Notes for August 17, 2009

Well on Friday I finally was able to cut the grass. It had been a couple of weeks but at first it didn't need it. Then we started getting rain at regular intervals and my calendar wasn't letting me out there to cut it. Soooo when I finally got to it Friday night, I had to go half speed at half width and raise the deck a notch in order to get it done before nightfall. While I was cutting the grass I avoided, not one, not two, not three but FOUR toads. That's a new record for me. Each were small, about as big as my thumb. It baffled me why so many until I realized they were out there chasing some of the hundreds of crickets I also saw in the thick grass. Saturday the calendar opened up again and I was able to get a nice chunk of time in the yard. I first harvested some green beans (first picking of third green beans), peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers and the last batch of onions. Then I tended the tomatoes (trimming suckers and tying). There isn't much tying anymore, most of my plants are six foot or taller and have out grown my 8 foot stakes (each stake is in the ground at least a foot). So I trimmed the suckers I could reach and tied the lower/slower growing tomatoes. I am surprised I don't have any hornworms yet. Now that I said that, I will probably pull of several tonight (I plan on watering tonight). I pulled out all the remaining onions and really didn't get many more. I noticed that the onions that went to flower never really formed an onion. So I think that starting next year I won't let them flower and I will snip the bud off when it starts forming. I added some wood ashes and then turned the onion patch and planted two rows of carrots. Earlier this week I received two German bearded irises (that I ordered in the Spring, but didn't realize at the time that they wouldn't be delivered until August). So I planted them in the front of the house. I pulled out a low lying evergreen first and planted them there. The evergreen was bare in the middle and the outer edges needed trimmed back which wouldn't have left very much. It needed trimmed, part of it was a trip hazard for my front steps and another part was growing into the driveway and so I wasn't liking it. After planting the irises, I finished cleaning up the tree debris from the tree I had cut down about a month ago, (my friend came by this week and picked up the cut wood for his wood burning stoves). I also had to fill in the depressions that the falling pieces left. And finally I weeded and mulched the front gardens and the other driveway garden. The other driveway garden is kind of bare. I lost a bunch of perennials there this year. So I will enjoy thinking of what I can plant next year.