May 26 - Re-planting

The sky was overcast this afternoon, and the temperature was mild, and the wind was blowing, just right for working outside, and so I got my lazy butt up and went to work in the garden with the hoe.  If Mother Nature would accommodate me with one such day every week, I believe I could raise a pretty good garden.

I re-planted a few skips in the pole beans and okra, and put some hyacinth bean vine seeds in the ground beside every fence post.  I soaked the bean vine seeds for only a few minutes before I planted them (I think you're supposed to soak them overnight),  but it's supposed to rain tomorrow, so maybe they'll get soaked some more.  I may regret planting those with the cucumbers and the beans; if they come up, they will fight for territory on the fence.  But if they win, won't they be pretty?

I meant to plant more squash on the one empty row at the back of the garden, but I smooth forgot to do it, and I've already cleaned the dirt from under my fingernails, so it's not happening today.

May 23 - Fertilizing and such

My garden looks puny.

Last week, the farmer sprayed the fields with Round-Up, and it evidently drifted toward the garden, for many of my plants have white spots on their leaves.  Every year when the Round-Up gets sprayed, the wild cherry tree near the garden drops its leaves. So do the crape myrtles in front of Nanny's house.  But the little pin oaks and big pines nearer to the field don't seem to mind.

I get so frustrated on my drive to and from work, watching other people's gardens grow.  Their tomatoes are big and green and look healthy.  My tomato plants are scrawny and a putrid shade of green.  The biggest squash plants are only about 2" tall. 

The pole beans sprouted fairly well and are about 6" tall.  There are a few skips that could stand re-planting.  The purple hull peas didn't come up at all.  Maybe I used old seeds.  In any case, I plowed up the pea rows and Nanny re-planted them with a different batch of seeds.

I mixed up 15 gallons of Miracle Grow water and poured it directly onto the pepper, tomato, and squash plants.  I also made a drill beside the pole beans, sprinkled some 6-12-12 in it, and covered it up with dirt.  It might rain tonight, so maybe the fertilizer will melt. 

I still have one empty row.  I plowed it again today to keep the grass from taking it over, and I want to put something in it.  It is on the back side of the garden, which gets less sun.  I probably should have put the squash back there, and next year I probably will, if I can remember.  Or maybe I should do it tomorrow, if it doesn't rain!

Gloria, the red tiller, gave me a little trouble today.  I wanted to use her to weed and loosen the dirt around the tomato plants.  Her rope was hanging out again, and would not accommodate a good yank.  I gave it about a hundred little yanks and a moderately severe cussing, and she eventually fired off.  As I was tilling around one of the tomato plants, I turned loose of Gloria so that I could gather up some Bermuda grass roots, and when I reached for her, she was gone!  I looked up, and she was slowwwwly walking over to the next row, headed straight for a tomato plant.  I grabbed her before she did any damage and didn't turn her loose again until I was finished!  Later, when I wanted to use her around the green beans, her cord was hanging out again, and I couldn't get her to even wheeze. 

I should google what to do when your cord hangs out.



  

I hate lawnmowers

The Husband said he was going to leave work early today so that he could mow our yard and Nanny's yard 'fore it rains.  Sure enough, when I got home, his truck was down at Nanny's, and he was already finished with her front yard and was starting on the back yard by the time I got down there. 

I waved at him and walked out to the garden to check the progress.  Things are sprouting, but not vigorously.  A little rain to soften the dirt wouldn't hurt.  There was grass coming up amongst the tomatoes, so I grabbed a hoe, sharpened it on the bench grinder, and did some chopping.  I was just putting away my hoe when I heard the riding lawnmower screech and go

WHOOOOOMMMMMPPP.

Uh-oh.

I listened.  The motor was running, but the blades weren't turning.

We bought this lawnmower, a Cub Cadet, 10 days ago.  The day we brought it home, the blade bent before we finished the first yard.  The store gave us a new blade, which seemed a little sturdier than the factory blade.  That new blade bent today.

Now, I was against buying another Cub Cadet.  We have a zero-turn model that we bought several years ago, and it has consistently been the most persnickety lawnmower we have ever owned.  The belt will come off it you look at it side-ways, and it did come off, almost every single time I tried to mow.  When we took it out for the first time this year, something went beserk, and it wouldn't turn or stop moving - he had to turn off the key to keep from running into the shed.  It's motor is in the back and has no hole for a hitch, so we can't pull the lawn sweeper with it.  I do not have one good thing to say about this lawnmower, and I was not gung-ho about buying another one of the same brand.

So, when I heard the new lawnmower roll into the shop and saw that part of the yard had not been mowed, I followed the mower into the shop and gave The Husband a look that asked, "Is this lawnmower screwed up again?"  And he was climbing off, disparaging the lawnmower's parentage through gritted teeth.

I thought it best not to comment.  I came on back to the house to prep supper.  ;)

The dish I made for supper calls for fresh tarragon, and as I was stripping the leaves off of the stems, I remembered seeing a stem-stripping tool for sale in a cookware catalog yesterday.  I didn't look it over very closely to see how it works because I thought, "Really?  We need a DEVICE to pick thyme leaves off the stem?" 



How lazy have we gotten?  It seems to me to be a whole lot more trouble to (1) find the leaf-picker-offer in the tool drawer, (2) use it, (3) wash it, (4) dry it, and (5) put it back in the drawer than to run my fingers down the thyme stem and be done with it.

Besides, I like to lay hands on my food.  Sometimes, that's the only way to tell when things are right.  My high-school home ec teacher almost had a come-apart when she caught me with my hand in the biscuit dough.  How else was I supposed tell if it needed more milk???  I only used that confounded pastry cutter she handed me until she turned her back. 

The Husband must have worked on the mower, for I hear it circling our yard, blades running.

Time to get cooking!

Squirrel Tree Frog

A couple of weeks ago, we were in our living room, watching TV and chilling, when something BIG climbed up the wall across the room from me.  I screamed like a girl and jerked my feet onto the couch.  It nearly scared The Husband to death, and he jumped out of his recliner hollering, "What?!"  I pointed to the wall and squealed, "There's a HUGE spider climbing up the wall!"  He turned to look, and I heard him gasp.  I was already scanning the floor, looking for a shoe, a plastic sword, anything to hit it with when I heard him say, "It's a TREE FROG!"  A wave of relief washed over me.  I said, "Well, catch it and pitch it outside," which he did.

That frog was brown, the color of dark ale, almost as dark as the wood of our living room floor.  I did not know that there were brown frogs that were capable of walking up a wall.

The next day when I came home from work, there was a frog stuck to the porch wall above our front door.  This frog was the color of sand, almost the identical color of the wall.

Hmmm...could it be...?

I told The Husband about it when he came home from work.  We went outside and found him in the same spot, almost invisible against the wall.  We both pondered whether a frog could change colors, like a chameleon, for neither of us had ever seen a brown frog OR a tan frog that could climb a wall.

Tonight, the subject of tree frogs came up during my granddaughter's softball game.  I told Mr. Bob, a retired Navy man, about my theory of color-changing tree frogs.  He scoffed.  I said, "Well, let's google it," and I whipped out my phone and found this:

That, friend, is a Hyla Squirella, also known as a Squirrel Tree Frog.  This little critter can change colors.

Mr. Bob was stunned, and asked about the frog's habitat, as if he suspected it only existed in a jungle, or something.  The article I read said it's habitat is the southeastern United States, from Texas up to Virginia.  I felt vindicated.  Later, at home, I looked at the map that accompanies the article, and it shows the frog living far south and east of west Tennessee.

But, I promise you, one lives in my yard.

May 15 - Garden Check

Stuff is coming up.

It took the squash and zucchini about 4 days to send up the first sprouts.  Green beans, cucumbers, and okra began to sprout today, day 7. 

There are deer tracks everywhere.  The deer are coming up from the little thicket behind the garden, and walking diagonally across the garden to the field beside Nanny's house.  I think it's a fairly well-established route.  I wish I could've seen them come across there the first night after we installed the hog-wire fence for the beans.  Judging by the mish-mash of tracks in one spot, I'd say the fence surprised 'em.   

....Which makes me recall....

A long time ago, we had a big old shaggy brown dog named Bear.  He looked like a cross between a Golden Retriever and a German Shepherd - long, thick, tan coat with a black muzzle - (how that happened I'll never know, for his mother was a Sharpei and his daddy was a brown and gray patchwork shepherd dog from up the road that we affectionately referred to as "Fugly").  Bear chased anything that moved, including meter readers (how they hated him) - I guess that was the shepherd in him - and he was fast as lightning.  Let him see a squirrel or rabbit, and ZOOM!  Zero to sixty in one second.

He routinely zoomed right through the flowers that I'd planted around the patio.  There was no way to teach him any different.  I'd parked the car on his head when he was a puppy, and he never was quite right.  So I figured the best thing would be to put up a fence around the patio.  We didn't have much money, so the best I could do was chicken wire and some landscape timbers, sawn in half and planted like posts.  I started the fence late on a Saturday afternoon.  We had somewhere to go that night, and so I didn't get much done before it was time to quit for the day.  I got the posts set in the ground on one side of the patio, and had just enough time to tack up some chicken wire between the posts when I had to stop. 

The next morning, I went out to the patio, and my posts were leaning, and the chicken wire was all pooched out in one spot.  As I stood there puzzling about what could have happened, Bear came trotting around the house and sauntered toward me.  The pooched-out spot in the chicken wire was exactly as high as his head.  Judging by the amount of damage, I'd say he'd been moving at a pretty good clip when he encountered the newly-installed chicken wire in the darkness.  Is it wrong of me to still be snickering about it?  ;)

May 9 - Green Beans, Cucumbers, Okra, Peas

My planets must have been in alignment today, for I was able to accomplish all of my garden chores  without too many complications.

The plan:  (1) build a permanent fence for climbers, and (2) plant beans and cucumbers to grow on it. 

My boss turned me loose early today.  The weather was great.  I had a pile of fence posts and rusty hog wire left over from prior attempts.  I had a roll of bailing wire to attach the wire to the posts.  I actually found the fence-post-pounder and the wire cutters.  I was in business.  In less than an hour, I had ten fence posts pounded into the ground and one long section of hogwire attached.  It was at that point that I remembered that I'd wanted to re-till that row before I planted, since it was a little clumpy from being too wet when I'd plowed it the day before. 

I hauled Gloria, the little red tiller, out of the shed, thinking I'd run her up one side of the fence and down the other.  She hadn't been cranked this year.  When I reached for the pull cord, it was hanging out about a foot and wouldn't go back in.  With a shortened cord, it couldn't build up enough compression to start.  I was about to cuss when I saw that spot on the top of the tiller where you can use a drill and a special bit to crank the thing.  I pushed the tiller to the workshop, where the little cranking bit was supposed to be.  It wasn't there.  I did cuss then, and I yanked Gloria's cord just for spite, and the b*tch fired up, and sucked the cord back in where it was supposed to be.  I could not believe it. 

I rolled her out to the garden, and we started tilling.  I hadn't finished the first pass when I looked up, and there stood Nanny.  She hadn't been home when I started to work, and I hadn't heard her drive up.  But there she was, in her gardening clothes, ready to work.  I was glad I'd already done the hard part, and glad I hadn't finished the wiring when I realized that if I'd raise the wire a little higher off the ground, Gloria could run under it until the plants get too big.  When I finished the tilling, Nanny helped me re-attach the section I'd started and attach the next section, and we were ready to plant.

About that time, I looked up, and there stood The Husband in HIS gardening clothes. He, too, was glad I'd done the hard part.  ;)  I sent him back to the house to get the seeds while I de-clumped three more rows with the big black tiller.  He and Nanny made short work of planting the pole beans, cucumbers, and purple hull peas.  I planted okra and did a little raking while they put the tillers back in the shed. 

Yeah, we kicked butt today.

May 8 - Tomatoes, peppers, squash

Today was a perfect day, weather-wise.  As soon as I got home from work, I put on the gardening clothes and went down to Nanny's to check on the garden.  I've had a dozen tomato plants, a dozen pepper plants, and an eggplant living on my front porch for two weeks, but it's been too wet to put them in the ground.  (It is a miracle that they are still alive!)  I took them down to the garden, dragged the big tiller out of the shed, and re-plowed 5 rows of ground that was really a tad too wet for tilling.  But I had on my gardening clothes, and the weather was nice, and I had the time, so I planted the tomatoes and stuff in dirt that wasn't *quite* mud.  I also planted about 10 hills of squash and a couple of hills of zucchini.

I am trying an experiment this year.  Recalling how the Native Americans used to plant corn, squash, and beans together, I stuck a squash hill on both sides of one of the tomato plants, theorizing that maybe the squash leaves will help keep the weeds down between the tomatoes.  I'll let you know how that works out, weed-wise.

Tomorrow afternoon I hope to build a permanent fence for green beans and such.  I have all the stuff I need except The Husband's willingness to go along with the plant.  I'll let you know how that works out, too.  ;)