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Post by whollygoats on Jul 26, 2015 2:07:23 GMT
It rained.
It was delicious. The temperatures had dropped some twenty degrees (F) over three days and today it finally precipitated. Puddles and all. It's glorious.
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Post by Mari on Jul 26, 2015 13:17:59 GMT
We had a summer storm. It nearly destroyed my dahlia and knocked the last apples out of my apple tree. My blueberry took a beating as well and my raspberry looks like it's going to die. Let's not discuss the weather anymore, shall we?
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Post by juju on Jul 26, 2015 20:57:07 GMT
It's summer in Wales. Been averaging 12-15 degrees (low 50s) and rain here for the last couple of weeks.
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Post by whollygoats on Jul 26, 2015 21:36:56 GMT
By Thursday, the forecast is for temperatures to top out at 100 degrees F (~38 degrees Celsius). We'll be back in to the hot and dry and...sunny...mode.
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Post by juju on Jul 26, 2015 23:04:06 GMT
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Post by whollygoats on Jul 28, 2015 18:50:48 GMT
But...in the meantime, I'm spending mornings excavating the stone pathway to the China Beachfront that I put down several years back. It has been buried by erosion (in part gallusian in origin) and subsequent siltation. Some of the stone surfaces are two inches down....*sigh* At least I have room to do some planting now. In what should prove to be a very sunny spot after midday. New iris rhizomes are now on order for delivery in September.
My tomatoes are ramping up on the ripening scene. I've now harvested all of three fruit, but they've been sizable and tasty. The Romas are starting to turn and they are developing in clusters. The 'mater patch needs some major weeding, but to do so would require messing with the elaborate system of portable fencing and bird netting to discourage freebooting 'mater harvesting by the girls. It such a major headache I'm putting it off as long as possible...probably beyond.
I've second bloom going on my honeysuckle, but it's still downwind in the prevailing wind system and my neighbors get to enjoy the fragrance more than I. I continue to enjoy the star jasmine, particularly on warm evenings.
Too many weeds.
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Post by whollygoats on Sept 8, 2015 2:13:14 GMT
More than a month later and there are still too many weeds.
This weekend, the Labor Day weekend, complete with Monday as a bona fide national holiday, I managed to plant my new set of iris rhizomes. They went in around the base of Cecile, along the eastern fence in the corner near the east end of the balcony.
It required that I duly fence in everything, not because of the plants, but the loose soil attracts the hens, who then will scratch about for bugs and scratch up the new plantings. I think what is there should hold, although I may need to secure it with a stake or two.
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Post by whollygoats on Sept 13, 2015 15:48:43 GMT
Today the plan is to finish taking down a Saphora japonica (Japanese snowbell, a tree) that failed to thrive. I put it in over fifteen years ago because Ivy, my wife, liked the first one we had planted twenty feet to the north. It is still there and doing fine, but the more recent one has never been particularly hale and this hot and dry summer finally wilted it beyond redemption. I started removing the lower limbs two weeks ago and then got sidetracked because I needed to drag out a sturdy ladder....the ladder is out.
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Post by whollygoats on Sept 29, 2015 1:54:19 GMT
Most of the roses are at some point in a fairly straggly third bloom. As of the equinox, I stopped deadheading the hips. Allowing the blown flowers to 'hip out' helps the shrubs go dormant for the winter. I might still have straggling buds come December, but the bloom is mostly off.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 19, 2015 3:05:47 GMT
I once again harvested enough sweet basil to whip up a quart of pesto. That's the third batch this year from six plants. I'm pleased.
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Post by whollygoats on Nov 23, 2015 21:32:41 GMT
Frost...finally.
So, this weekend, I uprooted all my now dead tomato plants.
Next, I'll put down plant pots (with holes in the bottoms), filled with chicken chalet sweepings, on top of each spot where I will replant tomato sets next spring. That will allow the benefits to filter down with the rain over the winter months.
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Post by whollygoats on Nov 23, 2015 21:33:59 GMT
Frost...finally.
So, this weekend, I uprooted all my now dead tomato plants.
Next, I'll put down plant pots (with holes in the bottoms), filled with chicken chalet sweepings, on top of each spot where I will replant tomato sets next spring. That will allow the benefits to filter down with the rain over the winter months.
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Post by kingedmund on Nov 29, 2015 15:24:52 GMT
We went directly to and inch of ice this week. Fall was almost non existent. Never saw frost here once.
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Post by whollygoats on Nov 29, 2015 15:42:01 GMT
We went directly to and inch of ice this week. Fall was almost non existent. Never saw frost here once. Central Oklahoma?
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Post by whollygoats on Jul 18, 2016 0:23:29 GMT
This week, we have been having some decent summer weather.
Decent, for me, means at least half of the day (usually morning) is overcast. This generally keeps the temperatures down for the entire day. But, when the sun breaks out midday, it makes for a pleasant day because it doesn't get to much over 25 degrees C. (~75-80 F) No rain, just overcast.
This is primo weeding weather, but I have to be motivated to get outside in the morning, before the sun comes out, or tops the huge Douglas firs three lots to the east.
Of course, all the scrabbling about on the ground, digging and pulling, leaves me in a state of physical anguish later in the day, and, particularly, the next day.
Tomorrow will hurt.
Tuesday night is my massage therapist, so there is hope for surcease in sight.
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Post by whollygoats on Jul 26, 2016 22:50:50 GMT
The new iris rhizomes are here!!!
Oh, boy! Tomorrow, I get to plant iris and tete-a-tete. And maybe replant some rudbeckia.
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Post by whollygoats on Jul 29, 2016 3:02:39 GMT
Okay, today, July 28, we finally exceeded 90 degrees Farenheit for the first time this year. That's about 32 degrees Celsius, for the first time this year. A milestone. We reached a high of 33 degrees Celsius at 92 degrees Farenheit.
It was hot. It still is. The heat pump is working overtime, so the house is comfortable.
It's supposed to be hot again tomorrow and then rain over the weekend....which, as noted, will drop the temps 10-20 degrees Farenheit.
I got my iris and tete-a-tete daffodils planted yesterday morning, before the morning clouds burned off. 19 iris rhizomes and 17 pots of daffy bulbs.
Today, I finished my weeding project in the back yard and am planning on taking it on tour to the front yard. Much shadier work out there in the afternoon, what with the house to the south and a mature cornus kousa to the west. It's sunny out there in the morning, when the back is shaded by the huge Douglas firs to the east.
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Post by whollygoats on Aug 8, 2016 1:02:25 GMT
The 'Red Heart' Rose of Sharon, a hardy hibiscus, is going to come down. It sits near the back center of my lot and directly east of the chicken chalet. It has been doing poorly now for three to four years running and this year the limbs started touching the ground. Removal has begun.
It will be survived by a more typical pink flowered Rose of Sharon, which started from one of the 'White Heart' seeds. Part of this is that the resulting pink bloomer will be set further to the east (under the looming oak), and after the 'Red Heart' is removed, I'm hoping for enough sunny space to plant a couple of rows of raspberries perpendicular to the back fence, directly across the concrete pad from, and parallel with, the front of the chicken chalet. With the camellia and the Rose of Sharon gone, I might get enough light in there for berries.
Must obtain more composted steer manure (bullshit,essentially).
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Post by whollygoats on Aug 8, 2016 17:50:35 GMT
It rained overnight. A surprise for me. So, I checked the weather and the next few days offer overcast and occasional 'thundershowers'. I guess. Ninety plus (34 degrees C) projected for Friday.
So I jumped on line and searched for when a good time to plant, or transplant, daylilies. Any time seems to be the answer....I ordered a dozen or so 'fans'. Then I picked up a 'Bridal Gown' white hydrangea for the dark back corner (under the looming oak tree and next to the back of the neighbor's garage). That cost me more than I expected.
Raspberry canes are southbound from Puget Sound.
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Post by whollygoats on Aug 13, 2016 1:17:42 GMT
I bought a couple dozen 'fans' of daylilies....some clear, bright yellows for the back of a dark area, others in a mid- to deep red for a front shady area visible from the street.
I hope I planted the correct groups in their respective locations....I lost the markers the day before.
I still haven't gotten the two raspberry canes in the ground and face an arduous process to prepare the ground....just some sledgehammer and pry-bar work and then overlay the result with a heavy layer of compost and soil before planting in the canes I have....Plus, the rest of 'Red Heart' needs to come out, as well. *sigh*
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Post by Christy on Aug 13, 2016 16:00:51 GMT
Just to be an encouragement, I enjoy reading these little blurbs. I look forward to having the time and money to putter around outside (in cooler weather, though).
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Post by whollygoats on Aug 13, 2016 18:13:50 GMT
Why, thank you, Christy. Some times I wonder.
Anyhoo...I got the raspberries in this morning. With Fix's help and a pry bar the slabs came up easily enough. Fix had to break a couple into multiple pieces with the sledge.
I've got two in place and think I have room for twelve to sixteen canes. The Rose of Sharon ('Redheart') is still in place, though drastically trimmed. The base of its trunk (about five inches in diameter) sits on the edge of the area to be planted in to canes. The Rose of Sharon which will replace the current is a step further east. Its trunk is about 3/8" in diameter, but it is producing pink blooms.
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Post by JoeP on Aug 13, 2016 19:01:14 GMT
I stripped most of the remaining unwanted brambles from the fuchsia bush today.
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Post by Kye on Aug 13, 2016 19:53:32 GMT
It's raining here today after a long dry period, and it reminded me to water my (one and only) plant.
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Post by whollygoats on Aug 18, 2016 15:43:47 GMT
I've got my overall togs on, my pipe loaded, lighter nabbed, ice water prepped, and a nice cuppa awaiting on the balcony. I'm off to the garden. I'll see you back here in, oh, four hours or so. That should be post-dinner for you, high sun for me. I'll be scrambling for cool, dark places.
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Post by whollygoats on Sept 1, 2016 0:46:22 GMT
So....I just finished my gambol about the garden. I nipped a few basil buds and noticed that it is time to do some more deadheading on the roses.
The big news is that Akmed is approaching puberty. Yes, budding sexuality. At least I think it is.
The back garden is now strewn with all sorts of wire structures. I've been building walls to keep out chooks...with spotty success. I had noticed that the girls were grazing a mite heavy on the lower floribunda roses in the stairwell rose bed, so I enclosed it in rabbit fencing. With the basil pots and Akmed in the balcony rose bed, I surrounded it with rabbit fencing, too, as well as additional pokey wire surround on Akmed's pot, a grid support on another pot and a third basil pot without additional wire protection other than the rabbit fencing surround. Then, I got my box of new iris rhizomes from the grower and cleared and prepped a new planting area around the base of Cecille, the sweetheart rose I'd planted against the eastern border fence last year, for the new rhizomes. I got them all planted in careful and neat fashion and surrounded them with a dog show portable cage unit (stronger than rabbit caging and it comes in folding sections). The thing is, they are rigid and 'smooth' (no projecting points to discourage chicken feets) and they'll hold the weight of a mature hen without wobbling....flit to the top, then down in to the taboo zone for foraging. To discouage this, I have to scatter 'pointy' wire objects (short sections of wire cuttings) inside the surround. It makes the garden look like some kind of junkyard.
I planted two new raspberry starts...after discovering I had to dig out some old concrete slabs and move them to make room. Also, the dying Rose of Sharon has to come down before the plan is fully implemented. Well, when I did the first major set of prunings (I'm spreading it out over time to minimize my cost of dealing with the prunings). the thing started blooming more heavily. Now I have to wait until it is done blooming entirely. Of course, after getting the two canes of berries in the ground and established to the point that they were showing new leafing....some hen got in to the surround and scratched up one of the canes. Crap. It was been replanted and chunks of wire bits thrown in around them.
*sigh*
So, I spent the past several mornings of decent weather clearing away one of my remaining aesthetic failures, the grass nightmare of the Eastern Front Flats....the area squeezed between the rosa rugosa and the eastern boundary. Overgrown with grass. Interplanted with iris. The iris had not really bloomed all that well and the types were predominantly colors in which I was not really excited (lots of light blue selfs). It was a lot of digging, grubbing, and pulling, turning the soil over and attempting to remove as much of the rooting of the grasses as possible, while salvaging the iris (and cleaning them thoroughly before replanting. So much work that I've temporarily crippled myself with muscle soreness and am recuperating today, maybe tomorrow, before returning to the as yet unfinished project. I have decided to replant the iris elsewhere (and gift some to others) and carefully scour the area between now and bulb planting season to police for grass restarts. It also was clear to me that the Eastern Front Slope, below the rosa rugosa, is too shaded for iris. It needs something to go with the crocosmia, the yellow flags, and above the rosa and rudbeckia. The obvious answer is more day lilies...maybe frilly sherbert orange ones.
Today, it rained. It was a dry rain in that it wet the ground, but did not drive the fuzzwads indoors.
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Post by whollygoats on Sept 15, 2016 19:39:23 GMT
It has been exquisite weather here. Lovely coolish mornings and warm sunny afternoons with a few big puffy clouds floating across the blue.
I just finished deadheading what is probably the last of the second bloom of roses in the back garden; the third bloom has already started on the early bloomers. The rudbeckia are tapping out, they will be done soon. I'm looking at my last pesto shearing here in the near future.
The tomatoes are still producing, but it has not been a big year. I think I have to do more in the way of off-season fertilizing on the 'mater spots. I think I've got those now set and can prepare better from year to year. I also moved the caging which slows down the hens (it does not stop them unless I cover it with a bolt of bird netting), so I now have much easier access to tend what is inside the caging.
What I'm toying with now is how many pots I want to dedicate to the pesto herd and how many I want to shift (or replace) with cannabis. Akmed is doing well, but not stupendously. I'm thinking of doing three plants next year, but to do so, I need to shuffle a couple of bigger pots to the better location in the Eastern Fence Iris Bed. Akmed is too constrained amid the roses...it is cramped. By moving that to the iris bed, the iris will be done about the time I plant the cannabis in the pots, which put them a foot and a half above the rhizomes...they'll have enough time to soak up a fair amount of sun before the cannabis briefly flushes out to its leafy maximum and monopolizes the local solarfall.
I was thinking that the challenge was going to be finding enough soil to fill two completely new really large terra cotta pots. I don't think it will be a problem, though. I've three bags of composted manure, two decrepit pots to be junked with modest amounts of soil, and there is a decent pile in the compost bin, and I'm trimming down the build up along the north end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, to reduce mud creep on to my concrete walkway. Plus, I could just scrape off the patio...that stuff is chickenshit detritus. There isn't much at any given time (I've already scraped it this year), but I've several months and more chickens. It is potent stuff...And, the occasional coop cleaning. But that generates duff high in wood chips that lock up nitrogen. I like to give that stuff time to start breaking down.
So...Whatever pots are left will serve for my pesto herd and the occasional 'bonus' plant. Herbs tend to impinge upon basilspace.
I understand this is typical for gardener types....Thinking about what they will do 'next year'.
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Post by whollygoats on Sept 17, 2016 15:07:41 GMT
Rain.....a welcome interlude. For the weekend only, nicer weather to resume on Monday. Ha! Retirement payoff.
So, this morning, I stepped out on to the front porch and noticed that my katsura tree, planted in the parking strip (the space between the concrete pedestrian walkway and the curb and street, aka 'the shit strip', thanks to irresponsible dog 'walkers') in the front northwestern corner of my lot, is 'turning'. It is yellow in the top leaves and the tips of most of the major branches. My katsura is a lovely tree (which is regularly butchered by the utility company, due to overhead power wires) which always turns first. Of course, it buds and leafs out much earlier than other trees, too. My sucky old wineleaf sycamore maple, just to the east of my katsura, which I detest, holds on to its leaves until late November.
But, the first real sign of autumn is here, as far as I'm concerned.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 14, 2016 2:05:06 GMT
The rains have come in earnest. Today, we spent the day indoors, but for a run to the farm store. It is raining; really raining, not our usual drizzle. And all day long, too.
Yesterday seems to have been the end of nice weather. Temperatures have dropped to autumnal levels and the sheets are cold when I go to bed in the evening. The heat has been turned on and the A/C turned to 'fan only'. A big storm is due in...sometime...maybe...and then lingering rain for ten days, or more, in to the future.
I figured Akmed was not going to make it through such a storm and persistent rainfall. It was harvest time. Yesterday, I took down Akmed, trimmed the results, and groomed up all the buds, which are now drying.
I also decided I wasn't going to get a decent basil crop with a third pruning, so I pulled up and composted most of those.
It's getting near time to get new suet bars up. Also to consider if I want to plug in any bulbs.....daffodils, tulips, hyacinths. Now is the soggy time for bulbs.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 17, 2016 1:52:53 GMT
Soggy. Oversaturated soggy.
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