Weekend at the Farm April 5 - 7, 2014

I love when the George Tabor Azaleas are in bloom.  The color pink is beautiful.  The soil is limey around these parts, and azaleas like acid soil, but I grow them anyway because I love them.

Rain, rain, rain on Sunday.  Took Monday vacation and left for work on Tuesday morning.  Monday turned out beautiful - cool and sunny.

• William, Kim, their babies, and Nathan, Jess, and their baby came for a visit.  We watched the kids on Saturday while they went to the antique festival in Round Top.  Fortunately the rain held off on Saturday for them.
• Sunday was mostly a lost day for working.  It rained all day.  Rain is always wanted, so that's ok.
• I spread three loads of granite in the Shade Garden on Sunday afternoon.  Looks good.
• Dug up half dozen or so seedlings of Rudbeckia Maxima that was growing in the paths of the Vegetable Garden.  Moved it to various spots in the Star Garden and the Hot Border.
• Gathered Arugula and Lettuce from the garden for Sunday dinner.
• Planted 3 clumps of gingers that I dug up from the garden in Houston.  Planted one in the Medicine Garden and two in the Greenhouse Gardens.  I have one more clump to plant which I will do on Monday. 
• Spread some French Marigold seed in the Vegetable Garden in the beds where I planted the green beans and the squash last weekend.  French Marigolds deter nematodes.
• Spread the rest of the Laura Bush Petunias and the Baby's Breath in  Star Garden.
• Monday I spread a truckload of granite in the Star Garden in a few spots that I had left undone previously.
• Also spread several truckloads of granite in the Shade Garden.  It really looks good!  Not sure I'll have enough to finish before I run out. Fifteen yards has gone pretty far.  Farther than I thought it would.  
• Sent my husband in to town to buy wine.  There was nothing left but bad, cheap wine.  Sorry, we're just not that poor.  He had to take the mower in to town anyway.  It needed some sort of part.  It's always breaking.  We need a tractor.  Can't afford one - using up all our money drinking good wine, I guess.
• Cleaned up dead debris in the Star Garden around the Mexican Salvia.  Loosened the soil and seeded the area with Ruby Parfait Celosia and Cockscomb and Cactus Flower Zinnias.
• Planted the hops vines that Josh gave me for my birthday.  I planted two of them against the arbor that leads into Max's Garden - that's fitting!  Facing the arbor, Columbus is on the right and Galena is on the left.  I planted Brewer's Gold on the arbor that leads to the shed.  And I planted the fourth plant, Zeus, on the arbor that leads into the Long Border.  Josh has been encouraging me to build a beer Garden.  It would contain plants that have historically been used to make beer and other spirits such as Mead.  He gave me a book about plants that are grown for such uses.  I am indeed interested in doing that, but it is a big project.  I don't know if I have another one in me without help such as a mini front end loader.  Me, my shovel, and my wheel barrow are getting pretty tired working all by our lonesome.  And irrigation is always a head ache.  The farther I get from the house the more difficult access to irrigation  becomes.
• Watered here and there.  
• Weeded - always!
• Wandered around and around, wine glass in hand.  Planning, dreaming, and observing.