready to flower, and I've seen one huge bloom on one of the pumpkin vines growing beside the compost pile.  The lettuce is growing like crazy.  I pull some every day, and the lettuce bed still looks packed solid.

I'm excited for the long weekend.  I've so much I want to do, and I'm really looking forward to the fireworks.  That's one of my favorite events of the year, one of our favorite traditions.

Ok, so I'm starting to feel some enthusiasm for *something*.  I must be waking up finally.  Time to get some work done.

My ear and the left side of my head still hurt like crazy.  Now I'm getting those jolts of stabbing pain too.  Fun.  Stupid allergies!

It's annoying enough to find yourself stirring to a bright sky and a cacophony of birds at 6am, but it's most aggravating when it wakes you in the middle of dreams where you're visiting with loved ones you only ever get to visit in dreams any more.  Though they say we only remember the dreams we are woken from, so I guess without all this early morning bright and busyness I wouldn't remember these visits I've been enjoying for the past several days.  But then, I wouldn't be starting each day with this bittersweet melancholy if I couldn't remember these dreams either.  I've heard it suggested that visitors in the dreaming usually have a preferred time for visiting, and now I'm wondering if I woke up every day at 6am how many similar dreams I'd remember.

I managed to get back to sleep yesterday, and actually got a couple of hours of sound sleep after a night of tossing and turning.  That meant a late start to the day though, which meant yard work later in the morning than I'd planned, ...which meant more intense sunlight beating down on my shoulders.  I was an idiot and didn't put on sunscreen.  I only meant to be out for about fifteen minutes, and that turned into about thirty.  And then I spent some time in the sun hanging laundry on the line yesterday too.  By the end of the day, my shoulders were a pretty good pink.  You'd think, with my fine Irish skin, I would learn to always sunscreen-up before going out, especially this close to the summer solstice.  But even now I'm thinking if I go out early enough, I won't have to put that goop all over my skin.  *sigh*  I will put it on though.  I hate it, but I know I need it.  Mean, mean sun.

So I finally got my old flower bed cleared of waist-high wild growth and filled back up with compost on Sunday.  Earlier in the season I'd planned on laying out a perennial bed and planting according to plan.  It's been so damn humid though, and it's so very unpleasant to be outside in it, once the bed was ready for planting, I just randomly sprinkled all of my flower seeds in there.   All of them.  I put in the packets I bought new this year and anything I had left from previous years, including some large packets of wildflower mixes.  It's my mystery garden now.  Tiny green bits are already peeking up.  I've very curious to see what grows.  I'm going to have to weed it *VERY* carefully as things start growing.  Fortunately, I'm quite familiar with all the weeds I just finished pulling out of the ground there, so I should be able to identify and evict those.

I've also started digging my garden for misfit plants.  I hate it when all of your seeds germinate and you have to cull the herds.  I also hate pulling plants growing where they aren't supposed to, especially when I'm curious as to what's growing.  So this year I'm clearing out the mess that used to be our blackberry brambles, and putting a misfit garden in.  I've already transplanted some stuff there.  This will be another fun experiment, seeing what survives the transplant, and what becomes of it all.  I'm pretty sure I have some pumpkin growing from pumpkin guts I composted last year.  I'm going to have to move some zucchini and cucumber over to the misfit garden this week too, as all of those seeds decided to try growing this year, and there's just not room in the veggie garden for them all.

As for the blackberry brambles, they've migrated into the tiger lilies by the garage, which is the perfect place for them, since the lilies are abundant and I won't have a weedy mess growing under painfully sharp brambles.

The tiger lillies by the kitchen window are back this year after being choked out by morning glory vines for a couple of years.  I got tired of that damn non-flowering vine choking out my lilies last year, and asked Craig to spray the vine with a topical poison.  It worked perfectly.  The vine is gone, and my cheery orange friends are back and blooming this year.

Enough yammering about my yard.  I'm going to go have a seat out there in my favorite spot and enjoy a bit of this morning, as long as I'm up, before it gets too hot and sticky out.  Don't know if I'll do more yard work today or if I'll give my shoulders the day off to fade a bit.  That would be the smart thing to do, but the siren song of progress is so hard to resist.  For the moment though, iced coffee, seed for the birds, my favorite seat and a few more minutes thinking about loved ones (much loved!) I sadly don't get to see anywhere but in dreams any more.

I just watered my veggie garden.  Thanks to the generous rains, this is only the second time I've had to water it since planting two weeks ago.  Everything is coming up, even my peas!  I'm so pleased to see all that yummy green there again.  I planted:

• zucchini
• cascabella peppers
• cucumbers
• yellow squash
• spinach
• tomatoes
• carrots
• peas
• several types of lettuces

And, it's all coming up!  I have some seeds that are either late to the game or duds, but I have enough of everything to more than make up for the missing, should they decide not to join the garden party.  The tomatoes and peppers were started indoors, and I only lost one tomato plant in the move to the garden, the rest of them are growing like gangbusters.  ...Guess I'd better learn to like tomatoes.  heh.  Actually, I only don't like tomatoes when they're raw.  I'm planning on canning most of them for chili, soup and sauces and such.  I probably shouldn't count my tomatoes before they're harvested.  They still have a ways to go for that.  :)

I also have a few freeloading plants growing in my veggie garden, which I suspect are from the copious jackolantern seeds that I fed to my compost pile last autumn.  I need to let them establish a little, and then move them somewhere safe, and hope for a timely pumpkin harvest.

I really need to finish digging out my overgrown-with-weeds flower bed and get that planted.  It's about half dug out, but I haven't touched it in a week.  The tendrils on the wild grapes have already grown around my shovel and rake handles that are leaning against the garage.  The grapes can have them if they'll finish my garden!  I'd like to have that flower bed planted before the weekend.

Then this weekend I want to dig out my herb garden and start over.  Anyone want arm-loads of oregano?  The bunnies have dibs on the old parsley plants, and I'm going to try several methods of preserving the mint - though I'm mostly leaning toward chopping and freezing in small ice cubes for mint julip use.  :)

Next week I'll dig the new sunflower bed and clean up around the blackberry brambles.  Then I have to get something planted around the deck, I'm thinking impatiens this year.  My rose bed up front needs some *serious* weeding and rearranging.  I have a ton of lillies, daffodils and mystery bulbs there that squirrels must have planted for me.  As soon as I safely can, I need to dig those up and find better space for them.

...oof.  Always so much work to do outside that I lose myself just thinking about it.  I intend to get all my planting done before summer is officially here though, which is a huge change for my usually late self.  Whatever else does or doesn't get done, I am going to have veggies!  :)

I spent the day outside, and what a gorgeous day!  I prepped my veggie garden for planting.  Planting is still at least a month off, but all I have to do is turn a little compost into the beds, and they're good to go.  Tomorrow I'll start the seeds that need to be started indoors, and by Memorial Day I'll be filling up the garden.

I also cut back my precious roses.  Oy.  It's been tough in previous years just to trim them a little, but this year I went all-in and cut them back proper.  I love those roses so very much.  They seem to be the soul of this house.  I know that roses are supposed to love a good seasonal cut-back, and they have responded really well to what little I've done in years past, but I'm really nervous about what I did today.  The brambles have always been scraggly and unkempt looking, and though they've bloomed with the most sweetly fragrant, bright pink tea roses, they *really* needed some serious pruning.  The roots are very well established and they've flourished even when completely neglected before we ever bought the house, so please, oh please, Goddess, let my roses continue to spread and bloom!  ...Tomorrow I do the roses on the east side of the house.  *gulp*

Still to do in the yard is to dig up my herb garden which has been self-propagating for years and needs a fresh planting.  I also need to dig up the neglected north flower bed, prep the area around the deck for planting, and dig a new sunflower bed on the west side of the yard.  All of those need some compost turned into the soil too.  The shrubs need weeding and mulching, and though the roses are half cut back, I still need to weed and clean the ground beneath them.  The blackberry brambles need to be cleaned up and weeded, a few of the new lilacs need relocating, and the compost piles themselves need to be turned.  The ivy needs to be trained up the fence and the lillies of the valley could stand to be thinned.  I'm sure there's even more to do, but that's what's on my list for the next few weeks.  With any luck, after that, it's just planting, watering, weeding and feeding.

We spent a $50 gift card we were given for Christmas almost completely on seeds today.  That was a lot of fun!  A fabulous gift too, since it gets me a new veggie garden, a new herb garden, a new perennial flower bed and some pretty potted annuals.

More than anything, even the veggies and herbs, I *REALLY* hope my roses thrive.

I have this little head cold that's trying to settle in my chest.  This makes my asthma very unhappy.  I've spent the past couple of days hitting my inhaler every 3-4 hours all day and night.  This sucks mightily.

Today I've been determined to take it easy and stay off my inhaler as much as possible.  Those things are full of stimulants and are bad for you with that kind of use.  I'm doing pretty good so far.  I last used my inhaler at 7am.  It's been a really tough day though.  I've had to mostly sit still.  When I do have to move around, I have to move slowly.  I've been drinking water all day, trying to stay as hydrated as possible.  I've had to keep the windows shut to keep the humidity out.  Fortunately, I've been alone all day and undisturbed, because talking is really hard too.  I hate this, but I hate steroids far more.  The fact that I've made it this long without my inhaler today has me really hoping I'm on the mend.  Today was better than yesterday.  Tomorrow should be even better yet, right?

Earlier this week I baked my very first loaf of zucchini bread ever.  I made it with the very first zucchini I've ever grown, which came from the very first veggie garden I've ever planted!  :)  That makes me so happy.  I planted really late this year, but I'm glad I went ahead and planted anyhow.  I have been able to feed my bunnies with the lettuces I planted, and I've been able to clip fresh spinach whenever I wanted some.  My basil and cilantro have also come in handy.  Plus, with my late planting, I also have a better idea of what I want to plant next spring.  Beans, for example, are right out.  I have bean leaf beetles like you can't even imagine.  Those jerks totally destroyed my bean plants.  Mustard greens are also proving to be a little useless.  The bunnies don't like them as much as I thought they would, and I'm not much of a fan either.  Next year I want a pumpkin patch and a lot more flowers.  Now that I have my square-foot garden set up, planting that next season will be a piece of cake, so that means I can put more effort into planting the rest of the yard!

Oh, and the zucchini bread is *delicious*!

Not much else to report these days.  Just laying low, trying to feel better.

The crab cakes I tried to make last night just did not want to hold their form.  We had two that came out nice, and a few that were mess, but passable, and a few that just wouldn't hold together at all.  I took the ones that did NOT want to be cakes, and stirred in some mayo and relish and called it "crab salad".  YUMMMMM!  That was a very tasty idea.

I got my garden together *very* late in the season, but I still planted a few things a couple of weeks ago.  Some things will have plenty of time for a late summer harvest, others not likely, but the garden was ready finally, so I planted.  It's so exciting to watch my food sprouting!    I'll probably spend a few evenings making pretty garden tags so I don't have to keep referencing my planting chart to remember what these wee plants are.

Still absolutely adoring my clothesline.  Excepting humid days, line-dried clothes dry almost 50% faster than my dryer can dry them.  On a hot, breezy day, one load is dry by the time the next comes out of the washer.  And forget bleach; nothing "gets your whites whiter" like good old Sol.  Plus, having to go out and hang/collect the laundry gives me a good excuse to step outside briefly, get some fresh air and make some vitamin D.  It does absolute wonders for my mood.  My dryer has been unplugged for over a month now, and, excepting rainy day, laundry never piles up any more because I love doing it now.  It's sick, I know.  Supposedly you can use a clothesline year-round, but we'll see how much I enjoy it when my laundry is freezing.  ...Then again, I am a polar bear.  :)

This week has been absolutely crazy.  Monday was extremely stressful due to work, and after that crazy and *AND* working all weekend also, I took Tuesday off.  The plan was to just sit and drool, maybe read a little, just try to let my brain bounce back, but I actually had energy and did a little housework.  Wednesday it all hit me though, a day later than expected.  I do NOT deal with stress well.  I'm a creative and a philosopher and the world's biggest introvert -  pressure and deadlines freak me the hell out.  Wednesday I got the crash that I was expecting on Tuesday.  I woke same time as usual, but pretty much just fell over around 8:30am and slept hard until 10:30.  My allergies and asthma went haywire too, so I took allergy meds, ...and then fell back asleep after lunch.  When I woke up from my nap, I started dong a few chores and got this crazy urge to seriously clean this place that had me scrubbing things and sweeping and beating rugs.  WTH?  Just weird.

Today feels like a typical day for me though.  Yay.  Just in time for the weekend tomorrow.  Oh, and Jen's Big Birthday Month, which also starts tomorrw!  :D

I'll start with the mundane: I cleaned the bunny room.  This is noteworthy because I've been under the weather since the end of March and, though I've cleaned cages and litter-boxes regularly, I haven't really *cleaned* the room in all that time.  It sounds grosser than it is really.  I basically swept behind all the furniture to get the hay and dust-bunnies, and vacuumed the bunny play rugs.

And speaking of vacuuming, I love my vacuum.  We recently started spring cleaning by overhauling the vacuum.  All new filters, power-washed the hoses, wiped it down inside and out and put a new belt on it.  Ah, it really sucks!  Just like new.  ...Yes, I'm *just* domestic enough that using my cleaned up vacuum was an exciting and noteworthy part of my day.

Ok, on to funner things...

Went into town for food and supplies and such.  (heh.  Sounds like we live more in the boonies than we really do.)  I got 2 fresh canisters of MAPP gas for my torch.  That's a lot of flame work time!

We went to Woodcraft so Craig could get some supplies, and I picked up a new carving tool and a leather thumb guard, and I registered for a carving class next week!  I'm excited about it!  They have "carve-ins" there on a regular basis too, and I might start dropping in for those once in a while.

Then I stopped in at the salon where I used to work and made a hair appointment.  I normally just give myself a blunt cut, but I figure a break in the DIY hair cuts once every few years to try something different is probably a good idea.  :)  I'm looking forward to visiting with Peggy while she makes me pretty.

After a brief stop for iced coffees, we went to the general store and bought seeds for the garden!  YAY!!! VEGGIE GARDEN!  I have a few packets of seeds that I'm going to start indoors tomorrow, but most of them will get sown right in the garden in the next few weeks.

After grocery shopping (yawn), I came home and set up my lampwork stuff in the mudroom.  Ahhhh, that is nice.  It's just a wee work area, but it's so nice to be indoors working, out of the wind and chilly temps.  It's so much easier to work the glass inside with the steadier conditions.  I only made a few beads tonight and two of them cracked when cooling (*pout* - see, I neeeeed a kiln!), but that happens.   I was only disappointed about one, because it was really cool looking.  *shrug*  Glass breaks.  I'll make more tomorrow.  :D  I can't wait!

Work Area

Thanks for all the comfort yesterday.  I'm actually feeling significantly better today.  I've been sitting on cushions, I swapped out my normal work chair for a softer one, I don't sit at the keyboard for more than an hour at a time, ...  I've just been really careful how I move and sit the past few days, and it's starting to pay off in healing.  I still woke up seeing stars every time I rolled over last night, but at least I was comfortable once I got situated.  The only bad pain I've had today came with sneezing.

I feel a bit like I cried wolf yesterday, all that whining about a broken tailbone.  It's the worst pain I've ever experienced though, and I'd been putting up with it for weeks.  I was just at wit's end.  Please forgive me for whining/venting.

Trust me on this point though, mind your ass!  ;)  Seriously though, you do not want to have to live with that kind of pain!!!

So, feeling better, soon here we're going into town for some supply shopping.  I'm going to get some potting soil, seeds and brazing fuel(!).  It's pretty windy and cold today, but I'll start setting up my workspace in the mudroom if I have to, because I want to get back to melting/mixing glass!  I just put in a decent size glass order too, really awesome colors, and I can't wait for that to come!  (Note to self: check local codes to see if I can set up a propane/oxygen system in the mudroom.)  I'd like to get a hotter burning system so I can learn to blow ornaments!!!  I want to make some marbles too, though I can do that with my brazing torch.

I was going to prune my rose bushes yesterday, but decided instead to clean up my herb garden, since my very favorite place to sit is right over my herb garden.  Now, on any nice day, I can go sit there and enjoy it rather than thinking, "What a mess; I should tidy this up."  It was a good decision.

I cut back or killed (probably killed) my young elm tree, cut back or killed (cut back almost certainly) my oregano that grows like kudzu, pulled up all last year's parsley and shook the seeds out over the ground, relocated the orb weaver's nest/egg-sack(???) to the alley, and I weeded the garden border as much as the half mushy, half icy ground would allow.  I need a few warmer days so I can finish that weeding once the ground thaws, and my favorite garden spot will be ready to enjoy.  Nice.

It was funny, but I was standing in muddy, half decomposed muck yesterday I thought, "Man, I'm going to get my hiking boots dirty!"  Then I stopped to consider the ridiculousness of that statement and laughed at myself.  Hiking boots are MADE for getting mucked up.  I told Craig and he laughed because he had had the same reservation about wearing his hiking boots to do gardening.  He said, "Next thing you know we'll be buying an SUV that we never intend to take off-road!" and cracked me up.  I ground my feet further into the muck and swore we would never become those people.

It was a good day's work.  Now, I really do need to prune my roses back within the next few days.