Notes for December 5, 2008

I still need to clean up the dead tomato and pepper plant stalks (they are still tied to the stakes). I need to pull out the dead annuals (marigolds and cosmos) and trim the other perennials. I need to move the flower pots of browned mums off of the front porch. I finished clearing my leaves for the moment (until the wind blows more over the fences or from across the street). I still haven't drained my garden hoses and we have had some freezing weather, so I may end up buying new hoses next spring. I would like to get some grass seed now and if I got a chance I would throw some in the bare spots. There is this one area that I would like to dig up and then plant grass to see if that will work in that area.

I picked the last of my radishes two weeks ago and I picked my carrots on Thanksgiving morning for the snack tray later that day and they were good. I had two different types of carrots (one was a short variety and the other was a normal or long variety, and the long variety seemed to do better. I am definitely going to try to plant them earlier next year. I will probably again wait to pick them on Thanksgiving morning and probably make that my tradition. The idea of fresh garden veggies on Thanksgiving is so awesome. I also noticed that where I thinned more heavily, the carrots did better. I have nothing else growing now. I've already started to get seed catalogs and glanced through one while in the reading room. I was thinking of trying celery next year until I checked up on celery and it takes alot of care and takes very long, so I think that's out. I do like to try to grow something new every year. I usually take an inventory of my seeds in early January.

I am busy filling my birdfeeders every two weeks (sunflower in one and thistle in the other). The weather has gotten cool enough to put out some suet feeder blocks and I have noticed the Red Belly woodpecker has returned but still waiting on the Downy (actually I have heard the Red Belly all summer so he wasn't very far). The squirrels are busy planting acorns throughout my yard and I did get some squirrel mix to put in their glass jar feeder. The Bluebirds have returned this past week. Haven't seen them since late Spring. They like the berries on the Dogwood and the hedge as well as the suet feeders. I am thinking of getting a wiremesh screen silo feeder for the woodpeckers to put in whole corn and or peanuts. Had a wooden one with plexiglass that the the squirrels chewed up pretty good to get at the corn.