Is it about time to start planting rhubarb for the next season?
(The resource area is posted at the end of the the July 3-6 Gardening Thread beginning after post 112!)
Forecast 100% for rain on Monday and I can't wait. Hope there's more on the way.
Meanwhile:
Floss Silk tree is putting on its mid-fall display of orchid-like flowers:
Roses are making a brief come-back as they always do in the fall:
French Lace:
And the bee garden is continuing to attract more bees:
Sticky Monkey Flower:
And Achillea, "Apple Blossom"
Happy clean-up
I started by harvesting a big armful of Dahlia - I cannot believe how well they produced this season, but having a dry year helped greatly. Still had Nasturtium hanging in there, too.
Then, I cleaned out the planter that's on the south-facing porch. It was full of herbs; Rosemary and Lemon Thyme, and I cleaned that out and covered the dirt with straw and added pumpkins and squash that I grew myself this season. I LOVE how it turned out, and my Puppy, Fremont, seems to be leaving it alone for now. Yay! At Christmastime, I fill it with various evergreen branches, pine cones, berries and other fun stuff for the holidays. I plan on making some herb salt rubs and some herb butter with those herbs - waste not, want not!
And, yes. That's our falling-down barn, which looks funny from this angle, but is built into the hillside; there is a milking parlor below. It was re-built (shabbily!) in 1950 after the original barn burned. When I talk about the 'kennel shed' that's the metal building to the right, which is attached to the barn. It's in fine shape and full of kennel runs for our hunting dogs. The south-facing side, which you cannot see, is open to air and sunshine.
And since I mentioned him, and he's so darn CUTE, here is Fremont. He is a Plott Hound (for hunting Black Bear) and is about 5 months old.
Cool and damp this past week here in Central Missouri. The Kubota zero-turn has been at the mower doc getting some love, and the lawn grass has gotten out of hand. Mower came home yesterday, so today, if the rain holds off, it’s time to get some grass cut.
We’ve been enjoying the late-planted green salad pretty much every evening at supper time. I’d pretty much given up on my carrot crop. I seeded those in the cold frame back in the spring, thinking it might be easier to keep the weeds down in that, but it wasn’t. Early August I took the weed whacker to it, mowed everything down, and forgot about it. A few weeks later after some rain it started to turn green in there, and it was the carrots putting out new top growth. They didn’t seem to mind the summer haircut, and have made some very nice roots in the deep, loose soil that’s in the cold frame.
If I get the mowing done, it might be dry enough in the garden to get a spot tilled for the garlic. If it’s too wet to till I’ll buzz it down with the week whacker, set the cloves on top of the soil, and bury them under a nice thick blanket of composted stall waste.
Have any of you tried trench composting? Composting in a bin was nothing but trouble. All it did was attract insects. I switched over to simply burying food scraps and yard waste and it’s GREAT! It all becomes soil in just a few weeks with no weird bugs crawling around. The ground is hungry!
Current garden status: No freeze yet. Tomatoes have slowed down but are still growing. Bell peppers still coming in.
Well, it’s been a gorgeous fall but it looks like the party is over.
The forecast is for rain this week. A LOT of it.
And cooler temperatures.
So I’m kinda’ sad this morning. When I opened the door first thing thing, what did I see hanging from the maple tree ..... nothing.
Last night, I finally took down my hummer feeders. The last bird I saw was the evening of Oct. 1. Like most folks in the area, I leave my feeders up until about the middle of October for any late birds coming through on their migration. My tithonias bloom until frost so I’ve seen late birds go to the tithonia rather than a feeder - the tiths are still blooming well since we’ve not had a frost.
The last time I cleaned my feeders, before putting out this last batch of nectar, I bleached them - wow, what a difference! I scrub my feeders every time I change nectar, but using bleach (diluted 10 parts water to 1 bleach) eliminated hard ‘scrubbing’. All of my feeders were bleached & washed again last night for storage - they really had no mold buildup. I did my SIL’s feeders at the same time & they were black with mold .... she’s out of town so clean feeders will be a surprise when she gets home this afternoon.
I’m trying not to be depressed, but I miss the little guys! One morning, I was standing at the storm door, had on a red T-shirt & the next thing I knew, there was a hummer at the door looking through the glass! I’ve also had them approach me when either going to get feeders to refill or taking them back out again, if I’m in that same T-shirt. They always make me laugh .... “no guys, I am NOT a flower!”
Until next year, little buddies - can’t wait until you come back in the Spring - clean feeders will be waiting (April).
Our recent slight snowfall seemed to be too much for some tree limbs, which was perplexing. Today, I saw dying leaves on a largish limb of our front yard elm, and had to prune it out.
I had already solved the mystery: micro tornado! A trip to the garden a couple of days after the storm showed me the asparagus ferns were laid out flat. Closer inspection showed
that the rows had be knocked down in opposite facing directions.
I scored on some gardening stuff at Wal-Mart and Home Depot the other day.
They have a lot of their fertilizers and insect control stuff marked nicely down. I guess they are clearing out their shelves of inventory.
The best deal was a small bottle of liquid copper sulfate fungicide that makes 48 gallons regularly about $10 marked down to $1. I bought a bunch.
So people may want to check out the gardening sections of stores for good deals on supplies.
