Weekend at the Farm March 20 - 22, 2015

 This is one of my Dwarf Flowering Almond shrubs.  It will get much bigger, unfortunately they are very slow growers.

Took Friday as vacation and went to the Festival Hill herb sale in Round Top on Friday morning.  I was going to go to the Mercer plant sale also, but they changed the start time to noon.  This will be the first time in years that I have not gone to the Mercer plant sale with Lisa and Nancy.  I wanted to buy some gingers, and that is the only place I know of to buy them other than ordering on line.  I will have to wait until next year to indulge my new ginger interest.

• On Thursday I went to Buchanan's and bought three Black Beauty eggplants, three bell pepper plants, two Mexican salvias, and flat of Homestead Purple Verbena and Pink Skullcap.  I have always wanted some skullcap, but I wanted the little 6 inch potted.  They had it and I bought it! 
• On the way back from the plant sale I went the back roads so I could check out this farmhouse where, last spring,  I had seen the most gorgeous bearded irises I've ever seen- tall and a combination of violet and blue.  They were growing behind the barn (out of sight of the house, and I wanted to sneak over the fence and save some).  They weren't blooming yet, which is not a surprise because most of my new hybrids are not blooming yet either. 
• Friday when I arrived I planted some of the herbs I bought at the herb sale in the Medicine Garden:  6 horehound, 2 Stevia, 2 Vick's plant, 3 Angelica, 2 Pineapple Sage, 4 Lamb's Ear, 2 Patchouli.
• In the Kitchen Herb Garden I planted: 1 Peach Sage (a wonderful smell and an herb I've never had before), 3 basils - various varieties (also threw down a package of seeds), and 1 lemon verbena.  I also spent some time cleaning up in there.  I mulched a few months ago, and that really has helped keep it looking pretty good.
• It rained throughout the day and poured around 5:30. 
• I planted the 3 Black Beauty eggplants in the Vegetable Garden.  I pulled up all my broccoli - got tired of waiting for it.  That's always the conflict - the winter garden doesn't produce until just after the spring garden should be planted.  When you have limited space you have to choose.
• My husband put some super-duper cages around my tomato plants - we are determined to defeat the animals this year.
• As spring always does, it creates a step change in the growth rate of all the vegetation.  The roses are mostly leafed out after the severe pruning I gave them this year.  The borage seeds I sowed are popping up as well as the Valerian.  The catmint seedlings are doing great.  And the first real leaf pairs on my Rose Campion have appeared.  The old fashioned purple beardeds are all blooming and the Cemetery Whites are halfway done.  There has been an explosion of growth.  Of course, the weeds are doing nicely too...
• Sowed some Cockscomb seeds in the Vegetable Garden that Brenda Cornett gave me.  I'm excited to have these, they are expensive!  And she gave me a lot of them.  She's a sweetie.
• Friday evening Bert and I wandered around in the rain with rubber boots and umbrellas looking at everything while the Allman Brothers, Dan Reeder, and Hootie and the Blowfish blasted in the background.  We were astounded and left in a state of wonder when we saw and heard a flock of sandhill cranes fly right over our heads.  There must have been 150 of them, honking loudly just under the cloud cover.  Amazing and beautiful.  We knew we were lucky to have seen it.
• All night long, and I mean it never ceased for a single moment, as Bert and I tried to sleep there was a honking, honking, honking.  It sounded like it was right outside the house.  Bert turned on the light looking for it.  Nothing.  I finally got up around 6, couldn't stand it anymore.  I turned on the light, the noise stopped.  Later we were walking around investigating the noise and discovered about 60 bullfrogs in the pool making bullfrog love.  It took Bert an hour to fish them all out of the pool.  Mystery solved.
• It rained all day on Saturday without pausing.
• Put a wheelbarrow full  of leaf mulch in the Kitchen Herb Garden.
• Harvested the last of the mustard greens and pulled up the plants.
• Planted half a dozen pink skullcap in the Star Garden.
• Sowed Moonflower seeds that I soaked over night.  Planted them around the front arbor.
• Sowed blue morning glory seeds along the goat wire arbor at the entrance to the Long Border.  Surrounded them with chicken wire so the wascally wabbits won't eat them.  Also sowed them around my half-dead butterfly magnolia so they will climb into the tree.  Also surrounded them with chicken wire.
• Did a lot of weeding.  
• Mulched the back flowerbed around the Easy Ned Daylilies that I transplanted from the pool area.
• Planted 10 Homestead Purple Verbena in the Rose Garden and one Pink Skullcap.  I love the homestead purple, and I grew it for many years.  But eventually it died away, who knows why. 
• Transplanted some Verbena Bonariensis and Ox Eye Daisy from paths in the Rose Garden to various flowerbeds in the Rose Garden.  I'm trying to move as much of it as I can - I will have to spray herbicide throughout the Rose Garden pretty soon to get rid of everything growing in the paths.
• Planted three little violet plants in one of the new beds in the shady part of the Star Garden.  They are different than the ones I have growing right now, the leaves are bigger and the little flowers are solid purple.  They are sweet and they spread via runners.
• Tied up my Erhlicheer daffodils in the Star Garden, you cannot cut daffodils back after they bloom because the dying greenery gives the bulbs strength for next year.  It doesn't look very pretty while it's dying, so I tie it in bundles with twine.
• I cut some pieces of my pink Firespike at my home in Houston and carried it up here.  I dipped them in rooting hormone and stuck them in the ground in one of my new, empty beds.  Firespike is pretty easy to root, and it is so wet right now that I'm hoping it will take off as easy as that.
• Sunday morning I couldn't sleep, got up at 5.  Sat outside on the front porch and listened to the turkeys, birds, and roosters.
• Turned the soil in the Mayhaw bed and planted Yukon Gold potatoes and squash.  Also spread cockscomb over the top of it (because I can't leave well enough alone).
• Turned over more soil in the same bed and spread more cockscomb seed.  I got all this seed from Brenda Cornett.
• Used one of my last two green landscaping strips and made a small outline along the fence at the back of the Star Garden near where I broke up the big flowerbed in Max's Garden.  I planted blue morning glory seeds and set up a chicken wire trellis in the center of it.  I didn't amend the soil.  Morning Glories like bad soil.  Too many nutrients make a lot of greenery and no flowers. 
• Sprayed fungicide on all my roses - can't have blackspot in the spring!  That makes the roses look terrible.  You have to be pro-active with rose spraying.  Once you see black spot it's too late.  Roses are high maintenance, but I love them.  There is a quote in the Little Prince:  It is the care you put into roses that makes them special.  That is how I feel about roses, they are worth the effort.
• Decided the weeds in the Rose Garden were getting away from me so I sprayed herbicide. Tried to avoid the Ox Eye Dasies as much as possible, but I sprayed quite a few nevertheless.
• Sowed Hyacinth Bean seeds that I collected last year on the Orchard trellis.
• Sowed Hyacinth Bean seeds in the planter box next to the arbor in the Rose Garden.  First I cleaned out the weeds growing in the planter box.  Surrounded the seeds I planted in the Rose Garden with a cage - the rabbits love it in there.  Also planted some seeds on the arbor at the entrance to the Rose Garden and along the bed spring trellis.
• Planted some Cypress Vine seeds on the the trellis in the Long Border.
• Staked the Peters Purple Bee Balm in the back flowerbed.  Better to stake plants before they need it.  After they are leaning over, the skinny bamboo stakes aren't strong enough.
• Staked the Verbena Bonariensis in the Pink Cloud Kolkwitzia amabalis bed and the ones along the path by the Peggy Martin Rose.  Tied some loose branches of Peggy Martin to its support.  That rose has realy matured quickly.  I'm expecting a great show from her this spring.  Peggy Martin is said to bloom sporadically after the spring flush, but from my experience it is a once-blooming rose. 
• Planted the last few Pink Skullcaps and Homestead Purple Verbenas in the Star Garden.
• Bert and I walked around for a long time in the evening.  The moon and Venus were spectacular.  Lovely evening, the weather turned absolutely beautiful Sunday afternoon and evening.