Weekend at the Farm August 18 - 20, 2023

 

I worked on Friday.  Bert arrived in the afternoon after golf.  Another scorcher, no rain in sight.

I watered here and there.  My Fragrant Mimosa ( Texas native small tree / large shrub) has a bloom on it, the first I've seen.  And true to its name, it smells wonderful.

After work I went outside to the Vegetable Garden and worked in there until about 7:30.  I pulled weeds - the entire garden was choked with weeds, I haven't touched it since my surgery.  But it was pleasant outside (that is a relative term, of course), and so I got a lot done.  I sowed Maya sunflower seeds in 2 4 x 4 beds and the big bed in the middle and an 8 x 4.  I sowed some arugula, a little bit of cilantro and lots of red marigold seed along the edges of the beds.

Saturday, up before dawn and outside at first light.  It's back to the same old heat.  So much for our cold front.  I worked in the Star Garden pinning down landscape cloth, shoveling and laying down gravel.  I watered here and there.

Two women that rent our place on an annual basis each June drove up from Shiner, Texas to pick beautyberries.  They grow wild here, and they asked me if they could harvest berries.  Beautyberries can be made into jelly.  They are going to send me a jar.  The drought has made most of the berries un-harvestable, but they managed to find a bagful. 

Bert carried the granite rocks over to the pool where I am trying to make a step with stepping stones and gravel.  In the evening when the weather cooled down I filled in the landscape strips around the stepping stones (that Bert put in the ground - a huge help) with gravel.  It gives that area a little definition, makes it more appealing looking.

Sunday, up before dawn again and outside at first light.  

I turned over the soil in the 16 x 2 bed in the Vegetable Garden and sowed Maya sunflowers.  I sowed parsley in one of my feed buckets.

I continued working in the Star Garden laying down gravel.  I dug up all the flagstone where the sculpture is and laid down landscape cloth and gravel.  Watered here and there in the Star Garden while I worked.  I put the flagstone back on top of the gravel.

I weeded in the bed with the tall vervain and cut it all down to the ground.  Hopefully I will get a fall show, but this is only the second year I have grown it, and I don't know if it will respond to being cut back.  

I cut down most of the cannas and watered.  I'm hoping to have a good show of cannas in October.  If I keep them watered I think I can get all new stands of them by then.

Pulled weeds here and there, but it's too dry for the weeds to be rampant, and so I'd rather make that effort when the date gets a little closer so I don't have to do it again.

I laid down gravel in the Medicine Garden for a bit, but it was dangerously hot.

Set all my sprinklers up.  Headed to Houston in the late afternoon.