A Weekend at the Farm 07/30-31/10

These are Philippine Lilies.

Beautiful weekend, not a cloud in the sky. It's been raining. There was an inch and a half in the rain gauge. That's good! We had some friends join us on Saturday so I didn't work at all except for house work in the morning - vacuuming, sweeping, cleaning bathrooms, shaking out rugs, dusting, mopping. I also made some appetizers and some salads for lunch and a blackberry cobbler. All before noon - it's amazing what a person can do when they stay focused. On Sunday I worked outside.

• The Rose Garden is totally in bloom thanks to the rain last week and a very rainy July. I weeded and deadheaded for about an hour.



• Summer growth is lush and tumultuous. Plants start to need staking. I used 3 sacks of bamboo stakes and spent several hours staking zinnias. I used heavier sticks to stake my Pringle Aster. I had already staked it but it wasn't holding. I pulled some verbena bonariensis off a rose bush and staked it. I staked some of my okra. It's kind of flimsy - not all of it, just the recent plantings.



• I buried grapefruit peels and pith in all the boxes of the Vegetable Garden because I have nematodes. That is probably what is making the okra flimsy. When there are nematodes in the vegetable garden they make the plants weak. Nematodes don't like citrus peels. I also have some marigolds growing which is a nematode deterrent.



• It's time to plant sugar snap peas but I don't have any room. The tomatoes are still producing and I have about 15 okra plants growing. Between the two of them I don't have any space. Fall snap peas are an iffy proposition. If we have an early freeze they will die and all the effort will have been for naught. But if the weather cooperates, sugar snap peas are so delicious!



• I cut back my lime balm. It flowered and went to seed. I could see new growth at the base of the plants so I cut it back. It will look pretty again as we go into the fall. I have never had lime balm go to seed, I didn't even know it flowered! My catnip was flowering last week and it was so pretty. I forgot to take a picture, but it was very pretty.



• I planted two packages of 'Cut and Come Again' Zinnias in the Star Garden. I have lots of different kinds of zinnias blooming right now. I love them.



• I worked in the Long Border. As usual, I've made a muddle of it. I have so much happening in that flowerbed and it's all blooming and crazy and laying over onto other plants. I staked and staked. Next year I will really have to be disciplined to pull up things, for instance my cleome is throwing seed all over the place.



• Watered the fruit trees and the shrubs in the Greenhouse Garden.



• I had a beautiful, big cantaloupe in the Vegetable Garden that I was going to pick on Sunday morning. But the critters got to it in the middle of the night and it had a big hole in it and all the middle was eaten! I have about four or five more on the vine. They have been so delicious and fun to grow.



• Fertilized my rain lilies and my Soncy rose.



• My Magic Lilies are starting to bloom. (Lycoris Squamigera) They pop out of the bare ground, the greenery grows after they finish blooming. So all you see is the single stem and beautiful pink flowers - like magic, hence the name.



• My other Lycoris have also begun popping up. I have them in the Circle Drive. They behave the same way as the Magic Lilies - a bare stem pops out of the ground, blooms red, spidery flowers, and the blooms are followed by the greenery. They begin blooming in September which is the start of the hurricane season. That is how they got their common name - Hurricane Lilies.



• Pulled up lots of weeds in the Wave Garden, the Star Garden, the Infinity Garden.



• The butterflies are very entertaining. I watched those beautiful creatures for a long time.



• I sprayed herbicide on the paths in the Shade Garden, the Infinity Garden, The Circle Drive, the driveway, the Rose Garden, under the arbor, around the Star Garden, and around the pool. That is hot work.