A Day at the Farm 12/26/2011

Cold and wet.

• Planted 30 Oxblood Lilies that my sister gave me for Christmas. Their common name is School House Lily. They are often found growing beside the remains of old school houses and other long-gone public buildings due their ability to suffer from neglect and continue to grow and multiply. She gave me pink ones and red ones. The pink ones are a sport of the red ones, not sure how well they do as compared to the red ones. We will see. I planted some of them in the Rose Garden bed near the entrance, both at the front of the entrance and just inside the entrance to the garden.
• Planted 3 Crinum Powelii 'Roseum' in the Long Border, also bulbs that my sister gave me for Christmas.
• Planted a Viburnum macrocephalum Sterile in the Star Garden that I purchased on line from Martha's Secret.
• Planted 2 Double Pink Altheas that my neighbor gave me, rooted from one of her plants.
• Quick trip, looked around and left the same day. Crocuses are popping up from the ground. Seven Sisters Daffodils popping up. Spring will be grand!

A Trip to the Farm Dec 7-10 2011

Took 3 days off and went to the farm. Cold.

• Planted 200 Spanish Bluebells (hyacynthoides hispanica 'excelsior') Most of them were planted down the hill alongside the boardwalk where I already have 400 planted. It will be a beautiful spring.


• Mulched plants in the Wave Garden and the Long Border.


• Fertilized the Vegetable Garden with liquid fertilizer.


• Fertilized the Dianthus in the Star Garden.


• Finished a bed that I started last weekend.


• Transferred about 6 clumps of bearded irises to the new bed. I moved them from the Bulb Bed. I moved them to make room for my Big Daddy Hydrangeas.


• Moved 3 Big Daddy Hydrangeas from a bed that sits in full sun (by the dining room) to the Bulb Bed (that sits in dappled sun all day). They have been growing in the wrong spot for 3 years, so they were very heavy! I found a baby copper head in the wheel barrow after I lifted up one of the hydrangeas.


• Built a new bed in front of the gate by the shed. Planted 30 of the remaining Spanish Bluebells.


• Planted 6 Bluebells in front of the house next to the Franziska Kreuger rose.


• Pulled up all the chicken wire that I had staked to the ground in the Orchard. It was protecting the beds in the Orchard from the armadillos. Unfortunately, it is very hard to weed the beds so I pulled it all up.


• Planted two "Pink Cloud' Beauty Bush (Kolkwitzia amabilis) in the bed where the Big Daddy Hydrangeas had been. My mother gave them to me for my birthday. I'm very excited about them. They are dense, arching shrubs that grow to 10 feet with pink flowers with yellow throats. I don't know anyone that has these shrubs growing.


• Tried to move my Harlequin Glorybower tree to one of the new beds I built. I had it growing in a pot. My husband and I picked it up and put it in the wheelbarrow. But as soon as I started to push it forward it fell out of the wheel barrow and the little tree snapped right in half at the base of the tree. I was very upset! I planted the stub anyway. Hopefully it's a fighter!


• Weeded - always!


• The wildflower seeds are doing fine. Can't wait for the spring! Also the sweet peas I planted look very healthy. It was a good idea putting chiken wire around them. They are climbing up the wire and - no rabbits nibbling away at them!


• Still haven't shredded any leaves yet. But all the leaves have not fallen yet. I will shred some next weekend. I have to replenish my compost pile.


• Watered the lemon and tangerine in the Greenhouse.

New Arbor

It still needs to be painted, but it was built in a day. I'll be able to train a vine on it once spring arrives.

Weekend at the Farm 12/03-04/2011

Arrived Friday evening. Gray and rainy. Rainy is good! We need the rain.

• Built a new bed. Actually, it is an expansion of the bed where the 5 La Marne roses are growing alongside the driveway.


• Planted about 35 Narcissus Avalanche (the commone name is Seven Sisters) in the new bed, and I planted 15 more in the Rose Garden.


• Planted 100 Crocus Tommasinianus in the new bed also.


• Planted 25 Narcissus odorus Linnaeus (the common name is Bacon and Eggs) in the Star Garden.


• Began building a new bed, but my husband's saw gave out and he couldn't finish cutting down cedars for my flower bed edging.


• My husband built an arbor in the front of the house and the final gate to close off the yard to the critters. It's not totally cut off, of course. An animal can squeeze between posts in several places, and also under all the gates. But the yard is vastly more closed off than it was before.


• Weeded, weeded, weeded.


• Turned off all the sprinklers. It's supposed to rain again this week.


• Mulched in the Infinity Garden.


• Made smoked turkey leg and collard green gumbo with turkey we smoked and collards from my garden.


• Moved the lemon tree and the tangerine tree into the Greenhouse. It's supposed to freeze this week.


• The farmer that owns the land next to ours caught 5 hogs in a trap last weekend and there was one in the trap this weekend.
  

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A Weekend at the Farm 11/24-27/2011

• Thanksgiving day was really lovely. We ate outside under the arbor. Small group, Josh in California and Josh and Blake at Josh's folks' house.
• Had more dirt delivered to the house. Jim delivers my dirt. A sweet older gentlemen that was born, raised, and still lives in Burton. Always wants to talk for a while which is okay with me.
• Planted 50 Gladiolus Byantus Communus in one of the new beds I built last week. These are small bulbs that bloom hot pink flowers. The flowers look similar to the gladiolas that are sold in the store, but they are smaller. These are the species glads that grow wild on the hillsides of Turkey.
• Built a new bed and planted the other 50 glads in that bed. Blake gave me these bulbs for my birthday.
• Finished filling a bed that I started last week.
• Moved 10 Philippine Lily seedlings into the new bed from a bed that has lots of things growing in it that are not compatible with the lilies.
• Dug up some bluebonnet seedlings that were growing in various paths and moved them into the Rose Garden and the Star Garden.
• Fertilized the Erlicheer Daffodil bed.
• Mulched part of a bed in the Orchard that was prone to weediness.
• Weeded the Orchard.
• Adjusted the sprinklers, reduced the number of days and times to water.
• Rained hard on Saturday. Sat on the porch and watched the rain.
• Was alone on Friday. For dinner I ate some Swiss Chard from the garden.
• Got really cold on Sunday. I'm ready for winter, the sooner it gets here the sooner it's gone.
• Leaves are beginning to fall. I will start shredding next weekend and putting them in the compost pile. The leaves won't be too bad this year. The oaks didn't leaf out too much due to the drought. And there are hardly any acorns. The deer will suffer this winter.
• Left early on Sunday.

A Weekend at the Farm 11/19-20/2011

Sowed the last of my wildflower seeds: BabyBlue Eyes, Ox Eye Daisy, California Poppy, Golden Yarrow, Tickseed. It will be a beautiful spring.

Planted 200 Naples Garlic bulbs that Josh got me for my birthday. Planted in various beds.

Weeded and weeded.

Watered the Greenhouse Gardens.

Raked some fallen leaves.

Cleaned the house.

Mulched the shrubs along the Boardwalk.

Bulbs are beginning to pop up out of the ground - Grand Primo, Erlicheer, Montbretias, Hoop Petticoats, Rolf Fiedler Star Flowers, irises - spring! spring! spring!

A Weekend at the Farm 11/5-6/2011

Hard to believe, but we had a hard freeze in Burton! It happened a full month earlier than the average first freeze date. All my vines, annual flowers, and tender perennial vegetation died. This year has been the worst! I thought we would finally get some gorgeous weather that would create a beautiful fall garden - and what did we get? A freak cold snap that killed everything. The worst drought in memory and now an early freeze.

• Pulled up my green bean plants because they froze. Nematodes, but not too bad.


• Buried orange peel in the vegetable boxes. The oranges came from my tree in the back yard in Houston. Many dozens of oranges on my tree.


• Mulched some of my roses in the Rose Garden.


• Mulched all the fruit trees except for the peach trees.


• Weeded, weeded, weeded.


• Saturday built a long bed about 35 feet long and 4 feet wide and a smaller bed about 5 x 5 in the Star Garden. Lots of work! The long one has a sprinkler right in the middle of it which will have to be put on an extension. All the soil I bought is gone.


• Turned the soil in the rose boxes where the Ballerina roses are growing and sowed two packets of mixed wildflower seeds.


• Sowed California Poppy, Rocket Larkspur, and Ox Eye Daisy in the Rose Garden and the new beds.


• Mulched the Anacachoe Orchid Tree.


• Cleaned the bird baths and filled them with water.


• Filled the bird feeders.


• Watered shrubs in the Greenhouse Garden.


• Planted 1015 onion sets in the Vegetable Garden and planted the leftover onions in one of the beds I built last week.


• I was so tired Sunday! I wore myself out on Saturday. Left about 3:00 on Sunday. Took a nap at home.