Weekend at the Farm November 23 - 24, 2013

It was very cold and rainy all weekend, a pleasant change.

• Planted 50 Narcissus odorous Linnaeus (Campernelles) that my daughter bought me for my birthday.  I planted them in drifts along the outside of the Rose Garden.
• Planted about 150 onions - 1015 onions and some kind of white onion (my husband bought the sets for me or else I would know what the white onions are called!).  I planted them in the Vegetable Garden.
• Worked in the Vegetable Garden.  I raked, pulled weeds, cut back the asparagus in the large bed.  I loosed the soil and spread Mountain Garland seeds.  They probably won't germinate because of the hard rains we got immediately after I seeded the bed.  The rain beats them into the ground and they get covered with soil.  Too much soil for them to live. 
• Spent half a day clearing brush out of the area across from the house. We're nearly finished.  What a lot of work it has been!  Next will come the war with my husband over what to do with the area.  I want to allow the native bunch grasses to flourish and plant seed of other native bunch grasses.  The focus should be on eradicating the yaupons.  My husband, on the other hand believes everything should be mowed - happiness is a dry brown patch of hard packed dirt. There are a lot of arguments coming down the pike, I'm afraid.
• I have been seeing lots of signs of hogs around the house, the first time we have ever been bothered by hogs.  They are incredibly destructive.  My husband shot one on Friday night.  He only wounded it, he didn't kill it.  I hate to think of any animal suffering despite the fact that I hate those nasty hogs, I was sorry for the poor animal. 
• I sowed seed in the Rose Garden - under the Bermuda's Kathleen, the Iceberg, around the tree in the Rose Garden, next to Chorale, and under Chrysler Imperial.  I raked up lots of pine needles under the pine trees and mulched around Perl d 'Or, Bailey Red, Duchess de Brabant, and Cramoisier Superior.  Also spread seeds in the bed with the crinums.
• Spread seeds in the newest bed in Bert's Garden.  Pulled up the Mexican Sunflowers in the Vegetable Garden.  The light freeze we had last week had done them in.
• Cleaned both of the ovens.
• Admired all my bulbs coming up.  Enjoyed the wet, cold weather.