At the Farm During the Pandemic May 11 - 17, 2020

This is Cypress Vine.  Cypress Vine will stand up under its own weight.  Sometimes tall plants have to be staked, but this one does not.

• Monday.  Worked.
• Someone left the Vegetable Garden gate open (probably me) and an armadillo got in, tore up the small asparagus bed.  I put all the soil back, smoothed it out.  
• I pulled up the dead vegetation in my round pot in the Star Garden and sowed some zinnia seeds.
• Watered all my potted plants.
• I watched a male cardinal pick all the tiny butterfly caterpillars off my fennel while I sat at the kitchen table working. Again and again.  Grr. 
• Tuesday.  Worked.
• Wednesday.  Worked.
• I cut back lots of Spiderwort in the Star Garden around the white mist flower and flowering almond shrubs.
• I pulled up all the tall poppy mallow in the Rose Garden.  It was leggy and unruly.  It had not gone to seed yet, but that's okay.  I can re-seed in the fall.  Weeded.  Cleaned up the partially dormant daffodil greenery - it was spread out all over the bed near the front of the garden.  Weeded around La Vesuve rose.  Pulled up up some brown eyed Susans that the voles had killed.
• Weeded in the Long Border.
• Cleaned up the dried vegetation from the hurricane lilies in the althea bed in the Rose Garden.
• The whole time I was working in there I was trying to stay away from the mama Cardinal nesting in the rose shrub.  She was very worried.
• I pulled up spent poppies in the Star Garden.
• My parrot glads are blooming.  I dug up lots of them in very early spring.  They had multiplied vigorously, but unfortunately they were growing in the shade behind a spicebush.  I planted them in various places in the Star Garden.  I didn't expect them to do much since I dug them up after they had already put on lots of greenery.  But a handful of them are blooming, and I couldn't be happier.  These are the old-fashioned passalong glads - orange and yellow, smaller than the fancy ones.  But so pretty.
• Thursday. Worked.
• I seeded an area in the Rose Garden that I cleared out yesterday.  Put up a chicken wire wall in front of it.  There are other ways for the armadillos to get past my barrier, but I'm hoping they are too stupid to find them.
• Weeded amongst the iris in the large dining room flowerbed.bed.
• Sprayed herbicide in the Star Garden.  
• Trimmed iris flags that were leaning into a path in the Star Garden.
• Texted Debra to see if she wanted any of my parrot glad bulbs.  I'm going to dig them up from behind the spicebush before they die back and I can't find them.  
• Spent a bit of time weeding in the Medicine Garden.  It can be hard to distinguish between a particular weed that I suffer from and the catnip that I seeded in the Medicine Garden this spring.  So I weeded discerningly. 
• Friday.  Worked.  Good hard rain Friday night.
• Saturday.  I cut back all the Duelberg salvias in the Star Garden.  I cut back the nemorosa salvias in the Star Garden and the Rose Garden.  
• I worked for quite some time in the bed near the front in the Star Garden.  I pulled up brown eyed Susans and spent Nigella.  Cut away verbena on a stick that was getting unruly.  Pulled up weeds.  Basically made room for the next phase of flowers and cleared out space around my young roses (Carefree Beauty, Cinco de Mayo, and Julia Child.  I will seed with zinnias. 
• Deadheaded my Butterfly rose and cleared out some Obedient Plant that was growing underneath Butterfly.
• Dug up a bunch of Parrot Glads for me and to give to Debra.  Planted mine near the ones that are blooming right now.  Drove over to Deb's house and gave her some.
• Pulled up brown eyed Susans and Tickseed out of the front bed.  They were leaning on my daylilies which are about to bloom, so they needed to go away.  Cut back the Ox Eye daisies next to Marie d'Orleans rose.
• I went down to the Orchard next.  During this period of staying here, I only work in the Orchard on the weekends.  It can be pretty daunting, too discouraging to go down for twenty minutes during my lunch hour.  I tied up a few Giant Rudbeckia, but mostly I weeded, weeded, weeded.  The day lilies look really pretty, and most are loaded with buds.  Lots of apples on the apple tree, lots of plums on the wild plum tree.  And so many blackberries.  I pulled up all the tall poppy mallow and cut back lots of tickseed.  I also pulled up dollar weed in the Jujube bed.  Yuck.
• I spent some time in the Kitchen Herb Garden pulling up mint and making room for the other herbs growing in there.  The mint had taken over.  I uncovered some chives and oregano that I had forgotten about.
• Cut back some more Duelberg salvia in the Star Garden.  Cut back lots of Tickseed.
• I picked a large bowl full of blackberries and made jelly.
• That was it for Saturday. 
• Sunday.  I weeded for a while in the Dining Room bed.  I'm really trying to stay on top of this bed this year.  I'm here every day, looking out the window as I work.  It only takes a few moments to go outside and pull up a weed here and there.
• I went down to the Orchard.  Bert joined me for a while and cut some low-growing branches on one of the plum trees and the Jujube tree.  I cut some branches off one of the apple trees and some of the thin low-growing branches of the crab apple and Jujube.  
• Weeded.  Raked.  Scooped soil back in to beds where the armadillos had scratched it out.  I brought my oil can of poison, and I cut and poisoned a Beautyberry and a Poke Salit that were growing in one of my blackberry beds.  I cut away some grape vines that were growing along the ground at the base of the vine.  And I snipped away at tendrils (to keep the vines from getting unruly).  I spent a couple of hours out there.
• Sowed some zinnias in the space I cleared yesterday at the front of the Star Garden.  Surrounded it with Chicken wire.  Also surrounded a space I seeded the other day.
• Staked some Giant Rudbeckia.
• Bert surprised me by clearing a path to a clearing in the woods.  We were looking at it a couple of evenings ago while riding around in the cadet.  I commented that we should clear a path so we could walk to the clearing - it is so rare to have a space with no yaupon choking it.  I was thrilled.  It's so pretty in there.  I walked through it and found a stand of Purple Pleat Leaf growing in there.  What a wonderful find! And what a sweet husband.