Random Stuff

I got my replacement glasses  Friday.  The store said the lens on the previous pair had been ground just a bit too small, so that is why the lens popped out.  Well, that explains whyI couldn't seem to tighten the frame screws.  They were already as tight as possible.  

And I was fussier than usual about how the new glasses fit.  It took them 4 tries to get the ear-piece to keep them snug but not too tight.  I ended up with the best fit I've ever had.  Two days later and I haven't had to push them back up on my nose a single time.

Renewed my small trailer registration online.  It wasn't completing correctly and sent me back a page several times.  I finally noticed a small print saying I hadn't checked a box about agreeing to "terms and conditions".  So I did and they sent me a temporary registration by email.

Speaking of the trailer, some jerk pushed the front off the support block last Winter.  The ground was muddy from heavy rain so the metal pipe that raises and lowers the front snk into the ground.  And then the soil froze!  I couldn't pull it out.

Now that the soil is thawed, I still can't.  But I have a scissor-jack.  I'll have to put a cinder block under the jack to lift the front of the trailer to pull the support post out of the soil.  And another to rest the freed support on.  Just a real pain.  I already have too many things I need to do.

I'm so far behind everything.  I haven't planted a single veggie or flower seed yet.  My basement gardening bench area is a complete mess!  I actually bought some heirloom tomato plants from Amazon.  And I think I will go to the local DIY stores to buy 6-packs of flowers in a few days.  This is not going to be my DIY growing season.

I had planned to build a new planting box around the mailbox (the old one finally rotted after 25 years) and fill it with better soil.  But my Stella D' Oro lilies have already emerged. So I can't cover them in deeper soil.  I can still build a box around them, but I'll have to wait til Winter to fill it with new rich soil.

The Washington Nationals baseball team bragged all Winter about the improvements they had made on the team.  But they are currently 1-6.  It doesn't seem like it will be even an average season.

My Ryobi self-propelled electric mower got recalled.  Something about a potential fire hazard in the battery connection.  They will send me a replacement.  But I have to cut out 6" of a wire cluster, take pictures of that and the serial number and model plate, email the pictures to them, and wait 6 weeks for delivery of the new one.

At least I just use it for trim work.  My main mower is a John Deere riding mower.  I love it, but there are places it can't get to.  I've gotten it stuck in a couple of places where I needed the car to pull it out.  And one place where I needed my 6' metal bar to wedge it backwards a foot at a time.  

The Mews are doing well.  Lori is calmer about Taz and Binq (shelter cats I adopted late 2023).  She still isn't perfect around them and resents their presence in her house, but "Bad" has become "OK".  I appreciate that.

Flowers, Part 1

 Well, the blooming season has finally started!

The Stella D' Oros lilies started first...

I was amazed to see some Tithoniums blooming that I planted 2 years ago.  They are annuals, but described as "self-sowing".  Well, apparently they do!  I'm thrilled.  Self-sowing is as good as perennial.

This is something from the meadow garden I planted a few years ago.  Apparently they need a couple of years to bloom.  I don't know the name.  But they sure are a nice pure yellow!  And there are dozens of them.  I'll have to look through catalog to identify them.

This is actually some sort of weed.  Kind of pretty.  It doesn't seem to be a disease because they all look identical.  I'll allow them if they don't spread too much.

I brought variegated 'Snow-On-The-Mountain' from my parents home a couple of decades ago where it grew naturally.  They survive here in the hotter Mid-Atlantic area, but seem to convert to solid green leaves given the climate.  I am digging up the remaining variegated ones to transplant to shadier and cooler spots, but these do have nice May flowers.  

Pansies

I love pansies.  They flower in Winter and Spring.  Few plants do.

The local DIY store had a great deal on them.  18 pansies in cell-packs for $16.  Can't beat less than a $1 per plant...  I bought 6 flats of them 3 weeks ago.  Then it turned nasty outside.  When it wasn't raining, it was cold.  Or windy.  And then we went to DST, so it was dark an hour earlier.   I couldn't find a good day to plant them...

But then there was a day good outside, sort of.  Up to 54F and not much wind.  But then I realized I really needed to sort the colors out.

My sunken patio is a good height for that, so I spent an hour doing that.  But then I realized that to plant them "randomly", I needed to have all the colors mixed in the trays where I could easily reach the different ones.  Nothing is simple, LOL!

By then it was getting dark.  DST is a real change here.  Exactly when the DST change happens, the sun path is blow the elevated house west of mine.  I get TWO hours loss of sunlight.  It gets dark at 3:30 pm and cloudy days make it worse.  When I get up and about at 10 am and eat breakfast and read the newspaper by Noon, that doesn't leave much of a day.

But I got them planted.  Descriptions and pictures tomorrow...

More Stuff

Since I painted the broom, I decided to make some planting pots a color I liked better.  I had bought a pack of eight 12" wide pots that were orange in a basketweave look.  I wanted them in blue.  So I bought a spray paint in "Wildflower Blue" described as "for plastic".

Painting the pots was tricky.  I couldn't just hold them and spray.  I like blue, but not on my hands.

I finally set up a 4"x4" post wedged into a cinder block and set the pots upside down on the top.  With a latex glove on my left hand, I sprayed, turned, sprayed, turned and sprayed.  Set each one on a newspaper to dry.  Then sprayed the top of the insides.

It is impressive!  Orange is now blue.

And having matching planter pots is great.  I used 2 for repotting Dracena and 1 for a Poinsettia.  I'll be moving other plants to the remaining matching pots soon.  Well, I do like blue...

Aphids

I've been fighting aphids (little plant-sap sucking insects) in the house for months.  They got onto the Waxy Hoya cuttings I rooted in Summer.  I kept wiping them off the infested new leaves, but they kept returning.  Apparently, if you don't get 100% they come back, and maybe they lay eggs in the soil. 

But they seemed to be gone in October when I brought in my planter boxes of lettuces , celery, and basil.  They appeared on the basil 6 weeks ago.  I used Insecticidal Soap spray on them.  That is a standard way of killing aphids.  There didn't care.  I asked at a gardening and one person said "all that gets you is clean aphids".  OK, I did have to smile at that.

But I try to stay organic.  No way am I going to use actual poisons on stuff I eat.

So the next step up was Neem Oil spray (a natural insecticide produced by a Neem Tree.  That is sticky on the surface which makes things pretty hard on aphids, but it also affects their digestion.  And it is harmlessly absorbed in the plants, so when new leaves grow, they are also upsetting to the aphids.

It seems to have worked.  But some plants are sensitive to Neem Oil.  Basil wasn't listed as one, but all the leaves wilted.  I stripped off all the old leaves.  Basil regrows branches and new leaves easily.  So I'm watching them carefully.  First, for any sign of new aphids and second for new leaves.

The essential thing is that all aphids must be eliminated indoors before I start growing new plants from seeds in February!  This is the first time I've had aphids indoors in 30 year, and I sure hope it is the last.

Been Doing Stuff

First, I have to mention that Bryce Harper of the Washington National baseball team just won the Home Run Contest.  YEEAAAHHHH!

Second, the pond renovation project is complete.  It was harder than I expected.  I originally pulled out all the pots from the pond, and that involved bending down with my arms in the pond cutting roots away to get chunks of plants.  It was exhausting in the heat, but having my arms in the water did help.

I finally got to the point where most of the pond was empty of plants and pulled it up.  That took 3 days of about an hour each day.  I couldn't find the leak in the preformed pond, which still bothers me.  So I added some soil around where I recalled the pond form was low and reinstalled it and filled it.  So after 3 days, there was no leakage, so it was time to replace plants.

Not in the original pots, of course.  I used regular pots years ago but I bought pots designed for ponds last year and used them.  Pond pots have lots is holes for  roots to seeks nutrients in the water.

The 8" pots I had, had growth  around them like beachballs.  So the first thing I did was to chop outside roots off.  That was surprisingly horrible.  The roots were too soft to cut easily.  I finally tried my "digger knife" (like  boning knife with a saw blade).  That wasn't really easy, not I got better using it as I went.

And THAT was only to be able to pull the existing plants out of the old pots (which were broken into pieces by root pressure). 

Planting pond plants is tricky.  You can't just replant them into new pots using regular potting soil (a lot of it just floats away).  What the pond plants want is "muck".  And I was really short on that.  And Home Depot doesn't sell "muck"

As far as I can tell, "muck" is a mixture of organic material, gravel, and clay bound by soil roots.  And you want some stones in the bottom of the pot for the weight to keep the pot sunk and upright.

So I retrieved all the previous pots (most of which didn't even have plants in them anymore - they escaped into the the general root mass) and soaked them in 5 gallon buckets.  When they well utterly soaked, I ripped them apart until the old gravel fell out and I was left with dead roots mass.

Not wanting soil to muddy the new pond water, I blasted the gravel in a large sieve.  I also blasted the ripped off root hairs (that wouldn't regrow).  I slowly cut roots of healthy plants  (waterlillies and Sweet flag) into replantable chunks.

Now I have 4 divided waterlillies potted in the 2' deep section of the pond and 10 potted sweet flag plants and there are still 20 seemingly viable chunks on sweet flag in buskets of water where they will be fine.  I'm keeping them indending them to grow in the the larger 8'x9' pond if I can get it cleared of brambles and relined this year.  Don't worry about all that standing water; I put bT  tablets in all containers monthly.

And that is the next major project.  An 1/8 acre of the backyard has been taken over by wild blackberries, english ivy, and some poison ivy.  Several years ago, my large pond developed a leak and went down to 6" of water.  And the mosquitos moved in.  I only realized the problem  when it was too late to kill the mosquito larvae with bT, so I poked more holes in the liner to drain it.

So now I have a new pond liner, but I have to clear all the space around it to set the new one in.  But it is surrounded with wild blackberries and they are delicious!  So I'm waiting until the harvest ends and then I will clear the whole area.

Today while the area was shaded, I weeded all around the astilbes in the front yard.  It was frustrating.  I added compost to the area last year and the weeds seem to have appreciated it more them the Astilbes.  And the weeds do better in the drought we are having here (not any rain in 4 weeks).  So I went out and pulled weeds out of the dry soil (the best time to do it) and then watered them deeply. 

I lost 2 of 30 Astilbes (according to landscape flags I stuck in when I planted, but that was better that I expected.  A few look weak, but most are thriving.  And I have a dozen more in the backyard where they are struggling.  If I can keep them going til Fall, I will transplant them to the front yard among the others. 

The yard has become infested with poison ivy and some vine.  I'll have to dig the poison ivy out (wearing armlength rubber gloves).  The vines are so widespread, I'll have to spray them.  I don't like that but I don't have much choice. 

There is always SOMETHING to fight with here...  I wish there wasn't.  I have other useful things to do.

Pictures

The ivy cuttings...

The spider plant that was a few dying leaves pinned with a tent peg in March...

The snake plant pot I need to divide, but can't pull the rootball out of...

Ah, the "Comfort Station"...  I never used to drink cocktails until Dad moved in with me  in 2012.  He loved Martinis.  I could never stand such pure stuff.  But I found fruit-based drinks to accompany him.  

My favorite is a "Gin Buck".  Sling glass with 4 ice cubes.  1 oz gin, 1/2 oz of lemon juice, fill with ginger ale.  2nd is what I call a "Peach Comfort".  Sling glass, 4 ice cubes, 1 oz Southern Comfort and 1/2 oz Peach liquer, filled with ginger ale.  3rd is what I call a Cavebear Sling.  Same glass and ice, 1 oz of gin and 1/2 oz of Pomerganate juice.  Tart.  I drink them all with a straw.  Purists would wince.  I like it because I drink it slower.  I can't just "sip"...

There is bourbon and vodka in the back for odd variations, but I seldom go there.  Vodka is just for getting drunk and that's not my interest.  Bourbon is for visitors who like it. 

And I have 2 glasses of Zinfandel wine with dinner.  The White wine is for spicy chinese dinners.  And I eat dinner slowly, so the wine goes slowly.  I'm retired, who cares?  LOL!

Fall Plants

I went to Walmart today.  I am perfectly happy shopping at Walmart for brand-name stuff and AFAICT, their generic stuff is just fine.  They buy their generic dishwashing liquid and aspirin from the major manufacturers anyway.  On the other hand, they also sell the cheapest appliances (like M/W ovens that are near the bottom of the Consumer Reports ratings and I don't buy those. 

And they usually have cheap plants and yard supplies.  The same brand of Product X is typically 10-20% cheaper at Walmart than at Home Depot or Lowes and I want to reward cheaper prices.   My cardinals can't tell where I buy black oil sunflower seed and the cats can't tell where I get the Tidy Cats litter buckets from.  And keep in mind it is not a question of small local stores versus Walmart.  The small local stores are all gone.  It is between Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe's, and sometimes Safeway around here.  I would mention Giant Food, but I buy mostly fresh produce abnd Giant's is pathetic.

So I wanted Mums and pansies and various odd stuff today.  I saw that Safeway was selling 1 gallon Mums for $9.99.  Home Depot and Lowe's (between which is never a penny of difference) $10.98, and Walmart $3.99.  Guess where I bought 4 pots?

They didn't have pansies yet.  Next month...

The Mums were beautiful and healthy.  I already had 2 orange from last year.  Now I also have 2 yellow and 2 red. 

The deck pots of Summer Marigolds and Salvia have been great this year...

The Salvia have been so good this year, the hummingbirds visit them first and only "top off" at my nectar feeders.  Next year, I will have lots more Salvia.

Now, THIS is where Walmart fails.  I want nice pots to set the plain black plastic ones into until I plant them in more permanent spots in November.  Walmart was done with planters in August.  They have Christmas stuff up now!

Well, I have saucers to hold rainwater. and I water the deck plants every other day when there is not 1" of rain.  Tjey should look great until dormancy and planting.