Tag Archives: gardening

June 9, 2022 · 9:52 am

Happy Camper

Baby Center-iStock

I’m a happy camper today. Things are really looking up around here. :0)

I’ve told you that we were FINALLY able to arrange our freedom yesterday since Jeremy Young came with his equipment and smoothed out the crusher dust pile that made us captives up here for a week. Even with the really heavy rain most of the afternoon, the driveway stayed beautiful with very little damage. We’ll see how long this lasts and then get back with him on what he thinks we should do more long term.

We replenished some supplies after relocating raccoon # 6, getting home around 5:30 or so. I slept much better last night, knowing we could get out if we needed to, or someone could come up, again, if needed. Peace of mind is priceless.

Today we’ll get our mower gas cans filled, plus the truck. The only downside of all this freedom is that it is expensive! Grocery prices were up, of course, and gas prices will make us gasp today. At least we can GET most of what we would like to. We’ll also replace a flashlight that died suddenly. Not only did it need new batteries – the batteries had ‘frozen’ inside. Oops! That one lasted over 30 years, so I guess needing to get a replacement now is understandable…

Changing from the Keto eating plan to the Mediterranean one is helping me gradually. And I’m starting to see a difference on the scales, too, finally. My focus has been on getting my system working right again, pushing lots of veggies, cutting way back on meat and fat, eating fruit, etc. Now I’ll start paying attention to calories as well, comparing that to what I’m burning with my yard work and exercise. I’m hoping I can manage a good balance where I’ll feel good, sleep well, and have more energy as I get stronger.

We’ll set the humane trap on the deck again this evening. “Something” triggered it to shut overnight, but we didn’t catch anything. We’re having a record year, having trapped and relocated six raccoons so far in the past month or so.

Tomorrow we’re supposed to get more heavy rain. But TODAY the sun is shining brightly after being fogged in this morning. I’m looking forward to spending time in the garden and checking on my tomato plants.

Have a glorious Thursday!

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June 5, 2022 · 10:30 am

Tomato Plants

So far, the tomatoes are doing well. Yesterday I got out with my clippers, ties, and stool for a good pruning session. I cleaned things up, supported the plants well, and delighted in seeing some green tomatoes!

I don’t want the tomatoes to get much taller, but the video I am going by didn’t say much about the indeterminate tomato plants growing up too tall for the supports. Usually mine spill out over the sides of the planter and sprawl all over the ground. That’s what I’m trying to avoid this year, because the guy in the video says the plants will concentrate on producing more tomatoes, rather than all the greenery.

The plants should be getting lots of oxygen. That is supposed to help them not get any diseases. I’ll mix up some bug spray next, because I don’t want the tomato worms sneak in and start eating the plants.

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May 31, 2022 · 9:11 am

Attitude on a Tuesday 5-31-2022

FreeSpirited – gritgraceandgratitude.net

A “yellow and red blob” is inching toward us on the weather map, bringing a brief cool-down and thunderstorms yet again tomorrow. It must be spring.

On this last day of May we have a morning full of errands. We’ll leave in about 45 minutes. I’m planning to try to get in another session of lopping things down this afternoon if it’s not too hot. My husband says he’ll spray me down with Deep Woods OFF! head to toe before I go out this time. Maybe it’ll help. My bites and welts from last time are getting smaller and aren’t itching.

The hacking down of things never ends around here. We really need to hire someone to attack the branches hanging down on both sides down into our driveway, but they are too expensive. We’ll hack at things a bit here and there as we can. We’re still waiting for the plumber to help us with a second line in the well house for irrigation in the front yard and the guy with the large truck load of chat to spread on the driveway. Money will be flying in all directions. :0(

nutandbolt-store.greatergood.com

I’m really getting itchy about getting up to my art room. I haven’t been up there in ages, but gradually, over the last few days, I have ideas rattling around in my head that I’d like to try. I even was painting a background with lots of texture and then adding some clay flowers to it in my dreams last night. :0)

I hope you were with the ones you love this past Memorial Day weekend. We are so lucky that we can remember those who paid the ultimate price to keep our country free while hugging those we love and treasuring what we have.

Enjoy your Tuesday.

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May 29, 2022 · 11:58 am

Session 1

Alamy.com

I’ve done one session with the loppers so far today.

I cut down the weed trees that have suddenly grown up around our burn barrel between the house and our shop. They grow fast, so most of them were taller than I am. I also tackled the low hanging branches from a tree that cause my husband grief when he tries to mow. I have another tree right in the same area to do next, but that’s for session 2.

I told you that I was going to cut down a bunch of branches in the trio of planters that run between our front yard and the top of our driveway. I didn’t lie to you, but I haven’t done them. :0( My excuse is the daily rain we had last week, but it may have been BEFORE that that I said I was going to cut them back… Those are on the list, as well.

I just finished getting the beef stew ingredients in the slow cooker for our dinner tonight. I cleaned up the kitchen and it will be time to get our lunch in another 20 minutes. I’m resting in serious fashion until then, enjoying a cup of coffee and writing this post to you. I just closed up the house and turned our a/c on, too, since it’s 80 in here now and the temperature is due to be in the 90s this afternoon. Whew!

The past couple of days I have been in the yard most of the day, so I’m calling that my exercise for each day. I know that I don’t use the same muscles for yard work that I do with the more formal exercises, but I’m just too pooped to do both, so it’ll have to do. When I get things a bit more caught up outside, I’ll switch back. ( I really do plan to. :0) )

Weed spraying is on my list once the lopper work is mostly done right around the house. And THEN you can see my new toy above – a much simpler power washer than we have, which I HOPE will do a good job without me having to fight with our old one so much. If I can just put it on the end of the hose and get started, I don’t have to spend the whole day doing it to justify all the hassle. I can do a good chunk, put it away, and do more later, or the next day. :0) I’ll try it soon and let you know.

Lunchtime.

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May 29, 2022 · 9:20 am

Thoughts on Sunday 5-29-2022

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This puppy is a genius – eating AND getting in exercise at the same time! I’m not sure what that yoga position is called, but I’m impressed :0) I’m going to make beef stew for our dinner tonight. Less stew beef, many more veggies. I’ll freeze the leftovers into individual serving containers and put them in the freezer.

I finished cleaning out and weeding the square foot garden yesterday. It took a total of three sessions and about 4 hours to get things cleaned out the way they should be, but I feel good that it looks like someone cares again. I’ll research summer crops and then see what is available locally. The tomatoes are doing fine so far, too.

If you look really carefully, above the lowermost leaves on the bottom left of the plant, you can see a small green tomato!

And finally, this has nothing whatsoever with my ‘garden,’ but I’m delighted to see that all three elephant ear plants are now coming up. You have to look carefully at the center of the planter, but you can see the first sprout of a leaf breaking through now.

Today’s project will be attacking things with my loppers. I’ll be clearing up areas that are giving my husband trouble on the riding mower, and then trying to cut down weed trees around our burn barrel between the house and the shop. It’s supposed to get to the 90s today (50s two days ago) with strong sun, so I’ll have to be careful.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

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May 28, 2022 · 2:34 pm

5 of the 6 Done

The main raised bed square foot garden consists of six 4’x4′ boxes we built, put on iron supports and filled with Mel’s Mix. They are my chest height, so my gardening ‘work’ is the easiest possible. I can walk up to the tables, plant, weed, and harvest – all without bending over double over and over or having to get down on my hands and knees.

Pulling out spent plants and weeding in the sun, however, is still a lot of work for me. That’s what I’ve been doing today – trying to make up for neglecting it for the past week while it’s been raining every day.

What I found today is that I needed to pull out a lot of plants. Even though the Mel’s Mix stays soft, the plants really get their roots down in it and it’s difficult to me to pull them out. Then I try to save as much of the Mel’s Mix as possible, then dispose of them (composting what I can.) The weeds have overridden my sweet garden in a week’s time. I now have 5 of the 6 boxes cleaned out and weeded, but have one left. I’m in resting and drinking water again before I try to go back out and finish the job.

I also harvested some lettuce that I’m going to take to our hairdresser Tuesday morning. I’ll also fill bags for my Lunch Bunch friends, and a couple of other people as I use what I can before the lettuce bolts.

I’ll have to think about whether I want to try to grow some other warm weather crops, besides the zucchini, such as yellow crook neck squash, etc. Maybe when I’ve had a chance to catch my breath a bit I’ll do some research in what is available now.

I’ve always loved the idea of growing herbs, but never really have. I’m not much of a cook, but the idea of snipping off a bit of fresh herbs to flavor our dinner has always appealed. The reality of it is that when I buy some fresh herbs at the store, I use a bit and the rest goes bad in the fridge. :0( I’m going to see what else I can grow that I will actually use and can freeze.

Meanwhile, we can look forward to what I hope will be a great tomato crop, giving us a wealth of ripe tomatoes for ourselves and to share with our friends.

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May 28, 2022 · 11:05 am

Work Cut Out for Me

In a nutshell, the zucchini seems to be doing all right, and the onions are fine. The lettuce hasn’t bolted yet, but will soon. Everything else must go. I just came in from spending an hour pulling out plants and weeding. I harvested one lettuce plant and pulled the rest out. I have about half of the garden done now. I’m resting and drinking lots of water. I plan to go out and hopefully finish with another hour or so after lunch.

The zucchini plant seems to be thriving. The spinach plant next to it needs to go.

The red onions are very happy. The spinach here also needs to go, as do the abundance of weeds.

I’ll be harvesting lots of lettuce in the coming days.

sent to me by my friend, Susy.

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May 28, 2022 · 9:01 am

Garden Progress

Gertrude Jekyll-QuoteMaster.com

Yesterday I got the tomato plants pruned, tied up, weeded, fed, and watered. The plants had really grown. I THINK I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I watch the video over and over, trying to be sure I’m following his directions carefully. Some of the pruning is simply FEEL, when things are becoming too dense between two plants. I noticed two small green tomatoes while I was working yesterday. Fingers crossed.

Lee County Center-NC State University

This morning I’ll go out and see what’s happening with my sadly neglected garden. It’s certainly gotten enough, if not TOO much, water, with our automatic irrigating plus all the rain. I really don’t know what I’ll find. The last time I was out there, before the week of rain, I staked my zucchini plants for the first time ever. Usually they grow all over the elevated square boxes we use for the garden, spilling over the sides and hanging down to the ground, smothering anything else in the box. Since they are a warm weather plant, it isn’t really a problem, but the idea of staking them, like tomato plants, was completely new to me.

Google

I’m hoping that this is the way my plants will look as the zucchini grow. The directions said to prune everything beneath the lowest zucchini on each plant, cleaning things out so the plant could get lots of oxygen. I’ll try to get some pics, assuming I have anything out there alive after a week of not being out there. I don’t know whether my lettuce has bolted in the heat, etc. I’ll head out there as soon as I finish here and see what I can do.

Have a wonderful Saturday. I hope you’ll have a great Memorial Day weekend with the ones you love.

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May 27, 2022 · 9:38 am

Bright Sunshiny Day

Horizon Education Centers

“I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for

It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day” ~ Jimmy Cliff

I can’t believe we’re having such a beautiful day. I had almost forgotten what it looked like when the sun was shining! It’s supposed to get into the 70s with low humidity this afternoon with lots of sunshine. What could be better?

I’m hoping to spend several sessions outside when we return from seeing our friends at Lunch Bunch. I want to take my time pruning my tomatoes, giving them tomato food, spraying blossoms, re-anchoring the plants to the supports, etc. When I feel I’ve done all I can do for them, I’ll turn my attention to the garden I’ve been neglecting since the rains started. It it isn’t too wet, my husband will try to mow this afternoon.

We can probably open the front and back doors in the house to get a nice breeze throughout, too. Ahhhh!

Abram L. Urban – LivingLife – QuoteMaster.com

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May 23, 2022 · 11:15 am

Chilly Monday

momzdailyscoops.blogspot.com

A cold front came through yesterday and last night. It’s 57 here now. We have more rain forecast for tonight, tomorrow, and Wednesday, to varying degrees. The sun is shining weakly right now, though. It’s funny to go from 90’s, strong sun, and high humidity to 50’s, cloudy and rainy. Hard to know what to wear – sandals and bare feet, boots for rain or snow, or….

hayneedle.com

I’m HOPING that this cooler weather will delay the demise of my early spring garden. I still have some broccoli plants in the garden, hoping that they develop offshoots, though the main parts of the plants have been removed now. I did remove the cauliflower to avoid it going bad, harvesting 3 little heads of nice cauliflower – the first I’ve actually had produce a head. There is ONE of those left in the garden right now. My lettuce is getting taller. That’s a clear sign it will bolt soon. I’m hoping that this cooler weather will make it last as long as possible. The same applies to my spinach. Usually, I get until mid June before the early spring plants are finished, but this year Mother Nature has turned my garden on its ear.

I’m back now, after an interruption to go do our errands. I had an unexpected, happy surprise at the post office. I don’t know why it changed, but when I have gone in the past to mail a document to our son in Thailand, I’ve had to fill out a 3-part form that lists exactly the same information I already have on the envelope. The addresses are always quite laborious to write out, and stressful, because I NEED to get it right. Today, the man just asked me what was in the envelope. I said ‘document,’ and he said, please write ‘document only’ on the outside of the envelope. I did, and then he charged me, much less than I paid the last time. Amazing. :0)

I’m not sure what the rest of the day holds. I’m PLANNING to try to work in my garden a bit, plus continue my push to get the pantry re-organization finished. I would like to harvest some lettuce and do some weeding. We’ll see if Mother Nature will cooperate…

Have a wonderful Monday.

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May 20, 2022 · 9:37 am

It’s Friday

EBENBLATT-Katzen-amzn.to

Happy Friday!

Sad to say we’re not having Lunch Bunch today. Everyone is under the weather – except for my husband and me – so hopefully everyone will feel better soon and we’ll see each other NEXT Friday.

ML Lewis

This is probably the last beach photo this trip from our virtual vacation with my SIL. She’s spending the last day on the beach searching for shark teeth and enjoying perfect weather there. I’m so glad she gets to do this with her friends each year. AND I’m delighted that we get to share the ‘calm’ and beauty with her vicariously. :0)

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Yesterday I got out and pruned and staked my 4 zucchini plants. If it isn’t a good thing, it’s not a problem. My husband won’t eat zucchini anyway. If it’s successful, I’ll be a very happy planter. :0)


You can see two of the four plants here.

And here are some of the tomato plants on the other side of the house.

And finally, I went ahead and brought in three of the four cauliflower plants. They were showing signs I didn’t like. The heads are small – about 4″ across, but they are the first actually heads I’ve grown and I’m grinning from ear to ear. (My husband won’t eat cauliflower, either, but that’s HIS loss….

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May 18, 2022 · 11:55 am

Clean Up Work So We Can Mow

I spend much of my time hacking things down. Our property is about 8 acres of scrubby ‘woods’ on top of a ridge line outside of town. Unless we keep at it, I think the weeds and trees would grow up over the house, yard, shop, and driveway, swallowing all we’ve done over the more than 35 years we have lived here.

This is a longitudinal view of our trio of brick planters that run between our front yard and the top of our driveway. The huge green plant is the end of the wisteria that my husband has trained to grow all the way across the ‘corner’ formed by this plant and one of our fireplace wood holders. As you can see, the plant is like a weed, taking over all we will allow for it to consume, kind of like mint in an herb garden. At this point, it’s hard to see there is a trio of planters!

Here’s another view of the same huge green wisteria plant, this photo taken on the yard side of the planters. Actually, there is wisteria and then forsythia in combination.

This shows there actually ARE planters there – just completely over-grown now.

You can see that it would be very difficult to ride a mower anywhere close to the edges of the planters. I’ll start my work on these today, hopefully. This will be a multi-day project.

Our clematis came into bloom the last couple of days. They are right behind a long brick planter where I’m growing tomatoes. It makes a pretty picture when you go out to the side yard and suddenly see all this purple. A spirit-lifter for sure. :0)

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May 18, 2022 · 11:36 am

Elephant Ears!

There are still some little bitty weeds in the planter, but I’ll take care of those. I didn’t know whether they would winter-over in the planter or not. I’m SO happy to see that I’ll have some plants this season!!!!!

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May 18, 2022 · 11:29 am

Staking Plants

The two pics above show the staking of my tomato plants in the two brick planters we converted to square foot planters several years ago.

I found a nice video https://youtu.be/q4IUhZMA9O0 on pruning tomato plants for maximum yield. After finally overcoming intimidation by the whole idea, I’m doing this, for better or worse, though my husband may plant ME in the back yard if I kill our chance for lovely ripe tomatoes this year. I changed to using only single stakes, giving me the most access to the plants as they grow. I’m planning to check them once a week to see what they need.

Yesterday I learned I should be staking my zucchini plants, as well! https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/youve-been-growing-your-zucchini-all-wrong/ I will have to get a bit creative to do this because my raised-bed, square-foot-garden planters are up off the ground (chest high) and are only 8 inches deep.

I’m much less intimidated by the idea of pruning my zucchini plants than my tomatoes. My husband won’t each zucchini. I grow them for the fun, and also because I like to make and eat ‘zoodles’ (fake noodles made from spiralized zucchini.)

https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/youve-been-growing-your-zucchini-all-wrong/

Zoodles allow me to eat low carb spaghetti sauce, low carb alfredo sauce, etc., without feeling guilty.

The only one who will be disappointed if my efforts don’t work here is me, so the pressure is off. :0)

I’ll try to get pics of the four plants after I figure out how to stake them up a bit and get them pruned.

These don’t need staking, but I just wanted to share my delight that my cauliflower plants are still alive and the heads are growing. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to allow them to grow, but I’m like a kid at Christmas. :0)

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May 18, 2022 · 10:47 am

Beachful Wednesday

ML Lewis

Aren’t we lucky to have another day on the beach? I particularly like it that I can truly enjoy the sunrise at a time more ‘civilized’ for ME, rather than when it actually happens. :0)

We’re having a nice day here in Arkansas, too. I’m planning to spend several short sessions in the garden and the yard today, since Mother Nature seems to have her head back on straight again. I learned yesterday – much to my amazement – that I’m supposed to be staking my zucchini plants! I guess I never thought about it. I read that each plant has only one stem, though the plant will grow all over the place over time. It actually does better – AND produces more zucchini, if you give the main stem a lot more oxygen, cutting away the excess leaves. Who knew! My garden boxes are only 8 inches deep, so ‘staking’ them will be a trick, but I certainly can prune the plants and prop up parts of the plants to give the stems a lot more air and space. I’ll figure out what I can do as I go. https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/youve-been-growing-your-zucchini-all-wrong/

https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/youve-been-growing-your-zucchini-all-wrong/
TheArtofDoingStuff.com
https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/youve-been-growing-your-zucchini-all-wrong/

I’m also going to try to lop off the big branches sticking out from our trio of brick planters between our front yard and the driveway that are making it next to impossible for my husband to mow close to them. Short sessions with lots of rest and water in-between.

We see our primary doc tomorrow afternoon for our routine six-month-monitoring. This coincides nicely with getting help for the digestive problem I’ve been having lately. We had blood work done. The TSH test (one of the thyroid tests I get) has gone completely bonkers – WAAAY high. I’m suspicious, now that I look at other symptoms, that this may be the reason for my problems. I’ll find out what she thinks tomorrow. Help is on the way! :0)

We start our day at the beach and spend much of the garden outside in a beautiful day, playing with plants. What more could we ask?

Wonderful Wednesday. Enjoy yours.

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May 17, 2022 · 9:30 am

Tuesday Sunrise at our Beach

It rained overnight, but my SIL will have beautiful weather again today on her vacation. She sent me a video, as well, but I can’t figure out how to save and share it with you yet. I’m working on it. Meanwhile, we can pretend we can hear the waves coming in, watch the sky brightening as we begin a new day….

Back in the reality of Arkansas, we MAY get rained on while we do our errands this morning. I’m really happy with the work we got accomplished in the yard yesterday. My husband mowed while I pruned the tomato plants, got them tied up to their supports, then pruned two Rio Samba Rose bushes, then cleaned out the planter beside the garage to welcome shoots of elephant ear plants!!!!! I’m delighted to see any action there at all. I’ll try to get pics for you.

I’m hoping to get out with our big loppers so I can cut down some really spectacular growth in our trio set of brick planters than run between our front yard and the top of the driveway. They were really getting in the way while my husband was trying to mow, so that will be first priority today if Mother Nature is feeling cooperative. The branches of some of the bushes were too big for the cutters I was using on everything else. I’m really amazed at how big around the branches were. I’m hoping I can make a difference there today.

We’ll leave in a second to do errands. I’ll take a gallon bag of lettuce for our hair stylist, Michael. He seems to enjoy fresh salad stuff as much as we do. :0)

Enjoy your day!

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May 16, 2022 · 1:20 pm

Hope Blooms

Lady Bird Johnson – QuoteMaster.com – YourEasyGarden.com

I’ve done two sessions on trying to prune my tomato plants and anchoring them to the supports. I’ll do a third, and hopefully, last session in a few minutes. I’ll also sprinkle them with tomato food and they’ll get watered automatically by our repaired yard irrigation system tonight.

I was really intimidated by the idea of pruning my tomatoes. Sliced ripe tomatoes are one of our very favorite things in the world. We look forward to planting and harvesting tomatoes every year. I have always just staked them, fed them, and then let the plants do what they want. We end up with a ‘mess,’ each year, with the vines climbing all over everything, making it impossible for my husband to mow near them and almost impossible for me to reach in and grab ripe tomatoes by the end of the season.

This year I was determined to try to learn to prune the tomatoes. I found a video on pruning tomatoes to increase yields that sounded good. The guy on the video seems understanding, patient, and knew what he was doing.

The first thing he talked about was ‘determinate’ vs ‘indeterminate’ tomato plants. I didn’t realize there were two types of plants, so I was already intimidated. I finally decided that I was dealing with ‘IN-determinate plants, since mine just kept growing, spilling all over the place until they froze at the end of the season.

I’ve watched the video over and over, because it scared me to death to even THINK about cutting off parts of the plants (other than dead stuff or broken branches.) I was (and still AM, to be honest) worried that something I do will cause the plants NOT to produce, but I’m determined to do it this year.

Lee County Center-NC State University

The first time I looked at the plants, before I was sick for about a week, I chickened out. Yesterday, I did two short sessions. Amazingly, I SAW the suckers! I carefully pruned those, plus cleaned up the remaining plants a bit in the smaller, square ‘niche’ planter beside the house. I got the plants tied up, anchored to the supports nicely.

I pruned one plant in the other planter before the wind started to threaten to pull me off my stool. I’ll go out to finish up, but – IF this works, I’ll be the happiest lady on the planet! There won’t be anything in particular to show you at this point, but I’m feeling really hopeful that I can encourage more TOMATOES rather than so many rope-y, messy vines this season.

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May 15, 2022 · 2:38 pm

Note

lolsnaps.com

Actually, I’m going out to see what I can do on pruning tomato plants while the sky is a bit overcast. Wish me luck?

tom-Lee County Center-N C State University

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May 15, 2022 · 11:43 am

I’ll Get By with a Little Salad for My Friends…

This is the first lettuce harvest of the day. I just washed it and put it into gallon bags to give to our friends, Kay, Linda, Patty, and Michael this week.

There is a LOT more to harvest, but it’s not actually trying to bolt YET, so I’m thinking about spreading out the harvests as much as I can, watching the progress of the plants carefully.

It’s almost time for lunch, so I’m thinking about switching to pruning tomatoes after lunch, rather than doing a second harvest of lettuce today.

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May 14, 2022 · 3:24 pm

2nd Harvest of the Day 5-14-2022

I just finished washing and processing the spinach I gathered this afternoon.

I took a picture of each of the teeny, tiny (about 2 inches in diameter) cauliflower heads in the garden. This is the best I’ve done on this veggie. Usually ‘something’ happens and I fail to even start a head. I’m hopeful that these will get a bit larger before I have to harvest them. Fingers crossed.

To show how deceptive photography can be, this head is only about 2 inches across. But it’s PRETTY, isn’t it? There are 3 others almost identical to it in my garden right now.

If it’ll cool off a bit (or I can cool down enough) I’ll go back out and start harvesting lettuce.

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May 14, 2022 · 10:27 am

Garden – Initial Assessment

After a week or so of not being able to work in the garden, things are pretty out of hand. My tomato plants are looking healthy, but I’ll need to get serious about pruning this week. I’ll concentrate on trying to be outside early in the morning, or before dark in the evening, or both, until I get things under control. I’ll try to carefully prune, then anchor the plants to the supports.

The veggie garden has exploded. The onion stalks are now over a foot tall. The zucchini plants are huge and blossoming. The record heat has almost done-in the broccoli before it really had a chance to get started. It’s starting to bolt, so I’ll harvest what I can today. Weeds are rampant. The lettuce leaves are huge.

Here’s a close up of a broccoli plant. You can see that the broccoli isn’t nice and compact. It’s growing tall. I need to harvest today to have anything from these at all. :0(

Aside from the gazillion tiny weeds, you can see how TALL this lettuce plant is. That’s not a good sign. Lettuce, broccoli, spinach and cauliflower are early spring plants, needing the cooler weather. I hope that the lettuce leaves are not already bitter. I’ll bite one and see.

I’ll be doing a lot of careful harvesting this weekend, one thing at a time, between rain storms. You would THINK with all this rain the temperature would be cooler, rather than like a sauna…

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May 14, 2022 · 9:53 am

Saturday Morning 5-14-2022

Eve Rigas

I’m about to walk out to our garden, and then to the other end of our yard where I planted our tomato plants. I may just LOOK this morning, rather than DOING much. I’ve been a bit under the weather lately, so I’ve been trying to concentrate on recovering, resting, and getting my strength back. I’m feeling ornery so far this morning – :0) – so that’s a very good sign. We’ve been having record-breaking heat here, so I’ll pay close attention to the time outside.

I’m even feeling like cooking! I KNOW!!! I’m going to experiment with a stir-fry type of dish with hamburger plus lots of good veggies. My friend Susy also sent me a group of Mediterranean recipes this morning, so I’ll take a look at those, as well. It feels GOOD to be feeling better!

Heading outside now. Talk with you again soon.

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May 4, 2022 · 4:04 pm

Chicken

The Guardian

Well, I just came inside from ‘pruning’ my tomato plants.

I’m a chicken. I DID get rid of any stems and leaves touching the ground or looking less than stellar. I DID identify the main stem of each plant, noting the ‘sun leaves,’ ‘main stem,’ ‘a couple of flowers,’ or where it looked like they would come out.

My plants are still quite small. We’ve had a LOT of rain and wind, and relatively little sunshine since I planted them. The temperatures are supposed to warm up this weekend, particularly on Mother’s Day, but this will be the first real tomato weather we’ve had.

I’m chicken about pruning something I can’t be SURE is a ‘sucker.’

How do you identify a tomato sucker? (we ask)

Image result for tomato sucker
tomato sucker

“The short answer to this is a tomato sucker is a smallish shoot that grows out of the joint where a branch on the tomato plant meets a stem. These small shoots will grow into a full sized branch if left alone, which results in a bushier, more sprawling tomato plant.” – http://www.gardeningknowhow.com Jul 23, 2021

I will check them again next week with an eye to identifying suckers. If I can be SURE I have one, I’ll hold my breath and cut it. If not, I’ll continue to watch.

I may need to tie the sweet plants to their supports next week, too.

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May 1, 2022 · 2:04 pm

A Day in the Veggie Garden

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I didn’t realize when I told you earlier I planned to spend time outside today, working in my veggie garden and pruning my tomatoes, that the veggie garden by itself would need so much attention.

The first thing I did was the first harvest for May 2022. I filled my whole harvest basket and could have gathered a bunch more. I spent half an hour harvesting, and then washing the lettuce and spinach I collected. I put them in the fridge in bags and then made lunch.

About 1:15 I went out again. The sun is quite strong and it feels hot when you’re working. I got two of the six 4’x4′ wooden planter boxes weeded before I needed to come in to rest and drink some water. It’ll probably take me two more half-hour-or-so sessions to finish the weeding. The tomatoes will have to wait until tomorrow, or the next time Mother Nature is in a cooperative mood.

In the foreground of the picture above, the zucchini plants are thriving.

I have big broccoli plants with tiny broccoli florets in the center.
spinach, red onions, lettuce and zucchini in this planter.
Mainly lettuce and broccoli here.
spinach harvest for the day
today’s lettuce harvest

I’m going to rest for while, cool off, and drink water like a camel before going out for another session.

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May 1, 2022 · 10:07 am

Happy May Day – 2022!

I’m delighted to welcome the month of May this year. I’m hoping that by mid month, our weather will have calmed down. Today our weather here in Arkansas is stellar. Sunshine-y with a high of 82 and lower humidity today. Wheeeeeeee! I have a lot I’d like to do outside. I’m not sure what I’ll tackle first. Maybe, since the Monday and Tuesday are supposed to be stormy, I’ll check the veggie garden first, weeding and harvesting, and then try to get started with my new “pruning-the-tomato-plants experiment.”

Thanks to my friend, Susy, we can all enjoy the beautiful artwork of Matt Dixon from the U.K. I just love his drawings. The fact that a robot can draw such strong emotions from me still amazes me. Thanks, Susy.

My official ‘monthly report’ on my efforts to lose the lard and get stronger and healthier is –

  • Weight – Down 30.8 pounds since my heaviest.
  • Measurements – there is 29.5 inches less of me than at my heaviest.
  • Exercise – I’m into my regimen of various online videos for seniors in the mornings and yoga and yard work in the afternoons. Videos are from Mike at MoreLifeHealth.com/seniors. The ones I’m doing now are a “warm-up,” “stretches,” one of two exercises with weights videos (alternating)’ and “Workout 1B” every other day. The day I don’t do the ‘workout,’ I spend time on my elliptical trainer. I’ve increased from 10 minutes to 15 minutes per session so far. My daily yoga stretches session is 30 minutes.
Dennis, an aviation rescue fire fighter, also encourages us to embrace May. This is from the Australian Firefighters fund-raising calendar. This is a donation that keeps on giving. :0)

I hope that May will be a wonderful month for us all.

Enjoy!

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April 28, 2022 · 4:34 pm

The Deck Planting is Finished

I was rained out twice, but just finished getting the deck planted and cleaned off. We got a flat each of periwinkles and petunias, and I had already planted the birthday geranium in the tall, rounded cylindrical planter.

birthday geranium

This picture reminds me – we put our hummingbird feeder up yesterday, and saw our first hummingbird of the season drink from it this morning!

Our cat, Abby, helped me clean up the deck after the planting.

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April 28, 2022 · 1:49 pm

Trip Around the Yard

These are the birthday geraniums that I just replanted. This planter is really tall, right at the corner of the deck. I’m hoping the geraniums will be happy here. I’ve spent about an hour on the deck so far today, trying to get the flowers in. It started to rain, so I took the opportunity to come in a rest, plus drink some waters. I figured out there are actually 10 planters out there. I have three left to finish, then clean up. I’ll get some pics when I can to share with you.

Earlier this morning, I walked around the yard getting some pics.

The tomato plants seem to be doing fine so far. Tomorrow, or the next day our weather is cooperative, I’m planning to look at the pruning video again and then see what I need to do with the plants.

Another iris planter that I’ll thin down after they finish blooming.

Just a clump of regular yellow iris in the yard.
One of the Rio Samba rose bushes. We’ll get a lot of blooms opening soon.
A patch of gardenias getting ready to bloom. These are lovely, but they usually get beaten down almost as they bloom by wind, rain, and hail each year. I’ll try to catch them in bloom for you.

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April 27, 2022 · 4:37 pm

Decking Out the Deck

I just spent two hours trying to resurrect our deck planters. I didn’t get pics of all of them. There are 8.

EVERYTHING GREEN OR GRAY IN THE PLANTERS ARE WEEDS.

Some of the planters just needed a little bit of care. My husband hauled three 40-pound bags of potting soil to the deck for me, or I wouldn’t have finished this part of the project today.

I got everything weeded, then filled up the planters with the potting soil. They are now ready for us to choose some flowers to plant. I’m hoping we can go tomorrow, because we’re due for more rain Friday, I think.

I did get the geranium planted. :0) When the flowers are planted and I’ve cleaned things up a bit, I’ll take more pics to share.

I hope you had a fabulous Wednesday.

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April 27, 2022 · 9:23 am

Thoughts on a Wednesday 4-27-2022

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We’re having another beautiful day in Arkansas.

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Yesterday evening we took the opportunity of a perfect time to burn a big pile of branches we had collected. (We had a big pile, and then my husband doubled it, cutting down the branches that were tangling up the phone wire that fell down in the storm.) We brought some chairs and sat and talked, enjoying the evening, watching the fire while our dog, Amber, raced back and forth at top speed, like a thing possessed, laughing. We left it to eat dinner, came back and consolidated the pile, left again, and came back twice before leaving it for the night. The absolutely perfect night to do this. No worries, and good clean up.

Today we’ll do errands and shop for supplies. I’m hoping to spend a good amount of time outside when we return. I want to clean out the planters on our deck, getting them ready to plant flowers, and I want to plant the pink geraniums that my friend Kay got me for my birthday.

By the time we finish errands, I work in the yard and then do my exercises, the day will be pretty much gone. A wonderful day in Spring. :0)

Enjoy your day.

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April 26, 2022 · 3:07 pm

Nice Surprise

When I got home from doing our errands and getting my hair cut, I found that my husband had added to the single iris. :0)

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April 25, 2022 · 12:20 pm

1st Harvest of 2022!

Yesterday I dashed out between rain storms to gather our first harvest of the year from our raised bed, square-foot-garden. I harvest just part of the leaf lettuce that’s ready. I’ll harvest more so I can share some with our friends this week.

This is the first of the spinach. I hope to have a large enough harvest that I can serve some in salads, saute some as a side for dinners, AND freeze a bunch for later. Greedy, aren’t I! :0)

I’ll check on the garden, plus our two planters of tomatoes tomorrow. I’m feeling a little bit under the weather today, so I’m taking it easy and resting a lot.

I hope to harvest more lettuce, plus watch the video of how to prune my tomato plants for more yield and less greenery this year, then go out and see if I emulate the video..

The rain finally stopped and the sun is shining brightly today.

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