Mid-May Maintenance

We've been away on a trip for a few days, and the first thing I did yesterday afternoon when we got home was to walk across the road and check on the early garden.  During the few days that I was gone, everything grew like crazy, including the grass in the middles.  Some of the tomatoes plants have small green tomatoes on them.  AND - [sound the fanfare] - the sweet peas that were blooming when I left now have fat pods on them.  Wahoooooo!  Sweet peas!  But the worms are after my cabbages, broccoli, and brussels sprouts. 

I decided that I'd better drag out the little black plow and do some weeding today.  Thinking that I ought to assess both gardens to see how much work was in store, I went down to Nanny's to check out the big garden before I left for work.

The squash is doing fine, and the flowers we planted in the front row are growing nicely.  But we've lost all but about a dozen of the tomato plants to the rain, and the purple hull peas are thinking they've had about all the water they want for a while.  The grass is loving it, though; the middles are solid green and desperately need weeding, but it's too wet to work the soil.  I'm not even going to show a picture of this garden until it looks a little better.

In my absence, Pop-Pop put a blade on the tractor and dug a ditch from the center of the big garden to the edge of the woods to create a drain for the water.  (I bet Nanny about had a fit when he dug that trench across their back yard.)  He also pushed some dirt around from the high spots to the low ones.  Thank goodness we hadn't planted anything in that part of the garden, yet. 

After work today, I fired up the tiller and did the weeding, then I put cages around the 9 tomato plants in the early garden.  I smashed some worms on the cruciferous veggies, and planted a couple of hills of yellow squash and one hill of cantaloupes.  The squash and cantaloupe seeds I found are about 10 years old; let's see if a gardening miracle will happen.  If not, I'll be looking for fresh seeds in about a week.

As I was tilling, I noticed that one of the tines was not rotating.  I shut off the engine and tipped it over to un-wind the grass from around it, and discovered that the pin is missing from the tine.  I looked around for it, but didn't find it, so after I finished my gardening chores, I took the tiller to Pop-Pop.  He said that he has a pin, and will get around to fixing the tine in a day or two.  Maybe by then the big garden will be dry enough to work.

While I was shooting the bull with Pop-Pop, Nanny came out of the house and joined us in the shed.  She asked if there was any gas for the lawn-mower.  Pop-Pop said he was just about to fill the tank and start mowing. 

"Oh, not TODAY," she said.  "It'll be all grown up again by Saturday."

"What's Saturday?" he asked.

"Just Saturday," she said, meaning there was no special event, no reason why the yard needed to look particularly nice that day.  "But it'll be all grown up again by then."

"Well, if I wait until Saturday to mow, the grass will be knee deep."  He climbed onto the lawn-mower and reached down to crank it.  I decided it was time for me to make my exit.

"Don't you want to hang around for the rest of the argument?" Nanny asked me as I started toward the driveway.

"No, ma'am, I know how it'll end."

About that time, the lawn-mower engine fired up.  Just as I had expected.  ;)

My Garden Needs Waders

After supper last night, I rode my bike down to the garden to see how it was faring. 

Ugh.  It's not pretty.

Most of the tomatoes are yellow and limp, victims of the standing water in the garden.  I don't know whether I should yank them out and re-plant or wait to see what these will do when the ground dries.  One or two of the poor, sickly things even have small tomatoes on them.

The squash, okra, and purple-hull peas are up.  Two of the squash hills may need replanting.  It's odd to me that I planted all of the hills on the same day, with the same package of seeds, five seeds to a hill, and some of the hills have four to five plants in them, and some have none at all.  Maybe it's Mother Nature's way of telling me, "Dont plant everything at once, dingbat."  I had thought about transplanting from the crowded hills to the empty ones, but, on second thought, it might be interesting to plant new seeds and see whether they make a later crop or catch up with the old ones planted several weeks ago.

On the front row of the garden, we planted sunflowers (both giant and dwarf), zinnas, and marigolds.  Those seeds have sprouted well all the way down the row and should be very pretty this summer, if we can keep the grass out.

In the early garden, some of the broad beans are acting weird (the leaves are turning a funny color, and the tops look withered); others are fine, so far.  The sweet peas are beginning to bloom. 

Oh, and I found some larkspur seedlings yesterday!  There might have been more had I not given up on them and trampled that row.

I finally got around to setting out the pale, leggy stevia plant that spent a week in my car then a week on my kitchen counter.  My sister thinks we should use it to invent a sugar-free margarita.  I think any idea with the word "margarita" in it is worthy of investigation.  ;)

Rain and more rain

Boy, howdy, has it ever rained!

The rain started some time after I went to bed last night.  When I looked out of my kitchen window this morning, water was streaming across my patio.  A little while later, my brother-in-law stopped by and reported that the creek between our two houses was out of its banks and had swept away things in his yard, including a 4-wheeler.  (As I am uphill of the creek and had not been outside, I had not seen the flood.)  Before long, other family members were calling to warn us about flooded roads, and friends were sending pictures of flooded neighborhoods.  Tonight, the local news reported that we'd received about 10" of rain since yesterday, and that many homes in the area had been evacuated because of flooding.  There have been several flood-related deaths across the state.  More rain is predicted for tomorrow.  My heart goes out to those families who are grieving and displaced.  I pray that no more damage occurs.

About 5 p.m., during a break in the rain, I went to the early garden to pull up a few green onions and some parsley for a salad.  Since the early garden is on a hill, it was not terribly muddy, and nothing looked drowned.  I managed to get to the onions and parsley without losing my shoes in the mud.  The big garden, however, is on a flat spot, and I am worried that it is standing in water.  When I checked it a couple of days ago, the squash seeds were beginning to sprout.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that we will not lose them to the rain, as we did last year.

Weeding & Feeding

I'd planned on rest and relax on Sunday. 

But Sunday morning was gloriously beautiful, and when I stepped outside with my coffee, my thought was that I ought to plant the tomatoes I'd bought on Friday before I started relaxing.  I came inside to put on my shoes, collect my gardening gear, and mix up some fertilizer.  While doing this, I remembered other little jobs that needed doing, and so instead of walking across the road with a trowel and a pack of tomatoes as I'd envisioned over the coffee, I drove across the road on the lawnmower, pulling a wagon-load of tools and supplies. 

I planted the tomatoes, ran the tiller, fertilized, staked the sweet peas, mowed the grass around the garden.  As I was doing this, Nephew Bradley - the same Nephew Bradley who had enjoyed planting tomatoes two days ago - showed up on his bicycle.  He stopped at the fence.  "S'up, Bradley?" I asked him. 

He shrugged. 

"Sunday afternoon?"

"Yeah," he said.  He lingered on his bike, toeing the gravel with his shoe.  I just knew he was going to ask if I needed help, and I was already making a mental list of things for him to do.  "Well, I'll see you later," he said abruptly, and rode on down the driveway to Nanny's house.  Phooey. I kept working, thinking there was a chance I'd snag him on his way back.

A few minutes later, he rode past me again.  "Bye!" he called, without even stopping.

A little while later he was back at the fence, straddling his bike.  "I'm bored," he said when I looked up.

Hah!  I had him!  I stood up, shaded my eyes with my hand, and gave him a thoughtful look, as if I was trying to come up with a good idea for him.  "Well, do you want some work?" I asked, expecting him to jump at the chance.

"NO!" he said without hesitation. 

I laughed, thinking he was just teasing.  I looked down to adjust the velcro straps on my gardening gloves, planning to offer to "let" him run the tiller, but when I looked up again, he was GONE.  I looked down the road and saw him sailing down the hill on his bike, standing on the pedals as if he'd been pumping hell for leather to get away.  Hmph.  I went back to work. 

Nearly five hours later, I gave out, without even having finished everything I wanted to do. 

Squash and Peppers

I made a run to the greenhouse today for squash seeds.  I ended up buying all sorts of seeds - greens for this fall, giant pumpkins, and such - some of which may never get planted.  Pepper plants, a few herbs, and another pack of tomatoes - "Super Fantastic," or so they say - hitched a ride home with me.  I wanted to buy tomato cages, but the good ones were nearly $10 apiece, and I need about 50.  Do the math.  I could hire somebody to stand out there and hold them up for that.

The early garden needs plowing/weeding.  If I can get the little black tiller cranked, we may have a go at it this afternoon.   

First Tomato Planting

Nanny bought tomato plants yesterday, and per the almanac's recommendation, we set them - about 40 plants - in the ground today.  Nephew Bradley had the bad fortune of showing up just as we were preparing to dig the holes, and we drafted him on sight.  It turned out that, once we got the holes dug and starting the planting phase, Bradley liked the work. We may make a gardener of him, yet.

I prepared hills for squash, but when we dug through the seed supply, we couldn't find any yellow squash seeds, so I'll have to make a run to the seed store tomorrow. 

We sowed the first row of the garden in flower seeds - sunflowers (big and dwarf), zinnias, and marigolds. 

Nanny got out Pop-Pop's "bicycle-on-a-stick" planter and put down two rows of green pole beans.  Tomorrow, we're planting peas and okra.

I'm stiff as a poker, already.

Gardening for Real

I've already had a few turns around the garden this year, but the season officially opened today, for today I broke out the red straw gardening hat. 

The cabbages, broccoli, and brussels sprouts that I planted last month have just been sitting there, doing nothing.  I've been intending to fertilize them for days, but never had my supplies and tools handy.  Today, when I got home from work, I rode my bike to Pop-Pop's, both to air up the bike tires and to look in the shed for the fertilizer.  Going down the driveway, I noticed freshly-tilled soil in the big garden; Mr. Charles had been there today with his tractor, and it's ready for planting.  "Looks like I need to buy some tomatoes tomorrow," I said to Pop-Pop as I rode up to the shed, where he was working on a lawnmower. 

Nanny was there, too, handing him some tools.  "The almanac says to plant above-ground crops on - shoot, what day was that?"  She grabbed the almanac and handed it to me.  I didn't have my glasses and couldn't see the tiny print without laying the book on the floor and standing on a chair to read it.  Pop-Pop handed me his glasses, but they made me dizzy.  Nanny handed me hers; they worked fairly well when I held the book 3 inches from my nose.  "It says the 15th through the 17th," I told them.  "I'll get the plants and some seeds tomorrow, and we'll poke them in the ground the day after."

I aired up the bike tires, found the fertilizer, and pedaled back up the driveway to my house to find a bucket and some water.  I mixed up the fertilizer in the bucket and hauled it to the garden.  The ground around the plants was pretty hard, so I came back to the house for a hoe, my gloves, and my hat.  Now, it's gardening time.