Killer Horseflies - June 19, 2020

Last Friday night after supper, we walked down to Nanny's to take her a plate of enchilada casserole.  While The Husband took the plate in, I went out to check on the garden.  The tomatoes that I'd planted Wednesday were laying down, limp, on the ground.  I panicked and started stringing the water hoses together.  Nanny found a sprinkler that has been stored on her back porch since the last time I raised a garden.  The Husband came out and hooked it up, and we were in business.

While the sprinkler ran, The Husband and I chopped a little grass in the areas where the sprinkler wasn't reaching.

Then the horseflies found us.

At first, it seemed they were just doing a little aerial reconnaissance, but then they got serious and started zooming in close.  The Husband and I looked like we were doing jujitsu, trying to swat them away.  One even chased The Husband across the yard.  The thing about horseflies is that when they get through doing their reconnaissance and come in for the bite, they go into stealth mode.and sneak up on you.  Those bites will drive you mad with itching.

I went back to the garden on Saturday.  All but 3 of the tomatoes had straightened up and were looking better.  Three were stuck to the mud and were struggling.  I peeled them off the ground, loosened up the soil around them, and watered them with a bucket.  It rained yesterday, and is raining again this minute, so the tomatoes may now be drowning.

Night noises - June 19, 2020

I promised The Husband the evening off from gardening yesterday.  When I came home from work, I peeked at the garden to see if the prior day's fertilization had worked any miracles.  Not yet - nothing had doubled in size overnight - though the squash plant that I'd tipped over with the water hose had righted itself during the day.  There was a little grass coming up in one of the first rows we weeded last week, but I had a headache and did not want to fool with it.  I wanted to take a nap, instead.

I never nap.  A catnap just makes me grouchy, and a longer nap ruins my night.  But yesterday, a nap seemed like a good remedy for the headache.  I came home, puttered around for a few minutes, then stretched out on the couch with a blanket and The Three Musketeers.  I'd no sooner laid down and gotten comfy than the telephone rang.  It rang twice more - robo-calls - in the next hour.  It made me mad; my nap-time was dwindling away!  Finally, I dozed off, and woke up 30 minutes before The Husband was due home from work.

Earlier in the week, I'd picked up a bag of frozen Chinese chicken nuggets with orange sauce.  I popped them in the oven, cooked some rice, and called it dinner.  We had a lot of rice left over, so I stirred up a rice pudding and went out to the back porch to play Solitaire on my laptop while the pudding baked.

By the time the pudding finished baking, it was pitch dark outside.  I went back out to the porch to resume my Solitaire game.  After a few minutes, I heard a strange noise, an animal noise, coming from somewhere close by.  I sat up straight and listened, and heard it again, so I went inside to get the big flashlight.  On the way through the living room, I said to The Husband, "I just heard a reeeeeally strange noise out there."

When I came back with the flashlight, he was on his feet, interested.  He asked, "What did it sound like?"

I thought about it a minute, and said, "A pterodactyl."

He gave me The Look; this time, it said, "I'm pretty sure it's not a pterodactyl."

I said, "Well, you ASKED what it sounds like."

He followed me outside.  I shined the light through the screen, and moved the beam around the yard.  We couldn't see anything, but we heard the noise again.

I handed him the flashlight and said, "Go out there and see what it is."

He evidenced a bit of reluctance, but he took the light and walked out in the yard, and shined it all around, up in the trees and on the ground.  Didn't see anything.

We think it was a hawk.

Sorry I made you read all that.  :-)

Tomato Seeds and Fertilizing - June 18, 2020

After yesterday's post, I went back to work in the garden.  We've been working hard at weed control for the past couple of weeks.  I've been trying to pull the weeds up rather than just chopping them down.  Between the rows, there were piles of pulled-up grass.  I've been deliberately leaving those piles in place to see if they would form a mat to keep new grass from sprouting under them.

My mother had a friend, Evelyn, who grew awesome vegetable gardens.  I used to quiz her for garden tips.  Once I asked her how she managed to keep her garden so clean.  Of course, her answer was that she worked hard at it.  She said that her son would run the tiller between the rows until the middles got to narrow (as the plants grew), then they'd use a hoe.  I asked her if they just cut the weeds down or if they dug them up by the roots.  She said they dug them up.  I can still hear her saying, "...turn them roots up to the sun . . . ."

So that's what I've been doing, turning them up to the sun. 

It doesn't take long for the sun to dry them.  As the days have gone by, I've just added new grass to the original piles.  Of course, some of the stuff under the bottom wasn't entirely dead when I tossed new grass on top, and some of it managed to take hold and keep going.  But for the most part, leaving the pulled-up grass in the middles really did act like a kind of mulch.  I could see a difference in how much grass had sprouted BETWEEN those piles versus how much grass was UNDER them. 

However, yesterday's to-do list included fertilizing, and I planned to do it with liquid fertilizer and a sprayer.  I knew that if I left those grass piles in the garden, the not-dead-yet grass would revive and create monstrous clumps, so I raked all of the clumps out of the middles before I sprayed the fertilizer. 

For the first time ever, I hated to throw away dead grass.  We normally toss it over the hill into the field.  Yesterday, I piled it up beside the shed.  It needs to be spread out in the sun so it can finish drying.  I'm going to do that this afternoon, and when all of the grass is good and dry, I'm going to use it for mulch.

I remembered to plant the tomato seeds, but I did something dumb: I planted them too close to the cucumbers.  Those runners will have no problem reaching the spot where the seeds are.  If they don't shade the seedlings, they'll try to climb them.  It'll be interesting to see which of them - the tomatoes or the cucumbers - wins the fight.

Tomatoes Round 2 - June 17, 2020

I knew when I bought just 12 tomato plants that it wouldn't be enough.  They came from a local greenhouse, where the plants are usually their healthiest.  I was late buying plants, and they were all scrawny, like little bonsai tomato plants.  I got the two 6-packs that looked the best.  A dog broke one of the 12 the day I planted them, so I was down to 11.

They are doing okay.  I bought two different varieties, and one of them is out-performing the other like crazy. One is bushy and has scalloped fruit.  I think it's some "____ Boy" variety.  The other is
leggy with round fruit.  Maybe Celebrity.  I can already tell that these 11 plants aren't going to make enough for us to eat - I'm feeding more than one household - much less enough for me to can tomatoes.

So I went out in search of about a dozen more plants this morning.  It's slim pickin's out there, folks.  Slim pickin's.  The local greenhouse had ZERO tomato plants - none of any description.  I moved on down the road to Home Depot.  They still had tomatoes in big pots, but no 6-packs.  I wasn't about to pay $4.00 apiece for a dozen tomato plants.  I did buy a $4.00 cherry tomato plant, and a couple of pepper plants, and a zucchini, but I went on down the road in search of a 6-pack with 6 live plants in it.

I hit paydirt at a farm store in the next town up the highway.  They had some NICE Arkansas Travelers.  I got 18.  I set them in the shade in Nanny's yard, planning to go back to the garden later in the day, then came home and texted The Husband:  "You're going to be so happy when you see these 18 fine tomato plants I found today."  He texted back a happy dance gif.  He so loves gardening.  *snicker*

Since there are gardening plans in our evening, I figured it would be nice to have something quick and easy when we finish.  Been craving a BLT and had stopped at the store for the necessary ingredients.  I washed the lettuce and tomatoes and fried the bacon.  All we have to do when we come out of the garden is slap the sandwiches together.

Boy, I wish the tomato I bought at the store was a home-grown tomato.  I just finished eating my first tomato sandwich of the year, with one of the store-bought tomatoes.  It was mealy and tasteless and not worth the mayonnaise on the bread.  We're at least a week away from a ripe tomato, if a turtle doesn't get to it before we do.

After prepping the supper, I went back to the garden and planted the 18 tomatoes and the rest of the plants.  Six of them went in the skips in the beans and the okra.  The other 12 are in the sunniest part of the row where the peas didn't come up.  I plowed up the row yesterday, so the digging wasn't hard.  The Husband is going to be so happy again, until he finds out that I also bought a fence post driver (those new 18 tomatoes will have to be staked).

I also bought a package of tomato seeds today.  There's some room at the end of the new tomato row.  I'll plant them this evening, if I can remember.  Let's see how long it takes to get sliced tomatoes from seeds.

Maintenance - June 15, 2020

I went straight to the garden after work today.  Didn't even stop by the house to pee.  I intended to just look at things and see what needed to be done tomorrow.  But when I checked on the purple hull peas, I saw ants parading up and down the stems.  You know what that means:  aphids.  They secrete something that is reportedly like crack to ants.  So I loaded up the sprayer and doused the peas, and gave the tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers a shot for good measure. 

After that, I pulled grass out of the green bean rows.  I have given up on trying to chop the grass out with a hoe.  The bean plants are a hoe width apart, but they lean over so that the root is here (.) and the bushy part is here ( --------------->), and I end up chopping down about every 10th bean plant.  Pulling the grass works better. 

I can't squat to pull the grass; my knees don't want to do it, and if I do manage to get in a squatting position, I need a crane to lift me up.  Twenty years ago, I ruptured a disc - one that's right in the middle of my back - and the neurosurgeons wouldn't work on it.  Oddly, from the minute the disc ruptured, I have been able to bend from the waist without much pain, and so that's how I pull the grass - bent double like a hairpin, moving move sideways, backwards, and forwards without raising up.  This evening, I spent about two hours in this position, and when I DID finally stand up straight, I felt drunker than Cooter Brown for a minute.  And my back went, "WTF?"

By this time, The Husband had walked down to the garden and was chopping grass from the middles.  I said, "Let's give it up."  We put away the sprayer and the hoe and came home.  I went straight to the shower.  The sports bra I was wearing was so wet I didn't even want to pull it over my head, so I just wore it into the shower, soaped it up, rinsed it, and then peeled it off.  Same deal with my shoes.  They are upside-down in my bathroom sink, draining as we speak.  (Don't panic; they are washable.)

The Husband, bless his heart, had done a drive-by at Popeye's on his way home from work, so we didn't even have to cook tonight. 

If I can get up out of this chair and make it to the bed, I'm going to read a page or two of my book.  I'm reading The Three Musketeers.  It came as part of a "50 books everyone should read before they die" collection.  Books like Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, probably For Whom the Bell Tolls.  I know there's a Sinclair Lewis in there - The Jungle? - and probably Tolstoy.  I started with Musketeers partly because there currently happens to be a Musketeers series showing on PBS.  I know I must have read this book growing up, mostly likely in grammar school, but it was probably an abridged version, or an "age-appropriate" version.  I'm enjoying these characters more as a grown-up.  As part of an armchair puzzle quest I did a few years ago, I studied the time period in which the story is set, and am familiar with the real-life characters of Richelieu and Louis. 

That d'Artagnen is the MAN, ain't he?  ;)  I'm halfway through the book, and he has not yet failed to out-wit or best every challenger. 

Poisoning the earth - June 3, 2020

For today, I feel a little better about the garden situation.

Yesterday, I dropped off the tiller tire to be fixed, and picked it up this morning.  They put a tube inside the tire, so maybe it won't go flat so much anymore.  The Husband put it back on the tiller this evening after supper, and I took a spin down one row and up another.  It worked just fine.

The farm supply store is right next to the tire repair store, and before I picked up the tire, I went in the farm supply store and bought POISON.  Yes, poison.  Hated to do it, but experience has taught me that I simply cannot grow vegetables without fungicide and insecticide unless I want to sit in the garden 24/7 with a bucket of soapy water.  I do try to find the least viscious products out there, things that don't linger for weeks.  In addition to the garden poison, I bought ant poison.  After 35 years of living in this house, we suddenly have an ant problem.  Big old black things that seem to have a sweet tooth.  I don't mind poisoning their asses.

At the farm store, I also bought myself a bodacious sprayer.  Blue metal thing, with a beefy hose and a metal sprayer attachment.   No more of the cheap plastic stuff.  I'm tired of non-working equipment!
While The Husband put the tire on the tiller, I sprayed the tomatoes - just dosed up that new sprayer with a combination of fungicide and insecticide and went after the tomatoes.   The garden plot harbors every kind of blight known to man, and keeping it at bay is a constant battle.  And, of course, we have squash bugs and tomato worms, and last year we saw Japanese beetles for the first time.  We put cages around the tomato plants tonight, and removed any leaves that were touching the ground, then I gave them a good soaking with the sprayer.  The fungicide directions said to re-spray every two weeks.   Remind me if I forget.  ;)

Overall, the garden is looking pretty good.   The peas still need to be re-planted.  Hopefully, I can do that tomorrow.  Cucumbers and squash are looking good.  The okra is still kind of puny, but I thinned it and have faith that it'll beef up once the weather warms up.  I need more tomato plants - only planted 12, and something broke one.  I'd like to have enough tomatoes to can, and 11 plants probably won't make enough.  But there's not much room left in the garden.  I may have to get inventive and plant tomatoes in the skips in the bean rows.

As I sit here on the back porch writing this (9 p.m.), I hear a critter lumbering around outside the porch.  It's probably that nasty, scruffy raccoon that fought the cat for its food, the one that knows no fear.  Or it could be the mama coon we saw last weekend, coming down a tree with two babies waddling behind her. 

Let me get the flashlight and the bb gun.

More gardening - June 1, 2020

Damn it!

I have the hardest time accomplishing anything I set out to do.  :(

I went straight to the garden this afternoon after work with a mental list of things I needed to do:  (1) re-plant the pea rows that did not sprout for some mysterious reason; (2) re-plant the cucumbers that didn't come up; and (3) fertilize all the plants.

The soil in the pea rows was crusted over, hard as a brick.  I pulled the tiller out of the shed, cranked it, and started toward the garden with it when I realized the right tire was flat.  No problem; there's an air compressor in the big shop.  As I wrestled the tiller around to the front of the shop, the tire kept  trying to come off the rim.  Finally got it there with the tire still on the rim.  I turned the compressor on to let it build pressure while I hooked up the hose.  The business end of the hose did not have a fitting for tires on it.  I found all sorts of fittings, but none that would fit the tire nozzle.  The Husband was due home any minute, so I decided to wait and ask him to air up the tire.  Meanwhile, I would start fertilizing the plants.

I had one of those Miracle Gro sprayers in the garden shed, and found a bag of powder to go in it.  Now I just needed to hook it up to enough water hoses to reach the garden.  Nanny had a pile of water hoses.  One looked brand new, but two others had seen better days.  I twisted them together - it's about 150 feet from the water faucet to the garden - and had more than enough hose to reach the garden.  When I turned on the water, a geyser erupted from the center water hose, stealing so much water pressure that my sprayer wouldn't work.  I thought I'd still have enough hose if I took out the center hose and reconnected the first and last hoses, but I could not get the center hose unscrewed from the last hose.

I dropped everything and went to the Dollar General and bought three new 75-foot hoses (two for the garden, and one to replace the hose that The Husband busted two weeks ago when he forgot to turn off the water).  Attached the two new hoses, attached the Miracle Gro sprayer, and turned on the water.  Guess what?  The sprayer didn't want to work properly.  The water more or less poured out of it instead of spraying.  *sigh*  I think I managed to pour enough fertilizer water on all the plants to do them some good.  Hopefully.

Meanwhile, The Husband came down to the shop with a proper fitting for the air tank.  He worked and worked, but could not get the tire to seal to the rim.  While he worked, I gathered up all of the dead water hoses and stuffed them in Nanny's garbage can.  She said, "The garbage man is going to hate me."  I said, "I do not care."

I attempted to roll the new hoses onto a hose cart I'd bought for the garden a couple of years ago.  Unfortunately, someone had previously CUT an old hose off the cart, leaving part of the fitting from the old hose on the nozzle where you screw the hose onto the cart so it can get water.  I could not get that old fitting off, even with channel-lock pliers and WD-40.  I finally managed to get the new hoses rolled onto the cart, but they can't be connected to the water supply on the cart until I can get that fitting off - which probably will never happen - I'll have to get a new cart.

We finally tossed the tiller tire into the back of my car.  I will take it to the service station tomorrow to have it properly aired up.