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.

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.