Planted Tomatoes Today

Talk about late planting tomatoes in MD!  But May had chilly nights (and predictions for warmer nights ahead so I delayed).  Then in early June, I kept staying up late and getting up late so I kept thinking "tomorrow".  Last week, we hadn't had rain in 6 weeks and the soil was very hard (but they kept predicting rain).   

I finally stopped messing around on Tuesday and watered the area until it was damn near mud (so the water got down a foot at least).  Then waited 2 days for the water to soak all around and leave the soil digable but "crumbly".  Thursday, I planted.  

Now, when I plant tomatoes, I try to do it right...

1.  Tilled the soil 6" deep to get everything loose and raked off the grassy weeds.

2.  Cut several lengths of 4' wide black mesh fabric (weed suppressor but water-permeable) and held them down with bricks.

3.  Put my 24' wide x 5' high concrete remesh cages on the fabric and poked a hole in the center of each to mark where the tomatoes would go.  Removed the cages.  Cut a 4" "X" at each hole.  Marked the spot of each X.

4.  Folded back the fabric and dug a 12" wide and deep hole at each spot, leaving the soil in place.  Sprinkled organic fertilizer on each spot.  Turned the soil over a few times to mix it in well.

5.  Put the fabric back in place and used a bulb planter to remove a cylinder of soil 12" deep, saving the soil in 2 buckets.  

6.  The bed can hold 11 tomatoes in 3 rows (4-4-3).  This year, I had Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Striped German, Black Krim, and Pineapple.  I set them at holes randomly.

7.  Wearing knee pads (my knees are not great these days), I got down on them and went to work setting them in the holes as deep as I could (tomatoes will grow roots from buried stems).  Back-filled with scoops of soil from the buckets.

8.  Stuck 3' stakes next to each tomato and held them up with plastic clips.  The clips have a small end to grab onto the stake and a larger opening to hold the seedling.  It all took about 4 hours...

  -------------

No pic of the newly-planted ones today.  They are a bit frazzled from the process and don't look good yet.  Pushing them out of the cell-packs, handling them for planting, and then straightening them gently to attack them to the stakes is stressful.  They will recover in a few days as their roots discover the joy of new  soil to grow into and they discover the fertilizer.

But here is a picture from last year and they will look about the same in a few days...

My tomatoes are all heirlooms.  They aren't as productive as hybrids, but WOW do they taste better!  

I used to plant the "best" hybrids available (like Celebrity and Big Beef).  About 25 years ago, I bought a Brandywine and a Cherokee Purple seedling at a farmer's market.  When I tasted the 1st ripe tomato of each, I simply pulled up the hybrids and forgot about growing them again forever.  LOL!

So I plant more of them and get as many ripe fruits as fewer hybrids, but it is worth it.  And I still have a few more seedlings (and cages).  I'll find somewhere to plant the rest tomorrow.  You really can't have too many great-tasting tomatoes.

A Good Past Couple Days

As the title says, a good couple days.  Started Tuesday grocery-shopping.  I'm not happy without fresh fruits and veggies, and holidays always throw my shopping schedule off.  People come out in masses for picnic, BBQ, and travelling supplies.  The lines are long.  So if I forget to shop 3 days before, I wait til the day after.  And I forgot that (since July 4th was a Sunday) July 5th would be an "observed Federal holiday" and govt contractors general follow the Feds (for the practical reason that there is no one for them to talk to).

So I shopped Tuesday.  It was nice to have broccoli, asparagus, and buttercrunch lettuce.  It was nice to have peaches, berries, cherries, grapes, and oranges.  

In the afternoon, I FINALLY planted a lot of flower seedlings in the newly-cleared bed where I planted pole beans a month ago.  The beans are 6' tall already.  But because they are on a trellis, they only use a 6" strip at the edge.  So there was all that extra space.  Those green things in the bed are pulled weeds, brushed off before I planted.

I had all these perennial and self-sow seedlings, so in they went!  I got 3/4 of all my flower seedlings in the ground.  It doesn't really matter if they do all that well this year.  They will be good enough for transplanting to more permanent spots in the late Fall.  After planting them, I watered them deeply.

I had done some repair work on a fan-sprayer a few days before.  The holes were clogged and poking a needle into the holes didn't improve things much...

So I drilled out all the holes.  Unfortunately, my smallest drill bit was larger than the original holes, so the water didn't spray very far.  But I realized I had made a high-volume, low-pressure fan nozzle.  That has been quite useful.  Had I realized the consequences of the larger holes, I would have done it deliberately before.  I still have 2 other fan sprayers that work as intended, so nothing but a gain in this.

Yeah, I built the tripod it sits on...  Very adjustable.  So I replaced the 2 nozzles with a stadard fan nozzle.  The drilled fan nozzle is great for raised beds as it waters from edge to edge quickly.  The round nozzle is on the deck hose since the round spray suits the round planter pots well.

Which left the next major problem the overgrown daffodil/tulip bed.  They don't care about the weeds, but there were blackberries and loosestrife invading the bed.  The bed is about a 30' circle, and there are daylilies growing along the edge, a sunflower bird-feeder in the center and a 4x4" post to level the stepladder I need to fill the feeder.  

So I took out the riding mower to clear the weeds and blackberries.  It was awkward guiding a large mower in a small space, but fortunately this new mower has a button that allows the engine to keep the blade turning while in reverse.  And the blade deck is slightly offset to one side so you can get at edges with the wheels getting in the way

I was able to (slowly) mow almost everything I didn't want down close to the edging.  There were places I couldn't get at.  That's where the hedge trimmer came out.  I was able to cut down the weeds and grass right up against the edging.

More importantly, I was able to slide the narrow hedge-trimmer blade between the daylilies and cut off the wild blackberries near ground level.  In a couple of days the cut stuff will turn brown and I will know what to rake out.  That will let me see which weeds and canes I missed for another go with the hedge trimmer.  The battery was running down and needed recharging anyway.

The riding mower was set at 3" height (there is a path of  pavers and I didn't want to chance hitting one with the mower blade) .  Now that most of the weeds are cut down that low (and I can see where the pavers are),  I can use the small electric mower set at 1" to cut them down further.  Then I will will cover all the non-daylily area with permeable black fabric to kill the weeds by next Spring when the daffodils want to emerge.  

I covered it with solid black plastic a few year which worked OK except rain pooled on depressions and mosquitoes grew there so I kept having to poke wholes in it.  THe permeable fabric will solve THAT problem.

The transplanted flower seedlings seemed a bit beaten down by the sun,  so I watered them again.  It is amazing how much water dry soil needs sometimes.  The first watering a couple days ago had an inch of water pooled on the top before it soaked in.  Even then, my moisture meter today showed it was dry 6" down.  So another full inch of water on them.

And I put up a shade cloth for them.  The pole beans provide some dappled shade in the morning, and a couple of trees provide late-afternoon dappled shade, but mid-day is full-on sun.  So I stuck a a couple of 6' stakes in the ground and clipped a shade cloth on them.  Covers most of them.  By complete lucky coincidence the seedlings that want the most sunlight aren't covered.

I wish I had more pictures to show.  I forget when I'm doing gardening stuff.  Too-focussed, LOL!  If the transplanted seedlings survive the shock, I will have pictures to show in a few days.

I have a dozen Balsam flowers and a few Maltese Cross to plant.  I have a few places I can put them, but haven't decided where yet.  I think about that tomorrow.

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.

Productive Stuff

Some days I just have to catch up on household stuff.  And yesterday and today were good for that.  I let things collect sometimes and then get through them all at once.

I made bread today AND rolls.  I make bread every couple of weeks.  I've tweaked the bread machine recipe until I LOVE my own bread and visitors who have any comment in surprise at the taste (yes, I'm bragging).  I use beer instead of water; and I add 2 tbls of dried oregano and a tbls each of garlic powder and onion powder.  It really makes a difference!  Making rolls is a bit new to me so I follow the recipe exactly, but I will probably start changing the ingredients in those too.  Bread and rolls freeze wonderfully, so I can store them.

The IRS sent me a notice that I owed them some money a couple of weeks ago.  I was surprised since I use tax software.  The notice didn't say exactly why.  I called them yesterday and got to an agent after 45 minutes on hold.  After going around in circles a few minutes with IRS terminology, I finally realized that I had simply forgotten to include a CHECK for the amount I owed above the withholding.  50 years of paying taxes and I finally messed up!

I figured out why afterwards.  I had intended to use the electronic payment the software offerred but decided not to because of the fee.  And then sent the tax form the next day thinking I had paid electronically.  At least the penalty was only $13.

Next on the list was a recurring fee on my credit card for an anti-virus software for the Windows computer I bought in March and then promptly stopped using because I like Apple better.  Researching the company, I found a number to call with questions.  The area code made me suspicious, so I looked up the software name and discovered it was a scam.

The recurring fee was $8.99 per month and that is almost $100 and I have never paid that for anti-virus software.  The scam-busting site stated clearly that it was indeed a scam program that prevented its own removal and also prevented other software from detecting it.  Further, it gave false reports of infections.   It could be downloaded directly OR unknowingly by a user visited a legitimate but hacked website without the user knowing about it.

Anyway, I contacted the credit card company and spoke to an agent who said they were removing the charges (I read them the scam-busting site description).  But they warned me the company could dispute my claim and then we would all have to argue about by letter.  I doubt the company will contest.  Meanwhile, I have printed out special instructions for how to remove the software.

You can't remove the software from the infected computer directly, but you can download removal software to another computer and transfer it to the infected one at boot-up with a USB thumb drive.  It's an annoying process, one of those deals where you have to press a couple of keys at start to enter a safe mode and do about 10 things after.  I've done that sort of thing a few times.

The last annoying thing was to change my Federal tax withholding so that I wouldn't owe anything next year.  I had printed out an IRS form and sent it to them in April, but it turns out you have to send it to the company that pays you.

I got to them online and struggled to log in.  They are one of those places I visit once a year and the password expires in 3 months.  So they wanted me to answer some previously given security questions.

I keep a printed list of all sites I visit with the user name, passwords, purpose, and security question answers in a notebook.  I keep the list in Excel on a computer not connected to the internet, of course.  My list didn't have the security question answers!  And my best guess to the one they asked was not accepted.  ARGGHHH!

Turns out I had an old page of sites in my notebook and found my password on a newer page.  I really need to redo the list.  It is full of hand-written changes and arrows to new passwords, etc, that it is nearly unreadable.  That a new project...

But I found the newest entry and signed in.  The site was so slow, I fed the cats while waiting for it to load.  But after that, I changed the withholding easily.  Yay!

Having taken care of the serious things, I balanced my checkbook, then turned my attention to the clutter on the dining room table.  I have piles on clipped out newspaper recipes, interesting sites to visit, DIY ideas, and gardening suggestions.  I have several boxes full of that stuff.  One of these days I will go through them and save no more than a 6" high stack!  But not today.

With enough space on the dining room table to actually eat at, I turned my attention to the basement.  Lots of work to do there.  I have been working on the new compost bin few a few weeks, and things clutterred up in the basement.

So, do the projects that stuff was sitting around waiting to be used.  None took a lot of time, but there were many.  First, mark the places in the Spring Bulb garden where I can plant more bulbs without disturbing the existing ones.   You may have seen pictures of cardboard covering the tulip cages.  Well, I had to wait longer for the hyacinth and daffodil foliage to die back naturally..

I surrounded the daffodil areas with rope and held it in place with tent stakes.  Then I added more cardboard to the hyacinth cages held down with more tent stakes.  I have daylillies arounfd the front of the bed, but they will still be growing when it is time to fill the rest of the area with more daffodils  In a few days, I will cover the entire non-daylily area with black plastic to kill the weeds. 

The Spring bulbs like to stay dry in Summer, so they will be happy.  And I should be free of weeds there by October.  The voles will like the cover, but they can't eat daffodils or lilies and the tulips and hyacinths are in wire cages!  When they emerge looking for food, the cats will have fun...

Next was to put the 3 Venus Fly Traps into proper containers.  I researched it.  Those tiny 2" pots they come in are no good.  They need deeper containers and more soil.  Not "dirt" soil, but  a mixture of relatively sterile peat moss and sand, 2 parts to 1 part.  The containers for each one are 6" deep and wide.  They also need at least 4 hours of direct sun (a surprise to me) and water "with few dissolved solids" (distilled or rainfall water).  No wonder most people who buy them are unsuccessful at keeping them alive. 

So I bought a gallon of distilled water, and I'm saving the rain from the large rain gauge.  I'm also making a rain collection device.  It's a plastic trashcan lid with a hole in the center attached to a 1 gallon container.  Distilled water is only 88 cents at Walmart, but free rain water is even cheaper.  I LOVE to make useful things!

Speaking of the Venus Fly Traps, I have had a blast feeding them.  They catch some insects on their own, but I want them to grow well and send off baby shoots.  Eventually, I want to have a wading pool bog of them.  So I've been catching flies and small cabbage worms for them.  Heh-heh-heh!

I and the cats are in and out of the house often enough so that houseflies get in.  I've learned how to catch them by hand,  I sneak up on them against the window and their escape paths are limited there.  I catch them about 25% of the time.  A quick flick of the hand close to the floor and they are stunned.  Into the Venus Fly Traps they go.  Watching the traps close on them (a slight rub with a toothpick triggers the trap hairs) is darkly fascinating...

The next basement project was to plant lettuce and boy choy and celery in windowsill boxes.  I don't keep the boxes on a windowsill, but those are good containers for the top of the deck rails.  I tie them down so Summer storms don't blow them off.  I harvest individual leaves so they keep growing, but eventually they flower and are bitter, so I needed new plantings. 

I have endive, red romaine lettuce, red leaf lettuce, and arugula in 3 containers.  Another container has bok choy (the grocery store stuff is old and tough).  Another has celery that was already growing in small pots but I transplanted to give them more space to grow.  If you have never just added celery leaves to a salad, you should try it.  They are MUCH tastier.

Refilled the regular bird feeder with black oil sunflower seeds (a weekly thing) and refilled the finch feeder with nyger seed (a daily thing).  Topped the 3'x5' pond with water; we haven't gotten much rain in June.  I have Sweet Flag and Oriental waterlilies in there.  I should add some goldfish.

Saw a groundhog in the backyard a few days ago, so I set up my live trap baited with a 4" piece of old honeydew melon.  They love melons.  Baited the squirrel live trap with peanut butter.  They can't resist that.  They get relocated.

I'm way late on planting the deck pots with flowers, so I reluctantly went to Walmart and bought 3 pots of marigolds; they were cheap.  They are all just 4 individual plants in each pot and easily separated, so I will have 2 in each small container and 3 in the larger ones.  I also have self-grown seedlings of Zinnias and Salvias which I'll add to the hanging baskets. 

I also found 4 matching 16" pots at Walmart and I will plant some Australian seeds in those.  The old pots are falling apart a bit and I wanted new ones that could stand being brought inside for the Winter.  I would have planted them sooner, but they need a lot of sand in the soil mix and I kept forgetting to buy some (my pre-printed shopping list somehow doesn't have "sand" on it, LOL!).

Finally, I went out and measured the tops of my new compost bin.  In spite of my best efforts, the 2-bin container isn't perfectly square and the tops have to be fitted to match what exists.  So I will be constructing deliberately non-square frames.  "Square" is theoretical; "Fitted" is reality. 

So after all that, it was time for dinner.  I splurged...  Thawed out a 4 oz beef tenderloin steak, cut up fresh asparagus, made a nice tossed salad, and de-silked a bicolor cob of corn.  Chopped up some cremini mushrooms, vidalia onion and red bell pepper.  Cooked all.  Got the steak to a perfect 130 degrees, the salad tossed with ranch dressing, and the aspargus and mushroom mix cooked al dente.  The corn was perfect.  Used the steak juice to make a sauce with horseradish, red wine, and garlic.

I think I earned it...

Getting Busy Again, Part 3

Tomorrow is  Hosta Dividing and Moving Day!  The deer have "loved" my front yard hostas too much; they have to be moved into the back yard where the deer don't go (good fence).  I have 2 spaces for them.

The first is just under the edge of the deck.  I planted coleus and impatiens there this year , but I stuck in 2 small hostas and they thrived.  So it is a good place.  I will add my fanciest hostas from the front, ('June' and "Paul's Glory' and a few 'Gold Drops').  The larger ones will go into a hosta bed I created years ago along the fence to replace some that have died and increase the number of them.  I have decided having more in the bed is better than just having a few several feet apart.  Well, the originals there didn't grow as big as I expected.

I also have a few dozen Japanese Painted Ferns.  The deer never bothered them, but I would prefer most of them among the hostas.  I love the combination.

However, there was 1 large LARGE hosta the deer never bothered.  It is 'Blue Angel".  It is HUGE!  It is 3' across and 2' high with thick bluish crinkly leaves, slug-resistant and (apparently) deer resistant.  It might get larger.  But the important thing is that each is large enough to divide into 4ths.  And I have 3 of them.  That makes for 12.

3 of the divisions went back into nearby spots a little more spread out.  Instead of 3 across (where they were overlapping), there will be 2 across and 1 centered behind.  They were covering my paver path to the hose spigot, so they needed to be moved anyway.

The good part is that  that leaves 9 divisions for the larger landscaping box to the other side of the front steps.  They will fill that box mostly and I will put some of the volunteer Japanese Painted Ferns between them.

After removing all the existing deer-loved hostas first, of course.  I will leave no plant behind.  I stuck landscaping flags in the center of every existing hosta last month, so I know where to dig even if the leaves are all gone.  I expect 90% will survive the transplanting.  Hostas are tough! 

I had 4 very common boring solid green hostas I removed before a landscaper scraped the soil off a ridge leaving it flat.  I divided each one in 1/4s and stuck them under the stairs from the deck there it is really dim light.  15 of 16 thrived!  I expect all the other hostas I divide and move will do as well.