Days at the Farm February 6 - 10, 2015

Pretty weekend.  Saturday Josh and Danny Frost came up to Burton to help build the dance floor for the wedding.  We met at Home Depot, purchased the supplies, and they built the dance floor.  Sunday I drove home to spend the day with Blake and Sammy.

• Friday I didn't do much in the morning - too cold.  
• Friday mid-morning I weeded the La Marne flowerbed.
• Seeded an area of the La Marne flowerbed with Roe Campion seeds.  I hope they succeed.  I have wanted to grow it for several years.  I tried a couple of years ago with no luck, the plants never prospered.  I am putting them out earlier this time, it seems the seeds like a little cold in order to germinate. 
• I also cut back the dead debris of the cannas.
• Friday early afternoon I finished cleaning out the Shade Garden.   I cut away the dead debris of the Southern Wood Fern, gingers, and Snakeroot.  I raked the paths again.  And I repaired a huge hole that an armadillo had dug next to a path.  The stone edging had collapsed into the hole and a bunch of ferns had been uprooted.  The little bastard.
• The Vegetable Garden looks good.  It could use one more raking before spring.  The peas have sprung up in the two buckets that I planted them in.  The beets have sprouted.  I need to thin them.  The carrots have sprouted as well.  The large beds have been fertilized and turned over, and they are waiting for my next shipment of seeds.  The celery is going strong, the onions and garlic are growing - it all looks good.
• Saturday morning we went into town, ate breakfast at Manuel's, went grocery shopping, and met Josh and Danny at Home Depot in Brenham.  Purchased the dance floor lumber and returned home.  We gave Danny "the tour" and they began to build the dance floor.  I drove back into town, went to Walgreens to buy Danny a hearing aid battery and some barbeque for lunch.  I wasn't sure what hearing aid batteries to buy, so I called Danny.  He couldn't understand me, so I had to shout over the phone, people were staring at me which was kind of funny - if ever there was a reasonable time to shout on the phone around a bunch of people, this was the time.  By the time I returned the dance floor was completed.  We fiddled around for a while and they left, to return in two weeks.
• While we were at Home Depot  I bought a couple bags of mulch for around the pool . Not nearly enough for that barren landscape, but its a start.  Bought some potting soil, a wooden pot and a flat of 10 Southern Wood Fern.  I shared an idea with my husband about the area around the pool.  I think we should put some decking around the pool, just enough to cover the flowerbeds (about 4 feet wide) I made years ago.  We can put some potted flower arrangements on the decking.  We had to haul in clay in order to stabilize the pool.  Nothing will ever grow well there.  Why fight it?  And unless we get a sprinkler system in there, plants will never flourish.  He really liked the idea, so I see that as already built!
• Filled the pot I purchased at Home Depot with soil and seeded it with Rose Campion and Purple Loosestrife.
• Spent time in the Orchard cleaning up and weeding.
• Seeded several spots in the Star Garden with some of my remaining Swiss Chard seeds.
• Weeded the Star Garden.
• Watered various plants that I have transplanted over the last several weeks.  The rain last week helped greatly keeping them healthy.
• Sunday I planted the remaining Swiss Chard seed in the Star Garden.  I left the seed packet on the ground and the sprinklers got it wet, so I had to do something with the seeds right then. 
• Went to Blake's house for the day on Sunday.  We had lunch, shopped at Baby Gap, and sat outside for a while.  Very pretty day, especially considering we are in the middle of winter.  Returned to Burton after our visit.
•  Now that all my spring-flowering bulbs have sprouted I spend time being amused at everything I have forgotten.  They spring up in all sorts of places, and I don't  remember planting them there because I planted them a year ago.   That is a lot of fun.  The daffodil surprises I have had this year have been great fun.  And I already mentioned in a previous blog how the Spanish Bleubells in the Shade Garden surprised me.
• Monday morning I planted the 10 Southern Wood Fern - four in the Star Garden in one of the shady beds I just built with the wine bottle edging and six in the Shade Garden.
• I also cut back all my Turks Cap along the Boardwalk.  I hate that job.  But it's done now.  I also picked up a lot of the dead ginger vegetation.  
• While I was doing that chore I noticed there is a really weedy spot along the Boardwalk that I need to clean up and mulch.  I'll try to get to that before I leave.
• Dug up my Easy Ned Daylilies by the pool in preparation for Bert building the decking.  I planted all but two clumps in the flowerbed by the master bedroom.  I planted the other two clumps in the bed alongside the path to the Boardwalk.
• Dug up two clumps of Cigar Plant from around the pool and planted it in the Star Garden.  Hopefully it isn't too shady in the spot where I planted it.  I'm all out of room.  I want to get some of that orange lantana and yellow lantana, but I really don't know where I would put it - lantana requires full sun.  I guess I'll see if my neighbor wants it.
• Dug up Elderberry plants that were growing in the paths and planted them in a new bed that my husband made for me out of cedar logs.  The bed is in the Medicine Garden.  I am making a little "orchard" of Elderberry plants so I can have enough berries to make wine.  It's all in fun.  Elderberries are tiny.  I don't know how anyone collects enough to make wine!  
• Tuesday morning I pruned back my double red Althea, my two blue Chaste Trees and my pink Chaste Tree.
• I spent most of the morning painting the boards that line the beds in the Rose Garden.  They look pretty crappy, and I would really like to replace them with stone, but I think that is a next year thing.  The green paint is a slight improvement.  I have always liked painting outside.  It is very relaxing, and you don't have to be careful - you can slop it everywhere and it will just wash away with a little rain.
• Bert went into town and bought the lumber to extend the decking around the pool.  I spent the rest of the morning shifting soil in those flowerbeds over to a new bed that he built me this morning.  Some of the soil and all of the plants have to be moved in order to make a nice level deck.  I think back on all the work I did around the pool many years ago hauling that dirt over there.  And now I am hauling it away and building decking over the rest of it.  Two steps forward one step back. 
• I thought about Janine this morning and how I could have given her so many plants - Striped Beauty Cannas, lorapetalum, lantana, Cigar Plant, miscanthus.  But she is not at DCP anymore.
• I planted most of the Striped Beauties in the bed by the master bedroom.  I will probably end up regretting that because, although a dwarf variety, they are tall and I won't be able to see outside when I'm laying in bed.  I planted three small ones in one of the beds in the Star Garden.
• I dug up orange lantana and put it in a bucket of water along with some more Cigar Plant.  I don't know where I'll put it, but I don't want to get rid of it.
• Put two bags of mulch around my Copper Canyon Daisies and Chaste Tree.
• It's a warm day so I sprayed herbicide in the Vegetable Garden, the Star Garden, and the driveway.
• Watered the Star Garden and spread some Catmint in various places.
• Raked out the herb beds in the Medicine Garden, turned the soil, and planted some Catmint in various places.
• Spread Catmint seed in the wine bottle bed.
• Helped Bert off and on with the deck he's building.
• Bert helped me move a big pot from behind the Greenhouse into the Star Garden.  I filled it with soil and spread some more Catmint and some beet seed.
• Tuesday evening:  exhausted!!!