Four Days at the Farm March 12 - 15, 2020

This is the first "fancy" bearded iris of the season.  I'm not counting the cemetery whites which are incredibly reliable (in contrast to the fancy ones which often stubbornly refuse to bloom) because the cemetery whites are pretty but not as special as the ones that have been bred for color, etc.

Bert and I drove up together Wednesday evening.

• First thing in the morning on Thursday we drove with the trailer to Shroeder's and bought a couple of yards of mulch.
• I finished out the long back bed that I had started several weeks ago with the compost.  I weeded and laid down mulch around the Thryallis shrubs, the autumn sages, the coreopsis, Siberian iris, African hostas, and daylilies.
• Watered around the Greenhouse.
• Sprayed herbicide along the French drain at the back of the house where weeds were growing amongst the bull rock.  And sprayed the bad weed with the tenacious roots that had taken up residence in the back bed, accidentally sprayed a columbine and got so pissed at myself. 
• I planted 2 stonecrop in my old work boots and put the boots under the bench in the Star Garden.
• I planted 2 poblano peppers in the dry part of the Vegetable Garden.
• Planted a Black Beauty eggplant in the Vegetable Garden.
• I watered the bean area that I seeded last weekend because they are in the dry part of the Vegetable Garden. The ones that I planted 2 weeks ago are sprouting, and the ones I planted on my arbors at the front gate and the entrance to the Rose Garden have popped up.
• The fennel, catnip, valerian, and Laura Bush petunias that I sowed 2 weeks ago have sprouted.  Who doesn't get a little thrill from a seed that has sprouted?  God is good.
• I believe my entire spring vegetable garden is planted now.  I was hoping to plant a jalapeno pepper and an Ichiban eggplant, but they had none in the nursery.  I will have to pull something up to plant them if I end up buying them.  The mustards are going to seed, so I can pull them up, but they make such a good flower stalk for the bees that I always hesitate.
• I weeded in the Rose Garden for a short while and watered.  The great big bumble bees seemed to be having a battle - the black shiny ones and the brown and yellow furry ones.  There was a lot of fury going on (it seemed to me).  There was a monarch, several Tiger Swallowtails, and a red admiral out there.  Butterflies are unusually attracted to the purple verbena. 
• Bert and I sat outside and watched the fire that he made on a stump (trying to burn out the stump of a dead tree he cut down).  It was a dark, cool, star-less night, and we sat out there for a couple of hours. 
• Friday morning - my last day to work because the girls are coming to stay with me on Saturday.
•  I loaded the cadet with mulch 3 times and spread mulch at the entrance to the Orchard in the canna bed.  I weeded first, it had become a problem area.  I also filled in the armadillo hole down there that I kept meaning to do but never got around to it - finally got around to it.  I used up all but one load of mulch.
• I had 6 seed packets of Nicotiana, and I sowed it all in the Medicine Garden.  
• I dug up some bulbs in the Rose Garden that never bloom, I think they are some of the last of the bad bulbs that I planted everywhere 10 years ago.  I found them growing in my garden in Houston.  It was this mass of 50 bulbs - I'm not really sure of their origin.  Anyway, I got the bright idea to plant them here in Burton.  I soon realized they were no good.  Some bulbs spend all their energy on multiplying, and they never bloom.  I have dug them all up and thrown them in the woods.  I think these might be the last of that group.  I spread a packet of Laura Bush petunias in that spot.
• Weeded in the Rose Garden for a bit.  There aren't a lot of weeds in there, but it seems there is always something to pull up!
• We have gotten lots of asparagus from our asparagus beds.  It has been a good year.  I picked 10 spears this morning.
• The girls aren't coming after all.  Their school closed for the rest of March due to coronavirus, so they are driving the girls to Louisiana to stay with Amy's folks.  So I'm on my own for the rest of the weekend.
• Dinner with Jeff and Amy.
• Saturday morning, face time with Mom and Dad.  No visitors at the Buckingham allowed until the virus subsides.
• I sprayed herbicide in the Orchard.
• Weeded here and there.
• Picked more asparagus.
• I worked on the Boardwalk Gardens for a couple of hours - weeding and cutting all the dead vegetation from the Turk's Cap.  I also weeded in the Orchard.  
• While I was down there I spread Sweet Thai Basil in two spots in the Orchard beds.
• I sowed some more French Marigold seed in the Vegetable Garden.  And I got tired of waiting to see if the spaghetti squash seed I sowed was going to germinate, and I sowed two more.  Two have come up , but in the other spot - not a sign of life.  
• I decided to pull up the mustards.  I went out there and looked at them, and they are swiss cheese from caterpillars.  I pulled up one, but I saw a baby lizard on the other and decided to wait.  I need some compost anyway.  If I decide to drive in to town tonight, I will buy some compost.
• I planted 3 Inland Sea Oats in the shady part of the Star Garden.
• I drove around the property for a while by myself - which I don't often do - looking at the very early wildflowers along the trails.  Indian Paint Brushes, spiderwort, tiny little white flowers (two varieties) and yellow flowers no taller than a few inches, several varieties of grasses and rushes with handsome seed heads, some yellow flowers (not brown eyed Susans, too early for those) maybe squaw flower, and wild indigo.  It was very pleasant.
• I'm very excited o see that the grape vine growing along the Vegetable Garden fence is a female!  Tiny little grape clusters have appeared.  When it sprung up in the compost pile last summer, I debated about whether to kill it, but I decided to wait to see if it would bear fruit.  And it has borne fruit!  So I will keep it.  How exciting.  It will be so convenient for picking because it is not stretching up into a tree, it is growing vertically along the fence.
• I have decided to let one of the little native grasses loose in some of my beds.  It makes a very small bunch, about the size of a large fist.  The leaves are wider than bluestem.  It seeds pretty heavily.  If I can keep it under control I think it will be a pretty and drought tolerant groundcover.  It throws off seeds which is the part that makes me wonder about it.  It turns reddish in the fall, but it is evergreen.  Anyway, if it doesn't become invasive it will be very pretty.  And blades of grass are springing up nearby every spot that I've let it live.
• Debra offered me some dark pink crinums, so I drove over there in the cadet and got them.  Threw them in the rain bucket and will plant them in the Long Border tomorrow.
• I had 3 more dragon's blood stone crop.  I planted one in the big pot with the avocado and two in a small clay pot.  I absolutely love sedums.
• I bought a small Lord Baltimore mallow at Buchanan's last week.  I always buy small versions of big plants - it's a $$ deal.  I've got all the time in the world to see them get big.  I planted it in the Orchard close to the rose that looks like it's not going to make it.  So it can take over that spot if the rose dies.  If the rose doesn't die I can move the mallow.
• Bert re-did my sprinkler set up next to the Greenhouse.  Now I have a hose that runs to the Hot Border and can also water the dry part of the Vegetable Garden.
•  Sunday.  Up before dark drinking coffee on the porch.  Listened to the drip, drip, drip of the rain hitting the rain barrels.  My last day.  It always makes me feel melancholy to leave.
• I picked a bunch more asparagus from the garden.  The zucchini seedlings are beginning to pop up.  And more of the runner beans have emerged.  More potatoes have emerged as well, and I see that I planted my eggplant right where I planted potatoes.  I plant so much that sometimes I forget where.  I thought I left that space empty.  I will have to move the eggplant before I leave today.
• Airbnb issued a new policy in light of coronavirus which allows hosts and guests to cancel without penalty.  But I think we will take a wait and see attitude.  I would be very surprised if the Round Top Antique Festival goes on.  It starts March 21st and it is usually wall to wall people.  If that cancels, we will for sure have cancellations.
• I arranged the sprinklers for next week.  Pulled weeds.
• I sowed French Marigolds and basil in the Star Garden.  I'm sowing lots of Marigolds because I have them. They are very useful for deterring nematodes in the Vegetable Garden.  Sowing them in the Star Garden just means that I have hundreds more and I don't want them to go to waste. I spent some time in the Rose Garden weeding the space under and around the Fortune's Double.  It's a bit of a problem area, and although it's a large space, I only have the rose in there and some bulbs.  I'll have to weed it again and spread some mulch soon.
• I planted the 3 crinums Debra gave me.  I planted them in the Long Border.
• I cleaned up 2 of the beds in the old grass gardens of the Star Garden.  I pulled out debris, cut back the moudry grass, and cut away dead pieces of autumn sage.  The voles have really been doing a number on those two beds.  Little bastards.
• I sprayed fungicide on all my roses in the Star Garden and the Rose Garden.
• Sprayed herbicide around the pool, in the Rose Garden, and in the Star Garden. 
• For the rest of the day I just piddled around.  The most ambitious thing I did was dig up a double orange daylily growing in the path and move it to the Hot Border.  I walked from garden to garden for hours.
• I harvested some kale and collards from the Vegetable Garden to bring home.
• The Round Top Antique show was cancelled and I have received 2 Airbnb cancellations already.  And I'm expecting one more but they have not emailed yet. That's okay.  Less work for me.
• We left around 5:00.