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Post by whollygoats on Sept 29, 2018 19:15:38 GMT
oooooo...Never push the home gardener too far. I bought a new square-point shovel yesterday. My regular one has gone missing. Who knows what I did with it. Any way, I've neglected weeding in laziness for the past week. Now I actually have something to get ahold of. I found this surprise in my 'mater patch: scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/42730872_2363090707039547_3270383477236695040_n.jpg?_nc_cat=111&oh=2be5b9855813676e0c0850ff93d958b8&oe=5C18E2BEDistinctly 'out of season'. My melon vine is dying, so it looks like the best I'll manage this year is one (1) melon. Not real big production on my tomatoes, either. I've now a fair number of green tomatoes, but two, maybe three, plants can be said to have 'failed to thrive'. Comparison to what is readily available under prevailing market conditions presses me to hypothesize that I fare poorly on the comparative advantage scene when it comes to tomatoes. It would be much wiser for me to cease raising tomatoes and rely upon the generosity of friends and the readily availability of the grocery market with inexpensive tomatoes.
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Post by kingedmund on Sept 30, 2018 14:52:39 GMT
I hate that too. I muss place my garden tools or Randy does so I get frustrated and go buy new. I always seem to find them later. Duplicates are a nice thing.
Mowing the lawn and tree trimming...... I've not done in 15 years. Refuse to do it as I don't like to. Weeding I do sometimes.
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Post by Mari on Oct 1, 2018 7:06:08 GMT
I had a garden designed that doesn't need weeding
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 2, 2018 14:06:41 GMT
'Tis unpossible!
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 2, 2018 14:09:21 GMT
Today begins the major harvest of the year.
I need to move the oscillating fan to the basement.
I need to move the drop cloth to the empty room, along with a chair and proper tools.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 2, 2018 17:53:40 GMT
All ready. But I went out and double-checked and they are still damp from the overnight sprinkles and it is a blue sky morning, so I'm dawdling to allow the moisture to evaporate.
A couple hours of time wasted online should do it.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 2, 2018 19:52:31 GMT
First Gorilla Glue #4 plant has been harvested, trimmed and put up for drying. I'm taking a break between it and the second. They may be the only ones I harvest today.
Weather looks to be a couple of nice days, followed with more showery days of indeterminate length. Once they get to this point, I don't like to leave them out in too much moisture....mold sets in.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 2, 2018 21:21:45 GMT
Second one is completed. Nap time. This bud is for me. A freshly harvested and mostly trimmed blossom. It is, as yet, undried.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 11, 2018 20:50:57 GMT
So, I toured the garden just after dawn this morning. The fog was still dissipating with the sun and the dew was forming.
New weather prognostications have delayed the harvest. More sun should be applied, if possible. The risk of molds is falling precipitously each day for more than the next week.
This is propitious. I may get better results with bigger kola (i.e., 'buds').
This means I can devote more immediate attention to the issue of shuffling around iris and rudbeckia. I lifted those going to friends, but nobody showed any interest in the bitone iris I moved from back to front today. They've got a good set of rudies attached, so if I lose them to disinterest and neglect, I'm hoping that at least the assertive rudies will take.
The fruit of the kousa litters the front walkway leading to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I had to buy an new square-point to shovel it up, and now I'm ready for repeat. Too bad nobody talks about making this in to some kind of brandy, or something, as I have shiploads of it.
The grape is now showing autumn signs. Leaves are falling. The maples in view in the distance from the balcony are tinging red right now. The katsura is entirely yellow.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 19, 2018 15:30:01 GMT
Another foggy morning, only this time, we get paper mill stench from Camas as part of the damp admixture.
I did something of a turn around the real estate and found a few places in need of some intensive foliage removal, but more striking to me was the fine herd of spiders I have strategically placed around the property. This year's crop learned early not to block the major footpaths and have a series of almost interlocking web structures in parts of my garden. I even have evidence of an arachnid failure, a mistake of placement, when a largish spider decided to build out from the rosa rugosa, but failed to take into consideration the overhead maple branches with winged seedpods overhead. After three entanglements, the spider obviously pulled up stakes and moved elsewhere, where they would not be cursed with flittering seedpods.
The one example which impressed me was when I pulled open the gate in the back fence to the 'China Beach' side of my property (which is basically a walkway alongside the house from front to back, with an 8' slat fence on the other side...so a long slot). Poised right at face level, in the center of its web, which spanned the entire pathway just beyond the arc of the gate, was a spider with a body about the size of my thumb. It is a lovely red and orange coloration, too. I'll see if I can get it to pose for the camera.
Of course, in the process of harvesting my crop, I ended up with a couple of interlopers because I'd deconstructed one of their anchors. I had inadvertently packed them along indoors where I was doing the trimming. I tried to be understanding and not freak too much, so that I could gather them up and escort them back outdoors. Again, they were of considerable size (got a tumbler to capture one and slip a card under it). Much larger than any of the long-standing household spiders, who are far less imposing.
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Post by tourmaline on Oct 20, 2018 2:37:39 GMT
I must admit I love all my little bird visitors. I particularly like the pushy little hummingbirds. I think I have had them nesting in my camellia, up high, but deep in the foliage. So, I'd like to feed them beyond all the flowers I have. I'd like to make my place a year-round attraction for hummingbirds, wrens, bushtits, chickadees, and vireos. I want more twitterbirds. So I went crosstown to the bird shop. Sure enough, they had a selection of metal hooked arms and brackets. Of course, though, they didn't have exactly what I had envisioned for this project and I had to return home empty-handed against the prospect that the bracket I was considering was going to be practicable. I still don't know and probably won't without putting down the $50, bringing home the unit, and installing it on my balcony rail. It is a thumbscrew pressure bracket that holds an extending metal arm with a hook at the end. The hook can hold one feeder, or with hanging bars like a mobile, multiple feeders, and the entire arm can swing in to the balcony for replenishing the feeders, and then swing back out above the rose bed, in to feeding position. This is intended to be far enough out and over such treacherous ground that it will deter my 'yardshark' feline, Cleo. I also don't know as the bar positions the end hook high enough....I may have to jury rig some kind of mounting extension, which I do NOT want to dick around with. When it gets built I want to see pictures. I have a finch feeder up with Niger seed, and a suet feeder. It snowed here the other day. So its time to get the suet feeder out. Put the containers in the back corner under a spruce tree, harvested all the mint and dill and brought the sage, rosemary Parsley (not the Thyme) inside as well as the basil. Its looking bare... but at least the flower colours have been replaced with falling leaves colour.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 20, 2018 19:05:14 GMT
The new feeder arm and hummingbird feeder, as attached to the railing of the back balcony.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 26, 2018 20:26:53 GMT
Wet and soggy. I must begin bringing in and stowing away garden tools.
The katsura at the street has been entirely denuded. My cornus kousa next to it is starting to go bronze, having littered the western front with rotting fruit. The reviled maple shows no sign of changing, although the fluttering seedpods have started. The tree has no shortage of seedpods. *sigh*
ETA: Bulbs. This is the time to think about bulbs for next spring.
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Post by Mari on Oct 27, 2018 11:28:37 GMT
Apparently we have a storm coming, but right now it looks wonderful outside.
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Post by whollygoats on Nov 9, 2018 23:28:42 GMT
Despite a foggy morning, the sun came out and it dried up.
So, I wandered about, gathered some tools, pulled up some goners, dumped some compost, and shuffled some trash to the bins.
I spotted my regular hummer, on its branch high above my garden. It even ran off an interloper, another hummer, during the time I watched. I'm pretty sure there is a nest in the camellia. The hummer is pretty proprietary about my garden. Anywayz....I've name it 'Snap', because the little epithets which it hurls at me from its high perch sound like the snapping of the electric arc on a Jacob's Ladder device. I animatedly pointed out the new feeding installation placed there just for it....I think Snap is a she, actually. It's kind of dowdy and gray.
Oh, and I put out some offerings which appealed to the Dawes, so Jack and Jill got a decent lunch at my expense today.
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Post by tourmaline on Nov 13, 2018 4:43:11 GMT
I love the feeder! I love your whole garden.
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Post by whollygoats on Nov 13, 2018 20:54:07 GMT
Thanks. I love it, too.
It doesn't look too good right now, but that's a seasonal thang. We got a real frost about three days back and the tomatoes are dying.
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Post by Mari on Nov 14, 2018 11:02:39 GMT
My tomatoes and paprikas are still going strong as are some late strawberries and raspberries. Still, didn't get anything near the harvest I'd expected at the beginning of this year. Stupid hot summer.
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Post by whollygoats on Dec 4, 2018 18:05:23 GMT
Trash pickup was today, so yesterday I shoveled leaves out of the street, in to the yard debris bin. Compacted wet leaves. Yuck.
I still could not get but about a third of the collected leaves in the bin, so I shoveled them out in to the street more....in hopes that the street sweeper might happen by soon.
And, I raked the walk. Wouldn't want any wildfires on the walk.
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Post by Mari on Dec 5, 2018 12:53:35 GMT
I should rake leafs. I hate doing it and my pregnant belly gives me a good excuse not to.
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Post by whollygoats on Dec 8, 2018 18:18:11 GMT
All the leaves are down and the sky is gray...I'm California dreamin' on such a winter's day.
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Post by Kye on Dec 8, 2018 18:45:50 GMT
I walked into a church I passed along the way. I got down on my knees and I began to pray. You know the preacher locked the door --he knows I'm gonna stay... California dreamin' on such a winters day!
Apparently there's a controversy concerning this verse... you're the same vintage as me Goat; is that what you hear?
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Post by whollygoats on Dec 9, 2018 16:35:31 GMT
I walked into a church I passed along the way. I got down on my knees and I began to pray. You know the preacher locked the door --he knows I'm gonna stay... California dreamin' on such a winters day! Apparently there's a controversy concerning this verse... you're the same vintage as me Goat; is that what you hear? I might be the same vintage, but what I hear has never been reliable. I've never heard 'locked the door', and always thought it to be 'likes the cold'.
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Post by Kye on Dec 9, 2018 19:30:05 GMT
Yeah, that's what people are saying, but it doesn't make sense to me. What does liking the cold have to do with it? I certainly never heard it that way...
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 20, 2019 16:08:07 GMT
So, the winds finally died down, we got cloud cover and a bit of rain, and the temperatures rose a smidgen.
Out in the garden yesterday were squatloads of birds. There must have been a good hundred plus wrens. With finches, and sparrows, and towhees, and vireos. Even a couple of thrushes (robins). I must have watched for nearly an hour at the back window, sitting at the kitchen table. Then, I let the cats out.
This is one of the benefits of being a lazy gardener. I have inadvertantly left a lot of foodstuff for birds.
And, I've still got rudbeckia blooming.
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Post by Mari on Jan 21, 2019 11:19:30 GMT
And by leaving foodstuffs for the birds you're leaving foodstuffs for the cats?
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 21, 2019 13:01:18 GMT
Not yet this year....They are both past five years, filling out, and slowing down.
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 21, 2019 13:03:38 GMT
Oh...and in straightening the basement, I ran across my original shovel. I was down there due to a catbox crisis which required the shovel.
Now I have two.
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Post by Mari on Jan 22, 2019 11:36:50 GMT
Like we have 3 saws because I can't get my husband motivated to clear out and clean up the shed so every time he needs one, he can't find it and buys a new one? *rolls eyes*
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 29, 2019 1:53:24 GMT
Yes...Very much like that.
Today, I felt 'weed pulling urges'. It was dry. And warm enough. For a fleeting moment, it was even sunny. But, I resisted and sat on my arse indoors, staring out.
The wind was up. The cats were in.
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