stubbed toes and mud pies

[flowerbug]

garlic is lifted.

it is very humid today and i'm sure not putting back on long pants for when i go back outside. four rows to plant about 25ft long each row. mostly busted up the ground for one or two rows already - plus the garlic patch is also busted up so those will go easy on me (whew! ). am going to leave plenty of room between each row for weeding as i'm sure i'll be needing to get after more grasses in there eventually. i tried to follow all the quack grass roots but i doubt i got it all.

 

[flowerbug]

half way planted.

just went out to close the back door of the garage and there was a big snake in there. biggest snake i've seen in a long time. it's either an Eastern Milk Snake or an Eastern Fox Snake. i'll need to get another look at it to be sure.

Mom happened to stack some stepping stones that she was repairing on some pieces of wood so there's room under them and it's warm in the garage so it had an easy place to crawl to and i'm not sure it will leave, but i left the back door of the garage open and perhaps it will leave before too long. i'd hate to close the door and keep it in, but i also don't want to leave the door open all night. we have raccoons, mice, etc. and i don't want them to be rummaging around in there at night.

 

[flowerbug]

last bean garden planted. finally! there's still a chunk at the end i need to weed but i won't plant that since it will be late and i really need to get a bunch of other gardens gone through before i get back to mid-summer chores and projects.

as i was planting the first row it started to rain a little and i thought it would be ok to work in a light rain without any lightning or thunder but it faded out for a while. i got the second row ready and was just starting to plant it when the sprinkles started up for just a moment again. funny how coincidences can make you think that nature is trying to tell you something.

after the rows were planted i gave the whole garden a good watering in again and then i watered the part i'd planted last week and then i went inside the fenced gardens and watered all of them and got to see all the weeds i've ignored for the past six weeks.

also saw the peas that were ready to pick and so i came back in after watering and got the containers for picking got those done and brought in and now i can say i'm done for the day.

it was really humid out there and i was ready to call it done enough, i got outside early for a change today and a few hours of gardening is plenty of exercise. no mosquitoes, but as the sun was coming out the horseflies were beginning to buzz around.

 

[flowerbug]

weeding the onion garden is finished, so in to rest and get a drink of water and then out to cleaning up some of the grass/weed clumps i have sitting at the end of a bean garden. after that is weeding part or all of a bean garden inside the fence.

nice day today, sun is out so that is warm, but there is a breeze and it isn't so sticky and humid as it has been. a high of 76F is in the sweet spot. nothing above 84F in the forecast for the next six days. i can get a lot of weeding done in the mornings when it is like this.

 

[flowerbug]

sidetracked somewhat so the last task did not even get started, but at least now there is one less adult groundhog resident. heavy and big. buried now. i wasn't leaving that one out for the kitties.

i think this is the one i've been after for quite a long time and it was unlucky enough to come across the pathway when i was looking out the patio doors and so i got up and got the gun and then was able to hunt it down when it was trying to get away. it did not know where the exit was that it usually has under the fence behind the weed pile because this morning i'd piled three large buckets of purslane and other weeds over it and in the excitement it did not stop and dig through or it might have gotten away. the fence i do have up at least works well enough that it does help me control some of the creatures that want to eat my gardens because without these fences i'd be wide open to deer, rabbits, etc. continual raiding pretty much every day and night.

all the work i did in removing those pallets and places for groundhogs and rabbits to hide means if i see them out back i have a pretty good chance of hunting them.

i hope this is the last of them i have to cope with this season, but i won't count it done until the winter is upon us. <-- winter, that's a thought for July 18th...

 

[flowerbug]

i finished weeding most of the upper part of the north garden and then started on the edges and cleaning up some of the debris left over from daffodils. i generally would like to leave them be to decay and become worm food but Mom thinks it looks so untidy, so...

while working along the edge where the Creeping Jenny is at i decided i do not like how it grows in combination with the Creeping Thyme - which means i have to figure out some other companion planting. i have a higher growing thyme along the other edge that i can begin to transplant parts of and that may work but i'm not sure how well it will do in a low spot. if it doesn't like getting wet from time to time i'd have to reshape that low spot to drain better. that was the whole idea with the Creeping Jenny was that it was supposed to be tolerant of low spots. what it really does instead is head for the higher ground... not going to be fun to weed it out, but i have the technology (a large knife and time will do it).

there is one lone plant of comfrey growing, i'm sure if i try to leave it there Mom will hack it down and try to kill it (again for the nth time), but it being a lone plant means she may finally succeed. i don't really have an easy and secure place to transplant it to try to keep it going and away from Mom.

 

[flowerbug]

one tomato worm this morning. it can sometimes take a bit after finding the fresh poos on the ground to figuring out where the worm is hiding...

i'm sure if i were awake enough i could make that pithy.

mowing day. busy. things are ok.

 

[flowerbug]

weeding and cleaning up various gardens and decorative areas to get them more presentable. no way will i get it all done before tomorrow, but at least it is a big improvement over what it looked like last week or the week before.

the onion patch was a disaster that needed cleaning up so now all those old seedheads and stalks are buried. the ground is very compact in there. green onions were left mostly alone other than me removing the seed heads that were getting towards the edge or even hanging over the pathway. a lot of seeds scattered around anyways, they will start the next crop. even though i had gone through and harvested what onions i could see there were still half a box of smaller and a few larger ones that were hidden under weeds so those were all removed and will get eaten or used up eventually or maybe a few will be kept to replant for next year. somehow a random onion patch appeals to me but Mom is not at all on board with such chaos and looks... so we'll see, every year is a new adventure... i eat a lot of small onions as i'm weeding. especially those i accidentallly nick with the weeding knife. a bit of dirt is just more minerals that a growing body needs. my growing body of evidence says it needs a few less pie-hole migration efforts and a border fence must be installed on my clap-trapper...

the strawberry patch hasn't been weeded much at all other than a few feeble attempts way back in the early spring. so i really needed to get it done before all those newly grown oxalis plants popped open those seed capsules all over the place, plus we had four foot nettle plants and some goldenrod that i tried to stomp down but it just grew taller in a U shape and i'm sure i did not get the roots... the whole patch still needs to be renovated. not enough of me this year to get it all done. thank goodness Mom has been able to help. she will water for me this morning. gotta keep the tomatoes, peppers, beans and onions happy.

a lot of chances of rain this coming week so i hope some of those come through amid a lot of 90F (or nearly so) weather.

more weeding this morning. six buckets a day is a huge amount of weeds to be wasting on the weed pile but that is the price i pay for not getting the gardens scraped as i normally would. it takes more time for sure. getting sick and a lot of rains combined to really upset my routine this year. i need to get back to it asap as i have those two big last two gardens that are starting to get weedy already. quick up and down the rows and leave the weeds to fry in the sun. should really do this today. how am i going to find that much time? hopefully i can do it soon. sun is up and out. so better get to it before it gets too hot.

have a good day all!

 

[flowerbug]

a neighbor was out mowing the south field today. thistle seeds blowing all over the place on the wind. i went over to say hi for a few minutes and expressed my dismay at seeing those things flying into our back gardens, i hope the cedar trees blocked them, but i kinda doubt it... of course they could have mowed the field a few times already this season to prevent the thistles from getting seeds on them at all... nope... *sigh*

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

flowerbug I totally get what you experienced with neighbors spreading weed seeds, as if we don’t have enough to do. Geez. Same issue here as they leave toxic tansey in their fields. I went next door yesterday and chopped as many as I could down in flower stage. Bagged and left them in place. I have even seen tansey ragwort toxic flowers entered in yearly fair flower shows. They should be rejected by flower show entry reps and a flier to go with the entry why. The state in fair booklet states no tansey flowers allowed in florals. There are many control options available online.. it’s aggravating that neighbors put our animals in harms way.