Cemetery Whites March 14, 2020

Spurred Snapdragon March 14, 2020

What a pretty little wildflower.  I seeded some beds in the Rose Garden last fall.  It is in full bloom right now - in the Meadow and the Rose Garden.

 Below, this is actually Toadflax.  So pretty, a true wildflower - meaning it sprang up on its own.  It is here and there throughout the Rose Garden and in the Meadow.

Some Pretty Stands of Wildflowers March 6, 2020

This stand of Purple Phacelia is just outside the Vegetable Garden next to my compost pile.

I don't know the name of this little wildflower, my guess is fleabane, but they come back every year at the edge of the Shade Garden.  I instruct my husband every year not to mow them down (because he definitely would!).

Blue Bottles March 6, 2020

I kept meaning to take pictures of my blue bottles but never got around to it until they were almost spent.  Here they are, still cute though.

Weekend at the Farm March 7 - 8, 2020

It is daylight savings this weekend.  Finally.  The longer we have the light the better as far as I'm concerned.

• Saturday - robins!  I don't remember them hanging around this long in years past.
• The first thing I did was plant my tomatoes.  I planted 6 in beds that I had prepared last weekend, so I had them in the ground fast.  Celebrity, Early Girl, Parks Whopper, I think those are the varieties I planted.  I generally don't buy the heirlooms.  They aren't good producers. 
• Then I started working on more runner beans.  Since I'm going to have structures leaning over the fence, I'm not going to be able to get between the fence and the raised bed in order to get rid of the weeds.  So, I laid down black plastic and secured it with my long black stakes.  Then I sowed three more sections of Sunset and Painted Lady beans along the edge of the beds.  And then I set up the wire fence structures and tied them to the fence (in case of a high wind).  Sowed more French Marigolds around the tomatoes and here and there.  Sometimes I started laying down seed only to find that I had already sowed marigold seeds in that spot last weekend - they were already sprouting.  I sow so many seeds that I forget where I've already been. 
• My potatoes are popping up, just visible above the soil line.  Exciting!
• I set up 8 or so tomato cages under my goat wire arbor so that I could sow more than one row of cucumbers and zucchini.  The vines can climb up the goat wire and the tomato cages.  The tomato cages touch the top of the goat wire arbor, so when the vines reach the goat wire they can continue climbing.  I know zucchini don't like cool weather when is what we are having right now, but I went for it.  
• I worked in the Vegetable Garden most of the morning.  I'm very excited about the Vegetable Garden right now.  Spring is the best time.  And I have really worked on amending the soil, so I should have a successful, relatively un-molested-by-nematodes bounty.  I used my own compost in one of the beds, so I'm proud of that.  I have been devoting a lot of time to my compost this winter.  I have been making working on small batches of compost by using the large black feed buckets that Albert Meyers gave us.  I dump the compost from one bucket to another every weekend so it gets really mixed up a heck of lot more frequently that I used to turn my compost piles (which was never).  With the nematode problem I have, the soil has to be amended every time something gets planted.  So I really needed to start actively making and using my own compost.  Since I used one of my buckets of compost, I started another.  I had lots and lots of mustard leaves that were full of bug holes, so I cut them off the plants, added them to the bucket, and added lots of oak leaves from the big piles I raked up last fall
  (for this very purpose).  
• I also sowed some Jacobs Cattle Beans which are bush beans.
• It's really late in the season to do it, but I decided to drastically prune my Mutabilis rose.  I've been wanting to do it because I can see that there has been an infestation of voles in that bed - they have eaten most of the roots of my Pringle Aster.  The rose is laying on its side, no doubt because of a vole den around the roots that took away all the rose's support system.  I cut all the greenery away until all that was left was 4 canes.  Then I had Bert help me pull it upright and we put some stakes in the ground that prevent it from leaning over again.  Then I ran lots of water on it and mushed down the soil.  Weeded all around it.
• Next I began tying down more daffodil greenery in the Dwarf Flowering Almond bed.  There were more weeds in there than I realized, so I spent time weeding in there as well.  There are lots of Love In A Mist seedlings in that bed, so I wanted to give them their chance to grow and bloom - I had to move the daffodil greenery out of their way.
• I planted two more bronze fennel next to the two that I planted last weekend.  Now I have a little colony of fennel for my butterflies.
• I also planted a milkweed in the Star Garden.  
• I dug up lots of wooly stemodia in a dry section in the Star Garden and planted two Grey Bush Sage (Savia chamaedryoides).  The foliage is gorgeous, it has blue flowers, and it is drought tolerant.  Hopefully a good choice in that spot.
• I watered here and there.  And weeded here and there throughout the day.
• I have a beautiful bud on one of my bearded iris.  Hopefully it will open before I leave on Sunday.  And there are buds on my Cemetery Whites in the Medicine Garden.  All the altheas are starting to show tiny little specks of green on the leaf buds.  It's such a great time of year.  Renewal.  Life.  
• Sunday.  Up before daylight.  Coffee on the porch. 
• I started in the Orchard.  I carried several buckets of compost down there to condition the soil in one particular spot.  And I planted 2 bee balm and sowed some French Marigolds.  I had to carry buckets of compost down there because my faithful wheel barrow finally broke beyond repair.  And the cadet has a flat tire.  Perfect storm of tool breakage.  I did a little clean-out of my long bed of blackberries.  I cut some dead canes and weeded.  I also dug out a bunch grass that had taken root in there.  It's been in there for a couple of years, and I've done nothing about it.  But now there are lots of little clumps of grass in there.  So I pulled them all up.  Weeded in a few other spots.  That was good work. 
• The coneflower has made a step change in growth down there in the Orchard I was pleased to see.  The crabapple and the wild plum are in full bloom now.  And the flowers are starting to bloom on the other two plum trees.  The leaves are just peeking out on the jujube and the Celeste Fig.  
• I raked the Vegetable Garden, the Rose Garden, and a few places in the Star Garden.
• I sowed Strawberry Fields Gomphrena in the Long Border.  
• And I sowed African Blue basil seeds in the Rose Garden.  Basil smells so good.  I would love the smell to permeate the Rose Garden mixed in with the smell of the roses.  This particular basil has wonderful flowers that are passionately attractive to bees. 
• I spent some time putting plants in the pots around the pool.  I planted 2 fennel, 2 Copper Canyon daisy, 2 red yucca, some coleus, and some sedums.  Most of that stuff is drought tolerant.  If I can keep it alive I will move the yuccas and daisies to the beds after summer.  
• I planted 2 bee balm amongst the black and blue sages in the back beds, and I planted 2 more  milkweed in the Star Garden.
• I wanted to spray herbicide but it was too windy.
• Drove home about 3:30.

Homestead Purple Verbena March 7, 2020

This is one of my favorite plants.  Its bloom time is March - April.  It is evergreen.  Very easy to transplant, it roots along the joints, and once it takes root you can just skim the shovel underneath it scooping up almost no soil, make the slightest indention in the soil, and set it down in the indention.  Water it in and that's that.  It will take off.  The flowers are very attractive to the butterflies.  And the color is so pretty.

Long Weekend at the Farm February 28 - March 1, 2020

There are six robins on the birdbath and one waiting, and many that are nearby waiting their turn.  And it is the same on every rain barrel.  I took Friday as vacation.  Lots to do.  Tomorrow is leap year, Feb 29.  Coronavirus has reached the United States.

• Friday morning - cold and sunny, absolutely gorgeous weather all day.  The robins are everywhere again this weekend.  So entertaining!
• I went down to the Orchard and finished pruning the grape vines.  I got the biggest part done last weekend, and Friday I did the fine work - looking for long vines that I missed cutting, and cutting some the spurs even shorter so that only a couple of buds remained.  While I was down there I spent about an hour weeding.  
• I fertilized all the roses in the front beds and in the Rose Garden.  And I spent some time watering in the Rose Garden to water-in the fertilizer.  
• I raked out the Copper Canyon Daisy Bed in the Star Garden.  Cut back all the wild flower (can't come up with the name right now) that spreads by underground runner.  Cut back the Cigar Plant and the Copper Canyon Daisy.  I pruned my two Blue Vitex really hard.  Side-dressed the Copper Canyons and the Cigar Plants with compost.  Fertilized.  And then set the sprinkler on the bed for 40 minutes.  Raked all around the bed and in the nearby paths.  Much improved.
• I began composting in the Vegetable Garden.  I don't have much compost left, so I need to get the Vegetable Garden done.    I need to condition the soil in several places.  I have all my seeds, but I probably won't sow anything until next weekend.  We had a freeze a couple of days ago - it's still a little early for most things, but lettuce seed will make it.  I was surprised to see how dry it was, but the lettuce seed that I sowed last weekend had come up.  I turned on the sprinkler in there to get things wet.
• Planted 8 Inland Sea Oats in the weird, shady location of the Dining Room Bed.  But I think in the summer that location is sunny, and I will have to protect them. That rather large area is shady for most of the year and sunny in some months of the summer, so I have had a real problem trying to figure out what to plant there through the years,  I have 2 Marie Pave roses, 3 snow rose shrubs, a very large stand of Clyde Redmond iris, lots of Philippine Lily seedlings, Rudbeckia, and Texas Pink Phlox. I wouldn't say any of that is suited for shade half the year and sun half the year, but there is my problem.  In the end, I just stuck some stuff in there.
• I raked leaves in the Greenhouse Gardens and dumped them in the leaf piles next to the Vegetable Garden.  And that was it for Friday.
• Saturday.  I worked in the Vegetable Garden adding the last of my compost to various beds and turning over the soil, mixing it in, getting ready to sow seeds and plant veggies.  While I was there I sowed a few spaghetti squash seeds in a couple of places - next to the bucket of parsley and in the new, small veggie bed.  And I sowed some nasturtiums along edges where they won't get in the way when I begin planting in earnest.  I cleaned out the long narrow bed on the other side of the sugar cane.  I haven't planted there in a couple of years for some reason.  But it's ready now.
• I painted the fence in the Star Garden, the side farthest from the house.  Fresh and green, that took a couple hours.  
• Continued watering-in the fertilizer that I spread on all the roses in the Rose Garden yesterday.
• Pruned the thryallis shrubs in the bed adjacent to the pool .  Cut down to the ground the mystery shrub that appeared in the back bed - has leaves kind of like a subdivision shrub, but never flowers.  I don't know what it is, so I hate to poison it - what if it is something wonderful?  I noted some sort of vine had insinuated itself into that bed.  I cut it and poisoned the tip.  Also a somewhat stout yaupon was in there.  I cut it and poisoned.
• I planted 5 Tansy in the Medicine Garden near the other two.  I worked the soil and sowed Nicotiana, bronze fennel, catnip and valerian seeds.  I was going to wait to sow seeds until next weekend but couldn't help myself.
• Sowed some Laura Bush petunia seeds in the Long Border.
• It was a stunner of a day, and I hated to see it end.
• Sunday.  Up before daylight.  Coffee on the porch swing.  A cold wind blew all day.
• Finished watering-in the fertilizer in the Rose Garden.  Did some weeding in there.
• I sowed two rows of runner beans in the Vegetable Garden.  Sunset and Painted Lady.  I sowed them along an edge of a bed, and fastened goat wire to the ground and leaning against the fence.  They should climb up the wire to the top of the fence.  This was my attempt to have more vertical space.  I only have one permanent vertical space, and I'm going to plant zucchini and cucumber on that.
• I weeded in the large area next to the front arbor.  It was a painstaking effort because I wanted to save as many of my Love In A Mist seedlings as I could, but the weeds were plentifully dispersed amongst them.  I was there a long time, bent over, crouching, yuck.  I pulled up a lot seedlings, however  and planted a Julia Child rose and a Carefree Beauty Rose in there.  I've had it with trying to grow seeds in there.  It is too weed-infested.  I'm planting large plants / shrubs and laying down heavy layers of mulch from now on.  I will use other areas of the Star Garden for my seeds.  I also planted an Augusta Duelberg salvia  which is a white-flowered salvia.  And I planted 2 bronze fennel in the Star Garden.  Fennel is a larval food.  
• I cut back the pink Turkscap in the Star Garden.  
• Tied back 10 or so bundles of paperwhite greenery.  Time to let the lilies advance, and the paperwhite greenery takes so long to die back.  I tied up a bunch of a couple of weekends ago, and some today.  Lots more to do, unfortunately.  
• Cut dead canes from my Indigo Spires  and Firespike in the Star Garden.  Did a little weeding while I was in those beds.
• Weeded for about an hour in the Orchard.  The wild plum is in full bloom and the air was filled with the wonderful grape smell.  I had my little oil can of poison, and I put dabs on the dollar weed hoping it would kill all the long runners.  We'll see.
• I sowed some of my Sunset and Painted Lady runner beans on the front arbor and the arbor at the Rose Garden entrance - just for fun.  I thought it would look charming to have bean vines on the arbors.  It takes a while before the real vines finally break dormancy, and beans will germinate in less than a week.
• Raked the path that runs along the Long Border.  And I dug out the stepping stones at the entrance to the Long Border that had sunk into the ground and re-set them all so that they are prominent again.
• That's it for Sunday.  Drove in to work on Monday morning.