Weekend at the Farm March 11 - 12, 2017

  The first poppy of the season:

Rainy and cloudy weekend.

• I had 12 yards of mulch delivered on Friday.  Bert was already here to take delivery because we took Buddy to the vet to get his remaining 4 teeth pulled.  Just joking, but he did have 4 more teeth pulled, and with the 14 he had pulled several years ago, he is gumming a lot of his food. 
• I worked in the Vegetable Garden all morning on Saturday.  I had mulched most of the beds at the beginning of winter, so I decided to turn all of it under.  I planted 5 tomato plants.  This year I planted 3 under the goat wire arbor.  Once they set fruit I'm going to cover the arbor with netting and try to keep the squirrels and birds off my tomatoes.  Every year Bert and I try something new to keep the animals off our tomatoes.  Nothing ever works.  This is our latest idea.  I didn't have enough room to plant the other two under the arbor.  I re-mulched around the tomatoes.  Everywhere I had mulched last winter has so many earthworms!  More than I've ever seen before.  It was obviously a good thing to mulch in the Vegetable Garden last winter.  I sowed French Filet bush green beans and patty pan squash in some of the beds, same routine - I turned under the mulch and re-mulched after I planted the seeds.  I also sowed some fennel in one bed (for my beloved butterflies to lay their eggs on).  I planted an Ichibahn eggplant in one of the plastic feed buckets that Albert gave us.  And in the other 6 buckets I sowed zinnias. On the small goat wire arbor I sowed some Blushing Susan vine seeds.  They aren't edible, just pretty.  I mulched around some Mexican Sunflowers that came up from seed that fell off the plants last fall.  The Vegetable Garden looks excellent right now, I spent four solid hours in there and used four truckloads of mulch.  We're off to a good start.
• I decided to re-purpose my old rusted wheelbarrow, so I filled it with compost, soil and mulch and planted a Dancer eggplant, a marjoram, sowed some green beans and squash seeds in it. I'm using it as a planter.  I parked it in an empty spot in the Star Garden where it will get a bit of water and sun. 
• I sowed a few seeds of patty pan squash in a pot in the Star Garden.  I'll wait for the strongest one and pull up the rest of course.  
• I have four shoes in the Star Garden that I've planted some sedums in.  Two are doing fine, but two needed to be re-done.  I dug up some sedum from the garden, filled the shoes with new soil and planted the sedum.  
• Next I filled the cub cadet with mulch and drove down to the Boardwalk Gardens.  They really need to be cleaned up.  I pulled weeds, raked and mulched around one of my White-by-the-Gate Camellias.  It's a large area. I did the other one a few weeks ago.  I cut back my red Turks Cap in the area and mulched part of that.  I managed to do two truckloads before I tired out for the day.
• I pulled all the dead canna vegetation out of the bed at the entrance to the Orchard.   I pulled the weeds around the Victoria Falls iris in the same bed. 
• Sunday I got started bright and early in the Orchard.  I planted 15 echinacea down there:  6 Cherokee Spirit, 6 Ruby Star, and 3 Wild Berry.  I also planted 2 Evolution Salvia.  I weeded and laid down mulch in places that looked like they were going to get weedy.  I also scratched-in lots of Cactus zinnia seeds.
• I tied up the Erhlicheer greenery in the Orchard so it won't flop over and smother my salvias.  You can't cut back the greenery, you have to let it die back on its own.
• Zelda and the kids stopped for lunch on their way back from Austin.  
• After they left I loaded up the cub cadet with mulch and worked on the Boardwalk gardens for a while.  I continued mulching down the hill toward the Orchard entrance.  Still a long way to go.  I will need to figure out a way to re-route the water before I tackle they other side of the Boardwalk.  The running water will just wash it all away if I do nothing.  
• I fed the bees some sugar water.
• I used a truckload of mulch in the Medicine Garden.  While I was working in there I cut back some Turk's Cap and dug up some columbine that was growing in the paths.  I transplanted six or so plugs to the bed in front of the greenhouse.
• I spent a little time in the Rose Garden deadheading roses.  Then I transplanted six or so plugs of Verbena Bonariensis from paths to beds.
• Tied up the Erhlicheer greenery in the Star Garden that are planted amongst my Dwarf Flowering Almonds.
• I mulched in one of the beds in the Star Garden where tiny little baby weeds were beginning to show.
• Whew!  That's it.  Drove in to work on Monday morning.