30 June 2016

Gardening - a journal



Gardening – a journal, mainly Azalea Park plot in late June 2016

20160624 Friday. After work –– raked, worked the upper left ie NW tilled quadrant, pulling up lots of wire grass into a pile and making 4 rows of corn. Planted alternating holes with 2 seeds, about 3” apart in each row. Four rows were arranged with, farthest east
1. earliest corn 65 days  Early Sunglow
2. middle early corn 73 days Sweet corn, King Kool hybrid
3. middle late corn 74 days Kandy corn
4. latest corn 81 days Jubilee Hybrid
Showered that evening nicely

20160625 Saturday. 1. Carefully mulched the space between the 4 corn rows.
2. Pulling weeds and mulching the pepper / squash area
3. Pulling weeds and mulching the tomato area
4. Forked holes for 3 tomatoes, 2 in the lower, east tomato area, and 1 at the east end of the upper squash area. Put tomato cages around them and around one of the peppers
5. Forked the end of the upper NNE border and planted sprouted cosmos along the fence and a row of zinnia just below it

20160626 Sunday afternoon with Deej
1. prepared a trench in the upper NNW for Deej to plant another row of beans, which she did
2. prepared a trench just south of it, where a row of corn was planted after Deej left, of 89 day maturity Kandy Korn (Hypbrid)
3. Raked and prepared both sides of the lower SE corner sections, trowel prepared soil along the SEE boarder for flowers.  Planted 3 sections starting from the South of Zinnias (Giants of California East, Giant Cactus Mixed Colors W), Cosmos (Sensation Mix E, Seashells Mix W), and Marigolds – Sunset Giants Mix
4. Deej planted gladiola bulbs just south of the existing ones
5. Deej planted Butternut squash seeds in a hill (NW), and nasturtiums again in the middle of the cucumber circle.
6. Prepared two area with the fork – shallow digging – one on the SSW border east of the sunflower sprouts, and one in a section just south of the corn and west of the mulch pile next to the peas
7. scuffle hoed the SWW border.
8. Replanted sunflower seeds in the NE corner and a middle location along the E boarder
9. Deej picked some peas and I picked 3 cayenne peppers
10. At home, moved a few of the logs.

20160627 Monday. After work, 1. prepared, raked and then planted okra seeds all along the south and the east walkway or border inside the border flower bed strip.
2. Forked up some more along the flower strips of the NNW and SSE 10 foot sections.  Planted some sprouted cosmos and newly-bought zinnia in the NNW strip and also along the SSE border.  Bought zinnia 4 packs, and then boxes of zinnia, wild flower, and sunny flowers at $1 a piece.
3. Loaded a bag of much to take home.

20160628 Tues – looked like rain but didn’t. 1. Weeded around the back yard – around the moonflowers, the peppers, and the marigolds. 2. Grape vine – sniped off the longer vines.

20160629 Wednesday. 1. Dug up the rest of the flower bed strips along the SSW, the West, and the NNW borders. Planted cosmos and zinnia along those areas – also a 5 foot marigold strip.  And watered some.
2. Fork loaded 4 wheelbarrow loads and placed 3 near the SSE quarter and one load in the NNE quarter.
3. Unloaded the bags of mulch.

14 March 2016

Catastrophes of the Cs this weekend



Catastrophes of the Cs this weekend, Saturday the 12th and Sunday the 13th.  
1. Computers, left my work computers in Richmond.  
2. Card for my camera, misplaced, lost it.   
3. Cup – my favorite mug - smashed. 
4. Cage (tomato) – its wires were clawed tightly into the tiller’s tines. 

This is a weekend of disasters with items starting with C.  
1. Computers – which I put in a bag and took with me to a Curry Club gathering at noon down in Richmond, going to a home after lunch for chai and conversations for 2 hours – realized I’d left it there when we got home in Charlottesville. What to do? 
2. Memory card – went to off load my photos from the Saturday’s activities on my home computer, and took it out of the camera, and then misplaced it and lost it.  Spent almost an hour desperately trying to find it all over the house. Went to bed and started another search Sunday morning.  Where was it? 
3. Cup – while making my fresh brew of ground coffee in my French Press pot, I thoroughly washed my favorite tall hand-made mug, placing it carefully to dry, and WHAM got knocked over and SMASHED on the floor.  What to do? Cry. 
4. Tomato cage. After our 3 hour afternoon journey to Richmond and back, we went to plant onions and peas in our Azalea garden, starting the tiller in the community shed with a specially made starter cord (last year’s was stolen), tilled two rows, and then went to return it to the shed but it ran over and tilled a wire tomato cage tightly into the roto tines. Tough wire – What to do? And it was starting to rain and getting dark.

What we did - 

1. Called the Richmond home and arranged to drive the 1.5 hours down to get the bag at 1:30 pm and drive the 1.5 hours back. Had to do it on Sunday because the bag had a) my work computer b) my work I-Pad, and c) my work backup hard drive. At least it wasn’t raining.

2. The wonderful cup is smashed beyond repair – Deej lent me her nice dark blue tall Library mug until I get another mug.

3. After searching for the 8th time in all the normal places – found the card in my old knapsack pocket – how did it get there? And then my home computer’s card reader wouldn’t recognize it. What! Found and used an old USB plug in reader. Whew! Love those computers.

4. The tomato cage wires was tightly wound into the tiller.  Almost impossible to pull or move. Made a special ½ hour trip back to home to get wire cutters – then they barely worked.  Each of 8 cuts took over 3 minutes.   Slowly, carefully unwound the wire, taking over 30 minutes to do that, and of course it started to rain, though luckily lightly.  Then put the tiller back in the community shed. 


Wow, I hope I don’t ever again have a weekend of catastrophes – especially of those 4 Cs or anything similar.