Weekend at the Farm January 2 - 4, 2015

 

 My neighbors' dog, Hank, is making himself at home much to the consternation of my Sadie dog.

Arrived Thursday evening. It's been raining and cold for a week.  Everything is saturated.  No leaf shredding this weekend!

• I've steered away from leaf shredding in the Shade Garden.  I just rake the leaves off the paths and dump them into the areas where I have plants growing.  In the Shade Garden (which is a woodland garden) I mimic the forest floor - leaves and other debris fall, carpet the ground, and break up into healthy compost.
• Received some white Nicotiana alata seeds in the mail that I ordered last weeks.  5,000 seeds - you would think that would look like a lot of seeds, but it is a tiny packet.  I have planted them before, so I know they are tiny seeds.  But when you hear the number 5,000 you still can't help but think it will be a big package.  Not so.
• I also ordered, but have not yet received, Purple Loosestrife and Rose Campion seeds.  I have tried to grow Rose Campion from seed before but had no luck.  Rose Campion is a silvery foliage plant with hot pink flowers.  Purple Loosetrife has flower spikes that are similar to the fall blooming Mexican salvia, but it is a summer bloomer.  I've never had great luck planting spring seeds, don't know why.  But I would love to have these two plant additions to my garden.
• Other seeds I want to grow:  I used to have Hemlock in my Medicine Garden that I grew from seed.  It eventually disappeared.  Hemlock is a conversation piece plant.  I want to grow it again.  Valerian - I have grown it from seed before, and I still have some left, but I want a larger patch of it.  Borage - another herb, pretty blue or white flowers.  It is actually a little sprawl-y unless you pinch it.  Easy to grow from seed.  Laceflower - I have never grown it.  It is also an herb.  Marigolds, Feverfew, African Daisy, Gloriosa Daisy and Cosmos are some of the flowers I'd like to grow.  I'd also like to grow French Hollyhocks and more Columbine.
• The dogs and I were by ourselves most of the weekend.  We laid around, napped, walked. The weather was rainy and cold. Pretty nice.
• Saturday morning I raked pine needles and spread them around a couple of my roses in the Rose Garden, in the bed with my two new Banana Shrubs, and my White By The Gate Camellias along the Boardwalk.  I haven't quite finished spreading around the camellias - that area is pretty big.  
• I also raked lots of wet leaves and spread them around my Mojito Colocasias.  They are so beautiful, I don't want to lose them to a hard freeze.  
• Dug up the enormous root systems of the four Castor plants I grew in the Vegetable Garden last summer.  Three of them came up easy, one was a bitch to dig up.  Forked in lots of shredded leaves into two of the boxes, getting ready for spring.  I have big plans for the Vegetable Garden this spring with the help of some of those big buckets from Albert Myers:  sweet potatoes (I've never grown them, they sound like fun because you have to grow slips and then plant the slips), scarlet runner beans (I harvested some seeds from last year), tomatoes (of course), green beans, beets (planted about 6 weeks before the last freeze), peas (same timing as beets), potatoes (planted in late February if I can find them that early), chard (because it's pretty - about 3 weeks before the last freeze), peanuts (never grown them, should be fun), carrots (planted same timing as chard), squash (for the yummy squash blossoms), cucumbers, lettuce, and dill.  This will all change if I can't get a hold of those buckets from Albert in time.
• Made spit pea and ham soup Saturday afternoon.
• My dear uncle Brooks passed away on Saturday.  He was very old, but it is distressing nevertheless.  My most vivid recollection of him was not when I was a little girl, but rather when I went to his house in  Pasadena, and he he enthusiastically showed me the plumeria in his garden - 90 years old, but he still had plants he was excited about.  What a charming man, a hard worker, very old school, very devout. 
• Spent Sunday morning raking leaves in the Medicine Garden.  I dumped them in various flower beds in the Medicine Garden and in the beds in the circle drive.  Looks much better.  Still need to rake in the Shade Garden.  After that I will be done with the major cleanup of leaves for the year.  There will still be places here and there that need raking, but not truckload after truckload!
• About noon I made a pot roast for dinner, drinking the left over Chianti Classico I poured over the roast... at noon....
• Trimmed my Yuletide Camellias a little.  They finished blooming so I figured this was a good time.  I have them growing on either side of a faux door on my Greenhouse.  I don't want them to cover up the door.  I'm trying to train them into more of a column than a ball.  I hate cutting away at a camellia, they are such slow growers, I probably cut away an entire year's worth of growth.
• Fertilized my brussels sprouts and broccoli.  Vegetable Garden looks pretty good.
• Mulched the Kitchen Herb Garden.
• Mulched the red Autumn Sage along the back of the house, decided it's so weedy that leaf mulch wouldn't be strong enough, so I put down some pine needles.
• Bert arrived on Saturday night - he had the cub cadet with him.  So I was able to use the cub on Sunday to drive over to where there were lots of pine needles.  Raked pine needles and mulched the Erlicheer bed and some more of the space around the camellias along the Boardwalk.