First, here is the spot emtied of the dead tomatoes...
And here is the Winter's Pansy Bed in the same spot. Might as well use it for something...
I have saved a dozen for the deck pots... Some of the best. You'll see them growing and blooming soon.
First, here is the spot emtied of the dead tomatoes...
And here is the Winter's Pansy Bed in the same spot. Might as well use it for something...
I have saved a dozen for the deck pots... Some of the best. You'll see them growing and blooming soon.
The lettuce planters on the deck continue to grow new leaves after I harvest them. I love that.
They got limp after a dry spell but recovered nicely.
Yesterday my lower back wasn't bothering me and my right knee wasn't feeling stiff, so I spent the day doing constant but light work. Well, I didn't want to stress my back of knee (give them another day of rest). It was mostly clean-up stuff like collecting broken 6-packs of seedling planting pots, slow-speed kitchen and bathroom cleaning, watering houseplants, gathering up scattered cat toys, etc. It is good for the body to just stay mildly active sometimes.
But I did get a few more serious things taken care of:
1. One of the more important things was to straight the bent electrical conduit pipes that fit inside the PVC tubes for the frame of my garden enclosure. That may seem like serious work, but it is more tedious than physically hard. It is most just getting some leverage.
I stuck one end of the metal conduit (which is thin compared to real iron pipe though not exactly flexible) under the trail hitch of the riding lawn mower and set a cinder block a few feet out. Mild body weight was enough to bend part of it straighter again. Then turned the pipe around and did it again. Repeated that for the 4 bent conduit pipes. Then moved the cinder block a little further away and did the middle part.
They aren't perfect, but they are "straight enough". They are just there to keep the 10' lengths of PVC tube from sagging. I had to use PVC for the framing because the connections were complex at spots. PVC has more connection options than electrical metal conduit (like this)...
The image is upside down to show all the connections. The top one actually is used pointing down to attach a support pole to the ground. The others hold ceiling poles to support the chicken wire covering the top of the enclosure.
2. Then I had to figure out what broken PVC and connecters I needed to replace. To my relief, I only need 3 straight-line connectors and some new PVC cement and 3' of straight PVC tube. The parts broke at angles that can be cemented back into place.
Then I can roll the chicken wire back over the top and sides. Actually, that will be harder than it sounds. First, vines have grown up the sides and connected in fallen chicken wire and they all need to bu pruned away a few inches at a time. I've done some of it, but it is slow work and I'll leave that for next week.
Second, part of the reason the top chicken wire collapsed was that the stuff is 4' wide, so there are 5 strips of it over the tops and sides. I had clips holding them together, but they were weak. They really need to be "sewn" together with aluminum wire. I didn't do that when I built the enclosure and meant to every year after. This time I will.
3. I've been cutting apart old overgrown shrubs along the fence where I have a long 50' straight flowerbed of perennials and The Mews Memorial Garden. I don't do too much at a time. It takes a lot of twisting and bending, and too much of that causes muscle cramps and stiffness. But I have the trailer stacked about as high as I can safely tie down, so I will be off to the County Recycling Center some Saturday soon.
They pile up yard debris to make mulch/compost. If I go on a Saturday, I can get the trailer loaded with it for free, and I have plenty of places to use it. I could go there any Saturday, but I feel slightly guilty if I'm not providing fresh material. LOL!
4. Planted 2 cherry tomatoes in a large pot on the deck. Well, 2 grew in one small pot, so rather than damage their roots separating them, I just planted them as one. They are draped over the lower rails. To ease the bending, I stuck foam tubing on the rail boards. The stuff is actually insulation for putting around hot water pipes to reduce heat loss, but I have a talent for "repurposing" leftover stuff. I try to help my plants as much as possible!
5. My meadow bed has wild grass growing in it, which competes with the flowers. Since I went to a lot of effort to plan 40 seedling and transplanted 8 existing Black-eyed Susans there a couple weeks ago (and they seem to be getting established - at least none have died), I wanted to think of a way to help them a bit. Well, I collect a lot of thin cardboard from cat food trays from the stores. So I cut them into 10" squares. I'll cut a 2" hole in the center and a slot to one edge. Then I'll slip them around the seedlings to smother weeds/grass.
6. Mowed the daffodil bed. In previous years, weeds and grass grew over the Summer. I've tried covering the area with black plastic sheeting for several years (after the daffs died back), but it collected rainwater and mosquitos bred there so I kept having to poke holes for drainage. It finally got too brittle from U/V rays and ripped apart. This time, I'll cover it with black water-permeable fabric. It is more U/V resistant and lets water sink through. But that's for "next week" too.
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After that, it was making dinner, watching The January 6th Insurrection House Committee Report summary/analysis on MSNBC, and processing some pics off the camera.
Well, I finally got something done in the garden today. Between last year when it just stayed cold and dry and nothing thrived (I mean 2 TREES died) and this year when I fell off the extension ladder and couldn't get started until late in the season, it has been a bad 2 years.
I have seedlings of various veggies and flowers large enough to plant. But the framed beds were weedy and the paths between were invaded by Horrible Vines. It was a mess. So the first thing I did was attack the vines. They are a "gift" from a neighbor 15 years ago. Some invasive type almost impossible to kill due to the depth of the roots.
The neighbors killed their's because they could just keep mowing it. Here it is mingled with flowers and the veggie garden. It has a flower like this.
I SWEAR whatever a dumb neighbor does never causes them long-term problems but I suffer. I have poison ivy and english ivy all around because of careless neighbors. I don't hate my careless neighbors, but I sure "resent" them sometimes.
So, I have an electric string-trimmer. I have a gas-powered one, but I'm afraid of the damn thging and I HATE the noise. So I went after the vines in the paths with the electric. You have to work at the vines from the top down, because otherwise they wrap around the shaft and stop it from turning. I actually got pretty good at it.
Which is sad I have to do that. I bought an electric mower when I built the framed veggie beds. Just enough room to move the mower between them. Sadly, I didn't realize I could turn the corners. I have to lift about 40 pounds to change direction. I did that. But it left vines on the sides.
So, the string trimmer. It took 2 hours fighting to chop the vines (1/2 the time unwinding vines from the trimmer-head). There are some corners I couldn't get at, but I will use the hedge-trimmer to take care of those.
And the outside of the enclosure will take more work. Vines grow up the sides of the enclosure and "shade is bad". I'll have to use a pruner and cut them off at ground level and slowly to the ends. Every photon matters to a veggie.
SO, after I whacked the vines I needed to prepare to plant tomatoes. For several years, I used a red plastic groundcover. It was supposed to reflect sunlight back up and cajuse insects to leave. It was also solid plactic sheet, so I couldn't water through it. I was watering individual tomatoes through the cut part around and that took a lot of time .
This year, I have 100 yards of permeable black plastic mesh 4' wide.
I can just water all the plants at once. And it will suppress weeds. So I rolled it out on one bed and anchored the ends with bricks, cut it to size for that bed (my beds vary) and dragged my tomato cages out of the weeds (Everything grows here). There are maybe some disadvantages to being organic; every weed loves the yard too.
I set them on the landscaping fabric-covered beds for spacing. But it was 6:30 and I needed dinner, so I put everything away for the day.
Tomorrow, I cut slices in the fabric in the center of the spaced cages, remove the cages, and plant tomatoes (and bell peppers around them) and cukes and melons and squash. If it is too late, well, I'll still try. And there is still time for a Fall crop of minor veggies like spinach and radishes.
I am PRETTY much recovered from the ladder fall. I no longer have the even think about walking normally, getting into the car is like it used to be, and I only notice it in bed when a part of my shoulder sticks up. But at least it isn't stopping me from gardening.
And, next to the cats, gardening is important to me.
While I was outside with The Mews, I laid back and looked up. I thought the tree branches and the clouds were kind of nice. Nothing import...