Sunday, June 3, 2018

Weekend at the Farm June 2 - 3, 2018

I made plum jelly this weekend.

Arrived Friday evening.  Lots to do.  Bert was here since Thursday because I had a load of mulch delivered Thursday.
  • The Vegetable Garden is incredibly bountiful this year.  Opening up the area to more sun and the application of mushroom compost have been miracle workers.  The corn is looking really good.  We have lots of ears developing - three rows in a bed that's about 35 feet long.  There are some red tomatoes, and I waited to pick them at the end of the day on Saturday.  We had Caprese salad for dinner.  And there are lots of birdhouse gourds on the trellis - adorable!  Also, many onions are in the garden, we let them sit in the ground until we need one, then we pull one up and use it in our cooking.  Fun.  The Dragons Tongue beans are on the wane, but there are green beans full of blooms - I sowed those seeds late as an after thought.  And of course, the eggplants are incredibly plentiful.  Too bad the only think I know to do with them is fry them...  I should make some ratatouille. 
  • I fertilized the asparagus and corn, both are heavy feeders.  The one you really have to remember is the asparagus.  Since it's a perennial you tend to forget about babying it.  But it needs fertilizer.  Also, asparagus hates competition.  No weeds!  Keep your asparagus beds clear or your asparagus will disappear.  I weeded in the Corn bed and throughout the Vegetable Garden.  
  • Bert and I started cleaning out the Greenhouse.  It was infested with wasps, not where you normally look, such as the rafters.  They were in buckets, attached to bags of fertilizer, and one was in a koozie.  I picked up the koozie and it was alive with wasps in a nest.  I threw it down and ran!  Bert fell back on top of a wheelbarrow as he was escaping.  That's going to hurt later.  I can't believe I didn't get stung.  Both of us ended up unscathed, there is nothing more painful than a wasp sting.  The red wasps are worse than the yellow jackets, but both are bad.  We finished the job finally:  pulled everything out of the building, raked out the debris and brushed the dirt off the shelves, threw lots of stuff away that I'm never going to use, organized the tools and fertilizers and chemicals, put in some nails to hang shovels and rakes etc.  Nice and clean. 
  • Watered in the Rose Garden.
  • Cut seed heads off my Columbine in the Greenhouse Gardens and shook the seeds in the beds.
  • Pulled up most of the Nigella in the Star Garden and threw the seed in the beds.
  • Weeded in the Star Garden.
  • Went inside around 2:00 and made plum jelly with the last of my plums.  There's not a single plum left on the tree.
  • Amy came over for a drink on Saturday evening and she and Bert and I went into Round Top for dinner.
  • Sunday.  Pulled some weeds and picked some egg plants in the early morning.
  • At 9:00 I met up with Polly, Joe, Amy, Ann and Jane to collect seed along the side of the road.  I got lot of treasures to seed my meadow!
  • We drank mimosas afterwards at Amy's and then I headed home.
  • Watered in the Greenhouse Garden and the Rose Garden.  Mulched in the Rose Garden.
  • I pulled up the Dragons Tongue beans and sowed some Carmine Splendor Okra.
  • I picked blackberries and made jelly.
  • I mulched with a truckload of mulch - a rose bed and various places in the Star Garden and the back flowerbed.
  • Drove in to work on Monday morning.

No comments:

Post a Comment