6 posts tagged “gardening”
My asters have finally bloomed! And they are purdy...
Which is appropriate, since I've been reading about the Astors for work... especially the one that was a local. (Yes, I just made a bad pun). The book is a total soap opera, but entertaining....
Anyhoodle, I was delighted when the asters that I've been watering and loving since planting the seeds in April finally bloomed, and in a wide array of colors-- pinks, peaches, purples, whites. The are well worth the wait.
There are a few other things making their way through the season-- August is tough, too hot, usually dry (though this year not half as dry as last year). The cucumbers are spent and unhappy, but the tomatoes keep coming...
Including the green zebras, which I looooove.
The return of the weapons grade peppers-- they're starting to show their firey nature...
And some sunflowers keep coming :)
Although I do need to say that the "drought resisting" abilities of the phlox I planted in the spring-- as advertised on the pot-- were a disappointment. (read: epic fail).
But the sesame looks great! Can't wait til they mature!
With apologies to JJBT....
I would like to announce the engagement of Cucumber and String Bean. Neighbors their entire lives, they finally felt the need to bridge the gap.
Sooooo, last week was a bit of a whirlwind-- a very very full workweek, including several days out and about in the state, followed up by seeing the parents in DC and doing one of my shifts at Artomatic. Which would have all been quite a bit to start with, but when my usual two hour drive to DC turned into a five hour odyssey on the way up and a four hour one on the way back, it really put a capper on a very long week. Which is why I'm trying to think about my garden and stuff instead....
I've also been working on some hats as well-- these are meant for wee heads.....
Lastly, I finished up something that I've been making for a friend... the theme is very much up her alley....
Hope she likes it!
We were at Artomatic on Saturday night for meet the artist night:
Rebecca and I enjoyed Dale Hunt's funhouse like paintings. Of course we both like his work in any case, since we both have pieces by him from Artomatics past.
It was lots of fun. Artomatic is pretty superfantastic this year-- great space with lots of interesting stuff. Go visit while it's still going on-- through July 5th!
I spent a bit of the weekend out in the garden, though not as much as I would have liked. Sadly, I spent most of it doing my least favorite gardening task-- weeding. I got about half done, but now it's raining, so I'm sure that all my work will be for naught, as it's meant to rain for the rest of the week.....
We are still having serious earwig problems. They seemed to abate a little when I swabbed the deck (literally!) with homemade insecticidal soap, but with the rain washing away the effects, I'm thinking they'll be back in force. They've started chomping on the zucchinis and beans and peas, which I'm rather unhappy about. And boy howdy do they looooooove the flowers I have on the deck.
Sadly, yes. Many of the things I planted in containers this year are either a) dying or b) failing to thrive. It is a sad sad story, which I am rather upset about. Suggestions from gardening forums have included: 1) overwatering; 2) underwatering; 3) bad soil; 4) bad plants; 5) bugs; 6) not enough fertilizer; and my favorite, 7) gardening is often frustrating, so try again next year.
For the second year in a row, plants in the garden have failed to hit full growing steam prior to the heat wave, which seems to stunt certain things. I planted a full month earlier this year in response to this problem last year. And what happens? The brussel sprouts very excitedly began to finally grow last week. Today it was 94 degrees and they are looking all wilting.
Much more worrisome is that I have not seen a single bee-- honey, bumble, what have you-- since April. The peas are finally coming into their own, as are some of the tomatoes, and all of those flowers are going unpollinated. No bees, and not even really any butterflies. Nor hummingbirds. And I don't have the time to perform plant sex activities on these things. So we may not get much in the way of food this year.
On the upside, we did manage to have one salad out of the garden last week.
I also ended up making another container using the same materials and colors, although I added some handles to that one....
Finally, I experimented a little with some scrap fabric that I have had around, literally, for years. It's actually scraps going back to my first attempts at sewing a quilt, which I did my first year at grad school, now more than a decade ago. (I thought it might relieve some of the stress of grad school. It might have done, if I hadn't skipped the part where you take a class or at least read a book. Instead, I just bought a bunch of fabric, cut it up, and started sewing it all together. I still have some of the blocks, and it isn't as bad as that sounds like it should be. Although it's probably okay that I never quite finished that project). In any case, I used the scraps to make an oval shaped vessel, and to try out making a lid.....
time, right? Weekends I often try to get some cooking done.... but lately I've been too busy and out of town too much for grocery shopping. So there's been a lot of fridge clearing cooking going on....
I love the farmer's market. I have no idea how it is possible for me to go home with all that produce in May. I mean, it's mid-May. I started seedlings in March. And I have.... sprouts. They look pretty good and all that, but uhm. We are weeks and weeks away from eating anything other than two strawberries and some lettuce from last year (it self seeded. And looks awesome).
And now it's Sunday evening and I still have a huge list of things I was supposed to do this weekend. Sigh.
