Weekend at the Farm March 26-27, 2016

Arrived Friday evening with Bert.  Mark and Jere are staying here this week while they work at the Round Top Antique Sale.  Blake and Sammy came up for the day on Saturday.  He is so adorable!

Planted 6 Agastache Kudos Mandarin, one in the Star Garden and 5 in the Long Border.  They have masses of pastel orange tubular flowers.  Great for hummers and butterflies and bees.

Watered all my new plants by hand, the salvias, bee balm, self heal, and nicotiana.

My butter beans, pole beans, and squash are making good progress.  Looks like some of my anise hyssop is sprouting in the Long Border.

I haven't mentioned the weather lately, but it has been fantastic every weekend for a long time, cool and sunny.  It is great to be alive on cool sunny days.

Planted 5 Tansy in the Medicine Garden.  Tansy repels insects and was used to make a yellow dye.  It has a long history of medicinal uses which have since been debunked, but it was once considered to be a must-have herb in the garden.  Charlemagne had it growing in his garden.  I like it because it looks like a fern, and it has yellow flowers.  Very pretty.

Raked in the Medicine Garden, dumped all the leaves in the compost.  I spend all winter with fallen leaves raked in my beds to keep the winter weeds down.  In the spring I rake them out where I want to plant, I leave some in place around my large plants to make some good rot, and I put the rest in the compost pile.

Cleaned up the Aztec Sweet Herb and composted throughout.  Spread compost everywhere that I raked.

Composted here and there in the Medicine Garden.

Transplanted some thyme growing in a path in the Star Garden over to the Medicine Garden.

Watered the young trees in the Orchard.

Walked and walked.  The Orchard needs a lot of weeding.

Saturday morning, another beautiful day in the making.

Spent more time in the Medicine Garden laying down compost around the oregano, pineapple sage and rosemary.  Dug up oxalis that I suspect came in when a guest at our crawfish boil brought me some wild garlic as a gift.  It's turned out to be the gift that keeps on giving.

Raked out the Thryallis bed and laid down mulch around the 3 Thryallis, impatiens (that survived the winter because it was so mild - lucky break), and blue mist flower.  The blue mist has almost disappeared over the years, too dry and too neglected, but I am making it my special mission to revive it.  

Spread 50 pounds of cottonseed meal in the Orchard around all the fruit trees and grapes and blackberries.  The blackberry bramble is loaded with blooms.  The bees were extremely active in the hive.  I think this is has been a good spring for them, it has rained but not so much that they can't forage.

Transplanted another patch of thyme from the path in the Star Garden over to the Medicine Garden.

Spent some time weeding in the Orchard and laid down some compost.

Fiddled around weeding, cutting back things, and day dreaming.  Left about four to get ready for Easter.