Weekend at the Farm June 8 - 9, 2019

Backstreet Cafe on Saturday with Blake, Mom, Lisa and Nan, a little luncheon before the baby comes.  Drove to the farm after that.  Bert was already here.

• I didn't do anything on Saturday.
• Sunday up early.  The weather could have been worse, so I counted myself lucky.
• I went down to the Orchard to work in there. I pulled weeds for a long time, about three hours.  I managed to clean up the big chunks and left it looking much better.  
• Swam in the pool.  The water is the perfect temperature.
• I spent some time in the Star Garden weeding and cleaning up, pulling up ageratum and brown eyed Susans.  
• I cut back all the iris fans in the dining room flower bed.   It exposed the roses to the sun and un-crowded the phlox.  I will be moving lots of the iris in the fall.  
• June and July are all about trying to keep things under control as best you can - crabgrass is the enemy.  
• I sowed a few sunflowers in the Vegetable Garden, and some catmint in one of the buckets. 
• One of my Agastache up and died.  I don't know why - voles?  The others growing next to it are fine.  I have been true to my goal of keeping all my new plants from getting smothered.  What a bummer, though.  I hate losing plants.
• Drove in to work on Monday morning.

Peachie's Pick Stokes Aster June 9, 2019

Asters return reliably every year.  I love all asters.  I have Pringle, Prairie, another variety I can't think of the name of, and this Stokes aster.  I love them all.  I had a Stokes Aster, and it disappeared in the heat and dry several years ago.  But one day I noticed it was trying to come back.  Wow, that was tenacity.  I bought two more and planted them in a more water-favorable spot, and then I moved my little hero, next to them.  In the photo below, the biggest one is the hero.  They become a bigger clump every year.  Love them!

Rain Lilies June 9, 2019

It rained last week, and the rain lilies are blooming.

Bee Balm June 2, 2019

In the pictures below there are bee balm, brown eyed Susans, Easy Ned daylilies, Black and Blue sage, and coneflower blooming.  Thryallis is also in the picture, but it has not begun to bloom yet.

Weekend at the Farm June 1 - 2, 2019

Last weekend for Memorial Day weekend, I kept Koy, Sam, and Charlie.  Nancy, Lisa, Mom and Dad came up on Saturday and stayed to Monday.  We camped in tents on Saturday.  That was a nightmare!  Sunday night me and the kids slept on the air mattresses in the bedroom.  I couldn't handle another night outside!  This weekend was all about hard labor in the garden.  I'm not acclimated to the heat yet, and it was a bit tough.

• Bert came up on Friday and got me a yard and a half of the soil mix at Papescapes.  I needed to do a lot of cleanup, but without mulch it is really a wasted exercise.  
• I started bright and early on Saturday to beat the heat.  I started in the Vegetable Garden.  I pulled up all the swiss chard, beats, and parsnips that remained.  We aren't going to eat them, and they need to be out of there to let the soils rest.  There were lots of them, and I piled them high in the compost pile.  I drove down to the Orchard and loaded up the last of the landscape rock that Josh and Amy gave me.  The raised beds in the Vegetable Garden aren't very raised anymore.  So I pulled up the rotten, half sunk in the ground corral boards that surrounded several of the beds.  I edged them with a double layer of the rock.  Next I filled one of the beds with my soil mix and half filled another bed.  Pulled lots of weeds.
• I dug up my Yukon Gold potatoes.  We have sixty or so.
• I mulched where I weeded.
• Picked four tomatoes.  We had them for dinner.  Delicious.
• I spent about five hours in the Vegetable Garden cleaning up.  Looks good in there.
• Next I worked in the Star Garden.  I pulled weeds, and I pulled up spent Nigella.  I also pulled up lots of Brown Eyed Susans.  I dumped all the good stuff in the compost pile, and I dumped the weeds in the woods.  I dug up all the Ehrlicheer bulbs I could find in the section of bed with the dwarf flowering almonds.  I'm not sure where I will plant them yet.  In their place I planted two white mist flower.  Watered all my new plantings that I've put in over the last several weeks as well as all the salvia that I transplanted a couple of weeks ago.  Laid down mulch where I weeded.
• I worked in the Star Garden until about 3:30.
• Sunday.  Up early and worked in the Rose Garden.  I spent a lot of time pulling up Brown Eyed Susans.  I pulled up plants by the armfuls and you could hardly tell!  They were crowding my young roses, so they needed to be gone.  I cut away verbena that was crowding the roses.  Watered here and there.  Cleaned up, pulled weeds.
• I also worked in the Long Border.  Pulled weeds, mulched, watered.  Yanked up lots of Brown Eyed Susans.  The flowers are still pretty, but they block the sprinklers from getting to the roses.  That's why I'm pulling them up strategically.  Anyway, there are still lots of them in the gardens.  
• I sprayed herbicide in the Shade Garden, the Vegetable Garden, the Rose Garden, and the Orchard.  That's the only time I went down to the Orchard all weekend.  While I was there I ate blackberries by the handfuls.
• I also sprayed herbicide on the awful, tall wildflower that I have mentioned in past blog posts.  I want to get it out of there before it blooms.  So invasive.  The foliage has a camphor smell, but it isn't camphorweed.  It has already gotten about four feet tall and very dense, so it is not difficult to broadcast herbicide over the top of it, and the herbicide won't touch anything else.
• Watered the pots around the pool.  They aren't looking so good.  
• Sprinkled ant poison here and there.
• I sowed some okra and sunflower seeds in the Vegetable Garden.  Okra is about the only vegetable that will grow in the heat.  Peppers, okra, and eggplant.  But peppers and eggplant should already be in the ground.  Sunflowers will also grow, but I don't really consider them a food, I consider them an ornamental.  I don't know how old the sunflower seeds are, I received them as a gift with something else I ordered.  There was no date on the package.  If they don't germinate I will plant more.  I also had some amaranth seeds that I threw on the ground to see if they would sprout.  
• Monday morning we couldn't find Rocky.  He wasn't in the house, but neither of us had let him out.  He was stuck in the Vegetable Garden, apparently I shut him in after I sowed the seeds.  He was stuck in there all night, poor baby.  He never barked.  And we didn't notice!  He has taken to being a bit of a loner and sleeping under the cabinet in the bathroom, and I guess we assumed he was there.  Strange all the way around.