Friday, 15 May 2020
We had a small one-off job to do today. On the way, we stopped at
The Planter Box
garden center to get some bagged mulch for the job and some potting soil for us. There seems to be a local potting soil shortage, something to do with the supplier.
I dared to enter the store, masked, to get some perlite, some grit, some perlite, so,e fish fertilizer, and even some fingerling seed potatoes. First time I have been inside a store since mid March.
All loaded up with soil amendments and supplies, we drove on to
Katie’s garden,
which is near the cranberry bogs.
Katie has been weeding the small garden in her spare time this week, making our job even smaller. I went over it with the Root Slayer shovel…
…and we planted some dahlias, lilies, and gladiolas that Katie had waiting for us, mulched it, added just a few perennial starts and some cosmos…
…and that was that. We will be seeing it again, because I am all excited to have left some buckets for Katie’s spouse to fill with rabbit poo for our compost.
A vignette from Katie’s porch:
On the way home, we made another shopping stop at
The Basket Case Greenhouse
just to see new plants that were on offer and to use more of our gift certificate!
I begged some tiny starts of Chocolate Cherry tomatoes from Roxanne even though they were not yet ready for the sales floor.
I also got a couple of new clematis with the Catio in mind.
On the way home, we had a look at the east end of the port, not close enough to be completely tormented and guilt ridden by its weediness, because I decided we must skive off work
at home
in order to get the Catio painted before the rain came. Heavy rain was predicted beginning at about nine PM. Allan got started painting after I said I would unload the whole trailer full of soil bags (except for the fifty pound bag of grit, which he handled). At one point, after sliding quite a few bags off of the tops of the stacks into the wheelbarrow, I returned to the trailer to find the rest of the bags conveniently arranged like this.
I admired some plants as I schlepped around with the wheelbarrow.
A special pink Allium nigrum ‘Pink Jewel’:
Fremontotodendron:
Albuca spiralis ‘Frizzle Sizzle’ from Castle Rock Dahlias and Succulents:
When I had the potting soil and mulch all squared away, Seaview Sara came by as arranged. I had offered her some orach seedlings and supplemented them with two choice alliums…
….because she had got us six items during her trip to the grocery store, enabling us to put off shopping for awhile longer.
With the six items (bread, sugar, milk, yogurt, Bisquick and oatmeal) dealt with, I finally helped Allan paint. We pushed on through till dusk, getting it done, with no-seeums maddeningly biting us.
I am confident that the wire sides and top will hold Skooter in, but not too sure about the bamboo part of the roof.
He can enter from the living room (excuse the dirty windows, not something I care about!)…
That muddy little square flap is the cat door. The ivy, a gold kind, makes the room indoors dark and green, like I prefer.
Or he can enter from the front porch…
…which is also part of his night time domain with the slider closed.
The first Catio is done except for some roof reinforcements and some more cat sitting shelves and play structures inside. The second Catio will be on the sunny side of the house. . I suggested a third Catio on the south side of the porch, but that idea did not go down well. Someone does not want to spend his entire late spring and early summer building Catios.
Splendid cat patio! Can’t blame Allan for not being excited about building three of them. And how I love that little vignette. It appeals to my sense of whimsy. I’m going to think about how I can construct some of my own. I’m not very handy, but I might be able to make something with found objects.
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On those tomato starts, tomatoes will root in water as readily as mint. If you can get some cuttings, you can start your own. In about a week or two, the roots will be developed enough to plant in soil. I’ve accidentally broken plants getting them out to the garden, and ended up with two when I rooted the crown that was broken.
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Cool. I have also been reading you can start tomatoes by putting a cut tomatoes face down on the soil. But that would mean being able to buy something other than standard grocery store tomatoes, to get anything yummy.
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I also accidentally found how easy they are to grow from seed, when I planted a flat from a packet that was a free giveaway at a garden tour last year.
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A dire thought, so forgive me. Catios need to be strong enough to keep the cat in and to keep predators out, as in coyotes.
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Yes, it is very strong. No one could even dig under it because of a board along the bottom at ground level.
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That catio is a work of art! Lucky Skooter to have two to choose between. Yeah, a third one might have spoiled him! : )
Last photo, bottom left corner, what is that lovely fluted round something, looks to be made of zinc or some kind of metal? Or maybe it’s a chair back? Just a beautiful design.
Learned something else new from your blog. Did not know that ‘Frizzle Sizzle’ blooms. Thanks.
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Thank you.
It is a chair with a seashell back. I will take a full pic of it when I get the porch all tidied up.
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Oh, good. Thanks, I look forward to seeing it!
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Bunny manure is great in the garden. you don’t need to compost it, just put around plants.
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I would think that two catios would be enough for anyone!
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Kellogg (the mfg of G&B) is limiting customers here in Northern Cal. to 6 pallets per order. So after buying full truckloads (20 pallets) 3 weeks in a row I had to dial down to six ! And no one has decorative bark. Our other soils vendor (EB Stone-I don’t think they go all the way to WA.) had moved all their production to their top 6 products. So I can’t get earthworm castings or chicken manure. The Catio turned out great.
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Thank you…and that is very interesting.
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So it must be raining right now!
Fremontodendron gets into some strange places. It is surprisingly popular in England too. I would not expect it to like the climates either on the Coast of Washington or in England. It likes warm and dry weather. I am also surprised that it is popularly espaliered in England. I really would not want to handle it that much!
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Interesting about espalier, as I have been warned not to handle it!
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I do not need a warning to not handle it. It is nasty. The English do some odd things in the garden.
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