I drove up on Wednesday afternoon. Before I hired a maid, arriving on Wednesday would have been a terrible slog of work to clean the house. It has been a life-changing (and expensive) improvement. I cooked the things I was assigned and gathered greenery and berry branches for the tables. We had 22 adults and five children. Very fun day, very good to be together as a family. Everyone was gone by noon on Friday except for Nathan's dogs. I kept them for the weekend while the family went to Austin. Bert left to go hunting with Will at the ranch as he does every Thanksgiving, but this time Henry went with them - three generations.
- The seeds I sowed have sprouted everywhere, and it is the usual thrill. I love to watch the seedlings grow.
- I've never been very good at starting work in the middle of the day. So I did very little on Friday.
- I raked leaves and loaded the cadet five or so times , dumped the leaves in the Daffodil Border. I'm almost finished mulching that area. It's very long, and I make my layer of leaves pretty deep to keep down the weeds.
- I pulled everything out of the shed that I'm going to use tomorrow morning so I will ready to hit the ground running.
- Saturday. I filled the four x four bed in the Vegetable Garden with compost that Bert and I built up last weekend. (We added another row of cedar logs to make the bed deeper.) I planted the cloves from 3 garlic bulbs throughout most of it, then sowed Corncockle in the rest of the bed. I sowed Corncockle, Tall Poppy Mallow and red corn poppies in a few other spots as well. I've never planted garlic at this time of year. I forgot about it, actually. I ordered it and was going to plant it in the early fall, but I stuck it in my seed box and forgot about it. The cloves are sitting in pure mushroom compost. Garlic is a very heavy feeder, so maybe it will grow fabulously despite being planted in late November.
- I worked in the Orchard for a while. I moved the pine needles in four or so spots in the Jujube bed, threw down some compost and sowed seeds - Tall Poppy Mallow, California Poppy, red poppy and Moss Verbena.
- I did some raking in the Rose Garden. And I prepped some spots and sowed seeds. Did a little weeding, but there aren't many weeds - summer weeds have died off and winter weeds are still tiny. Plus, I have been laying down lots of compost which smothers the weeds.
- I trimmed the Sweetspire in the Circle so that I can see my beautiful Debutante Camellia from the house. So, so pretty right now.
- I laid down compost in a few spots in the Star Garden, and I sowed seeds.
- Sunday. Bert and I were up before light. We drank coffee on the porch in the cool dark morning.
- I cleaned out the area behind the Vegetable Garden. That area is a combination of compost pile attempts, dead Mexican Sunflower vegetation, dead castor plant vegetation, and emerging growth of wildflowers and weeds. The sunflowers and castors look like dried up skeletons after the first freeze. I yanked them out of the ground and loaded them in the cadet. I also forked out all the branches, twigs, etc - things that take too long to rot. I raked up three truckloads of leaves at one of my favorite leaf-gathering spots just adjacent to the Vegetable Garden along the backside of the Shade Garden. That is some good leaf! I stuffed a bunch of leaves into one of my large plastic buckets to begin a new compost pile. And I added leaves to my current one and mixed it all up really well.
- I worked on my Kitchen Herb Garden for a couple of hours. I turned over the soil and added lots and lots of compost. I planted 4 thyme, 1 sage, 2 winter savory, 2 prostrate rosemary, 2 oregano, and 3 chive. Then I sowed the last of my parsley seeds. Those seeds were a great purchase. I will always buy parsley in bulk. It will always get used.
- I hauled 4 or so wheel barrowsful of compost over to the Long Border and spread it around next to my 2 climbers. Then I sowed seeds - poppy mallow and poppies.
- Watered-in all the seeds I sowed.
- Headed in to work on Monday morning.
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