Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Notes for Tuesday September 1, 2009

September already? Can't believe it.

We got back from our vacation (a week at the Jersey shore) on Saturday. There ought to be a law that all vacations need to be a minimum of two weeks. Yesterday was a difficult day to get back into the rhythm (didn't really want to either).

Friday before we left I emptied 0.9" from the rain gauge and hoped that we would get some rain while we were gone. Upon return I emptied 1.5", not sure when we got it though. Then again on Sunday morning I emptied 0.6" from a thunderstorm that rumbled through at bed time Saturday night.

Before we left for vacation I told my neighbors and emailed my friends to please come by and pick some veggies while we were gone. When I got home it didn't look like anyone did. I picked about a bushel of juliet tomatoes, a half a bushel of regular tomatoes, a bushel of cucumbers and about a half a dozen peppers. Still no hornworms!??

On Sunday afternoon I pulled the third string beans (picking about two gallons) and planted a row of radishes alongside where the beans were leaving room for another row in a couple of weeks. There were only about 6 spinach seedlings in the row I planted a couple of weeks ago so I pulled them and planted another row. I also tied several of my cosmos plants to the fence since they were falling over. Some of my cosmos are over 6 foot tall and haven't flowered yet.

I need to take some pictures. Some of my zinnias are about 3 foot tall and in bloom and my five pots of chives are in full bloom and were buzzing with small what looked to be small carpenter bees. The tithonia I planted have really taken over and are alot more bushier than I expected and are full of blooms.

Then later on Sunday afternoon, I cut the grass. I wish I had a combine instead of just my push mower. We had two weeks of wet weather since I last cut it (wet at least for August, the news said that it was the third wettest August on record). I had to keep the deck of the mower raised again and still had to cut it at half width and half speed. While pushing the mower I avoided three toads.

There was no sign of the groundhog the whole week before we left and when we got back his hole had reopened. So on Sunday I threw another handful of moth balls in his hole and filled it the best I could packing the soil in using a 3 foot 2x4. Yesterday morning there was no indication that he had returned but when I got home from work he had started to dig his hole again but didn't get very far so I filled the hole again.

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations with your good harvest!
    By the way, what do you feed to cosmos and zinnias, they are SO tall!!!

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  2. Tatyana the harvest was because I hadn't picked in a week. I usually pick every three days. My cosmos are in a flower bed and I didn't feed them anything. I am pretty sure they are a tall variety. I just tried to water them often. The cosmos are along the inside of my vegetable garden fence. I didn't feed them anything either but I did water them as often as my veggies (every three or four days without rain).

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