Day at the Farm September 23, 2018

The whole family went to an Astros game on Saturday night.  Bert and I drove to the farm separately on Sunday morning.  He will stay until Wednesday.  I drove home Sunday afternoon and flew to Denver Monday morning for an Allegro user group meeting.

• It's been pouring rain here, and that always creates a situation where all my seeds don't sprout (the soil gets too compacted).  However, some seeds have sprouted here and there.  Next weekend I will have a better idea what my bare spots are, and I will sow more vegetable seeds.
• I had two bags of potting soil, and I spent the day filling up all the big buckets in the Vegetable Garden.  Through the course of a season the soil in the buckets gets compacted, plus you lose some when you pull the plants out of the pots at the end of the season, so all of them have to be topped off.  I spread dill and parsley in all the buckets except for two.  
• I planted a mustard green and a collard green in two of the buckets.  I planted 3 mustards and 2 collards in the new bed that I turned over last weekend.
• I added some potting soil to all the pots in the Star Garden and sowed dill and parsley.  I planted a collard in a pot in the Star Garden.  I sowed catmint in the big pot in the Star Garden.  I used to have some growing in there, but after 3 years or so it has disappeared. 
• I did a little clean-up in the bulb bed around the oak tree in the Star Garden.  It didn't need much work.  I raked the soil to loosen it, then I spread an ounce of Corn Cockle seed over it and pressed it in.
• Loaded the cadet with a truckload of mulch and laid down mulch around the greens in the buckets and the ones in the bed that I planted earlier.  I also mulched the sixteen by two bed.  I'm going to let that one rest this winter, and I don't want to wrestle with weeds.
• Bert and I took a long piece of goat wire down to the Orchard and surrounded the Swamp Sunflower with it to try and stake that monster as best we could.  I planted a small plug of it two years ago, now it is massive and unruly.  I don't know how people use this plant in their gardens.  It can't stand up on its own, it grows six feet tall and flops everywhere right when it's setting its blooms. This year after it blooms and sets its seeds I'm going to dig it up and plant it in the wet part of the meadow.  It's a native, so it belongs there.  It can flop away out there.
• I did some weeding.  
• I spread sevin dust on the greens. 
• Drove home around 4:00.