Three Days at the Farm March 15-17, 2019

Here are some more pictures of my dear little wildings.  They are popping up all over the place.  This is the best year ever for them (must be all the rain).

We arrived on Friday morning.  We made it just in time to get our delivery of 8 yards of gravel, the truck showed up about 10 minutes after we arrived.

• The first thing I did was put down gravel in the little area in the Vegetable Garden that was undone.  
• Then, I spent the whole day from early morning until 3:00 laying down gravel in the Star Garden and the Orchard.  It was a beautiful, cool day, so I was able to work for a long time.  I got about a third of the Orchard completed.  From 3:00 until 4:30 I worked in the Star Garden.  A lot of progress was made.
• I put a new shirt and hat on the scarecrow in the Orchard.  The old shirt was faded to white and the hat was falling apart. 
• Saturday.  I started back on laying gravel in the Orchard first thing.  I had to stop at 12:30 and clean up.  We went in to Brenham to Pam Hutchings book signing (our neighbor).
• After we stopped by there we went to the hardware store.  I bought a couple of tomato plants, but our goal was to find 27 inch shutters.  The ones on the Greenhouse had rotted away, and we need to replace them.  Small shutters are hard to find, I will go to the internet next.
• When we got home I worked for a while in the Vegetable Garden.  I pulled up the remaining lettuce, added a bag of compost, and planted the two tomato plants that I bought in town.
• I added some potting soil to one of the big feed buckets and seeded it with Rose Campion seeds.  I've tried to grow Rose Campion several times with no luck.  I'll give it one more chance.  I have no idea if this is one of the plants that should be planted in the fall or the spring.  But, spring it is.
• Spent some time in the Star Garden weeding.  I planted a Mango Tango Agastache.
• Worked in the Medicine Garden for a while raking.  I planted 5 comfrey plants.  It's a risk planted anything with a tap root.  The voles love tap roots - very tasty.
• I planted two wooly thyme plants in the Kitchen Herb Garden.  I don't think they could possibly be edible (too fuzzy), but they were so damn cute that I bought them.
• Sunday.  I started immediately laying down gravel in the Orchard.  I quit about 11:00.  I'm almost finished, but Bert needed the cadet to haul some logs to the wood pile.  A tree fell down across one of the paths, so he had to cut it up and move it.
• I worked on the paths in the Star Garden for a while.  I got the main one in the front completed.  It was a long and wide path, so that was good.  But mostly I'm working on the back paths first so that I don't have roll the wheel barrow over the paths I've completed.
• I sowed some lettuce seeds in the Vegetable Garden.  I'll try to get some tender spring lettuces before it gets too hot.  Next weekend I will pull up the mustards that have gone to seed and I will plant something, don't know what - probably a pepper and an eggplant.  But for now I will leave the bees some flowers.
• I sowed some Cleome and some Nicotiana seeds in the Long Border.  I set the sprinkler on them to go off every day for 15 minutes to give them a good start. 
• I planted 3 Salvia Nemorosa May Night in the Star Garden.  I agonized over where to plant them because I hate pulling up seedlings.  But I finally pulled up some poppy seedlings and planted the salvia (it was painful).
• I cut my 5 Thryallis down low to the ground.
• I cut back the Turks Cap in the big bed in the back.
• I cleaned up salvia greggii in my various gardens, cutting away dead limbs and trimming back gangly ones so they looked neater.
• I walked the Meadow all 3 days I was there.  I find the variety of plants starting to spring forth endlessly fascinating, but I'd guess most people would be thinking "look at all these weeds".
• My Neopolitan Alliums are in bud, and I have one bud on my bearded iris already.  I see the Spanish Bluebells are budding, and there are lots of flowers on my Paw Paw.  So far the deer have left my roses alone.  I think it was a good idea to spray them with fungicide.
• I couldn't pull my self away to go home on Sunday, so we spent the night.  We all got up early and drove in to Houston on Monday morning, and I drove from there to work.  I walked the property for several hours after we decided to stay the night, and it was a joy to take in all the life that that was springing forth.