To the Farm for a Day September 23, 2021

 

I drove up on Wednesday evening and worked all day on Thursday in preparation for guests arriving on the weekend.  I couldn't get anything done last weekend with 5 grandchildren running around.  The weather on Thursday was magnificent.  So beautiful.

• I worked in the Rose Garden all morning.  I did some deep watering in various beds.  I planted 5 Red Shades yarrow in the same bed where I planted the others last week.  As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I am hoping for great things with yarrow.  I have invested quite a bit in it.  I have purchased lots of it including some pink colors planted in the Rose Garden and white planted in Mom's Garden.  I added lots of castor seed around all of them and fertilized with cotton seed meal.  I cut away plants that were encroaching into the paths.  All of the basil plants are huge now since it is the end of summer.  I cut away lots of basil. I deadheaded Heliopsis and spread the seed.  I pulled up some spent celosia in the Vegetable Garden, and I threw the seed heads in the Rose Garden.  Deadheaded roses.  Watered my new honeysuckle that I planted in a bucket.  It was gasping.  I finally pulled up all the Fruity Pebbles growing in paths.  I had dug most of it out last summer and potted it up.  These were the last hold outs.  I have so much of growing in the Rose Garden now that I don't need those precious few.  Weeded, weeded, weeded.  Pulled up spent zinnias.  Cut away cypress vine that was crawling all over everything in the Long Border.
• Next I worked in the Vegetable Garden.   It was pretty dry in there, I had really decreased the watering time in there.  Too much considering I just sowed seeds.  A few red amaranth had toppled over during the high winds last week, so I pulled them up.  Turned the compost piles.  Did some weeding, but it looks pretty good in there.  Lots of lettuce seedlings in the bucket, not much of anything germinated in the bed.  Germination is poor for my kale as well.  I sowed some more.  I amended the soil and sowed beet seeds. 
• In Mom's Garden I planted a perennial fleabane that I bought from Anne Thames last week.  I cut away Moonflower vine that was crawling all over one of my Mexican Buckeye trees.  Cleaned up a bit in there.  Added water to the water trough.  Looks good in there.  It's time to pull up the cleome.  Although that variety did not make seed (at least as far as I can tell), it was an excellent bloomer all summer long.  I don't know what I will replace it with.  I threw zillions of white Larkspur in there last spring, so they should be coming up soon.  I'm considering just getting a flat of sweet alyssum and planting that in there.  And then I will just wait to see what pops up around it.  Alyssum will make a pretty show all winter and into early spring. 
• Watered my broken zone 11 bed.
• Watered the pots around the pool.
• The butterflies continue to be beautiful and entertaining.  I saw a lot of the black and blue iridescent ones (there are several varieties and I can't tell the difference between them) which I was glad of because I haven't seen many of them this year.  
• The rest of my activities were inside clean up.  Headed home about 3:00.