Notes for June 19, 2008

I have been working late hours and unable to do any work in the gardens but I am happy to report that we got just a little bit more rain yesterday than the last two times combined. This morning I emptied 0.4" from the rain gauge. I'll take whatever I can get.

The picture today is of one of a few Hostas given to me last year. This one is doing rather well.

When I got home last night the mother Robin did not leave the nest as I walked past her only a few feet away.

Notes for June 18, 2008

Of the four Robin's eggs, one had hatched some time yesterday. This morning, three had hatched and one of those was out of the nest and obviously not living. The other two were flopping over each other and the other egg.

Notes for June 16, 2008

This picture is of a 4 foot tall evergreen by our front door. Now we know why the male Robin has been going psycho on our cars in the driveway!

Over the weekend we got about only 0.1" inches of rain. It seemed like Moses was living in south Jersey. The rain went to the north of us to near Trenton and to the south of us like Delaware. So I had to water this weekend. That makes about 0.2" in the past two weeks. Thunderstorms are forecasted this evening, maybe we'll be the target.

Yesterday (yes on fathers day) I worked in the yard for a couple of hours. I had too, since I had to work on Saturday and then went directly to our church to help out with our annual chicken barbecue. I left the house at 6:30 and didn't get home until Saturday night around 8:30. So on Sunday afternoon I planted 26 cucumber seedlings and then mulched my sunflowers and my second row of green beans. In between I watered everything. The ironic thing was that we had a five minute shower while I was planting the cucumbers. It was heavy enough for me to stop and open up a folding chair in the shed and sit for a few minutes. All it really did was successfully make me look as if I was wading in the creek, my pants were wet from the knees down from kneeling.

Notes for May 26, 2008

What a beautiful weekend!

Saturday...

I went and got some manure, didn't have use of any family owned trucks, so I ended up using my car and five gallon buckets. Cleaned out my trunk (been wanting to do that for three years) and fit seven buckets in the truck and 8 inside my car. I made two trips.

Picked some radishes and spinach. Had cooked spinach with dinner, delicious!

Dug a trench under the cucumber fences and filled it with manure and placed soil back over top and planted cucumber seeds.

Transplanted marigolds. I started mixed marigold seeds in my veggie garden to transplant throughout the yard and transplanted about six. I have a fair amount of freelancing marigolds coming up in my veggie garden and since I have planted only yellow in my veggie garden, I suspect they are yellow.

Planted two rows of tomato plants (about 14 total plants). For each tomato plant, I dug a hole and filled it with the aged manure along with a pinch of Epsom salts and a sprinkle of wood ashes and then added in half of the excavated soil and mixed it all by hand. The rest of the soil I used to build a bowl around the plant to channel water to the plant when I water (since my soil is sand).

This morning (Monday, Memorial Day) I was awakened by a Robin attacking our front window and my wife's car at 7 AM this morning and so I got up. I continued planting my tomato plants and then my pepper plants. I have room to plant about a dozen more tomato plants and the are more than enough freelancing volunteers to transplant. I hope to transplant them during the week or by the weekend. Then I cut the grass and after a shower it was off to the family picnic.

During this weekend, I noticed that my tiger lillies are starting to bud, the rhododendrons are in full bloom, my yard has chipmunks and today I saw a toad in my yard.

Next week I hope to plant some more green beans (the next wave) and mulch, mulch, mulch.