Gardening 2023

[cineater]

So the tomatoes were there, Maureen's bag gone and the zucchini that David found was sitting in the frig.     I can not explain these people.

Everything ran nice and smoothly.  The taste testing was a big hit.  I recruited a new tree and shrub lead.  Phoebe is almost at the point of taking over lead for the pantry.  And I got Daniel assigned to Marsha with the goal of don't let her pick up a shovel.  I told the whole group we were going to do this big work session at one point, dig out dirt here and sand there, take it over to here.  They sounded like they would come help.  Marsha said maybe she and I might get it done before then.  No Daniel and I will try to crank it out while you're recovering from chemo.  If we can't I'm calling on the group and you're supervising.

One more day of excessive heat.  We're still a full sun garden, harvest and water people.

[cineater]

Couldn't end my night without giving Marsha one more call.  Forgot something and I won't be there Saturday.  Then we got talking.

The president asked how many people read the handbook for the convention.  Not many and I'm not reading it.  You handed me the hand book for how I would do a motorcycle convention for 500 people.  They are only doing 150 people.  This gets striped down now.  I'm not paying for buses to take people on tours.  Not paying for dinners with speakers.  Not blocking off hotel rooms.  All that costs big bucks.  No way to make your deposits back with that number of people.  I will spare you the details but the whole thing is getting downsized, offers the one thing people want to buy, advanced training, and for folks who don't want to come, you can zoom into class for a cheaper ticket.  Our group has experience in the money making part of this and the rest don't cost us.  Even Marsha was impressed with what we came up with and moved into we can do this.  And then both of us said, I'm not chairing this!     But then we were both going, I can take care of this piece and we were throwing all the pieces together.  I'm thinking we'll cave and we're going to head this up.   

[cineater]

Wasn't even 9:00 and Marsha is saying, you and I could head this up.    We are crazy women.  Thing is we both are already incredibly busy in this group.  We got it running our way and now we are getting bored and ready to turn our projects over to other people.  We need new projects all the time to keep our interest.  Yeah, I use to do that but now I'm doing this and somewhere down the road I won't be this but something entirely new.  I'm not here for a lifetime.

Shit, I've got 3 eggplants on my counter and I'd rather look at them than eat them.

Oh good, Greg cancelled turf aeration.  Way too early for that.  I know September seems like fall.  It's not, it's the end of summer.  It's more of an October thing.

[cineater]

And he changed his mind.     I got updates all day long on the turf grass treatment.  I guess my little lecture about perfect grass is nothing but a dessert to mother nature didn't take.  Aeration in my opinion is for heavy traffic and just a waste of your money.  Fortunately we get it free.  Greg is paying for his yard to be done.  Really, you're 72, are you driving up to your front door?

Soil test is back for the Bee Bar bed.  It's fine, as I thought, but we did it as a learning tool for the trainees.  We're at 9% organic matter.  A little high.  The native plants get drunk on good soil, they flop over.  Our P and K is high.  I can never remember what that stands for.  One of them, maybe P, can cause plants not to take up nutrients if it's really high.  I've been dumping leaf mulch on that bed for years which is why it's up from our normal 2 to 3 organic matter.  The plants in there now grow really well so unless we have a problem, there is no need to add additives.

I sent out warning Thursday one of the wood trellis in the pantry bed was about to fall over and to leave it alone until we could remove it Saturday.  It fell Friday, fortunately in the bed.  Unfortunately the guy who had the bed jerry rigged it and put it back up.  Please just, take it out, fix it right and put it back up.  We don't fix things the way I do it.   

[cineater]

No, that's just going overboard.  The Bee Bar is leaving a small open ground for nesting ground bees because that is what most of our native bees do.  The Safety and Design Committee is concerned kids will go up and dig in it.  They want a protective box with a lid that has a lock on it.  First off it's in the middle of a bed.  Kids can do that anywhere in the garden.  If they are attracted to the spot by an educational sign then they can read the word bees.  These bees are pretty docile unless provoked.  And it's not like there isn't bee hives 25 feet from there.  You're more in danger of getting stung by them if you're being obnoxious in that area.

And they are worried mean wasps will use it and how would we deal with that.  Same as anywhere else in the garden, wait til it's dark, fill the nest with killing foam and run!

The biggest risk is to the gardeners if they stand on it too long.  Then again you aren't supposed to be working a bed unless the lead, who would remind you, tells you to work in that bed.

[cineater]

7 hours on the daylilies and nowhere near done.  There's over 100 of them.  Normally it takes me 16 hours to weed the whole thing but it's going to take more this time.  The lead has let the grass grow in from the sides and I have to pull that all back.  I don't think he's weeded them all year.

I refer to them as the party bus.  When we aren't protecting them from the deer, they need weeding.  They all bloom at one time.  They are my problem child in the garden.  I enjoy weeding them.  They've never been my garden but I've been working them since 08.  You want to be alone in the garden, tell people you are weeding the daylilies.     It's a pretty easy weed.  I've had them heavily mulched for years and the weeds come right out.  There's just so many of them!  This time they need their mulch too.

The lead is suppose to be getting a new border for them.  I've held out long enough waiting for him to weed.  He's got two weeks to get the border before he loses funding.  If he gets it, I want to be ready to install it the moment he pulls them out of the car.

Marsha didn't get where she wants the path marked off on Saturday so now I can't do that while she's out with chemo the next two weeks.  Talked to her husband Sunday.  He's worried about her picking up a shovel too.  Appreciates I'm looking out for her.  Him too.  He's gone with her to every medical appointment.  I can see the fear in his eyes he will lose her.  Marsha is a lucky woman to be so well loved.  We had a lot of fun Sunday.  Chemo started today.

[cineater]

Marsha texted me at 1:30 so she wouldn't forget.  Yeah I heard that.  She wants to move the one grapevine trellis over a foot.  Not my decision, hers but fuck.  Stop coming up with new shit to do when you haven't finished what you started.  This going to throw off the schedule to dig out the path and bring over the sand.

Back at the garden around 7 till noon, mostly daylilies.  No where close to done on that.  Kevin says he's mowing on Thursday.  I need to get the outer boundary back in place by then.  There's no shade out there until 11 and then it's only about 7 daylilies.  It will be all shade later in the day so I can get on them tomorrow evening for a while.  Kevin thinks they look great so far.  Commented on my pretty good for eyeballing it edge.  Gave him a list of what to get at the hardware store when he gets done there.  We really need to replace that wheelbarrow we trashed earlier in the year.  And I want the new pantry garden sign up.  We'll see if he shows up tomorrow with them.  He's all excited I have the date of the big tool shed clean out.   

I had to leave and go babysit at the pot plantation.  Caleb took one look at me and said I should have took a shower before I came over.  I can't go downstairs.    Something about contamination.  He sprays down my jeans.  Er, I've been on my hands and knees in the daylilies.  Start at the top of my head and work your way down.    My knees are stained green.  No way my manicure was going to make it through that even with gloves on.  Dirt is going to be under those nails a good long time.

[cineater]

The day lilies are kicking my ass.     I was barely able to get out of bed this morning my hips and butt hurt so bad.

Pretty good session at the gardens today.  I think everybody showed up.  Jim did a class on peppers with samples.  And when your mouth gets too hot, he had chocolate.  I'm a wuss when it comes to hot peppers.  Worked a little on the daylilies but I introduced a new person to the Japanese hoe.  She got 7 of them and wants to come back and do more.  Anytime is good with me. The daylily lead could not answer my question about when the last time he weeded was.  Yeah you can't even come up with a good lie.     He made some comment about my nails.  When I told him just that one side took 10 hours, he said he owed me.  Yeah a manicure.   Marsha even showed up for a minute.  Says they didn't give her one med and she wasn't puking her guts out today.  And in the end, Kevin pulled up with our new wheelbarrow.

Got back to the garden at 4.  I'm getting those daylilies.  Got the other long side with the edge back to where I want the grass line, about a foot.  17 more daylilies to clean up and then I can mulch that side.  The plan is to crank that out tomorrow before my 1:00 meeting.  I'll hit the short side up tomorrow night and hopefully have that done by Saturday night.  I still need to get to my beds but they will have to wait until next Thursday.

We're starting to see the down side of the veggies.  It's hot enough but we are losing the light and they are shutting down.  As the beds get cleaned out, it's still too hot to cover them with black plastic.  Anybody who wants can put in a fall crop but nobody is doing it.  We're tired.  They are going into cover crops.  Tours and fall projects are coming up.  Not sure how that's going to go, we're tearing the place up.     But the daylilies will look nice.  Wait, they are getting a new border.  I again encouraged the daylily lead to go buy that this weekend.  We'll see.

Kind of went out of order on approval of the 3 bed renovations.  I already got approval from our horticultural specialist and from the office.  Once it passed Marsha, it's a go, the rest of them just follow along.  Damn, we have a lot to do this fall.

[cineater]

Long side of the path done.  Got up there at 6:46, home for lunch.  If I can get out of my meeting by 3 that gives me 4 hours, spend a few more there in the morning, I may finish up.  Haven't really looked at the condition they are in.  The long side is beautiful minus the path needs work.

Brian is up there in the mornings hunting bugs with his camera and waiting to see if the turtles hatch.  Nice to have somebody else around.  Then again I haven't had enough coffee yet to be social.   

[cineater]

Need two wheelbarrows of mulch and the daylilies are finished.  I'm not sure if I could have cranked that out at the end of the day.     I have to be there in the morning to water anyway so I gave it up.

The fall garden tours made the magazine in the events section, no story.  And the email invite went out to 1100 people.  Facebook posts about to go up.  36 people signed up before the media stuff started.  325 slots in total.  Not a great presale.     Tonight I'm asking myself what did I do?     Besides tours and projects, we have new trainees coming in.

Talked to Marsha.  She just has a bad case of heartburn.  Smoke some pot!  She's backed up to wanting to try from planning to do.  She's starting to feel like shit.  She wants me to be with her in case she can't do it.  Agreeable but I'm out of the garden until next Thursday.  She seemed relieved she had more time before she would force herself to try.  That will be her third week.  In other treatments the third week has been okay for her.  Her cancer numbers are showing she is responding very well.

[cineater]

The daylilies are done!     Man did I feel like shit this morning.     But a couple wheelbarrows later the body was warmed up and ready to go.

I forgot, cats are coming to the garden.  Lots of us are cat people especially Marsha.  I found this cheap stuff from China and am having a good time.  Each one is silently dedicated to certain people but Marsha and I aren't saying who.







My favorite.    Not secretly named for Marsha or me.   

[cineater]

It probably warrants a full blown psychiatric diagnosis but we're going to call it hyper sensitivity to food waste.  I've mentioned some of his quirks about the blackberries and tomatoes before.  I know he was raised on a farm in one of the poorer sections of the state.  He's done missionary work in some of the poorer countries.  But when they sold the family farm, if he didn't have money, he now does.  He's pretty fit and trim, runs marathons.  So what is this obsession with food?  Jim calls me with his latest food quirk.  After the pepper class Jim offers him the leftover bag of chips.  He accepts and then leans over the trash bucket and begins pulling out chips in there and throwing them in the bag.    

He could have taken them home and thrown them to the birds.  All evidence points to that probably didn't happen.     I hope he knows better than to donate those somewhere.  I'm not sure what this is all about?

[cineater]

The daylily lead called me.  He was on his way to pick up the border for the garden, yea!  He wanted to buy me a gift certificate for a manicure.    No, nails are over with until we get through the fall.  Way too many projects going on to have decent nails.

[cineater]

I'd like to say all was quiet while I was away from the garden but those people were blowing my phone and email up.     My mother says what is that all about, you're just weeding up there.  One would think that.  I am retired and this is all volunteer work.  What I have is a second career with a staff of 35 and part of the management team of a small business.  We got a little carried away.

I need a minute.  I'm getting ready to run at full force.  The mold count is way high.  My eyes are burning and I'm dragging.  I've had way too much food.  I'm pretending to be interested but I just want to sleep.  The only cure for this is I have to get off my ass and work.  I've got nothing but meetings for a few days.

[cineater]

Leads meeting coming up Saturday.  It's all about the budget and the fall projects.  We've got a lot going on. 

My minute is over.  Took me 4 hours of mowing and trimming to break it.  All that kicking my own ass last week followed by 3 days of downtime and eating out pushed my mood and energy level into a hole.  I've got to manage my high exercise level better.  The crash when I stop just sucks.  Plus I'm too old to be going at it like that.  Something is going to give out.  I say that after I overloaded the wheelbarrow with sand today.  I did stop and rest once halfway across the garden.  And have Steven muscle it through a ditch.  I would have got it into the ditch but there was no way I was getting it out.  I used a smaller one for the second load. 

Steering committee tomorrow.  Sitting on my ass for 3 hours, like I do that so well, then I have to empty those wheelbarrows.

[cineater]

And I forgot the other side of all that activity.  Not sure if it's an upside or a down side.  Got myself all revved up and I'm up at 5 in the morning.  The sun isn't even up for another hour and a half.   

Mums are out.  So far I've put in 8.  6 purples at mom's to pair with the orange marigolds, looks good.  Need one more for the garden or maybe a few more depending on how many plants I pull out.  Why yes, they do sell Reese's Peanut Butter cups at the same place they sell mums.  Wonder how many of those I would have to plant to burn off a bag of Halloween peanut butter cups?   

[cineater]

Steering committee under 2 hours!     But then everyone wanted to go to lunch.  Marsha and I were kind of late doing the garden shopping.  She got more planks for the boardwalk and I got ground cloth.  Guess I'm digging out the main path this fall too.  She's doing well.  She wants to do a lot.  Got a week before her next chemo.  Weather is cooling off next week so maybe we can work on some things.

[cineater]

Leads meeting, I got everything I wanted plus more!  First off, Phebe, the lady who can make eggplant taste good, is going to be the new pantry lead.  Besides I don't have to cover it any more, she is perfect.  Phebe has been gardening all her life and knows how to cook with it.  She's already got plans for the pantry beds.  I can let her just run with it.  Greg agreed to take over maintenance of the paths.  I know, he's too heavy handed on the chemical spraying but that is the one place where we need it.

The budget, I still have $3500 that hasn't been allocated so we can give that back when the main budget really needs it.  Everyone seems to understand the need to take better control of the budget and to cut back spending.  The long list of fall projects is maned and scheduled.  During break California David showed up, he's been gone for years, looked at our emergency project (right after we complete fall projects) and will take care of it for under $100.  And next year's, as soon as we have money project, is scheduled to start next week, also for under $100.  They cleared my to do list!

The 3 renovation beds all passed.  With crowdsourcing almost everything we need, plants and cinder blocks, was covered.  The only thing we need is a little soil and I think I just scored that.

For a day where I lost out on a GNR concert, it couldn't have gotten any better.  We'll see what I'm saying before the next concert in November.  I could be sitting in my seat with my feet up and big smile on my face.  Might have a little trouble getting back out of it but the band will help me out with that.   

[cineater]

One minute please to take care of my own house.     Marsha is on a roll.  Ran up to help them with the delivery of screenings.  She wasn't going to bring that till Wednesday.  I'm going back tonight to work on my own beds because work starts first thing Monday morning on the edging for the daylily path.  Marsha wants Tuesday to dig out in her area, all day!  Pray for cloud cover.  It's cool all week.  I'm anxious to start on the dig out of the main path.  85 feet long and 6 feet wide.  She has chemo again the following Monday so I should be able to take that week to do it.  I would really like to finish her first round of dig outs this week.

Anyway, it's mum season and I want some more.

Oh yeah, Greg had no idea he was the new path lead.  He just wants to spray the chemicals.   

[cineater]

I can always tell when people come across that big frog I got for the garden.  You can hear the gasp.     Ran out of daylight and only got two of my beds.  That side of the building can only be worked early in the morning or late afternoon when the sun gets off of it.  I forgot I need to wash the mud off the rocks where the bricks are going.  I think I've got 9 buckets of rock.  Still not sure how to do that exactly but I better not get the mud on Greg's grass.  Marsha wants to take away his playtime with the chemicals if he won't agree to be lead.     No.

They only had 3 yellow mums.  I like the yellow or the dark burgandy.  I could use a couple more or maybe a dozen.