Weekend at the Farm March 7 - 8, 2020

It is daylight savings this weekend.  Finally.  The longer we have the light the better as far as I'm concerned.

• Saturday - robins!  I don't remember them hanging around this long in years past.
• The first thing I did was plant my tomatoes.  I planted 6 in beds that I had prepared last weekend, so I had them in the ground fast.  Celebrity, Early Girl, Parks Whopper, I think those are the varieties I planted.  I generally don't buy the heirlooms.  They aren't good producers. 
• Then I started working on more runner beans.  Since I'm going to have structures leaning over the fence, I'm not going to be able to get between the fence and the raised bed in order to get rid of the weeds.  So, I laid down black plastic and secured it with my long black stakes.  Then I sowed three more sections of Sunset and Painted Lady beans along the edge of the beds.  And then I set up the wire fence structures and tied them to the fence (in case of a high wind).  Sowed more French Marigolds around the tomatoes and here and there.  Sometimes I started laying down seed only to find that I had already sowed marigold seeds in that spot last weekend - they were already sprouting.  I sow so many seeds that I forget where I've already been. 
• My potatoes are popping up, just visible above the soil line.  Exciting!
• I set up 8 or so tomato cages under my goat wire arbor so that I could sow more than one row of cucumbers and zucchini.  The vines can climb up the goat wire and the tomato cages.  The tomato cages touch the top of the goat wire arbor, so when the vines reach the goat wire they can continue climbing.  I know zucchini don't like cool weather when is what we are having right now, but I went for it.  
• I worked in the Vegetable Garden most of the morning.  I'm very excited about the Vegetable Garden right now.  Spring is the best time.  And I have really worked on amending the soil, so I should have a successful, relatively un-molested-by-nematodes bounty.  I used my own compost in one of the beds, so I'm proud of that.  I have been devoting a lot of time to my compost this winter.  I have been making working on small batches of compost by using the large black feed buckets that Albert Meyers gave us.  I dump the compost from one bucket to another every weekend so it gets really mixed up a heck of lot more frequently that I used to turn my compost piles (which was never).  With the nematode problem I have, the soil has to be amended every time something gets planted.  So I really needed to start actively making and using my own compost.  Since I used one of my buckets of compost, I started another.  I had lots and lots of mustard leaves that were full of bug holes, so I cut them off the plants, added them to the bucket, and added lots of oak leaves from the big piles I raked up last fall
  (for this very purpose).  
• I also sowed some Jacobs Cattle Beans which are bush beans.
• It's really late in the season to do it, but I decided to drastically prune my Mutabilis rose.  I've been wanting to do it because I can see that there has been an infestation of voles in that bed - they have eaten most of the roots of my Pringle Aster.  The rose is laying on its side, no doubt because of a vole den around the roots that took away all the rose's support system.  I cut all the greenery away until all that was left was 4 canes.  Then I had Bert help me pull it upright and we put some stakes in the ground that prevent it from leaning over again.  Then I ran lots of water on it and mushed down the soil.  Weeded all around it.
• Next I began tying down more daffodil greenery in the Dwarf Flowering Almond bed.  There were more weeds in there than I realized, so I spent time weeding in there as well.  There are lots of Love In A Mist seedlings in that bed, so I wanted to give them their chance to grow and bloom - I had to move the daffodil greenery out of their way.
• I planted two more bronze fennel next to the two that I planted last weekend.  Now I have a little colony of fennel for my butterflies.
• I also planted a milkweed in the Star Garden.  
• I dug up lots of wooly stemodia in a dry section in the Star Garden and planted two Grey Bush Sage (Savia chamaedryoides).  The foliage is gorgeous, it has blue flowers, and it is drought tolerant.  Hopefully a good choice in that spot.
• I watered here and there.  And weeded here and there throughout the day.
• I have a beautiful bud on one of my bearded iris.  Hopefully it will open before I leave on Sunday.  And there are buds on my Cemetery Whites in the Medicine Garden.  All the altheas are starting to show tiny little specks of green on the leaf buds.  It's such a great time of year.  Renewal.  Life.  
• Sunday.  Up before daylight.  Coffee on the porch. 
• I started in the Orchard.  I carried several buckets of compost down there to condition the soil in one particular spot.  And I planted 2 bee balm and sowed some French Marigolds.  I had to carry buckets of compost down there because my faithful wheel barrow finally broke beyond repair.  And the cadet has a flat tire.  Perfect storm of tool breakage.  I did a little clean-out of my long bed of blackberries.  I cut some dead canes and weeded.  I also dug out a bunch grass that had taken root in there.  It's been in there for a couple of years, and I've done nothing about it.  But now there are lots of little clumps of grass in there.  So I pulled them all up.  Weeded in a few other spots.  That was good work. 
• The coneflower has made a step change in growth down there in the Orchard I was pleased to see.  The crabapple and the wild plum are in full bloom now.  And the flowers are starting to bloom on the other two plum trees.  The leaves are just peeking out on the jujube and the Celeste Fig.  
• I raked the Vegetable Garden, the Rose Garden, and a few places in the Star Garden.
• I sowed Strawberry Fields Gomphrena in the Long Border.  
• And I sowed African Blue basil seeds in the Rose Garden.  Basil smells so good.  I would love the smell to permeate the Rose Garden mixed in with the smell of the roses.  This particular basil has wonderful flowers that are passionately attractive to bees. 
• I spent some time putting plants in the pots around the pool.  I planted 2 fennel, 2 Copper Canyon daisy, 2 red yucca, some coleus, and some sedums.  Most of that stuff is drought tolerant.  If I can keep it alive I will move the yuccas and daisies to the beds after summer.  
• I planted 2 bee balm amongst the black and blue sages in the back beds, and I planted 2 more  milkweed in the Star Garden.
• I wanted to spray herbicide but it was too windy.
• Drove home about 3:30.