Good morning! It’s quite overcast here this morning with a chance of rain. The bigger chance of ‘heavy rain’ is tomorrow – when we were supposed to be getting our long-awaited driveway repair. Oh, well.
My lettuce bolted and I had to pull it out yesterday. I’m going to try to get out and harvest my spinach before it goes, too. Both are cool weather plants and it’s been getting up in the mid 80s in the afternoons lately. Our tomato plants are doing well, though, and I’ll try to share some pics with you in another post later.
Our yard is looking pretty good right now (for us.) My husband mowed again yesterday and he thanked me again for my weed whacking and KillzAll efforts, which have resulted in a quicker, easier job for him. It definitely looks like someone lives here now :0).
I would like to get out and buy some flowers to plant today. We’ll see if the weather cooperates and the stars align…
1st harvest of spinach for the season.2nd harvest of lettuce of the season.
Things are looking good so far in our garden this year. Yesterday I harvested, cleaned, and packaged spinach and lettuce. I fertilized, then mixed and sprayed EIGHT bug killer to hopefully get rid of whatever is eating the leaves. Finally, I watered.
By the time I came in, even though I hadn’t been out there too long, I was wringing wet – I guess due to the humidity. I took a shower, got a big glass of ice water and did some serious relaxing.
The forecast is for possible severe storms this afternoon and evening – with the threat of large hail – so I’ll cover up the three planters mid afternoon.
The Spruce
Before that today, though, I’ll try to get outside to tend our tomato plants. I’ve read that pinching off – or clipping off – the ‘suckers’ (the little branches that sprout in the middle of the “Y” of two branches) will increase the tomato yield and keep the plant healthier. Also, snipping off any branches or leaves touching the ground, plus any below 12 inches as the plants continue to grow. The plants really grow fast when the temperature, sun, and watering are right, so I’ll need to pay attention to keep up with the 8 plants.
I hope that you’re enjoying some nice weather where you are.
I wish I could meet the person who came up with this.
Update: My husband is healing well from his sudden encounter with our brick planter brought about by our dog, Amber, getting excited while on the leash for her last outing of the night. We are now just letting her out now – no leash – and waiting for her to do her business and return. We do learn from our experiences. He reports no pain in either his ear (7 of 8 stitches removed by the nurse practitioner yesterday morning, and the last one ‘snipped’ so it will come out easily over time as the scab finishes healing and falls off.) When I asked him about his previously dislocated little finger, he held up the wrong hand to look at it. :0) Amber is looking quite innocent about all this, just enjoying life.
I just went out to check the veggie planters. All seem to be doing great. I’ll show you some pics in another post this morning. Since we’re supposed to get a lot more rain today, we’ll go down and get our mail and drag our trash can back up the driveway to its resting spot before lunch.
I hope that your Wednesday is a pleasant and happy one.
I’m down 23.6 pounds – closer to my interim 5-pound goal. I’m doing my 30 minutes of old lady stretching yoga each day. I’m going to add exercise for my arms with 5 pound weights on M-W-F and a few minutes on the elliptical trainer T-Th-S. It would be nice to see a good difference by the end of April.
American Montessori Society
My sweet veggie plants are still doing well despite the wild changes in temperatures. I just watered everything, and I’ll take some pics tomorrow to share with you. I also plan to harvest some lettuce!
We had to re-install one of Amber’s gates last night. We’ve been keeping her on the tiles since her tummy hasn’t been completely reliable lately. It doesn’t happen often, but we try to at least make sure her food has settled after feeding her before we let her into the carpeted area. Now she has started routing around for more food in the kitchen. I’m careful about not leaving anything on the counters or island, having learned the hard way that she will eat anything she can find. Last night I heard something and found her with her front feet on the counter in the kitchen licking the counter! So we re-installed the gate between the dining area/kitchen and the utility room.
I learned this morning that with the new gate I have to plan ahead to get out into the garage without incident. I managed to have the utility room gate open while trying to also open the door to the garage. Amber wanted out and Abby wanted in at the same time. It was a mess. I ended up shutting the door to the garage, closing the gate, then starting over on going out. When I finished, I related my ‘lesson’ to my husband, hoping to save him from experiencing the same thing.
Freepik
I’m still having bad dreams about trying to help my husband after Amber pulled him down into the brick planter on the 30th. I was really freaked out that I couldn’t get the blood to stop, and then we spent all night in the ER getting him the help he needed. In my dreams I continue to rush around frantically trying to gather what I needed to help him. We HAVE 1st aid kits, but they tended toward snake bite kits, etc., and I was rushing around upstairs and down, trying to find things to help us.
I have now ordered several things online in order to create two bins of wound care supplies – one for upstairs and the other downstairs, gathering the things I would have liked to have, or have more of. I’ve received some of the things I ordered, and I think I’ll receive the rest of them today. We’re going to get two bins with lids that I can label, distributing the things I ordered into them. Having them organized, where I can grab them quickly and have more of might be needed to at least get us to the ER intact will help me sleep better. Hopefully, I won’t need them.
“Dorky Dogs” – BoredPanda.com – Liucija Adomaite and Justinas Keturka
American Idol – ABC
I’m excited because tonight is the finale on American Idol. I don’t usually watch the show, but this season there were two contestants who grabbed my heart. The two men have formed what will be a life-long friendship, starting with wanting to honor their fathers on the show.
One was Oliver Steele, (@oliversteelemusic on YouTube) but he was eliminated from the competition recently. The other is Iam Tongi, a really sweet 18-year-old young man from Hawaii. His voice and style are really distinctive, putting his own spin on whatever he sings. The whole audience explodes each time he sings.
Even without wins, both men have won in life. I expect both to have long, happy careers. Both write their own music. Iam has just dropped a single, “I’ll Be Seeing You” in honor of his dad, who passed recently. Oliver performed an original song, “Too Soon” on American Idol.
I promised you pictures of the garden, and I’ll share them in the next post, as soon as I process the pictures I just took.
“Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle … a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream.” ~ Barbara Winkler
This won’t happen for awhile, but I’m enjoying dreaming about it. Each year I try to get head lettuce and then several other leaf lettuces to add variety to our salads. I also try to get spinach plants, and of course, tomato plants. Otherwise, I experiment. I grow radishes from seed, celery from cutting off the bottoms of celery I buy at the store and then replant when they sprout in water. I like to grow some sweet onions. My cauliflower and broccoli grow lots of leaves, but I haven’t had much success in growing the edible parts yet. I’ve had mixed results on squash. Maybe I’ll try some herbs on my kitchen counter this year, as well.
A little at a time, I’m thinking about what I want to start with this spring. I would love to be able to supply all of our friends with nice veggies straight from the garden.
I’m thinking about all this now because we can finally negotiate our driveway, and the ice is almost completely gone. We still have areas that could use more chain-saw work, but we’re able to drive up and down without a problem now.
I’ll get out my last planning sheets and see if I can figure out the best places to put the new spring plants. It seems funny to talk about ‘crop rotation’ in chest-high 4’x4′ wooden planters, but it’s just as important here as in humongous commercial farms.
“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!
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)
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.
I just came in from spending an hour out in my veggie garden, weeding.
This was an almost-perfect time to weed. It’s sunny and pretty outside. It’s 83 – a good temperature, but the direct sun made it seem really hot. The Mel’s Mix in the planter boxes was slightly damp. The weeds were plentiful, but very tender and young and easily to root out quickly. I basically used my veggie garden fork and my baby hand-held hoe.
It took me a little longer than I figured to do the weeding. I was grateful that our automatic watering system didn’t come on when it should have, as I needed the extra time to finish weeding the boxes.
I checked the watering system on the way back to the house. It was flashing. I guess a power glitch caused it to go wonky. I was too hot and tired to do more than a cursory reset. It didn’t work, so I’ll get out the manual and see if I can get it straightened out when I’ve had a chance to rest, get my breath back, and hydrate.
My veggies are looking good. I’ll start harvesting the outer leaves of the spinach and leaf lettuce next week. I’ll try to get some pics later to share.
A. A. Milne – E.H. Shepard – Winnie the Pooh – DreamsQuote
Last night I gave into our desire for comfort food, since our weather has been gray, cool, and rainy lately and made hamburger patties and macaroni and cheese. It hit just the right note with my husband, and he declared the meal ‘delicious’ several times.
Mostly we are trying to watch what we eat in an effort to lose our lard, get as healthy as we can, and be able to continue doing most of what we would like to do. We have found two places locally who are offering REAL FOOD and STU’S CLEAN COOKIN’ – individual frozen dinners with few ingredients – all of which you can pronounce and understand – with measured portions that are GOOD for us. We feel as it we have found a treasure trove.
Particularly when the weather is good, I like to spend a lot of time outside – working in our veggie garden, gathering harvests of lettuce, spinach, radishes, yellow squash, zucchini, broccoli, onions, and tomatoes each time I can for us to enjoy right from the garden. Much of the time I am helping with the lawn or weeding my flower beds, so it’s nice to have veggies from the garden and a good-for-us delicious dinner that only has to be nuked to be ready to eat.
As soon as I finish here, I’m planning to go out and take pics to share with you, hopefully harvest my first gathering of veggies, plus get things ready to cover the plants for some possible freezes this week.
I hope that you are well and happy this morning, and that your Sunday is a nice one.
We had quite a storm last night – heavy rain, gusty winds, hail, flying hairballs…. I went out this morning to see what havoc had occurred.
Two of my three new azaleas were pretty battered, but I’m hoping they will perk up once they get a chance to catch their collective breaths.
My garden plants seem to have come through fine. As you can see, one of the next jobs will be to spray weed killer under the planters.As you can see, I need to pull off yellow leaves and weed this tomato planter. The ‘nook’ tomato planter is looking pretty good..
I’m feeling very lucky that the hail storm didn’t decimate my garden, as they did one year in the recent past. I’m trying to ‘hold my mouth right’ so the good luck continues. :0)
Although the plants are a bit waterlogged from last night’s rains, all seems to be looking good. I still need to make markers for the plants, and we need to put the new sprinklers in when they are delivered; but otherwise, the spring garden is in. Whenever I feel down, all I need to do is walk out to the garden and my spirits lift.
“It was such a pleasure to sink one’s hands into the warm earth, to feel at one’s fingertips the possibilities of the new season.” ~ Kate Morton
“I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden.” ~ Ruth Stout
“There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling.” ~Mirabel Osler
“In every gardener there is a child who believes in The Seed Fairy.” ~Robert Brault
“Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity.” ~Lindley Karstens
“You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt.” ~Author Unknown
“One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides”. ~W.E. Johns
We caught the second member of the raccoon family overnight that not only cleans out each and every seed in all the feeders, but trash the feeders, as well. We have a humane trap that allows us to ‘relocate’ the raccoon elsewhere, hopefully far enough from our house that he doesn’t return.
On the way down the driveway, we noticed leaves all over that indicated we had yet another gusty storm last night. At the bottom of the driveway, we found that the robot we made was leaning over, caught by the two chains we tied on him and attached to trees. One would THINK that when a robot weighs 150 pounds, one wouldn’t have to worry about him blowing over. We learned the hard way many years ago that it is REALLY difficult to stand up a heavy robot that has fallen off the driveway down to the slope beside it. Thankfully, it is now an easy thing to pull him upright.
Lewis welcome robot
If you look carefully, you can also see one of the two owls we made for either side of the driveway. Each sits atop a pole. (We have a closure we could swing shut to block entrance to the driveway.)
So this morning we have pulled the robot upright, relocated a raccoon, and I’ve started regular chores. We will have lunch soon.
I’m going to try to check my garden veggies today before the forecasted rain begins. Once it starts, it’s supposed to continue until the end of the day tomorrow.
I seem to be UNABLE to stop touching my face! I’ve tried several things without success. As much as I pull on my nose, I should look like Pinocchio!
I am using every excuse in the book (and even inventing some new ones!) to cheat on my diet and exercise.
Fat Animals-Rollin Wild by BMC-Nasim Biswas-2018
Each day I ‘start over’ in my mind, looking forward to exercising and eating right. Maybe TODAY I’ll get going again!
My sweet veggie plants and new tomato plants made it through another freeze. As far as I can tell, this is the last time I’ll need to cover everything. I have the first load of sheets in the washer to get all clean and dry for when they are needed again. If the weather warms up (it’s 40 now) I’ll try to get a good start on getting the TEENY, TINY weeds out of my veggie garden today.
My goldfish have done their trick of dirtying up their aquarium again, so cleaning that is on the agenda for this morning. Happily, I am able to get everything out, clean the aquarium and put all new stuff in it in about 35 minutes now.
I have an idea for a painting rattling around in my head. I’ll try to get up to my art room today to get a start on it.
Bacon-wrapped keto chicken is on the menu for tonight. I’ll fix a nice salad – with spinach and lettuce from our garden – to go with it.
I hope you are finding good ways to spend your days as we all hope that we can put the threat of the virus, as well as financial worries from the economy being shut down, in the rear view mirror.
This gives you a big picture of our garden. There are two rows of three 4’x4′ wooden boxes on legs filled with Mel’s Mix, a soil substitute. They are tied together on an irrigation system.
Here’s another view.
Here you see mainly head lettuce plants plus a couple of spinach plants.
Here you see head lettuce and red onions.
Spinach plants
So far, things are going really well. As I said in my last post, I harvested the first batch today. I just finished using the push-around weed whacker to cut things down around the outside of the garden and behind the barrels of the Mel’s Mix Components behind the shop. (You can see the barrels in the upper portion of this photo.) I also did a couple of areas beside the garden and between the garden and the house.
My husband is mowing again now, trying to distribute all the huge rows of tall weeds he mowed down a few days ago. It’s ALMOST looking as if someone cares about this place now…
I’m trying to spend a bit of time each day in either my veggie garden or my flower planters. Yesterday I didn’t do anything heavy, recuperating from earlier endeavors, so today I’m redoubling my efforts to get outside.
We’re having way-too-soon hot weather here, so my romaine lettuce plants are bolting. :0( We’ve been able to harvest a couple of times, and I’ll try to save as much as I can in the few days we have left before the plants soar to the sky, getting several feet high – I guess in their efforts to live a bit longer and make seed.
My husband wanted to go today to get flowers for the deck, but I’m so behind in my garden and my flower planters I asked him to wait until tomorrow or Thursday. I usually jump at the chance to get more flowers, but I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed, particularly since I can’t work very long in this heat and don’t get as much accomplished as I would like.
I love spending time playing in the dirt. I’m concentrating my efforts in the morning and then in the evening, when the sun isn’t as strong. I work a bit, come in and rest and gulp water, then go out again, over and over. I love watching my plants thrive!
I’ll try to get some pictures to share with you later.
creativeartworksblog 