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.  ;)

Kale

Last year, we set several prefab raised bed frames in the back yard.  The Grandchildren and I planted lettuce, beets, spinach, and kale in one of them.  I planted flowers in one, and vegetables in another.  We had a long wet spell that drowned  most everything, followed by a long dry spell that withered up everything else that the critters didn't eat, except for one scraggly kale plant.

That kale plant grew and was just beginning to look nice when a worm found it, and ate it right down to its skeleton.  I left it where it sat, and it leafed out again, weathered the winter, and now look at it.  It is magnificent, and far too awesome to eat (that's it at the far end). 

The front end of the bed is planted with onions and garlic.  Every one of them came out of my Blue Apron box.  We get lots of onions and garlic in the box.  I plant the root ends of the scallions as I cut them off, and if the garlic sprouts, into the bed it goes.  I haven't bought green onions in months. 
 

Good Friday 2017

It's all The Husband's fault (isn't it always?).

I was sitting on the back porch yesterday morning, playing Solitaire, drinking coffee, minding my own business, when The Husband said, "The wind isn't blowing much today.  I think I'll burn that pile of sticks."

Well.

That pile of sticks had been laying in the outskirts of the yard for TWO YEARS.  During that time, it had transformed itself from a loose, head-high mountain to a compact, knee-high heap.  It needed to go.  The Husband struck a match, and within minutes the flames were so high and hot that he had to stand back 15 feet to keep from getting roasted, himself.

Between him and me, there was an un-sprung mole trap that had been sitting, locked and loaded and idle, for a week.  When I noticed it, I decided to move it to another of the hundreds of mole tunnels that are disfiguring our yard.  As I was hunting for a better spot, I noticed all kinds of things that needed doing.  There were saplings springing up in flower beds, dead limbs that needed to be removed from the Sweet Betsy bush, and a concrete planter on a concrete pedestal that had settled into soft ground (probably the mole's doing) and needed moving.

The Husband gave me The Look when I said we ought to move the planter, but he helped me load it into a wheel barrow, one heavy piece at a time, and move it to a different spot in the yard.  Naturally, in its new location, the planter begged for flowers.  I took The Husband's truck to the garden center and came home with potting soil, flowers, herbs, seeds, blueberry bushes, and two 6-packs of tomato plants.

In retrospect - and I was retrospecting about this even as I drove home - the tomato plants were a mistake.

You see, I had not yet readied a garden spot for the tomato plants and, more importantly, we were  planning to be gone from home for a week, starting in two days; if I did not get those tomato plants in the ground before the trip, they would die of thirst in their little plastic cartons before we came back home.  Seven dollars and 99 cents' worth of plants, just gone.  Unconscionable. 

So after I planted the flowers and the herbs and the seeds and the blueberry bushes, and after The Husband and I had finished eating our fried bologna sandwiches and were resting on the back porch, I said to The Husband, "I think I'll go plow up a row in the garden for these tomato plants."

Talk about getting The Look.  While I had been puttering around the yard with shovels and loppers, he had been push-mowing the yard, and he was tired and well smoked from the fire, and was probably thinking about a shower and a lazy afternoon in front of a television. 

I said, "I saw that Look.  You don't have to help.  I've got it."  And I meant it.  For real.

I went inside, got my hat and some fresh gloves, topped off my water glass, grabbed my Jeep keys, and drove down to the garden (I knew I'd never make it back up Nanny's driveway on foot once I got through with the plowing). 

I LOVE TO RUN THAT PLOW.  For real.  I love the smell of the dirt.  I love watching those weeds being yanked from the ground.  I love pulverized soil!

I dragged the tiller out of the shed.  IT CRANKED ON THE VERY FIRST PULL. 

I thought, "This was meant to be." 

I put 'er in gear and headed for the garden, and as I tilled, the voices of my fathers spoke to me. 

It was Good Friday, and as the tiller tines bit into the dirt, I heard my Daddy say, "Thangs planted on Good Friday s'posed to come up in three days."  I fought that tiller down the row, and as I turned it around for the second pass and saw how my work was more serpentine than straight, I heard my father-in-law say, "You'c'n plant more on a crooked row."  HAH!  Those two....  :)

Anyway....

As I was coming back up the row, fighting that tiller, trying to straighten out the curves, I looked up and saw The Husband and The Grown Nephew standing at the end of the row, their arms folded across their chests, just watching.  When I got closer, The Grown Nephew had the audacity to comment (with a snaking hand sign, mind you) on the crookedness of my row.  I gave him two hand signs of my own, one of which invited him to take over the tilling.  He shook his head and waved me off, shouting he'd probably do worse. 

The Husband continued to give me The Look.

Then Nanny drove up.  She'd taken The Grown Nephew's little daughter shopping for an Easter dress.  They went inside, changed clothes, and came out to the garden.

You should have seen how fast both The Husband and The Nephew offered to take over the tilling when Nanny came out.

But thank goodness she did come out, for as I was fighting the tiller toward her, Nanny noticed that one of the tiller tires was flat.  The Husband and The Nephew sprang into action, and within minutes, I was back at work. 

It is amazing how much easier it is to steer a tiller when both of the tires are the same.  :)

I ended up tilling the whole garden - seven rows, with ample space for a riding lawnmower to go down the un-tilled middles.  My subsequent rows were straighter, thanks to the un-flat tire and my late father-in-law's whisper, "Pick you out something at the far end of the row and aim the tiller at it and your rows'll be straight."  Good advice, Pop-Pop, good advice.

The next time The Husband offered to take over the tilling, I said, "I'd rather you'd go buy me 10 bags of cow poop."  And HE DID IT.

I was working on the last row when he returned with the composted manure.  He and Nanny opened the bags and sprinkled the poo in the first few rows while I drank some water and cooled off.  Then he took on the job of running the tiller over those rows to work the manure into the soil while I rested and finished my water on the tailgate of his truck. 

All of my joints locked up in the five minutes I sat on the tailgate.  When I slid off the tailgate to plant the #)@&! tomatoes, it felt like my leg bones racked into my shoulder blades.  After planting that last #!(#% tomato, I thought I was probably going to have to sleep in the garden, as I could not get up.

Lord, have mercy on me!

And on The Husband, too!

Late June Gardening

After work yesterday I stopped by the garden to check on the tomatoes, squash, peppers, and beans that I planted a couple of weeks ago.  Nanny - bless her! - had chopped out the rows, and they were clean for 6" on both sides of the plants, but the middles (which I'd made wide enough for a pushmower ) were calf-high with grass.  I dragged out the mower and mowed the middles for the first time.  My plowing and planting and Nanny's chopping had left ridges of dirt on both sides of the rows that hindered my progress like speed bumps in a parking lot.  The mower blades raised up a veritable dust storm around me as they sheared off the humps.  Thank goodness for the nice breeze that blew the dust away enough for me to see what I was doing.

In my last post, I think I mentioned the furrow attachment I'd put on the big tiller on planting day.  When I used it for the first time, I didn't know whether to plant in the furrow or in the dirt that piled up along the trench.  Ultimately, I raked most of the dirt back into the trenches and planted in the furrow.  Now that the dirt has settled a bit, the rows are slightly sunken, but the dirt is still loose enough to pull up the grass and morning glories by the roots.

After I mowed, I watered the rows with the garden hose, aiming the stream directly into the trenches, avoiding the middles.  The water soaked right into the soil instead of running off  the way it used to do.  And, look here, BONUS: the mown-grass middles acted as sidewalks, and I didn't mar up ankle deep in mud as happens when I use the tiller to weed the middles.  This "mown middles" thing may actually work if we can keep the grass out of the rows.

In a couple of weeks, I am going to plant some green beans, and maybe a few more tomatoes.

The raised beds in the back yard . . . . . . .  Although the dirt with which we filled them was labeled "garden soil," it seems to be about half mulch, and it dries up an hour after it's watered, and it seems to contain no nutrients at all.  Even the zinnias and cosmos I planted in one of the beds are spindly and pale, and they'll just about grow on asphalt!  Last week, whatever bug/worm that eats cruciferous vegetables hatched out and have eaten my kale and brussels sprouts down to their spines.  I am going to leave them there and see if they put out again once the bugs go away.  Meanwhile, I've scattered more zinnia seeds and some basil seeds between the plant skeletons, to see if I can raise SOMETHING in those beds.  Very late in the summer, I'll try planting greens again.

June 2016 - Checking In

I said I wasn't going to plant a garden this year, as my efforts in the previous few years were miserable failures.  But you know how it goes: the spring bulbs bloom, you get that first whiff of spring in your nose, and the dirt starts callin' your name.  At least, it calls mine.

Anyway....

A couple of months ago, I set some raised beds just outside the porch in the only sunny spot in my yard and the grandchildren and I planted salad fixings in them.  I think I told you about that.  And I think I told you about the critter that ate it all up.

The critter eventually left the veggies alone.  He probably found better wild things to eat once the weather warmed up.  The salads regenerated a little, but they were all stunted, and they all bolted. The spinach looks like little tufted green matchsticks.  We did get to eat a little kale.  I also tried slicing up the brussels sprouts leaves and sauteing them along with the kale, but, though they were small, they were old and tough, and it was like eating rubber bands.

The one success is the green onions.  I have been planting the root ends of store-bought green onions, and I'm danged if they haven't grown.  I also planted the root end of celery, and it came up and grew nicely until the critter came back and dug it up, the sh*thead.  In any case, I haven't bought green onions in AGES, because every time I pull one up to use it, I put that root end back in the ground, and it grows again.  It's magic, I tell you.

Anyway....  So I wasn't going to plant a real garden this year.  I had too much else to do.  The grandchildren had ballgames almost every evening from March until early June, and I wanted to watch them play instead of working a garden.  I braved-up and rented a tiny corner in an antique mall where I plan to try to sell some of the junk I craft, and when I wasn't at the ball field I was busy manufacturing some inventory for the booth.  And to top it all off, it rained at my house every time the soil *almost* got dry enough to plant.  

But at one of the girls' final games, Uncle Jack (who was there to see his own granddaughters play) told me about the garden he'd just planted and shamed me into thinking about planting one.  I pondered it for a while before I bought any plants or seeds, but I eventually gave in and set out 6 tomato plants, four or five squash, some peppers, three rows of purple hull peas, and two rows of butterbeans.  If I weren't so tired tonight, I'd tell you about planting day, and the furrow attachment I bought for the big black tiller, and how it doesn't work so well if you put it on backwards....  Or I'd tell you about the wide middles, and how I intend to MOW them instead of weed them.  Maybe we'll save that discussion for when I've seen how that's going to work.

Today has been crazy.  It's gone from extremely pissy to absolutely marvelous.  At least it ended on a wondrous note.  I have a couple of days off from work, and I planned to spend them embroidering things to sell in my booth - pillows and towels and such.  I started early with a firm plan, a do-able list.  First up was a set of pillow cases on which I intended to embroider a design I downloaded off the internet.  My sewing machine ate up the first pillow case.  I thought it was the fault of the design, so I loaded up one of my own designs which I'd sewn before and KNEW would sew well, and ate up three pillow covers before I finally realized the sewing machine, itself, was the culprit.  It had been acting funny for some time, but I'd been limping along with it.  The last thing I wanted today, of all days, was to put the machine in the repair shop, but it had to happen.  I stopped what I was doing, showered, loaded up the sewing machine, and set out for the repair shop, which is about 35 miles away.

Halfway there, I went through a drive-in window to get a biscuit, and my Jeep over-heated while I waited in line.  Once it got moving again, the temp went back to normal, but I began to think about my usual route, which is riddled with stop lights, and decided that I should perhaps take the longer highway route so my Jeep wouldn't overheat again.  I'd never driven that route, but, hey, I had my cell phone lady to direct me, She took me down a two-lane highway that must've threadedplumb into Mississippi, a road with which I was unfamiliar.  (I flat ran one 4-way stop sign, and got some interesting sign language from some of the other drivers.)  It ended up being a 50-mile trip instead of a 35 mile trip.

I spent the drive time thinking about my sewing machine - probably that's why I didn't see the stop sign.  The last time I had it serviced, it didn't get fixed all the way.  The feed dogs are simply worn out, and a replacement part would have cost $800, not counting labor, to fix them.  The technician showed me a way to kind of "jimmy" them, but I feared I had jimmied them to their limit. I decided I was not going to spend more than $250 on that poor worn-out machine this go-round.

Did I mention the repair shop also SELLS machines?

I left the old machine to be fixed, but came home with a brand new kickass machine.  I could not WAIT to get home and put it to work.

As soon as I got home and set up the machine, Nanny called and asked if I was going to the program.

What program????

Vacation Bible School.  All three of the granddaughters were going to be in it.  Tonight.  At 6:30, but the girls had to be home by 4:30 to change clothes.  And Nanny was supposed to man the cookie/Kool-Aid tables.  She was sure she had told me.  (She had NOT told me, but who would expect her to be in her right mind after having had a house full of little kids for over 24 hours.)

She didn't ask for my help, but I knew she needed it, so I turned off the machine and went to help her herd children to Vacation Bible School.

Bless her heart.

A storm blew in about the time VBS was over with and we were taking the kids back to their parents. Nasty-looking clouds, lightning streaking across the sky, but there was a shaft of bright sun shining beneath the clouds, and, behold, a double rainbow appeared in the sky.  It was awesome.

I came home and fired up the machine just a little bit.
This.
Thing.
Is.
Bad.
Ass.

From the back porch

I should beg your pardon for the vulgar language in my previous post. 

You see, I had come in from a long day of working in the yard, had showered and changed clothes, and had about 30 minutes to kill until time to meet some relatives for dinner, so I sat down to chronicle that day’s accomplishments and write out my “to do” list for the next day.  I’d finished a long post – my usual whiny bull – and somewhere between the finish and the upload, I lost the whole thing.  (Query:  How does one manage to LOSE things in this golden age of computers?) 

Anyway, the thought of re-writing all that garbage was more than I could bear.  So I condensed it down to a few essential thoughts.  Hence, the crude language. 

I apologize.

Like you give a sh*t.  ;)

I didn’t plan much yard activity for this past weekend.  The Husband has a sinus infection, and you know how men are when they’re sick.  :-\   So I thought we’d just take it easy, sit around, and maybe think up things to do NEXT weekend.  We even ran the grandchildren off, thinking he’d feel too badly to fool with them.  However, he went to the doctor on Friday afternoon and got a prescription for antibiotics and a steroid, and after that second dose on Saturday morning, he suddenly turned into Norm Abrams.  Caught him wearing a toolbelt, and everything.  We installed some vinyl on the boards that go around the top of the back porch (that thing has a name, but I don’t know what it is).  He worked on the lawnmower, got it running, mowed Nanny’s yard.  Gloria and I tilled up a trench along the length of the driveway and the front sidewalk, and I planted daffodils in it.  Did some raking.  Washed off the front porch. 

Too bad he runs out of steroids before next weekend.  ;)

We are battling a critter.  It’s eating my lettuce and broccoli plants.  Past tense.  Has already eaten.  The Husband came home from Nanny’s with a live trap, and set it beside the bed that used to have lettuce in it.  Baited it with fresh sliced squash.  Apparently, the critter doesn’t like fresh sliced squash, or maybe he just remembers that he’s already eaten everything over there.  In any case, the trap has not been sprung.  We’ve discussed what we are going to do if the critter turns out to be a skunk; there seems to be no easy way out of that predicament.  A bunny, a raccoon, or a ‘possum, we might relocate, or maybe even try to critter-proof the bed.  But if it’s an armadillo (as we suspect), it’s toast.  See ya.

Wasps are invading my back porch sanctuary.  We kill several out here every day.  Have I told you that I am terrified of wasps?  Ten minutes ago, I nearly broke my ankle trying to get away from one that kept coming close to my chair and had to be dispatched.  I tried to whack him with the flyswatter, but missed, and he went on the offensive and came at me.  I got away unscathed, except for knocking my ankle on the rocker, and then I tuned him up with some wasp spray.  Now I see another one flying above the rafters.  If he lands anywhere within a 27-foot radius (according to this can), I’ve got a little something for him.