Hooray for Broccoli!

 For the first time in three years, I found broccoli starts. I just got them planted Saturday, though, because I did not want them out in my garden beds getting dried up and blown over by the gale force March winds that roared through here for several days.

The garden is far from a masterpiece. I have some garlic I planted last fall, the chives that are pretty much perennials in my garden, the volunteer cilantro and a whole bunch of weeds. I pulled out the biggest offenders as far as the weeds went, but I still have a lot of work to do in that department.

At the same time I bought the broccoli, I bought three sacks of steer uno-what. I need to finish the weeding before I work that into my soil. I still want to get my tomatoes, onion sets and squash. Hopefully, this spring won't be so damp that I lose my zucchini to mildew like I did last year.

For today, Archie, the garden cat, was out with me as I watered my little plants. ANYTHING to put off getting busy reading the style manual and checking the grammar for my latest proofreading project on Aurora Rescue. (see www.robynechols.blogspot.com for more on that.)

The buds are coming out on my dwarf pear tree. I am still waiting for blossoms on our apricot tree.

Oh, Garden --What a Mess!

A long, wet spring and a week of temperatures with highs from 101-105 degrees, and the garden got definitely out of control. These pictures were taken Thursday, July14th:

Buck built a compost box for me.  By Thursday afternoon it was full.

Part of our problems started when the irrigation water from our neighbor's land (elevation about a foot higher than our lot) broke through a gopher hole and started flooding our yard every time he irrigated.  It covered my black felt weed control between the grow boxes with about an inch of dirt which immediately sprouted weeds.  It also undermined our pump house next to the faucet.  So, Buck pulled up the felt and filled in under the pump house.  He also built berms to channel the water between the grow boxes and out to the lawn so that it would not undermine the concrete floors of the pump house or the shop.

In addition to the bermuda and crab grass getting out of control, I used some "straw" I was gifted for mulch to keep the weeds down.  Instead, I ended up with some nice stands of oats.  The good new was that because I set it on top of the soil, the roots were shallow and pulled up easily.  It was a different story with the other.....

The store-bought squash did not make it -- none of the four plants.  I got enough zucchini out of the garden to give two away and make a double batch of zucchini bread.  The volunteer second-generation "pumpkini" plants, however, is hale and hearty, and may make it if the bugs do not kill them.

As I cleaned out a grow box, Buck replaced the rotting and splitting three year-old stakes holding the sides up with two foot sections of the fiberglass poles he sells as portable ham antenna towers and garden stakes.

Buck was not my only company in the garden that day.  One was a pollinator, one was a plant chomper.

Only one grow box left to weed.  Then the weeds in the first box will probably have grown back and it will be time to start again!

Weightier Walking

Yes, Buck and I are still walking three to five times each week. We are now up to three miles most days unless we have something going on in the morning where we have to cut it short.









Last Thursday I added a new element to my walking. I found my one-pound hand weights. I have been feeling  guilty about not getting any weight-lifting in to help strengthen my upper body. Spending as much time on the computer as I do--even with my homey little ergonomic set-up--is hard on my upper back and neck. I started doing my arm exercised as part of the walk routine.

This morning after our three miles, I played in the garden for a few hours. Today's harvest. Some of those potatoes are big enough to feed four people all by themselves.

The Season Is Past Time

I just updated my profile to include gardening as one of my interests. How quickly I forget. I guess it happened because I started this blog in November and my summer garden is almost history.

I had such a wonderful time in my garden. Hubby and my son built three grow boxes for me and helped me fill them with soil, courtesy of the local cemetery, and the mulch, available from the local landfill. I enjoyed planting the seeds, transplanting my seedlings, shopping for small flats of vege and flower varieties that I did not start from seed and working to keep it all in order. We put a barrier down on the walkways around the boxes, so weeding was kept to a minimum.

It was so much fun--until enough of a harvest came on that we could not eat it or give it all away fast enough. I actually had to do something to keep all that produce from going to waste.

Part of my plan was to put up some of the food for the winter. I have enough squash-bean-carrot-broccoli-onion stir-fry mix, not to mention grated squash and pumpkin pulp to last me the year. I dried tomatoes so they would not take up as much space and put them in the freezer. Problem was, once it was harvest time, the fun was over and my garden started to feel like work.

I thought about a winter garden. Then, when the reality of harvesting and preserving really hit, I decided that my tendency to be a "time and season for every purpose" type of person should apply. My garden season is almost over and it is time to do something else this winter.

I think the garden agrees. I still have tomatoes--we have not had a frost yet--peppers and onions. Several are currently in my sink as I type will end up in the chili pot tonight. The flowers I planted between my vegetable plants to add color and discourage pests struggled through the heat of summer, but exploded with blossoms once the weather cooled a little. When my squash plants decided their season was over and stopped producing, the nasturtiums I planted next to them seemed to grow ten times their previous size overnight. The blossoms now are beautiful.

So, while others are enjoying the autumn leaves turning colors, I also get to look out my window and watch the flowers say good-by to the time and season of my garden. If food gets scarce because I decided to not grow a winter garden, I guess I can always eat the nasturtium blossoms.