Gardening 2023

[cineater]

Mother nature is screwing me too.  Wednesday we were going to plant all the cool season crops.  The soil temp is too far below 50 and we have a cold snap for 4 days in a row, Friday through Monday.  Told Kevin it's his call, gave him all the data.  We're going with a covid call, do what the science tells you to do.  He's working on the report for the education part of the pantry garden but the only thing going in is the onions and leeks on Wednesday.  Everything else is being held until the following week.

[cineater]

Kick the pantry plants outside for hardening off.  They came home with me yesterday.  Wait a minute, where are the leeks?  I swear I just saw them.  They are not at my house.  Call Marsha to see if they were some place other than where we had all the pantry plants in the greenhouse.  Run up there and they are no where in the greenhouse.  Call Karen to see if she took them home with her.  No. Get back in the car.  The last time I lost a flat, it was behind my driver's seat on the floor.  It had been there a couple of days running around all over St Louis with me.  Tell me I didn't do this again.  I've been driving all over the place this morning.  So I look.  Yep, there they are.     You want to hide something from me, put it behind my seat.

[cineater]

First pantry team workday.  I'm pleased.  Three fourth's of them showed up and a couple of volunteers.  The beds all look good and they seemed to have a pretty good time.  I'm worried about the low temps this weekend even with frost cloth on the onions.  No, some of them didn't read the start up instructions or research their plants.  There's a lot of wiggle room in gardening.  Just get the plant in the ground and don't over/underwater it.

Kevin and I are in the tool shed.  He's in charge of it.  I'm telling him all the shit that can get stored in the big tool shed that we just put in there.  He says, "I'm not very organized".  I know sweetie, I'm on it.  It's been on my to do list since last year.  One day in May.  He'll probably go WTF where's my shit. 

[cineater]

What is business casual for a gardener?  Dinner with the politicians who fund us tonight.  I have playing in the dirt clothes.  I don't even know what business casual looks like for a gardener.   

Low tonight of 27.  I'm covering the onions.  They just got planted.  They should be okay according to the other folks but I don't do they should with the babies.

[cineater]

Good thing I figured it out.  I got a leadership and service award.  Total surprise.

The picture they have of me I'm wearing the white shirt I took the kids to throw paint at each other in.  It's now one of my gardening shirts. 

[cineater]

Pretty good plant sale today on the cool season crops.  The good news is half the greenhouse is empty.  Less watering tomorrow.  Bad news, all those empty flats came home with me for washing.

We are bitterly cold all weekend but I can start putting stuff in the ground come Wednesday and we should be good to go after that.  My other group has a planted pink planter at the hospital for breast cancer.  I have a bunch of plants for that.  This will be the first time it gets planted with spring plants.  Hope I do good.  It's getting lemon grass, ornamental kale, lettuce and pansies.  It will be colorful if anything.  Think I have too many plants for that.  Might kick out the lettuce.

[cineater]

They didn't know if the zinnia seeds were any good so they seeded up 500 seeds, of several varieties.  They were good.    They only want 36 plants of each for the sale.  It's going to be the year of the zinnias around the gardens and the park, the school, the boys and girls club and a few other places.

I'm plugging away at the garden dishes.  They are due back by Wednesday for another round of seeding and transplanting.  I've got all the containers from the last plant up and the plant sale.  I keep them up to date until the last plant sale and then let the group clean them.

Lovely morning in the greenhouse.  Half the plants left for the plant sale and because everybody was there yesterday, the plants were all over watered.  So what did we do, zinnias.     And you know who has to plant all those zinnias. 

[cineater]

Just waiting for another 10 degree.  Temp is going up quick.  Last frost was last night.  We may get a little more but mostly it's done.  The plants hit the driveway and will stay in the garage at night.  I've got the gardening dishes to deal with today.  There's a mountain of them.  But I'll take care of the chore list today and tomorrow I plant.  Got my spring veggies to get in containers.  I grown salad plants.  And some pansies.

[cineater]

No planting today, probably.  We have rain coming in for three days.  I'm still working on garden dishes.  Ran out of room in the garage for drying yesterday and the bleach water was burning my hands.  Not a pair of rubber gloves to be found around here and the car is in the shop.  It's getting done today but there is no person in the world who has the patience to throw a flat in the tub and watch it sink when you have a several piles of them waiting to go in.  Chemical burn.

[cineater]

I got to plant up.  And we have a flash food watch with possible hail.   

Darn some of my growing lights are shut off.  Love growing but we are coming to an end of when we can have them ready for the plant sale.  We transplanted and seeded for 3 hours today, about 20 people.  I only brought home 6 flats and I had room for 14.  Then again, I do have all those plants that have to go in and out of the garage every day.  They are all scheduled to be planted next week.

[cineater]

I lived in abasement apartment for about 4 years.  Reminded me of that when I was listening to the storm tonight.  I hated I couldn't hear the thunder or the rain when I lived there.  Vowed if I ever got out of there I would listen to the thunder.  And I do.  I'm frequently sitting on the back porch at the garden just watching it rain.  Took all I had to stay in my chair tonight during the meeting and not fake I was going out for a smoke.  Didn't learn much about the history of pawpaws but we had a couple of good pour downs and some quiet thunder.  I like the kind where can hear it roll or the echo of a big clap.

[cineater]

The Bradford Pears are blossoming out.  They are all over around here.  Highly invasive and on everybody's kill list.  I wake up this morning with my eyes almost swollen shut and in a fog.  Blew off going to the garden for our first general work session of the year.    Yeah, your leader is MIA.  I did go up around dinner time and plant some stuff up.  I'm hanging out there through Wednesday.  They have those days off so thank god, it's just me.  They've been annoying the fuck out of me.  It's getting hard to hide it.  I need a break and a stock pile of allergy pills.

Marsha made an excuse to stop by.  She's been directing all her stress towards me.  Big job coordinating the plant sale.  She's been finding fault or taking the opposite opinion on everything with me when we are in front of others.  Assigning me all kinds of stuff to show she's in charge.  It's to the point other people are asking me what's going on.  She knows she's doing it, can't help herself.    She was checking up on me to see if she's pissed me off.   This happens every year.  Hopefully she's got herself in check after this.  Probably didn't help that I won an award but I reminded her and everybody at the monthly meeting that she is the Master Gardener of the year.  So there you go, you're the queen.  Yeah one of the people annoying the fuck out of me. 

[willow]

Your talking about gardening and we get a foot of snow in a few hours yesterday. 

[cineater]

Your talking about gardening and we get a foot of snow in a few hours yesterday. 

You don't get much of a gardening season up there.  I'm watching for hummingbirds to let you know when they are on their way to you.  It's early yet but it's on my mind.

They say you don't know a plant until you've killed it twice.  I'm on my way to the first time with the ornamental kale.  Yes it is a cool season crop but it really only gets it's color and growth as the weather gets cooler.  Meaning it's a fall cool season crop not a spring one.  Shit!  I planted all of them today.  Not expecting much but I'm learning.

Beautiful day here.  I was at the garden at 7 planting the kale.  Quick water day in the greenhouse and only a few plants to plant up.  Ran over to the Gold Star Memorial, cleaned it up.  Hope to plant up some pansies over there later in the week.  Back at the garden to close the greenhouse windows for the night, drop off some stuff to compost and collect some more garden dishes.  I earned this Reese's Peanut Butter Easter Egg.   

[cineater]

Marsha is in trouble.     Walk by the tool shed and what is that black and white fur I see in there?  Oh yeah, it's a cat.  We might have a stray.  Marsha is a bigger sucker for cats then I am.  I'm at the legal limit and she always has room for one more.  Friendly enough but was acting like it was guarding the area.  A tuxedo cat acting like a bar bouncer.  I'm calling it Shakedown.  I can use a guard cat in the tool shed.  It can hang with us but eventually, it's going home with Marsha.   

[cineater]

The cat is now in the office in a soft cage.  It's going home with one of the office staff.  She said maybe but it's looking like it.  If not, it's got a spot at a no kill shelter.  It helps to have connections.  Carmen is a retired state animal control officer.  One of those people who investigates puppy mills and animal hoarders.  Poor kitty.  You could tell it didn't know what to do outside.  It found a safe hiding spot and wasn't giving it up.  Very happy to see me this morning.  More happy for someone then getting its food.

Jim was planting his two beds up in the pantry garden this morning.  We only have potatoes to put in and the spring crops will be in.

[cineater]

And she's not going home.  She is home.  They want her for an office cat.  Named her Charlie after our county.  I volunteered to help care for her on the weekends and holidays.  Every office needs a pet.  And I'm sure she'll go home with Deanna on the weekends.  Sorry, leads I don't care if she poops in your garden.

Back to going to Deana's home.     As long as she has people who take her in.  Marsha caved, said if she's feline leukemia positive she'll take her rather than have her put down.  She already has a positive cat. 

They let Charlie out at the garden for a potty break.  She didn't go far from the door and came right back in when called.  She hasn't been an outdoor cat long.  Jim said she kept him company while gardening today but she did look pretty intimating when he first went into the tool shed area.    Her secret name is Shakedown.  Got herself a home and I bet she gets tons of toys and kitty treats.

[cineater]

That was the last seeding party.  No more time to raise seedling for the plant sale.  It's only transplanting parties from here.  I've got all the egg plants at home.  They draw bugs so they are not allowed in the greenhouse until the day before the plant sale.  My lights raise so they can grow up under them.  I'm working on individual plant tags.  We have about 7000 of those to do.  Plant sale is the last weekend in April, getting there.

Planted up the Plant It Pink planter at the hospital today.  First time I've helped with that and I was little bit shocked.  It's in the middle of a very public place and they've never planted it before May before.  Plus they left it with dead plants in it over winter.  Geez, at least pull the sign out of it saying it's us.    I'm happy with the planting.  Needs to grow and bloom before it really shines but it looks nice out there now.  Invites you to come out and take a look.

[cineater]

That's sad.  The Master Naturalist put up two small greenhouses at the garden.  We had strong gusty winds yesterday and today.  This morning the one is twisted metal, pieces in the creek we can't get to.  The other has half of it's panels blown out.  Our group tried to advise them on the project but the guy in charge is still pissed at us for firing him off the building of our greenhouse.  I was betting they wouldn't make it through the winter.  Hoop houses are your best choice, not those cheap greenhouse kits, which he got.

The gardens are fine.  We're built for high winds and flooding.  We have retired Boeing engineers constructing our stuff.  It don't fly.     Or wash away in a flood.  Bet if you hit it with a car, the car would get the worst of it.  Our weather threats are lightening strikes, hail on the plastic coverings and a direct hit by a tornado.

I've cleared out the garage of spring plants.  Round two coming up.  Besides my own stuff from the plant sale at the end of the month, I'll have the pantry plants and various other planting projects.  Greenhouse closes down May 1st.  Why I don't know.  I offered to water it by myself and those folks in charge of it didn't clean it up until September last year.  Guess Marsha wants to wrap the plant sale up.  Can't blame her it's a big project and she needs to move onto other things.

[cineater]

That didn't last long.  Marsha released the pansies with aphids, those little fuckers, that we couldn't put in the plant sale.  I brought home a flat.  They are basically deer food but I'm going to try to put them out at the Gold Star Memorial.  They did find aphids in the greenhouse on the Rock Pink.  I so do not want to spend the next month giving plants a bath.  I'm forbidden from planting anything in the planters in front of the greenhouse until after the plant sale in case they draw bugs.