Excellent Idea

I hope they get the funds to keep doing this yearly. These people really get it...

Garden in a Bucket

Kudos to the person that starts all those seeds :)

Well, Make Up Your Mind

6/7/07 = record low of 37

6/8/07 = record high of 93

It was the second driest May ever.
~Sigh~

At least the storms that rolled through last night were no where near as intense as to the west.

It is so not a decent gardening year. Every day a different plant is either happier than a plant in ... well, you-know-what ... or moping.

My Aunt called to commiserate. We ended up having a pretty interesting discussion on the 'playing' of gardening.

Playing. We've decided that is exactly what the majority of people do, but then again, it's suppose to be a fun thing, right?

Neither her, nor I, get to play, however. For us it's pretty much work, not so much of a hobby. If there's a year like this with crappy weather and we get a low harvest, well, we get to put less in the freezers. Period. There is no 'just running to the nursery to replace' whatever plant the wind, temps or hail took out.

We've come to the conclusion there is a pretty hard line between the playing of gardening and the necessities of it. Maybe dabblers would be a better word.

Hmmm...besides her and I, I don't really know many people that garden specifically to preserve for winter. I think the biggest difference is that if we don't harvest, we don't eat vs. they don't harvest, they just buy. As far as the flowers, we absolutely adore them all, but if we get wiped out it isn't something we depend on.

With all that said, we still get an unbelievable amount of joy from gardening, even when things go wrong. Here's to hoping both her and I both end up with a grand veg harvest.

Rain, Beautiful Rain

Finally!
The bog is full again. Second driest May on record. Pretty pitiful that I've actually had to water a bog for the last month, but everything seems to have made it through the dryness trials. And the water iris are showing their pretty blooms.

The birds are very happy about the sky dumping. The robin that shows herself daily to dig through the leaf litter at the bog bottom, used it for a bath instead this morning.

On Tuesdays, they have a call-in on the news for gardening questions for the local gardening expert. (I wouldn't exactly call her that, but she's better than nothing, and has one heck of a good personality - I like her). I had to chuckle when somone called asking about the population explosion this year of squirrel and chipmunks digging up their plants and what to do about them. Because I refuse to kill anything living (mice and rats exuberantly excluded from that list!) we finally resorted to using a Havahart trap and giving them a brand new zip code. 10 chips so far! Unreal! The lady where hubs bought the trap said you have to take the little boogers at least 2 miles away or they'd be back. Every time I start grumbling about how much it's starting to cost in gas to cart those suckers away, the hubs simply asks how many flowers and veg we'd like to actually have left by fall and I immediately clamp my lips shut.

I'm debating whether to chop the blooms from the yellow iris. The brutal wind over the last 2 days has broken every single one and layed them right to the ground. The poppies opened and the petals were promptly blown off. Sigh.

The peas are loaded with blossoms, as are the peppers. We forgot the epsom salts to stop the blossom drop. Unlikely that we'll get away without using it (haven't figured out why this happens every single freaking year!) but we'll do the wait-and-see again. At least for a while yet, since so far, so good.

I've gotten almost all the winter sown jugs planted out. I ended up at about 50% germination, but with the stupid season we had, I'm calling that pretty darn good! There are a few that I'm still stubbornly hanging on to and hoping for. Another lesson learned this year = don't use yogurt cups, they dry out way too fast.

I sheared back the alyssum, which made me a little sad, but they look so much more thick and green - crossing my fingers for a second bloom.

Everything in the veg garden is doing wonderfully! Of course, as soon as we planted the canteloupe and watermelon seeds, the temp dropped to 40. Doesn't that figure?

I finally gave up on the idea of finding somewhere to put the extra tomato and brussel sprout seedlings. My daughter made a nice free sign last night and we put them out by the roadside. I'm anxiously waiting to see if someone will give them a good home or they'll end up in the compost pile. Geez, I really hate to waste anything!

Getting There

Slowly but surely, we're getting things accomplished.

With the long weekend, and two whole days with nice temps and no rain, I finally was able to get most of the WS seedlings in. Since I'm being so very meticulous with placement and care, it is taking forever. With such a weird spring, I lost a lot of the seeds to rot, so I'm trying to fill all that space with what I have left.

Most of the no-shows were for the semi-shade area of the flowerbed, so I'll have to resort to placing some of the sun lovers there after all. It can't be helped.

WS lesson learned this year = try to save some bucks for the good potting soil, or go plain pete. Some of the jugs ended up as bricks with no germination at all. Not surprising! Of course, when it finally comes time to do it again, I know it's going to be the cheap stuff, or not do it again at all :(

Both the pink and deep purple butterfly bushes made it through the winter (yes!) so I guess it pays to really mulch those well. The iris are budding nicely, can't wait for them to finally open.

The dollar shop allysum seed I planted last year turned into the most amazing, gorgeous blast of color by the ponds. They are so huge and lush they look fake.

Junk hunting turned into a success. Hubs got a nice deep wheelbarrow (you would have died laughing watching us finagle that huge thing into the trunk of the tiny neon), which was missing its wheel, but no biggie. I got a beautiful column pedestal for the center of the bog to put a pot on for some added color. Ok, so there's a small hole in the bottom on one side - that just gets to be put in the back where nobody walks anyway! And I got tons of six packs for seed starting indoors next spring. Woohoo!

Most of the garden is planted, though there's still a bit to clear out to get more of the veg seeds in that Kim sent me.

I can't believe how well every single one of the veg I grew from seed are doing! We've always had pretty good success with them, but this year is almost unreal. I so wish I had a camera. Ok, maybe not - I haven't had time to weed out just yet. There is so much satisfaction when I look at those strong healthy plants and know that WE did that. From tiny, sometimes almost invisible seeds, came these huge healthy plants that will fill the freezer soon. Even the onions are almost knee high!

The bee balm is kind of taking over one area by the pond, but I don't mind, I like it. Besides, it seems to be the hummingbird favorite every year.

The Lizard Tail in the bog (that I got for a buck last year because Lowe's left it out in the late freeze) is going gangbusters, along with the purple water iris we pulled from a ditch.

Now, if the flowers grow to be as happy and healthy, we're going to have one hell of a gorgeous yard!

It's good to be a gardener!

So exciting!

My red-headed woodpeckers are back! Yay! They are the most beautiful birds ever. I just found out they're on the threatened species list, which makes seeing them even more exciting.

The humming birds are back and flocking to the feeders like crazy. Their little territorial dance is cute, but annoying at the same time. Didn't their mammas ever teach them to share? It's not like there aren't enough feeders all over the lawn.

Spring is most definitely here. (I'm avoiding the fact we may have a few snowflakes in the air tonight, so, shhh!)

Everything is so green! Have you ever noticed how everything looks so much of a brighter shade of green in the spring? I swear, it is! Ok, so maybe it's just me and it's the same shade all summer long. :-)

There needs to be a seperate measure of time for gardeners. I need something like 80,000 daylight hours in a week. Yeah, that'd get me close to getting everything done. Not! I was actually really ticked off the other day to have to drop everything and do the laundry. Apparently people become disgruntled when they run out of clean undies. Grrr...I think domestic duties should be banned from May 1st until October 1st.

I can't stop smiling over the woodpeckers. If you ever spot one, you'll understand what I mean!