Gardening 2023

[cineater]

I got up there at 6:30 and got home at 5, no lunch.  We had cool weather and cloud cover and I wasn't going to waste it.  Kevin seriously underestimated the amount of edging he needed.  Another $500.  We only got the two long sides done.  I got to cut 10 landscape timbers with a handsaw.  Fortunately most of them were rotten.  We'll finish it off Wednesday.  Beka scored a chocolate vine out of it.  Not sure if we can move it or if there is a way to propagate it.  Moved from that to 3 hours of washing rocks.     Kevin better be ready to put in the bricks.  I'm taking up a lot of the weed buckets.  Worked with Marsha for a little while on her stone path.  We're just about to connect it to the rest of the path.  Tomorrow we dig all day on her paths where the boardwalk goes.

Marsha's white blood cells are off.  Says it's normal for chemo but she has to be careful not to catch anything.  She was very excited how far the stone path got. 

[cineater]

6.5 hours of digging out the paths for the boardwalk in Marsha's area.  She hung in there for 4 hours.  "I'm not use to this kind of work."  You're going through cancer treatments, you're strong enough.  Wet clay is heavier than your normal dirt but it is easier to dig when it's wet.  I didn't even try to keep track of the number of wheelbarrows.  We are filling up a slope we have behind the hoop house.

Marsha brought me a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter cups in Halloween shapes.  We shared with a few folks in the office.  Kind of had to since they were starting to melt and I needed to put them in the frig.  I saved two for tomorrow.

I don't think I'm digging out the main path next week.  We are nice and cool this week but next week we go back into the 80's.

[cineater]

Daylily path completed.  California Dave on it, should be able to finish up on Saturday.  Catherine set to start her project Saturday and do it in two work sessions.  Lawn class a go on Saturday.  Donna started dig and divide.

Marsha's crew, all 7 of them, really, that's all they got done?  Kevin says he'll get to the bricks in October.     Phebe told Kevin she was taking out two of the pantry beds.  I couldn't walk away quick enough from that conversation.   

So sore last night I couldn't lay down.    Got up feeling okay, just not enough sleep.  I think I will start on that path on Friday.

Marsha had a little episode of her former abusive self.  I try not to get to far into that because it makes everybody uncomfortable but I'm not being treated like that.  I kind of wondered what happen to that side of her during this whole cancer treatment.  Turns out she was on antidepressants.  She recently told me she had taken herself off them.  I'm thinking she needs those.  If she brings up today's incident, I'll broach the subject, otherwise, no way in hell am I suggesting she take her fucking meds.   

I'm in a rush, lots of projects going on and to finish by the end of October.

[cineater]

That was lovely.  I'm having my trees trimmed Sunday.  To make room for more, I worked on burning my brush pile tonight.  I am so lucky to be able to have a firepit in the backyard.

So Marsha called, sort of admitted I was right once she thought about it.  She does that too.  Her way of apologizing.  Man, lets do not go back to this behavior.  Marsha and I actually physically work well together.  We have a rhythm, not in each others way and can anticipate what the other needs.  We can crank some shit out without tripping over each other.  But Kevin was pissed about taking out two of the pantry beds.  We all got a text about the proper way to store the lawnmower.  Yeah we have to talk about that.  Nobody uses the bagger so it doesn't need to sit on the mower.  And the trimmer battery plugged in charging doesn't need to sit on top of the engine when most of us put it away hot and there is a gas tank right there.  We'll just leave that alone for now and address it when we clean out the machine shed.

I did score some pink veronica (speedwell) today.  I'm rather fond of the purple but pink will do.  It's a good little ground cover with spiked flowers poking out of it.  Only blooms till it starts getting really hot but it gives your taller, heat loving plants in the back time to get going.  Well behaved.  It's foliage can look a little weedy so remember where you plant it.

[cineater]

I have a problem with the main path.  A lot of water comes off the parking lot and washes down that path.  You can see the washout in about the first 30 feet.  I dig all that out I'm going to have an 85 foot slip and slide.  I'm thinking about leaving the middle of the thirty feet and angling it so it gradually spreads the water off to the sides.  If I do that will all those wood chips just wash off into the grass and create a bigger problem?  Paths isn't something people know about.  It's more of a trial and error thing based on experience.  I'm not really into that, do it right the first time.  I'll see if Jim has an opinion but I'm thinking if you don't know what to do, do no harm and I'm not going to do anything with that first 30 feet.  If I can get cloud cover Saturday, I'll start the dig out in the afternoon.  If I do mornings I should be able to avoid the heat.

[cineater]

I'm going to delay digging out the path.  We have a lot of projects going on and that path is getting use.

Not really sure about the chocolate bed.  They built up the area to put the building there and I'm going 15 to 18 inches down in that sand.  Where is the sand and where is the dirt under there and how far to the sides does it go?  Maybe we should just dig out some of the sand and drop a foot of soil on it.  I don't know.  Beka wanted to build a retaining wall for the slope but you've got to get down to the ground.  If the slope is too much she'll have to terrace it but the Bird ZGarden is there next to it and she didn't have that much sand in that.  The other side is the tool shed.  Doesn't make sense they would have had that deep of a dip in that small area.

We connected the stone path in Marsha's area to the other one but her crew didn't get that in there right so she wants to relay about a 3 foot area.  Should finish tomorrow but then the whole thing has to sit a little bit before she can put the screening in between the stones.  She brought in another load of screening and has another coming tomorrow.  We're filling in the paths and Jim has agreed to help build the planks.  Hopefully all the dugout paths can be finished by the time she gets back from this round of chemo.

Somebody went dumpster diving.  They left us several hanging baskets.  It's well known the big box stores start dumping leftover plants this time of year.  Put some in our containers that were looking bad and the rest out for people to take as houseplants.  I may dig out a few I planted before the frost and over winter them.  That one plant is pretty expensive.  I like it but lord knows I don't need another plant in this house.  I always say I'm not bringing a lot of those plants back in the house but I always end up with more than I put out for the summer.

Tired of hearing my neighbor complain about the native plants I have between our driveways.  Told him I would dig them out this fall and put in grass.  We can look like every place on the street.  Just shut up.   What I'd really like to say is there any chance some day you could make room in your garage for your cars so your driveway doesn't look like a fucking parking lot all the time? 

[cineater]

Oh yeah, I've hit the wall.  That path dig out can wait.  Introduced some of the new trainees to the gardens.  Nice group of people.  The fall first tour was the lawn class.  Only 5 people.  It went two hours and they never got out to the turf demo area.  Everybody thought it was great and had a good time so no complaints the.

Marsha was two rocks short of finishing the rock path.  The retaining wall started to be rebuilt in the cottage garden and the block step at the greenhouse is almost rebuilt.  The two are the emergency projects scheduled for next year.  This is great except people keep handing me bills and that $3500 we were giving back this year is taking a hit.  I'd like to be both, ahead of schedule and have extra funds, but truth is they were going to have to give those funds back next year.

The last of my brush pile is burning up.  Joey comes tomorrow to trim my trees and I'll have a new brush pile.  Sandy told me those are illegal.  I've had one for 25 years.  Who knew?

[cineater]

Big new brush pile.  Joey did a good job.  My elm in the front needed a lot of work after it lost part of it in a storm.  Two of the neighbors came over and hired him to do a couple trees in their yards.  Young guy, wife, 2 babies and a house payment, who else wants trees trimmed?     He has all the equipment from when he trimmed trees for the electric company.  The guy has experience.

[cineater]

I'm about to pull into the food pantry with the harvest, Radar Love comes on the radio.  Only one of the best, great driving songs!  Should I take these veggies for a drive or turn in?  Crossed my mind a couple of times.   

[cineater]

Not sure what happen.  The woman in the office told me she sent out the fall tour announcement, twice, to 1100 people.  Nobody was signing up from that group which I found hard to believe and a few people told me they never saw it.  So I checked with the head lady Friday to see if something had gone wrong.  She immediately emailed the person who sent them out to ask her to forward the email she sent out.  Jumped right to she suspected the person didn't do their job and lied to me.  This morning I got a copy of the email and people started signing up for the tours.  I got forwarded a couple of questions from the person who sent out the emails from people.  One of them from 9:18 tonight.  Why is she checking her office email after hours?  Is she in trouble?

One of Marsha's cancer numbers isn't as low as the doctor hoped to see it.  He added two more chemo treatments.  She had her treatment today.  She's got a couple of days until the sickness kicks in but plans to be at the garden Saturday.  She did get good news.  Her cancer has a very low risk of mutating to other cells.  Honestly, I don't know if I could keep standing if something happen to her.  We have a bunch of stuff going on Saturday.  I need her to stay home, get better and not push it.  She's been working way to hard, probably why that number isn't as low as the doc wants it.

[cineater]

We got a lot done today.  The sandpit was half dugout and one of the boardwalk paths got done.  The wall for the cottage garden got worked on.  The big work session is Saturday for the 3 bed renovations with Sunday if we don't get done.  There's a threat of rain but I think we can crank out the bed renovations on Saturday.  I may take Friday and get them started.  Tomorrow I have tool sharpening class and then we pick flowers for the flower show.  Looks like cloud cover, I'm working. 

Only let down was Kevin saying he would now do the brick project in November.  He thinks I'm worried about getting it done.  No, I'm pissed.  A couple of hours and he could have it done.  I want to wrap up these projects and be done with it.  Yes, so I can squeeze in a few more.     It's okay, Jim is going gangbusters on building planks.  He gets those done, I'll get him to do the brick project.  As soon as Phebe gets back in town I'm turning the pantry beds over to her.  They are almost done for the year.

Marsha is being over controlling.  Probably one of those, I can't control the cancer but I can control this.  I'm being patient but I'm in mid work my ass off, I've got a lot going on and I really don't feel like chatting on the phone.  Says she's not feeling too bad.  Went to the post office today with her husband, all she could handle.  Why did she even push herself to do that?  I know, she's fighting death.

[cineater]

Was at the gardens from 8 to 6.    Leslie and I started cutting flowers for the flower show at noon and still had to make a dash to get them to the show on time.  We only have around 25 entries and they had a lot of entries there.  I don't think we will walk away with that many ribbons.  Our plants were in serious need of rain which I got on the way home and slowed traffic to a crawl.  

My ornamental kale I was so excited about wasn't ready.  They say you have to kill it twice to learn a plant.  I didn't kill it but I definately planted it at the wrong time and let the bugs have it.  Not sure if I will grow that again.

Pantry donations are a little under 1500 pounds.  We're starting to shut the beds down.  We could have grew into October but we're just ready to wrap it up.  I'd like to say I'm getting ready to slow it down after the fall projects but we need to get the seed orders together to catch the black Friday sales on those.  Who would have thought seeds went on sale on black Friday?  My down time doesn't happen until the second Friday in December.

I did set up the homeschooled kids for Monarch tagging next week.  This could be a pretty good partnership with them teaching plant stuff.

[cineater]

I had to dig out a 3X3 foot area of Purple Shamrocks, Oxalis, to harvest the little bulbs.  They were looking so good too.  Took me 6 hours.  I got a half a bucket full.  Was going to leave it for the trainees to do tomorrow but it's delugate work and I want them moving.

Caught a couple of people running rough on me today.  I appreciate the initiative, reminds me of myself, but no you need to get permission for that.  Not so much they can't do that but did you know this was going on?  Did you know all wheelbarrows are spoken for, we have that already, I'm not paying for that and I can't tell you to do something different when Marsha told you to do that.

Did talk to Marsha.  She sounds tired.  She's coming tomorrow but did agree to sit it out and just supervise.  On top of two major dig out projects we are tagging Monarchs tomorrow too.

Wonder how we did at the flower show.  Was tempted to go see but I have to pick everything up on Sunday.  I'm hoping Earl and Beka got some of the big awards.

[cineater]

On my way to the garden I picked up a toddler bike and an electric car for my grandson out of somebody's front yard.  Yes, they had a free sign on it.  

Damn it got hot but the 3 bed renovations got dug out, 13 people showed up for the native tour, 6 monarchs were tagged, more of the wall in the cottage garden got worked on, the step outside of the greenhouse got finished, Marsha almost finished her rock path, Jim cranked out a special plank and two more, and Donna got more plants dug out for the plant sale.  Forgot, the veggies got harvested.    Great work session!  And we're not done yet.

We took two of the three, top prizes at the flower show along with various ribbons.  Donna got a top prize for her Indian Grass and Marsha for Thai Basil.  Two of our hardest working people.  I don't remember if we entered any of my flowers.  We only had 28 bottles so we picked the most interesting ones.  The Dahlias took first and second, first time we've shown them.

Marsha was pretty tired leaving there today.  She got home and the nursery had delivered two of her fruit trees for the gardens.  That plus the ribbon, she was sounding pretty good.  

Great day, I'm going to grab a nap.  

Happy first day of fall.

[cineater]

Aww, poor little barberry got disqualified for being an invasive.  The color on that was stunning.  I got a third and an honorable mention.    We did well overall.  28 entries and 27 got ribbons.

I was checking off the repair of the step at the greenhouse from my to do list but then I realized I need to seed up the new slope there.  And if I do that, it makes it easier for Kevin to drive the zero turn up there.  Oh no, not again.  The last time he did that he ran into my pot and broke it beyond repair.  It has a pretty good slope up there too and if he slides it, he'll go into the greenhouse.  It's also one way so he has to back out of there unless he wants to destroy my pot.  Fucker denied hitting it the first time.    I can tell you right now he's going to do it too.  He tears up my new grass I'm going to be pissed.  He breaks my pot, oh well, I'll get another.  I don't have to hand mow it when he does that and I've almost fallen into the greenhouse a couple times myself.  May not be all bad. 

[cineater]

Hold on, the Missouri Botanical Garden does not list the barberry as invasive in Missouri:  "This plant is listed as a noxious weed in one or more Midwestern states outside Missouri and should not be moved or grown under conditions that would involve danger of dissemination."  So should we say something to the flower show people?  On the one hand, they think we are idiots for submitting and invasive and on the other hand they picked on our poor little Barberry!

[cineater]

We finally got rain but were still running way above in temps.  Everybody looked pretty beat when we left today.  Lots of digging going on.  The hole we are filling up with all this dirt has attracted bumble bees.  They are trying to make a home in the dirt and we are trying to add to it.  It was easy to stop because they were chasing us but we can't use the excuse much longer.  Mostly prep work done today.  Finished digging out the sand pit and the path for the other boardwalk path.  Marsha and I will go out Friday, clean it up and put in the screenings.  Hopefully they can finish it up Saturday.  In the meantime, they started cutting down one of the fruit trees.

Squash is still going strong and beans in the pantry garden.  Tomatoes are just about played out, waiting on the pumpkins.  My regular eggplant, black beauty, is still flowering.  I haven't got one eggplant off of there.  We're hot still all next week.

[cineater]

This is math I can't even do!  We want to build a planter box on a hill.  The back is going to be higher than the front and the sides are going to be stair stepped.  I should be able to take the slope of the hill and the width of the bed and come up with how high that back wall should be.  One gets divided into the other, not sure which one but I have to remember how to figure out slope before going there.  It's been 40 years since I've taken am algebra class and they never used those formulas to explain it this way!  And to make matters worse, you have to stagger the blocks.  They can't be stacked directly on top of each other.  It's 53 blocks by my figuring, the long way, but how many of those are half blocks?  And where do you put those half blocks to keep your wall strong?  How do we even know if the back wall is going to hold that hill? 

You know there's a reason you pay a professional to build these things.     I do have a Boeing engineer and Marsha.  But I'm wondering why we are even building a box there.  We're planting the whole hillside.   

[cineater]

Oh thank god, we do not have to build a retaining wall just a decorative one.  That cuts out half the stones.

We decided that all plants for the gardens, where possible, will be grown from seed through our plant sale.  This is our first time doing this.  The list of what we are growing was sent out tonight.  They can request different seed packets but the goal is to demonstrate what we sell for the most part.  It saves us money and maximizes the growing space in the greenhouse.  Will take a few times of doing this to perfect it.

Marsha and I were revising the policies and procedures for the demo gardens.  She wrote the majority of it and made a rule about using the gardens for education!  The shift in thinking has happen.  I won the war.  Did I mention Marsha's education signs are on a fuschia background?    I never would have taken her for a fuschia person.  That color won't hold up in our sun but hey, she did it.

More boardwalk digging and prep today.  In the heat, moving wheelbarrows.  Another phone call from my mother, "were you pulling weeds out there?"     One would think.

[cineater]

Ah no, back to a retaining wall.   

So hot out there today we had another person over come by the heat.  More work on the boardwalk, stone walk and retaining wall in the Cottage garden.  Two garden tours and dig and divide work with the plants.  We were busy.  I'm beat.  We cool off later next week.  Should make it a little easier on us.  Progress but we still have a long way to go on completing the fall projects.

I'm going to the botanical gardens tonight to see the light show.  I hope that plant that sells like death is gone.  I've already had that smell in my garage.