Fall?

Here is a picture of the purple cardinal flower that is in bloom in my yard. I bought this plant this past Spring. I also got a red one but it was much younger and did not bloom.

On Wednesday of this week it was up to 90 degrees. We had to turn on the AC again before that. A cold front is supposed to come through today and we're supposed to have a beautiful Fall weekend. Unfortunately the rain associated with the front, so far has not made it out of Pennsylvania. We haven't had any measurable rain in several weeks and my grass is brown again. I'm scared to look in the garden, there's probably something I should have watered.

Notes for September 22, 2007

I picked the beans finally although I am still not feeling back to 100 percent. I am still coughing which is making me hoarse. I really should have picked the beans about 2 weeks ago. I pulled out the green bean plants and cleaned off the beans and put the plants in the compost pile. I also picked some Lima beans. They were an experiment (about a 6 foot long row). I haven't been watering as much as I should the last few weeks and it has been dry so with the amount of Lima beans I picked looks to be about two servings.

I am still picking tomatoes and I think I picked my last cucumber. I even saw a pepper to be picked. I will pick again tomorrow.

It looks like I lost the beets and most of the spinach I planted most recently, I didn't water as much as I should have. However, the radishes look fine. The carrots are still coming along and every time I walk by them I thin them a little more. I thinned them pretty good today and probably won't have to thin them any more.

Notes for September 13, 2007

I did empty 0.3 inches from the rain gage yesterday and my sunflowers are in bloom. I haven't done much recently, I've caught a summer cold that started out with a fever of 101 over the past weekend.

Notes for September 2, 2007

Yesterday was a fairly productive day. Since I cut the grass on Thursday, I had the required chores out of the way.

The first thing I did was to move both of my compost piles. The one was too close to the veggie patch and was getting in the way of picking cucumbers. I moved this one one block length further away. The other I moved from behind the shed to the backside of the first one. Now I still need more cinder blocks for it. I use cinder blocks for holding my compost piles.

After moving the piles, I got out a new toy. My neighbor gave me a used string trimmer a couple of weeks ago and I made my rounds around the whole yard (1st time completely). I'm still learning how to work it.

After trimming the yard, I finally was able to put the concrete edging in the ground that I had sitting in place for about two months. Now I can prepare the soil inside for another perennial bed. I still have enough edging for another bed and I had to start it yesterday but the big boss had other things on her honey-do list. I then cleaned up the grill and cleaned off the back patio for possible picnic/barbecue on Monday.

While picking tomatoes and cucumbers yesterday, I found two tomato hornworms. One was covered in egg sacks, so I left him alone and the other I pulled off and buried him under some mulch before stepping on him. I also picked green beans and will pick more next week. Next week I will pull the plants and plant some more radish and spinach.

I also thinned the radishes that are coming and did some pre-thinning on the spinach and beets that are coming up. The carrots that I planted are now coming up too.