It looks like my lettuce is coming to an end. I’m seeing signs of bolting already, due to the temperature getting up into the 80s most afternoons now. Lettuce is a cool weather crop, and we have about 4 days of spring between too cold to plant with overnight freezes to too hot for lettuce…
I’m going to work in the veggies today, pruning, weeding, tweaking, and I’m hoping to finish the last two brick planters.
We have a stunningly beautiful morning here, and I’m looking forward to working outside for several sessions.
We live on top of a ridge line outside city limits. It’s a very wooded piece of land, and we had to really work to clear enough for our house, the driveway, and our shop when we built here. We constantly have to hack, saw, and dig up things in order for Mother Nature not to reclaim what we have considered “ours” for over 37 years now.
Vole – Victor
We share the land with several ‘critters’ and we try to live and let live within reason. I have our pest control people treat us for everything including elephants when they come to spray inside and out quarterly. Even though my husband points out that some snakes are good, I have to admit that I lump them all in the same category and do not want them anywhere around me.
We don’t have any choice about sharing our yard with moles, voles, and other ‘oles’ of all kinds. Yesterday I was trying to viciously cut back a bush that lives in a planter beside our front porch. I walked across the yard to dump a whole trash can full of stuff I had removed from the bush and found myself SINKING into the ground, my footsteps “squishing” as I moved each foot. This was due in large part to all the rain we’ve had. The ground is quite saturated and we’re still due for more.
The other reason is all the tunnels all the ‘oles’ have dug. We attempted to kill the grubs that all the oles eat, thinking that if we removed much of the food they want to eat, they would go elsewhere. We threw a lot of money at the problem, but it didn’t really make any difference. So now we try to co-exist.
Our dog, Amber, doesn’t like them, either. I find holes she has dug, trying to get to them, all over the yard. Filling in holes is on the list as a regular part of my working in the yard. I mainly do it to keep my husband from falling into one with the wheels of the mower.
The pictures I find of moles and voles are kind of cute, but what they do to our yard is NOT. CUTE.
It just started raining suddenly as if someone had turned on a faucet full blast. I think it’s stopping now, but it was really impressive.
I managed to get outside this afternoon and weed whack. I did three sessions and finished the whole yard. If the rain stops and things clear up a bit, I’ll take my husband out for an ‘oooh’ and ‘aaaah’ session later. :0)
There are still lots of things to do outside, but I feel better that I trimmed things up where my husband can’t go with the mower. I’ll spray some KillzAll when things dry out to keep it all from just resprouting seemingly overnight.
I hope you’ve had a happy day.
I’m feeling devoid of any energy right now. Just drinking a cup of coffee and trying not to fall asleep, hitting my head on the monitor on the way to La La Land…
The stick shows where I planted the first of three elephant ear bulbs. The ones I received are SO large (the size of small bowling balls) that I decided to plant one in each of three different planters, trying to end up with beautiful ears all around the front yard. I may end up with nothing, but I’ve screwed up before and will again. This planter is where I had the three plants last year. This time I relocated the plants here, trying to make room so all could co-exist.
Here’s a picture of last year’s crop before we had the truly horrible winter that killed off the bulbs –
Again, the stick shows where the bulb is. I cleared stuff out of the planter and spent a bunch of time lopping off big branches that were hanging down over and around the planter to give the plant room to spread its wings. (The plant on one end is a gardenia plant.)
This is a planter on one side of our front porch. I had planted some iris in it. They bloomed, but the planter looked ‘unfinished’ or ‘unplanned,’ to me, so I decided to dig up the iris and relocate it. There is room for growth on either side of this planter. (Besides no one comes in our front door anyway. Everyone comes in through the garage.) I’m hoping the third bulb is happy here, growing its heart out.
Here’s where I relocated the iris. (As you can see, Amber – including her feet – was helping me.) There is a Rio Samba rose plant in the center, which has bloomed once this spring. I pruned it so I hope it will bloom again soon. My SIL told me about two phone apps that may help me identify what the perennial is with the little spikes of purple flowers. It’s on my list to see how the apps work and see if one of them will help me. Fingers crossed.
I spent a total of 2 hours working in the yard yesterday. I re-weeded the trio of planters that run between the top of the driveway and our front yard, and pruned things more harshly –
If the rain holds off, I plan to spend quite a bit of time outside today, too. I want to weed whack where my husband couldn’t get with the mower, spray KillsAll to help me have to weed whack less and make it easier for my husband to mow, and then tackle another planter –
I hope your weather is such that you can enjoy being outside, too.
Lettuce and SpinachLettuce, Spinach, and TomatoesLook closely. There are a couple of green tomatoes beside the top of the stick. I spent a lot of time pinching off suckers, cutting off extraneous branches, adding support to the plants. TomatoesAgain, beside the stick are a couple of teeny, tiny, green tomatoes.
I fertilized everything. Looking good so far. We’re really enjoying the spinach and lettuce in salads. I also have a couple of HEADS of lettuce doing well. :0)
I have ONE of THREE elephant ear bulbs planted now. I’m trying to cut stuff off OVER and around the planter, and then dig up stuff IN the second planter for the second bulb. There is a tree or trees behind this planter, and I’m having to reach way up and lop off branches, then catch them before they fall on me, and then throw them in a pile to haul off when I’m finished.
If I didn’t like the idea of changing the focus of these three planters so much, spreading the elephant ears around the front yard, I would just declare this a dumb project and regroup. I can SEE how the elephant ear plant might look in the 2nd planter, so I’m taking a break, drinking a bunch of water, resting, and then will go out for another session.
One of the problems of living in woods is that the vegetation would like to go back to where it was, not only encroaching on what we laughingly call the ‘civilized’ part of our yard, but totally engulfing it so that it looks like we were never here -even after 37 years. Half or more of what I do every year is hack stuff down.
I need to remove enough stuff that the elephant ears have the room they need to grow. I can continue hacking at stuff around this planter, but I want to clear enough area that I don’t have to come back right away.
Happily enough, if I can finish with this second planter, the third one won’t be as much work.
I’m excited. The elephant ear bulbs I ordered a while back were delivered this morning. They are HUGE and GORGEOUS!
After seeing how large they are, I’m planning to put one in the regular 8 foot brick planter in the rock bed in front of the house where I’ve been planting them for several years. I’m going to plant the second bulb across the yard in the middle of another brick planter that is beside the well house, and the third in the middle of a planter that runs in front of the other end of the house, spreading the wealth all across the front yard. :0)
I may need to move some things, and maybe prune some others, but I think it’s time for a shake-up, changing the focus of a couple of our planters. I love spring because it’s full of possibilities.
I’ll tackle this after lunch. There won’t be anything to SEE until the plants sprout, but we’re due for rain tomorrow, so it would be good to get the bulbs in today.
I had a nice harvest from our little garden this morning. I just finished washing it and putting it in gallon bags for the fridge. We’ll have some of it tonight in a chef salad for dinner.
I’m going to look online for cooking fresh leaf spinach because I’ve never done that before (even though I’m older than dirt, there are lots of things I haven’t done yet :0) )
I still have some pruning, supporting, and weeding to do out there. I’ll do another session soon.
We had super heavy rain in waves from about 8pm until a bit after 11 last night. We were lucky. We were under a tornado warning – with Greenwood actually mentioned as ‘in the path’ but – other than it becoming ominously quiet at one point – the bad stuff passed by us. I watched the TV coverage until I could see the yellow and red blobs, along with associated tornado rectangles, had passed us. (I need to do a harvest of the lettuce and spinach this afternoon.)
I walked around the yard this morning to see if we had any damage. I found one rose bush branch was broken off, but that was all. The garden is still looking good. They certainly got the watering they probably wanted, and then some, but all looks good so far. (The lettuce plants here are head lettuce, and the heads are forming!) I’ll bring some bungie cords to put around the supports to give the tomato plants more to hang onto.
I’m planning to go out later – weather permitting – and see what needs more support, rearranging (in the case of the tomato branches) and what needs harvesting (lettuce and spinach.)
The clematis bloomed suddenly. The blooms are looking a bit battered after the storm, but I’m hoping they’ll perk up. I’ll bring my husband out later, since these are his favorite.
And this is the first bloom of our Stella de Oro lilies. You can see there are several buds, so I’m hoping we’ll have a nice display.
My sister-in-law sent me some phone apps suggestions that might help me identify my mystery perennials. I added them to my phone, and hope to make the time to see how they work later today. She also sent me a Kindle book on flowers and veggies. Isn’t she wonderful?
These pics are from a couple of days ago. All the plants seem happy right now. I really need to harvest lettuce and spinach, but will have to wait until the rain leaves us.
I was excited to see a couple of ‘heads’ of lettuce forming when I looked at things quickly yesterday!
I’m hoping to be able to get up close and personal with my plants tomorrow, doing some harvesting, pruning, and supporting. I also have four planters left to weed and lots of things to cut back…
I had a WONDERFUL massage this morning. I had no trouble finding the new place where Lynn is doing her massages now. I got there a bit early. There was NO rain! It was really dark and looked like it was going to storm, but didn’t. Lynn was waiting for me in the foyer area when I walked in. When I finished, I took Lynn back to meet my friend Linda. Two such beautiful people should know each other.
I had a great visit with Linda, with lots of hugs and a few tears. It’s sad when life gets in the way and makes it almost impossible to see people. I basically am with my husband 24/7 except for my once a month haircut and once a month massage. Linda understands my situation now, but it’s still hard.
I’m thinking of gifting her a 30-minute massage, since it is right in the retirement place where Linda lives now. I think she would enjoy it, and Lynn would help her with the physical needs, I know. I’ll see if I make this happen.
It didn’t rain on me on the way back from the massage, either, and in fact seems to be clearing up. I may be able to work on another planter today.
Before
After
I also took the loppers and cut low-hanging branches that were making it so you had to bend over to walk on the sidewalk past it to the front door.
I should have enough time – if the weather holds – to at least tackle another planter today. We’ll see.
This was the ‘before’ on the 3rd of the trio planters I’ve been weeding and pruning.
Now that the weeds are out and the wisteria/forsythia greenery has been pruned back, my husband will be able to easily mow and I can plant some annuals.
It looks like someone lives here now. Today I’ll try to do at least one more planter in the yard. We built 14 brick planters around the yard, so I still have several to do, but things are beginning to look a bit better now.
The ‘rains’ are supposed to start overnight and continue intermittently – plus the chance of severe weather this weekend – until further notice. It will be a challenge to get outside between storms to continue to get things under better control.
Happy Earth Day. I hope that the weather is such that you can get outside and enjoy our planet today. In that vein, I wanted to share a magnificent photo by J. Picot via Anthony Sider – @BudgetDude on X – that celebrates our Earth.
J. Picot – Anthony Sider – @BudgetDude On X – such a beautiful planet to save!
Yesterday’s yard project was weeding and pruning the middle 8-foot brick planter in a trio that runs between our front yard and the top of our driveway.
Before2nd viewAfterAnother View
Today I’ll tackle the 3rd of the trio of planters, trying to make it look like ‘someone cares’ instead of ‘the people moved away,’ as it looks now.
This is a line of three 8-foot-brick planters that divide the top of our driveway area from the front yard. There are lot of perennials in there, but they are in a death fight right now with the weeds that have exploded in the last few weeks.
My husband always looks at things, throws up his hands and announces the weeds have won, there is NO way the flowers can have survived, we might as well just burn it all and start over. (This is only ONE of the reasons that HE mows the grass and I handle the flowers.)
Yesterday I weeded the first of the three planters. I cut back the rose bushes, cut out a lot of dead stuff, weeded, and then cut the overgrown greenery from the irises and the Stella de Oro flowers at the opposite end of the planter from the taller rose bush. Things are much better now. In fact, when I insisted my husband come and ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ last night, he was ‘astonished’ (his word) at the difference. :0)
Here’s another view of that planter.
Here is today’s project – the middle 8-foot planter.
A little daunting at the moment, but I’ll tackle this as soon as I finish writing the blog posts for the day.
I hope that your weather is such that you can spend time outside, soaking up a bit of sunshine, breathing in the air, and enjoying life.
So far, things are good. Something was eating my spinach and lettuce, so I mixed and sprayed EIGHT on all the veggie plants earlier this week. I love that stuff because it’s safe for humans and our pets, but kills the pests.
Here you can see the holes in the spinach leaves. Hopefully, I’ve now stopped the pests at least for a while.
I’ll probably do some harvesting of spinach and lettuce later today.
Here are 4 tomato plants along with a few more spinach and lettuce plants. I’m see several yellow blossoms on the tomato plants now.
This is the other tomato planter with another 4 plants. I nipped off suckers and cut off branches that touched the ground earlier. I need to make sure all the branches are supported well. This can change from day to day, and growth can happen quite suddenly, so I want to stay on top of things before I can’t manipulate the branches through the cages anymore.
1st harvest of spinach for the season.2nd harvest of lettuce of the season.
Things are looking good so far in our garden this year. Yesterday I harvested, cleaned, and packaged spinach and lettuce. I fertilized, then mixed and sprayed EIGHT bug killer to hopefully get rid of whatever is eating the leaves. Finally, I watered.
By the time I came in, even though I hadn’t been out there too long, I was wringing wet – I guess due to the humidity. I took a shower, got a big glass of ice water and did some serious relaxing.
The forecast is for possible severe storms this afternoon and evening – with the threat of large hail – so I’ll cover up the three planters mid afternoon.
The Spruce
Before that today, though, I’ll try to get outside to tend our tomato plants. I’ve read that pinching off – or clipping off – the ‘suckers’ (the little branches that sprout in the middle of the “Y” of two branches) will increase the tomato yield and keep the plant healthier. Also, snipping off any branches or leaves touching the ground, plus any below 12 inches as the plants continue to grow. The plants really grow fast when the temperature, sun, and watering are right, so I’ll need to pay attention to keep up with the 8 plants.
I hope that you’re enjoying some nice weather where you are.
Rio Samba Roses, various iris, and Mama and Baby Snails we made.
More Rio Samba roses, and the pretty purple perennial I don’t know the name of.
Azaleas and iris
Some of our flowers are blooming nicely now. It makes me happy to walk around the yard and see a lot of blooms, plus buds. Everything needs weeding, pruning, hacking down, etc., all around the yard, so that makes me feel a bit guilty, as well.
I’ll start with my veggie planters this morning, then move to the roses planters, seeing how far I can get before I poop out or it gets too warm.
Our veggies are still doing well. I took a gallon bag of lettuce to my hairdresser, Michael, yesterday and he seemed very happy.
I’m going to tend the veggie planters today, weeding, doing any pruning needed, fertilizing, and harvesting some lettuce and spinach.
I’ll get out there this morning because it’s a bit overcast and just almost 70. It’s supposed to get to 88 this afternoon. That may be a record. I hope that it’s not enough fuel for the weather that the rain we’re supposed to get tomorrow afternoon and evening will be severe.
My iris started about a month ago. The deep purple iris are my favorites, although I love all of them. We have them around the yard, but in particular down the side of the driveway. My intention was to have the deep purple iris and the bright yellow iris blooming at the same time, but Mother Nature knows best, I guess. The purple ones are mostly finished now, and the yellow ones are blooming their heads off right now, all around the yard.
AmberAbby
Amber and Abby ‘walked’ in the yard with me this morning. (Abby was less enthusiastic about all the walking around than Amber (who kept running back and forth), but she luxuriated in the warm and the sunshine just off the driveway pad.)
I have these blooming all over the place right now. My ‘fancier’ ones are just starting to bud and bloom.
Kind of a mauve color.One of the fancier ones – a bright yellow with burgundy accents.Color is halfway between the pale yellow and the pale mauve.
The rest of the walk around the yard shows how MUCH weeding and pruning I need to do.
In among all the weeds is a rose bush with Rio Samba Rosebuds getting ready to open. I don’t know what the name of the purple flowers are, but they are nice perennials. More Rio Samba roses, with one blooming and several buds among more weeds…A different purple perennial flower. The iris were the deep purple variety.
As you can see, the lettuce and spinach in this planter seem to be happy so far. I’ll need to do another lettuce harvest soon. :0)
If you look carefully, you can see the yellow blossom! I have several of these now and nothing seems to be eating any of the plants yet. The purple iris are almost gone now, being replaced by yellow ones. My husband brought in a pale purple iris he found on the way to our shop yesterday. It was a nice surprise.
The first I remember about April Fool’s Day was my dad playing pranks on his family and friends. He had an unstoppable sense of humor. You just couldn’t be around him with smirking, smiling, or downright laughing out loud at his stories and antics.
My mom told us that when they agreed to marry, my dad wanted to get married on April Fool’s Day. She just stared at him, saying, “I’m not fooling!” (They married on April 3, 1942).
____________________
Ernst Heating and Cooling
We have a geothermal heating and cooling system similar to this. Ours wasn’t put in when we built the house, but they were able to install the system for us several years ago. We took advantage of a service with AirPro Heat and Air, our service company, to have a tech come out twice a year to check everything over inside and out, change our filters, fix problems, etc. The tech is here now, making sure all is good before we do much changing from heating to cooling.
Unsplash
I’m going to have to take sheets out and cover up my garden plants before dinner, due to a forecast for possibly severe thunderstorms tonight – with rain, large hail, damaging gusty winds, possible tornadoes, and flying hair balls.
I’m HOPING (1) we don’t get the “severe” – just the rain, and (2) the sheets I put up protect the veggie plants. And (3) that the other plants in the planters around the house survive and aren’t beaten to death, like the azalea above.
I ALMOST finished weed whacking the back yard – the three planters, the end of the house around all the geothermal stuff, under the porch, under the deck, along the sidewalk in the back and one side of the driveway pad before I ran out of cord – or it wouldn’t ‘bump’ anymore and give me more line.
Since I was thoroughly pooped by that time – the end of the third session out there today – I gave up, gathered up and put away the extension cord, pulled the back of the truck down as a place to work, managed to find a replacement cord thingie in case I needed it. I was too tired to actually try to change the cord thingie, so I came in.
I ordered six more cord thingies from Amazon, since the one I brought in was the last one I had. I rested, and drank more water (my eyes are floating) and I think I actually dropped off for a bit in my recliner.
I ‘roused’ a few minutes ago and went out to look at the weed whacker. I didn’t want to forget and have my husband try to shut the garage door later tonight and have the door run into the extended back of the truck.
I pulled out the old cord holder, with a lot of effort, and saw that indeed, I was out of cord. I got out the new one, threaded the cord through the hole, figured out how to put the new one on, including using the part of the old one you’re supposed to keep (:0) ) to hold the new one.
I DID IT! It snapped into place and the cord is extended through the hole, ready to be used again. I put a strip of duct tape around one part of the ‘rod’ of the weed whacker so I can now tell at a glance which one the ‘good one’ is.
HOOORAAAAAY!
Tomorrow is soon enough to start the front…
I spent over an hour with the 3 sessions outside. It’s almost 6pm here and I’ll start dinner soon. Will I do yoga?
I’m not this young (by a LONG shot) and don’t look this good, but I’m making progress with the weed-whacking this afternoon. It’s now 63 degrees and sunny. The stuff I’m whacking is still pretty wet, but it’s coming down.
I’ve finished the 3 veggie planters on the east side of the house and am taking a ‘back break’ and drinking some water before going out again. I want to at least finish under the porch, under the deck, and along the back sidewalk before I call it a day today.
This weed whacker is working fine. Everything is compatible. I told my husband I was going to mark this one with some tape, and that I wanted to do away with any others we have, as they don’t do near as good a job as this one does. Right now, it seems that he is in agreement. He is still holding on to his announcement he was not going to mow in March. I really can’t blame him. He spends a lot of time on our riding mower during the mowing season. Usually this begins sometime in April. This year is weird, but he’s trying to ignore it. :0)
Oh, I almost forgot! When I went out to weed whack this afternoon, look at what I found!
(Please, just look at the IRIS, not all the weeds in and around the planter….)
Going to rest a bit more, drink more water, then head out for the next session.
I’ve just come in from trying to weed whack around my veggie planters – a complete failure and now pooped from the effort.
I took one of our weed whackers and the long extension cord out to the side yard. I plugged in the cord at the back of the house, and then started to attach the other end to the whacker. It wouldn’t plug in. I’ve never had the problem before, so looked at things carefully and tried and tried, but it just wouldn’t fit. I took the cord back to the garage and found another one that was shorter, but had an end on it I thought should fit.
This one went easily into the plug in the back of the house, and also into the whacker! I turned it on and nothing happened. I checked both ends again – twice – and finally had things happy. I started the weed whacker and it was just chewing at the weeds – not really doing a good job – and was taking a LONG time. I thought about taking it and exchanging it for one of the others we have, but decided to tough it out.
My back really started talking to me when I was starting to try to weed whack on the back side of the long planter. THEN I found the cord was too short to go across the back. I was fuming, trying to rest my back, and THEN it started to sprinkle. THEN sprinkle harder…
I finally gave it up and brought the cord and the whacker back into the garage.
Tomorrow I’ll choose another weed whacker that will hopefully do a faster, better job, trying to make sure it’s got the whacking cord on it, ready to use, and trying to make sure the cord will plug in before taking it all the way out to the side of the house. :0(
Somehow I forgot to send Happy Spring Wishes yesterday. My apologies. I DO send them to you. :0)
I finished planting my spring garden yesterday afternoon. We got the rest of the plants yesterday morning and I waited until it warmed up to actually plant. Yesterday I planted 6 more spinach plants and 8 tomato plants.
This is the 8-foot planter. I planted Butter Crunch leaf lettuce, iceberg head lettuce, and spinach. Due to space, I just spread the plants out as best I could, changing from one type of plant to the other, rather than planting the spinach 4-to-a-square, and the leaf lettuce the same way. I’m hoping the plants will do okay like this.
This is a closer view. The plants have a bit more room to spread out than in traditional square foot planting.
This square planter has 4 tomato plants around the center pole with supports tied to the pole for sturdiness. Then I planted some of the lettuces and the spinach around the perimeter.
The ‘niche’ planter (because it is sheltered by the back of the house and our screened porch) has the other 4 tomato plants. I’m going to TRY not to allow the plants to spill over the side onto the ground this time. I really hate cutting healthy vines, but I’m telling myself that all the energy goes to the vines, rather than producing tomatoes…
Today I’m planning to get there this afternoon when it’s warmer (it’s 47 now) do some weed whacking, fertilizing, and soil-enhancing.
This yard work PLUS my yoga practice PLUS my normal other activities is really making me welcome the bed at night. Probably good for building my character, as well. :0)
gathered trash and drove it down when we left for errands. I dragged the can down to the bottom of the driveway and put the trash IN it.
We got our mail
We drove to Ft. Smith to sign our tax returns and get our copies of everything
We stopped at the Co-op on the way home and I bought leaf lettuce, head lettuce, and spinach plants
Best of all, we went in the TRUCK instead of the Vette. I don’t enjoy riding in the Vette anymore. My husband drives like he is 20, zipping in and around everyone on the road, stepping on the gas when I would step on the brakes. The fact that he is 80 and is still recovering from a broken collarbone from falling on the ice just wouldn’t make a difference. SO – I was very grateful that we took the truck. :0)
When we got home I gathered the planting stuff and took it out to the east end of the house where we have the three brick planters we converted to square foot planters a year or so ago. I got all the plants in (16 of each), fertilized and watered them. I rested a bit, then, since I would be fixing dinner soon, I took king-sized sheets and clothespins out and covered the plants. It was due to – and DID – freeze last night. (I have an alarm set now for an hour to go out and UNcover the plants before we need to leave for some errands this morning.) I think I’ll give the garden a day to see if these plants look like they’re going to make it before buying more.
I did my yoga like a good girl, although I had quite a talk with myself. At first I thought, okay – I spent about 45 minutes out in the yard, bending, digging, planting, watering, then covering things with sheets. I have had my exercise for the day and don’t need to do my yoga today. On the other hand, I have committed to trying to do it EVERY day, building a habit, hopefully giving my body the gift of better balance, more strength and flexibility. My responsible side won.
The end result was that I was pooped. I made our dinner, then cleaned up the kitchen. I took my shower early and went to bed early. My husband woke me up this morning or I would have overslept!
So, I hope the plants are looking happy later today and tomorrow. If they are, I’ll get the second load of plants and see if I can finish. I want to plant tomatoes, and I’m not sure what other veggies I’ll get. :0)
Yesterday, as we were trying to leave to take our cat, Abby, to the vet, our progress was impeded by a 3 foot (+-) black snake. My husband tried to nudge it on its way, but finally picked it up and tossed it out into the back yard. (One sign of spring I’m not particularly fond of.)
Our tulip tree, If you look carefully at the bottom center of this pic, you’ll see the recovering Amber keeping me company as I took pics this morning.
Redbud and forsythia
It really helps my mood to be able to invite Amber to join me and to walk around the yard a bit, seeing things coming to life, or in full celebration of the joy of the weather.
This is what used to be the iris planter. It’s now weeded and ready for tomatoes in the spring.
This is the second tomato planter.
And I’ll plant spinach and lettuce in this planter. All three are filled with Mel’s Mix.
This is where some of the iris plants ended up.
This is a tall planter beside the front porch.
And this one is in the front yard, to the other side of the front porch.
I also cut the elephant ear plants down as far as I could. I’m starting to cram as many leaves as I can get in that planter between now and the first real freeze, with all appendages crossed that it will be enough to protect them until they hopefully start shooting leaves up again in the spring.
There is nothing to vote for or against in my county today, so I won’t be collecting and wearing a sticker such as the one above today. My SIL, who lives in Charlotte NC, is not only voting today, she is a poll worker for the first time! I applaud her motivation and energy to do this. I am always thankful to the volunteers who help with our elections here, and I always thank everyone who isn’t actively helping someone at the time I’m there. If you have an opportunity to vote today, I hope you take advantage of it.
Kelley Blue Book
Our 2006 Honda Ridgeline Truck looks mostly like this one, but we changed out the grill my husband didn’t like and ours is not nearly as shiny as this one after 17 years.
For the first time in that time, we put our mounted snow tires in the back of the truck and I drove it to the tire place in town to have THEM take the regular tires off, put the snow tires on, and air them up. It was two hours or so very well spent, in my opinion. We had trouble just heaving the tires into the back of the truck and rolling them from and to the place we store them in the shop. I’m really glad my husband honored his agreement to let the experts do the job this time.
I particularly noticed that the tire guy just picked up each tire and put it in the back of the truck like it was no big thing. I had to stop and tell him that I resented that a bit, but was grateful for his strength and expertise. We laughed together over it. The whole job was $32, so that was certainly a win/win as far as I’m concerned. Now we will be as able as possible to get down our driveway – and up again – if we have to – when it gets slippery this winter.
Navien Tankless Hot Water Heater
My husband stayed at the house while I went to get the tires changed, waiting in case the people who might deliver the tankless hot water heater our plumber ordered for us came. They called right before I left, so I was able to leave a check for the unit. The tankless is expensive, but we’ve learned the hard way that it’s no fun to run out of hot water when you’re in desperate need of a nice hot shower after working. We spent more on the installation of the current heater than we did on the unit itself, with a lot of expensive rules about venting and the use exclusively of stainless steel on the pipes. We’ve had the current unit, a Rheem, since July of 2014, so it has lasted almost 10 years with only one problem for which we had to call our plumber.
123RF.com
Since the new unit is about $1,000 more than the previous one, I’m HOPING that the installation will cost a lot less.
Ildar Abulkhanov-Getty Images-istockphoto
Today I’m hoping to weed the last 2 planter boxes in my square foot garden and cover them with tarps for the winter.
It’s a beautiful fall day here in Arkansas. I’ve been whining and gritching about it being too hot or too cold, so I thought I would make a point of praising the weather today. Mother Nature’s head is ‘on straight,’ and her nose is ‘in joint,’ so the weather is truly nice. It’s 58 here right now and the high is supposed to be 77 this afternoon.
I’m trying to follow a new routine of doing something ‘significant’ outside each day, make progress on my glassware etching, do something significant in the house, and then spend time on the computer/reading/and/or listening to music – short sessions of each of these over and over throughout the day, plus do my yoga practice each afternoon in an effort to get off my rear, get things accomplished without hurting myself, and feel good about my progress each day.
Yesterday my outdoor project was to cut off the dead elephant ear stalks. I’m leaving what’s left now to dry out before cutting more. When I get them cut off at the soil level or just below, I’ll cram as many leaves as I can in the planter for the winter.
My outdoor project for today is cleaning up the raised bed square foot garden planters and covering them with tarps for the winter. I’ll at least get started with that today and see how it goes.
One of my pet peeves is rearing its head today – Daylight Savings Time. I just read a mishmash of ‘reasons’ we have it at all, and the fact that Congress can’t decide – IF they decide to stop having it – whether to keep Daylight Savings Time permanent or use Standard Time. (And we wonder why we’re in such a mess these days.) End of rant.
I hope that your day is beautiful and that you manage to cram as much fun into it as possible. :0)
Mother Nature is thumbing her nose and laughing at me. First, she gave us much-warmer-than-normal temperatures, followed by 4 days of hard freezes, and will follow this up starting Friday with highs in the 60s and 70s. I might handle this with a bit more grace if my plants’ lives weren’t in the balance.
In the course of these 4 freezes, I’m losing ALL of the rest of my flowers and my elephant ears.
Example:
I read where I’m ‘supposed’ to dig up the bulbs and store them in peat moss in the garage until spring. I did that two years in a row, once in our garage and the next year in our shop, and both were complete disasters. I ended up each spring with ‘blobs’ instead of bulbs, and had to pitch them.
For the past two years, I just left the bulbs in this planter, cut the stems off as close to the soil -or just beneath the soil- as possible and then filled the planter with as many leaves as possible.
This past year was the best year EVER for my elephant ears, with them almost covering the window and shutters of the garage, reaching WAY above my head and being extremely happy plants.
SO – I’ll do my new procedure of cutting them off (probably this weekend) and will make sure to stuff as many leaves from the yard in there as possible and then hope for the best for the spring.
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