At the Farm During the Pandemic March 1 - 7, 2021

 

This is Purple Phacelia, a little wilding that first showed up in my Vegetable Garden.  Now I have spread it over the whole Vegetable Garden, the whole Star Garden and parts of the Rose Garden.  It the only thing blooming right now.  And the bees are all over it.  It's been shown that bees are more attracted to blue flowers than any other color.  But the main reason bees are covering my phacelia is that nothing is blooming right now after that terrible winter storm.  

• Monday.  Worked.
• It rained throughout the day.  That's always a good thing.
• Tuesday.  Worked.
• I started cutting all the dead wood away from my perennials in the Star Garden.  
• I spent some time cutting back the slimy parts of my iris.  They looked a mess.
• I haven't gone around scratching the wood on some of my most dead-looking shrubs to see if there is green under the surface.  I feel like everything I have will survive, but I'm just dreading finding out that I'm wrong. My camellias and banana shrubs in particular.  I keep passing by them, but I haven't checked them.  I'm curious about my cannas and gingers because it is reasonable that they might not have made it.  Those are definitely a wait and see.  On the one hand, I think of cannas as indestructible, but in the north people dig them up and store them over the winter, so maybe they took a hit, not sure.  The Chronicle said that gingers probably didn't make it.  That will be very sad for me because I have one of the best blooming gingers that I have ever come across.  
• I sprayed herbicide in the Vegetable Garden, around Bert's sculpture in the back, along the edge of some beds in the back, and in the parts of the Star Garden that I missed last time.  I feel real good about that.  I've gotten kind of nervous using that herbicide now that they say it causes cancer.
• The fountain in the Water Garden stayed on all day, I was relieved to see.  It was sunny.  The last week it has been cloudy, and the fountain has not come on. It's so new, I wasn't sure if it was faulty workmanship or cloud cover.
• After work I spent about an hour cutting back dead vegetation in the Rose Garden.
• Wednesday.  Worked.
• Before work I cut back more dead vegetation in the Rose Garden.
• I mixed together some potting soils and perlite.  I potted up 8 or so little pots full of the mix and sowed some Nicotiana seed (which is like powder its so tiny).  And I filled a pot in the Vegetable Garden with soil and perlite mix and sowed Nicotiana seed.  I find Nicotiana very difficult to grow.  But I keep trying.  I had a really large plant last year but I never got the wonderful scent it's supposed to have.
•  Thursday.  Worked.
• Drove home to Houston after work. Airbnb guests arrived on Friday.