5 Sept: some prepping for Slow Drag

Wednesday, 5 September 2018

We did part of the usual Wednesday route, this week without Klipsan Beach Cottages, which will be every other week now.  (This is only because of two reasons: one, the job is ending at the end of autumn and two, I am tired.  A third reason, specific to this week, is that having Labor Day Monday at the beginnning of the week and Rod Run Friday at the end limits the time for working on public gardens.)

The Depot Restaurant

We deadheaded and watered.  I picked some unsightly leaves off of the hops at the entry to the dining deck.

Depot dining deck entryway from the restaurant

south and east side of dining deck

North side; the white flower is Boltonia asteroides.

The Red Barn Arena

The garden had been watered so we only needed to do a few minutes of deadheading.

Red Barn garden

I got to pet Cosmo the barn cat.  Oh, how I want him to be the one I take home to be my best friend cat.  He is darling.

sweet, soft, loves to be petted

I want him to be mine.

Allan’s photo

Diane’s garden

My very good friend Misty

roadside garden (Allan’s photo)

perovskia (Allan’s photo)

In the roadside garden, white sweet peas and Cosmos ‘Cupcake’

the raised box garden

shadows of statice

shadows of bachelor buttons (cornflower)

Allan’s photo

I had to cut down one aster because its foliage had rust or some such.

before, with brown foliage (the other such aster is green)

after (the base of the plant got sprayed with fungicide)

Allan managed to get a photo of puppy Holly between her running around and jumping.

The Shelburne Hotel

We watered, weeded, deadheaded, dead-leafed.

looking east down the bocce ball court

back garden; Sunset runner beans in the trellis pots are getting tired.

Allan was able to get into the three south balcony rooms (you can see two of the balconies in above photo) to check on our succulent planters.  He had not checked on them since we planted them. (They cannot be accessed when the rooms are occupied.) Red clover had infiltrated two of them.

before, room 12

room 14

I planted the lovely Sedum ‘October Daphne’, which in my garden and elsewhere always gets chomped by snails.  Here, it is snail free.

But one stem was broken, maybe was getting too much water…

Room 15, a fine October Daphne…but with red clover.

That’s better.

Room 4’s cosmos container needs way too much deadheading.

before, definitely a mistaken choice of plant

I remember now, I had some extra Cosmos ‘Xanthos’ and wanted a place to put them.  Ooops.  This planter is getting a re-do this very month.

Guests can charge their electric cars on the north side of the Shelburne.

Allan’s photo

watering in front (Allan’s photo)

Mary Norwood stopped to chat and I gave her a little sweet pea bouquet.

Just as we left, we saw Scott of Scott and Tony and had a little natter.

I must show you Tony’s photos of his night blooming cereus.  He has had to come to their beach cottage two days later than Scott because he simply had to see his plant bloom (in their city home) with a multitude of flowers.  How does he do it? I am lucky to get one a year.

photos by Tony!

Meanwhile, Scott and his beloved car are in the biggest photo of this year’s promo article for the Rod Run.

Allan is going to get to go hang out with them at the event because we are skipping the Cannon Beach Cottage Tour this year.  (I want to stay home in my own garden.)

Port of Ilwaco

We watered all but the two east end gardens (and one other that is just escallonias and bark that we never water).  Allan drove in six posts that we are going to use for roping off my favourite garden bed during the Friday evening Slow Drag.  It has delicate plants.  Other gardens can hold up better to being walked and sat upon, although there are a few other plants that I want to safeguard with some individual protection.  All photos at the port by Allan.  I was out of steam for photos.

stake pounder, a great tool. No stakes were broken.

plus a big metal pry bar to make holes with and tamp them tight afterward

We will rope it off tomorrow night.

Must protect my agastaches!

I planted some Brodiaea ‘Queen Fabiola’ bulbs in this bed.  I have read that they are drought tolerant so I want to try them in these “hellstrip” gardens.  Maybe they will be less floppy that in more cushy gardens.

Later in the watering, Jenna stopped to show me some signs she has made for Slow Drag, “Please keep off the gardens and plants”.  I appreciate that very much.

J’s garden

Allan mowed and I did some deadheading and borrowed his camera for two vignettes:

elephant garlic, tied up by the J’s, well done!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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18 April: anxiety, sickabed, a little work, a great book

Wednesday, 18 April 2018

Allan’s cold hit him hard today.  My grandma used to say, when ill, that she was “sickabed on two chairs with my feet on the woodpile.”  Google tells me that the original quotation was “sick abed AND two chairs”, apparently something to do with putting two chairs next to your bed so you don’t roll out.

I worried about work all day and as a result I could not focus on weeding my own garden, until about five o clock, when a cold wind drove me indoors soon after I began.  Before that, I assuaged work worries slightly by going to the Norwood and the J’s garden, both just yards away from home.

Skooter accompanied me to the Norwood garden.

the north side shade garden

Across the street, I weeded the J’s front garden.

But look, one of the three arborvitae at the end is dying from the base up. I have no idea why.

looks completely ominous

So I found this possibly useful post.

Someone might tell me “That is not an arborvitae, it’s a juniper.”  I have to admit I don’t pay much attention to the particulars of common columnar evergreens.

The cold wind that sent me indoors after working allowed me to finish reading a wonderful book by Monty Don.  I wish I could remember which recent book led me to this one.  I got it via interlibrary loan; it came from the Johnson County Library, Shawnee Mission, Kansas, which appears to be a linked chain of libraries, similar to our Timberland Regional Library.

Frosty likes dogs.  He grew up with dogs with his previous person, Terry, who died after the dogs did and who passed his cat family on to us.

I was smitten with Monty Don’s writing style.  If I lived in the UK, he would be familiar to me as the host of Gardener’s World.  Oh, how I wish we had more gardening shows to watch on this side of the pond.  We used to, but Home and Garden Television (HGTV) turned into just Home television.  It looks like I may be able to watch Gardeners World online.

I now want to read all of Don’s books.

I was hooked by this paragraph at the beginning:

Because the book reminisces about all the dogs of Monty Don’s life, not just the famous Nigel (who appears with him on telly), there is the tragedy of losing one’s companion, which strikes me hard because of losing my feline friends Calvin and Smoky so recently.  I wept over this passage from The Sword in the Stone.

I liked this passage about having a seasonal pond, as we do out on the Meander Line.

Nigel likes peas.

Nigel also likes apples.

Below: More of the agony of losing a canine friend.  I hope I will feel this way about the place where I will put Smoky and Calvin’s ashes, where Smoky’s mother is already buried.

On changing the garden:

I appreciate that Monty Don is so open about having suffered from depression.  I have ordered The Jewel Garden, the story of how he and his spouse lost their jewelry design business and eventually ended up with a beautiful garden and a prime spot on Gardeners World.

I am pleased to report that after lying sickabed all day, Allan got up in the evening and enjoyed watching some telly (not Gardeners World, unfortunately, just Rachel Maddow and Survivor!).  His improvement, despite still having a cough and sniffles, was remarkable, but I said that we must still have tomorrow off so that he can continue to recuperate.

At bedtime, I began to reread Mirabel Osler’s gardening trilogy, beginning with A Gentle Plea for Chaos.

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6 March: work (and reading)

Tuesday, 6 March 2018

Calvin was sunbathing on the bed, showing how much brown is in a black cat’s fur.

A blue blanket showed off Frosty’s pretty blue eyes.

Speaking of snoozing and blue blankets, here is a guest photo of Todd’s dog, Ansel.

The J’s garden

We had an accounting appointment in the middle of the day, so we started at J’s garden across the street from our house, a job we could easily leave and come back to later.

While Allan was fetching the lawn mower for the tiny lawn in the J’s back yard, Ed and Jackson Strange (Strange Landscaping) stopped by on their way to a much bigger mowing job.  Ed was on his way to mow around a garden we created and used to care for by the pale green house at the far right of this photo:

Jackson and Ed

After some schmoozing with Ed and some smooching for Jackson (not Ed, who is the one on the right), we all got back to work.

At J’s, I got locked into the back garden behind the new gate.  Allan had a bit of a hard time getting the latch open.  From now on we will be sure to prop it with a heavy bucket while we are working back there.  It led to some excitement about getting to our new accountant on time (our former one, in Ilwaco, has retired.)  We were only two minutes late, thank goodness, because we did want to make a good first impression.  Because her office is almost to Surfside, we took the opportunity to drive further north and east and tour The Oysterville Garden, which will be tomorrow’s post.

We did not get back to J’s till an hour before dusk, so the befores and afters, taken by Allan, have a different light:

before

after

before

after

before: shotweed

before

after, with sword ferns trimmed

sword fern fronds to go across the street to our compost bins

just after sunset

Long Beach

Prior to returning to J’s, we went to the Sid Snyder beach approach to tidy the planters there, AND did the spring clean up on the tiny flower garden at the World Kite Museum.  We had a look at a few of the street tree and planter narcissi downtown.

I love narcissi with reflexed petals and long trumpets.

My favourites are the ones with tiny cups.

I like them all (except for the split cup ones, which look messy to me); they are my favourite flower.

also plenty of crocuses

Allan’s photo

On the beach approach, we clipped santolinas so that they will remain in a silver mound.  Allan’s photos:

before

after

the westernmost planter, before

The gazanias came through the winter.

after

At the World Kite Museum, Patty came out to chat.

not much going on in this garden yet

As of midsummer, the hebes that were on the right (above) are gone, and I wonder if that will make this little bed less rooty, or it the roots were all from escallonia on the left (above, and on the right below) creeping in for better nourishment.

At home, after finishing J’s, we were able to erase two tasks from the work list, so I tightened up the spring clean up section.

reading

Over the last month, despite being preoccupied with blogging about reading from years before, I did manage to read three books.  I already mentioned this one:

And I may have mentioned this one which, of the three, if you only have time for one, is a must read for white Americans.  I say white Americans because I don’t think black Americans should have to re-traumatize over this horrible history. The book smashes the myth that Rosa Parks was just a quiet lady with sore feet; she was a firebrand!  This is the most historically groundbreaking book I have read in a long time.

This evening, I finished the third book.  It is essential reading:

I  now have a new stack of library books, all pretty much light reading, and during work season that is sometimes all I have a mind for.

I am quite concerned that I have so many books out of the library right now!

The black book to the right is an autobiography by Nina Bawden.  79 Squares is a re-read inspired by my book posts.  The Bookstore Mouse was recommended by Roxanne, who co-owns the Basket Case Greenhouse.

Dawn Powell (upper left) might have to go back till next winter; I have renewed her three times.  I have already started Ian Whitcomb’s novel, Lotusland (lower right).  The Private I is edited by Molly Peacock, who wrote the wonderful The Paper Garden that I recently read.

When will I find the time, especially since I am still obsessed with the blog posts about old reading and still have five years of books to do!?

AND the books poured in that I ordered while writing the book posts.

These are not all re-reads, some were new to me books that I found while adding books to my Goodreads list of books I’ve read.  The rarest came all the way from the UK and is called Nonie; it is a biography of Lenora Mattingly Weber, who wrote the middle-American midcentury Beany Malone series.

Please bring on some rainy days.

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4 April: a little work

Tuesday, 4 April 2017

J’s garden

We managed to start our finishing-up project of weeding at J’s just before the rain came.  We completed the tasks in the rain.

I am concerned about the three small hydrangeas in the front garden.  They had been planted so mounded up that their roots were exposedand they had been tipped over for years.  I mulched around them earlier this spring.  It is possible that they need replacing.  I forgot to do a scratch test for green under the bark.

Survival is questionable; all the other hydrangeas I know are leafed out by now.

weeding project in the back (Allan)

flowering quince

lawn ranunculus (Allan’s photo)

Ranunculus removal accomplished.

increasing rain and wind when we were done with J’s

On an errand, we saw that Black Lake is full to the brim.

Black Lake, Ilwaco

hopes for spring in the Ilwaco Timberland Library (Allan’s photo)

deadheading a few Ilwaco planters in the rain

final tax appointment at our accountant’s office

official greeter

Allan’s photo

Jennifer’s lilies

Our good friend Helen

We were so sad to learn that Helen, age 10, has cancer.  She is on chemo, doing well, and we are hoping for the best.

reading

I read two books for remainder of the day, while Allan (who likes to shop) made an excursion across the river for a big grocery shopping.

I kept all the cats indoors for awhile to keep Skooter company.

yearning

Skooter amusing himself with the bag from a belated birthday present from KBC

I finished this book

Negin (pronounced Neh-geen) goes to a wedding in Iran.

After finishing Ms. Farsad’s enjoyable, breezy yet sometimes serious and enlightening book, I indulged in a quick read about home decor.

A photo reminded my of my friend Montana Mary and how when we were in high school, we dreamed of getting a place together right after graduation.  My vision was brick floors (with bricks brought in and just laid on top of whatever floor) and burlap curtains. I had not remembered that for years.  Now, practically, I’d find it hard to walk on and hard to clean.

(Our dream never happened.  Mary went to college in Jerusalem and I stayed in Seattle.  We met up again in London in 1975.  Winter project 2017: To write up that whole tour of the UK.

me and Mary 1973, right after high school

I also liked this idea for large bunkbeds:

Even though we did not finish the check up list yet, I am starting to think ahead about the thirteen sections of the beach approach garden, and more.

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3 April: sweet peas in

Monday, 3 April 2017

We dropped some work papers off at the port and noted the intense blueness of the grape hyacinth and anemones. Photos did not capture it well. 

I resisted the temptation to weed at the Ilwaco post office.  We headed straight up north.

The Planter Box 

single and double cherry flowers in front of The Planter Box garden store

I refreshed my supply of sweet pea seeds with 2 more packs to make sure I had enough for the boatyard.  As every year, I optimistically bought some mixed greens and sugar snap pea seeds.  Why do I always think I’ll have a good kitchen garden?  It has not worked out that way since many many years ago in Seattle. In my garden there, I used to make salads from the garden.

garden dreams at the seed rack

I had more confidence in the artichoke that I bought, and another cardoon for the front garden.  It would be nice if the artichoke proved to be deer resistant.  I’m going to try it in the unfenced area by Devery’s driveway.

artichokes

I was pleased to find Lamprocapnos ‘Valentine’ (bleeding heart).  I’d been wanting this one.

And I bought one of the species rather invasive ones for the bogsy woods.

Planter Box owner Teresa Millner (Allan’s photo)

Klipsan Beach Cottages

At KBC, I planted just a few sweet peas.  We weeded, did some belated rose pruning, and fertilized, with Mary’s help.

me and Mary

double hellebore and Fritillaria meleagris (Allan’s photo)

double primrose (Allan’s photo)

Erythronium (dog tooth violent) (Allan’s photo)

I found the tiniest of Pacific tree frogs.

Frog Admiration Society

Sarah (Allan’s photo)

in the fenced garden

tulips in the fenced garden (Allan’s photo)

narcissi

narcissi

and more narcissi

Euphorbia characias wulfenii

outside the fence: tremendously fragrant daphne

a deer in the landscape (Allan’s photo)

by the pond

sword fern

Long Beach

On the way through town going north, I had noticed two particularly dead-heady clumps of narcissi.  We stopped to deadhead them.

planter sitter damage (Allan’s photo)

It’s Spring Break (Allan’s photo)

by Stormin’ Norman’s kite and gift shop (Allan’s photo)

parrot tulip bud (Allan’s photo)

carousel and bike rack (Allan’s photo)

part of a future vintage Fun Ride (Allan’s photo)

Ilwaco boatyard garden

I planted sweet peas along the fence while Allan did some light weeding. We already need to schedule a serious all day weeding session here.  Last year, I planted sweet peas along the fence with no expectations because I had some left over.  They did surprisingly well.

weedy again; lots of poppy seeds

Allan’s photo, the north fence

big impressive Bambi (Allan’s photo)

on our block

We (Allan) needed to get two small lawns, next door and across the street from us, mowed before the rain returns tomorrow.  I figured I could get Norwood’s and J’s gardens weeded and erased from the work list.  But first…I decided that a tatty old helianthemum needed to be removed from our driveway garden.

It is weedy, grassy, and half dead.

Allan helped pull it.

But wait…just as I was thinking I’d have time to do an hour’s weeding at home AND the two little jobs, I remembered, at 4:45, that the Living Liberally meeting was tonight at 5:30 (way too early an hour for spring and summer).  The lawns had to be done.  Allan got started, while I went to weed and deadhead at the tiny Norwood garden.

Look who crossed Devery’s yard to help me.

Frosty, too, looking for the gate

Allan mows between us and Norwood’s as fast as ever he can.

I got most of the front garden weeded at J’s and Allan got the tiny pocket lawn mowed.

I have to get tough on removing the cute but invasive ranunculus.  Not tonight.

Living Liberally

We made it back to the Adrift Hotel by 6, in time for one hour of an interesting meeting.

bamboo corner at Adrift Hotel

campfire courtyard at Adrift

The [pickled fish] restaurant was simply too busy with spring breakers after the meeting.  At least coming straight home gave me time to write a blog post.

Sweet peas are off the work board.  I hope that tomorrow, the weather will permit us to finish J’s, Ilwaco planters, and the Ilwaco Community Building.

BONUS

Loree of Danger Garden sent me this link about THE Oysterville garden.  It has only one garden photo (featuring the favourite spot, the south terrace) but many photos of the home’s interior.  I hope to get there to see the spring garden soon, while the narcissi and hellebores are still in bloom.

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21 Feb: 3 accomplishments

Tuesday, 21 February 2017

Jay and Jodie’s

We had unexpectedly workable weather and began across the street at the J’s cottage.  I’d been itching to cut back the sword ferns.  We’d begun this job last year in mid summer and so had not been able to clip them thoroughly.

before, looking west

lots of little shotweeds coming up (lower right)

gathering clipped fern fronds

after

before, looking east

after

really need to get some mulch for shrubs that were planted too high

crocuses

In the back garden, Allan found pots needing drainage.

After popping home for a drill, he fixed the problem.

Partway through the job, I took a 20 minute break to walk down to the nearby fire station with a local firefighter who is planning to beautify the landscape there.

me and John

I said that with proper notice, I’d volunteer to help weed and also to help select plants. It was a volunteer project I’d been planning to do myself…someday…so am glad someone else has taken it in hand.

Long Beach

In the early afternoon, we tackled the Heron Pond, at the corner of Bolstad and Pacific.  You can look at it any time on the Heroncam.

before

Oh, how I loathe the salal in this garden, obviously not planted by us.  Last year I pulled and pulled and clipped it along the front here.  Of course, the dastardly stuff is back.

salal all up in the armeria (sea thrift) along the edge of the pond.

This is a case where the human does not win.  I didn’t even try to fight the damn stuff this year, just clipped some of it back.  That and aegepodium (variegated bishops weed) are my two most loathed plants.  Just don’t fall for them!

after

before

after (silver santolina trimmed)

fish hiding place (Allan’s photo)

Another pale fish that has eluded the heron.

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photos, before

after.  Allan climbed out to the waterfall to trim the ferns.

We then weeded and sheared grasses in three little pop outs on Ocean Beach Boulevard.  We found to our surprise that the cold wind that we’d felt at the pond garden was much less annoying here at the first two pop outs. We had almost quit for the day after the pond; I was glad we had persisted.

Allan’s photos:

before.  Second pop out is on the other side of the crosswalk.

after

before

after

from the back

after

Barbara from the Planter Box drove by and stopped to catch up.

The second little pop out was not especially photogenic before OR after.  For the last two years, someone has adopted it and planted annuals toward the front, so we simply weeded it and will wait to see what happens.

Half a block north, a citizen has been experimenting in his front yard with escallonia topiary.

a chair

a critter in progress

Someone has already cut back the dwarf pampas grass in the BIG pop out so we drove right by it to the third and fourth little ones, a block north of city hall.

third little pop out, before

after

fourth, before (such a sad mugo pine, that had to be trimmed last year for traffic sightlines)

after

The wind had gotten deathly cold and so every little weed did not get pulled today.

I think that mugo pine has to totally go away…sometime.  These tiny garden beds get no supplemental water and are probably browsed by deer so I’ll have to ponder on it.

A citizen stopped for veg gardening advice.  I referred her to The Planter Box.

Brrr.

After dumping our debris, we were so glad to get home.  Before enjoying the warmth of the house, we had a little chat with our new neighbour, Devery, who was looking spiffing as always in, today in a checked jacket with a matching hat.  I’m so looking forward to sitting in the garden with her this summer when warm weather returns.  At present, it’s hard to picture summer because I have done almost no spring clean up on my own garden.

I was able to erase three spring clean up jobs from the work board.

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17-19 July: catching up

Now that the blog is 15 days behind, I am trying to catch up.

Sunday, 17 July 2016

Our sometime neighbour, Alicia (Nora’s grand daughter), visited for the weekend and in the course of cleaning up her patio, she gave me some fabulous garden items.  The weather was too hot for gardening anyway so visiting was much more pleasant.

metal shelf

potting bench and pots, what a lucky day for me!

Allan cut down the laurel bush in front that was blocking the view of oncoming cars.

before

after; should make it easier to back out of the driveway

That laurel had reseeded itself there and had never been part of Nora’s plan.  Back when she was younger, Nora had had a rose garden running down the side of the driveway in what is now all lawn.

I feel very much in love with Alicia’s mom’s dog, a Vizsla named Ruby.

Monday, 18 July 2016

Long Beach

We did the usual watering and grooming of the planters and the street tree pocket gardens.

carousel planter

cosmos and tigridia

Fun Rides new owners have already added a kicky new paint job.

Here’s a before photo that Allan took on July 14th.

I found a Zoltar fortune on the sidewalk.

Zoltar Speaks…to me?

Allan will be glad to know that his pet reseeded Eryngium has recovered from an encounter with the street sweeper.

finger blight: someone pulled out several plants in one planter, including this painted sage.

planter by the Herb ‘N Legend Smoke Shop

I pronounce the word “herb” with the “h”.  Some pronounce it “‘erb”. Someone walking by the Herb N Legend smoke shop said “Let’s go into the ‘Erb ‘N Legend” and I suddenly realized, after all this time, that the name is a play on “Urban Legend.”

red and white planters in Veterans Field (Salvia ‘Hot Lips’, Calibrachoa ‘Vampire’, and alyssum) Allan’s photo

in Fish Alley: The remnants of the weekend’s sand sculpture (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo shows he noticed the eryngium.  (We go in different directions to water.)

Allan’s photo

Allan got done watering before me and had time to tackle the weediest, most annoying tree-rooty bed in Fifth Street Park.

before

after

finger blight! He noticed someone had swiped a big stalk of lilies. We do notice!

We got the little popouts weeded north of city hall.

Before: I was pleased to see some poppies and bachelor buttons had germinated.

after

While we weeded, there was a ruckus on the roof of the Scoopers Ice Cream Shop. A large flock of small birds flew off in a great flapping of wings. Crows were attacking a hawk…and my telephoto shows what I could not see, that maybe the hawk had a crow in its talons. Avert your eyes if this will upset you.

two of several angry crows

This was a really brazen move.

The hawk was being bombarded by several crows.

Nature red in tooth and claw.

The hawk flew away, holding its prize, followed by five cawing crows.

We next went to the beach approach where we were able to weed the whole thing pretty well in less than two hours.  All was well except for my annoyance that someone had felt entitled to shear more than half the flowers off of the lavenders to take home and make themselves a herbal pillow or whatever.

Bolstad beach approach (Allan’s photo)

rose hips and fairy door (Allan’s photo)

I intended for us to do some weeding at the Ilwaco boatyard at the end of the day but I was completely out of steam.  We poked at the Ilwaco planters and decided they could wait till tomorrow for watering.

Tuesday, 19 July 2016

I took some photos in my own garden while Allan started work.

My new metal plant shelf makes for another layer of pots.

hypericum berries

Eryngium ‘Big Blue’

lilies. probably ‘Montego Bay’

more lilies

Lily ‘Conca D’Or’, much taller than me

Lily ‘Conca D’Or’

lilies

more lilies to come

lilies

Geranium ‘Rozanne’ swallowing Rosa rubrifolia

in the front garden

lily

Melianthus major ‘Antenow’s Blue’

at the J’s

My commute to join Allan at work was a short one: We had taken on a new job just across the street at the J’s house.  Here are some befores and afters of what we accomplished.

before

after

before

after

before (Himalayan blackberries coming from next door)

after; we’ll cut more after the J’s have blackberry cobbler.

It is a good drought tolerant front yard, especially with the gold carex gone (it wanted more water than it was getting).

before: blackberry and bindweed that had crawled under the fence in back

after; Allan did all this.

Allan gathered up the pile of laurel from Alicia’s front yard and, with the J’s debris, dumped 500 pounds of brush at the dump.

He went on to water the Ilwaco planters while I got to go home and start writing the Aberdeen garden tour blog.

Allan’s photo: sweet pea success at the boatyard

and an interesting boat

end of the day (Allan’s photo)

the spectacular sunset (Allan’s photo)

 

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Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1997 (age 73):

July 17: goofed off

July 18:  11:00 to 4:30  7:00 to 8:00   Picked berries.  Started to use old hay from pile to mulch tomatoes but it had too many branches.  Maybe I’ll use the “new” hay in garage.  Cut back some of the big plant that had fallen over into ditch.  Did some weeding in lower driveway.  After dinner I weeded the pathway in veggie garden.   By then I was exhausted.

July 19 HOT AGAIN  I was going to plant some perennial seeds but it was too hot and did some watering.  Worked in the garage sorting the stuff piled up under tarps not for sale during garage sales.  I put the “Robert stuff” together along east wall.  [She gave my spouse at the time, Robert, a lot of dad’s old tools and odd and ends.]  I put my garden stuff (trays etc) on tables etc.  I still have several boxes of pots etc in shed to be moved to garage (another day).  I wish I could get the TVs back into the shop but they are too heavy even for Don to move.

1998 (age 74):

July 17:  I went out before breakfast to pick raspberries.  It was cool and stayed that way until I finished picking and then the sun came out.  HOT. 78 degrees.  I worked in the shade transplanting seedlings.  Also watered tomatoes and the trays in the shop.

July 18:  It was cool enough to be nice and comfortable working in the garage.  In order to empty the table in the woodshed, I brought the boxes of canning jars to the garage.  I sorted them so Bill Jr can put them up on shelves tomorrow.  I straightened up the garage and got the things together for him to take to the shop.  Then I checked the trays of plants in the shop and dumped the ones that haven’t germinated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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