Notes for Friday November 6th, 2009

Wednesday morning the thermometer read 31 degrees when I got up, but there wasn't any visible frost on the ground or on my car.  What I did notice was the silence.  The silence of winter before the birds wake up when there are no crickets to greet you.  The silence that is only broken by passing cars or neighbors getting ready for work.   My cosmos, marigolds, zinnias and daisies are still doing fine.  If I remember, I will try to take pictures on Saturday as I mulch some more leaves.  There hasn't been many more leaves fallen since Saturday but its supposed to be windy today so I am sure there will be more.   This morning it was 34 degrees and with the recent time change to the clocks, I am now driving to work at twilight and returning home at twilight.  Combine that with the leaves falling from the trees and I have the right conditions and the right time to view hawks sitting up in the tops of trees near open fields waiting to spot there next meal.  It is always an awesome sight.

Notes for Tuesday November 3, 2009

As I was thinking yesterday that we really haven't had a frost yet...it was 33 degrees this morning.  Close but...my marigolds, daisies, zinnias and cosmos are still in bloom.  The cosmos next to my veggie garden are seven foot tall and finally in bloom.

Notes for Monday November 1, 2009

Here's a short note...   I ran the mower over my fallen leaves on Saturday but left about 3/4ths of the back yard left to do.  The leaves seemed to fall as fast as I was picking them up.  But at least the layer of leaves is thinner in the front yard.  Last week I completed the whole yard in four hours and it was difficult putting socks on for the next few days, so this week I mulched leaves for only two and a half hours.  What I mulched last week was three weeks of leaves and that amount seemed to have fallen in just three days.   It rained Saturday night into Sunday but I forgot to check the rain gauge.  I emptied the rain gauge on Thusday and there was two inches from Tuesday's rain.

Notes for October 30, 2009

Where to start? Who knows.  Most every fall, my gardening desires wanes (at least until I start receiving gardening catalogs around Christmas time).  This year it seems to be worse.  The thing that comes to my mind is that anyone over 40 knows that life changes and life doesn't always let you do the things you want to do and you do what you need to do.  I still feel guilty though.  I feel guilty I haven't written.  I feel guilty I haven't read your blogs and looked and commented about beautiful yards, your beautiful nature pictures and of course your silly dog (I've got one too).  I want to say I haven't had the time but whenever someone says that I always say "You would have the time, if it were important."  But when life changes as it does sometimes seasonally, you have to make do and somethings get pushed aside.  You find time enough to do other shorter/not involved things (unlike gardening) to keep your sanity, but I still feel guilty.  As I think of it, another factor is daylight.  One of my most productive gardening time periods is in the evening after dinner which diminishes as fall begins.  Saturdays and Sundays are usually filled with other activities as fall begins again.  This will probably change as my kids get old enough to leave the nest (one commuting to college and the other in High school).  And since I am the type of person that likes to do things the right way, I end up waiting until I have the time to do it right.  A specific change in the yearly schedule that happened this year happened back in June.  My mother had to have surgery and then she lived with us for a few weeks and that caused the priorities to shift and therefore time became lost for lower priorities and some things got put off.   I have had more gardening failures this year than successes.  I lost a bunch of perennials to the winter.  Some perennials that did survive became food for critters that also survived the winter (never seen chipmunks as often as I did this year).  I had ground hog take up residence under the concrete slab under my shed but I seem to have chased him off (for now).  We haven't had frost yet but it was cold enough in September that ALL my tomatoes died, BUT NOT my peppers.  It also was cold enough that all the Virginia Creeper that covers my back fence also died off.  I am usually picking tomatoes until Halloween. But not this year, I am still picking peppers (they have reached the point of diminishing returns and are getting smaller). I have an 8 year old stump that I wanted to dig up as a project but that didn't happen.  I did get a bunch of dead trees cut down and all the wood went to a friend of ours who uses wood burning stoves.  One of the trees had to be cut down by a tree company so it didn't come down on my holly tree, my neighbor's fence or my house.   In addition to the peppers, I still have carrots and radishes in the ground.  Not sure how the radishes are going to turn out, I think it got too warm for them for a little bit.  The carrots I am hoping to harvest Thanksgiving morning for pre dinner snacks.  That is the remaining garden experiment for this year.  I picked some on Thanksgiving last year but they weren't very sweet.  This year I planted a variety known for its sweetness (or so they say).  It has rained periodically lately but I probably should have watered a few times in late September and early October.  I also still have lima beans but I don't think they formed many pods and I should have watered.  I will definitely look at them and probably pull them when I next work outside to mulch my leaves.  I am starting to mulch/collect my leaves weekly as I do every fall up until about Thanksgiving.  We don't have leaf collection in my township and I don't have a place to dump them so I mulch them with the mower, bag them and put them in a compost pile to use as mulch in the spring.  With the loss of about 10 trees in the backyard over the last two years, there is considerably fewer leaves to mulch in the backyard.  Hopefully I will still get enough to have enough mulch in the spring.  The winter winds help me collect leaves from my neighbor across the street and one of my neighbors on the side.   We haven't seen the bluebirds since Spring.  We'll probably see them when its gets cold.  They come to my suet feeders during the winter.  Or at least they swoop down from the wire holding the feeders and get the pieces of suet that fall to the ground as other birds are eating.  I will be putting out the suet feeders soon.  I don't like to put the feeders out when its still above 60 degrees.   I got a new silo feeder for my thistle feed (for the goldfinches) and it is so cheaply made compared to the one I had for years.  I will probably look for a better one during the winter.  But in either case the silo feeders both collected moisture.  Does someone make a silo thistle feeder that has a screen bottom for drainage?   The box for my squirrel in the jar feeder needs to be replaced too.  Maybe this winter.  If the time presents itself and I have the materials...

Notes for Monday September 14, 2009

On Saturday as the East coast was getting slogged... I emptied 2.3" from the rain gauge.   On Sunday I picked Tomatoes, Cucumbers and peppers.  The cukes are just about done and I will be lucky if I pick anymore.

New Pictures - A Week Late

Here are two pictures of some Agastache Rupestins. I started them from seed a couple of years ago and they are going strong but look kind of weedy. I saw a hummingbird check this one out a few weeks ago. Now I am going to look for other agastache colors.




Here are the three foot tall zinnias (with some daisies and marigolds).



Here is a remaining patch of sedum (lost several to the winter) and this bunch is in bloom and is complete with bumblebees.


Another thing in bloom at the moment are my chive pots.


Here are my 7 foot tall cosmos tied to the inside of my veggie fence. Most haven't bloomed yet much to my disappointment.


Here are my 7 foot tall tomato plants.


Along the same fence I planted some Tithonia and it full bloom now. It came out bushier than I thought it would.

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.