Category Archives: nice weekend

Spring gardening

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This is a funny year. I always find surprises, partly because many plants reseed themselves. Tomatoes is one. Random plants come up all over the garden and I can never bear to pull them, which may be one reason I end up with 11 plants.

cabbage

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two tomato plants came up here along with what looks like squash. And in the background it looks like cabbage even though the package said broccoli. There are four broccolis in front of the cabbage, planted too close.

This year is odd as well. I have flowers on my peas, because they went in late (snow on the ground) and flowers on the tomatoes (begun in the house). Tomatoes and peas at the same time?

tomato flowers

 

 

 

And finally, just something nice. My weigela – I just missed a butterfly on it. I love spring!

weigela

 

Musings on car colors

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My husband and I took a trip over the weekend to visit a friend (a friend that I have had for forty years!). When we drove down 95 I noticed that it was a sea of black, white and silver cars. There were a few burgundy SUVs but from a distance, just like the dark blue and dark green, they looked black. I love seeing the bright red cars. mostly Pickups, that look like bright red tomatoes riding down the road.

Finally, on 85 South, I saw a robin’s egg blue VW beetle and a copper colored KIA.

Where are the rest of the colors? My first car was a Chevy Malibu. It was a beautiful creamy yellow. (In 1973. Can you believe it?) If you go further back, to the time of the movie American Graffiti, the cars were all kinds of colors: Pink, light blue, yellow. I’d like to see royal blue and emerald green, bright red like the pickups, and taxicab yellow

I say, stand up for colorful cars!

Gardening – and insects

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I spent a lot of time this past weekend working in the garden: putting in string beans as well as taking out a lot of the winter-killed plants.  (Yes, out of 12 roses, I have only 4 left.) The vegetable garden in enclosed by a fence, and most of the larger yard is fenced to keep out the deer. I coated my gardening pants with off (Deet variety) but I still got bitten by mosquitoes and black flies. Welts all over my ears and neck. But my husband, who was mowing in the front, and unfenced yard, got a tick. And the dog and my grandson (who spends hours running around the yard ‘with the doggy’) both got ticks.

It is the season. Be careful out there.

flowering trees

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After the harsh winter, it is wonderful to see the flowering trees and all the other flowers.

crab apple

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the number of flowers on the apple trees, we will have a great crop. As the flowers fall off, the ground is white, as though with snow.

apple tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lettuce and radishes are coming out in the garden and I have transplanted the tomatoes, peppers, basil, eggplant and so on, some into the garden and some into the earth boxes on the deck.

earth eggplant

 

 

 

 

 

 

earth tomato

Spring Gardening

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With the arrival of the first nice weekend in months, many many months, I began setting up my garden.

spring garden

What is the hardware cloth doing around the base of the fence? Funny you should ask. Last year I got hardly any peas or broccoli because the baby rabbits got through the fence and ate the sprouts. Not this year they won’t. After this picture was taken, I put in radishes, carrots, beets and kale. All the cold hardy veggies. (I still have at least a month before tomatoes, cukes and peppers go in.) Next weekend, if it nice, I will start laying out the plastic mulch so I can get a jump on the weeds.

While I was working, my dog ran around looking for critters that might have gotten inside the fence without her knowing. She spent a lot of time inspecting the first and largest groundhog holes.

dog in groundhog hole

She goes all the way in, hoping, I think, that she will find another groundhog that moved in, and all we can see is her tail.

Although we have tried to fill in the hole, I think it goes to China. It is enormous, not just from the successive groundhogs but from Shelby digging.

Maybe I should plant a tree.

groundhog hole