Plugging Away-- and Getting Plugged

Just a little progress report.  All garden related, of course.

My friend brought the tomatoes he promised to give me to church this morning.  One "Italian Goliath,"

one "Red Brandywine,"

one "Brandymaster,"

and one miscellaneous cherry.  Just now they're all leggy seedlings in 8 oz. yogurt cups.  The "Red Brandywine" broke on the way home, which is too bad, since I like me a Brandywine tomato.  But maybe it can be nursed and recover.

They won't get planted for awhile, though:  Over the years the garden bed that I'm rotating the tomatoes to has gotten so mounded up with soil amendments that it's more than a foot higher at the center than at the edges.  And the beds in the round vegetable garden aren't that big.  It needs to be levelled off before anything goes into it.  Oh, yeah, and it needs weeded before that.

Which didn't happen this afternoon or evening.  What did happen is more digging and spading of dirt off the bare places in the front lawn, where the nutsedge is emerging where I dug it out before.  Not as thickly yet as before, but still there.  It's very depressing having to deal with this, such a waste of time and topsoil, too, but what can you do?

Finished cutting up sticks and shifting leaves from the part of the open compost pile I began cleaning off yesterday.

There was a little finished compost at the bottom of it, which I spread on the new planting bed in the front garden.

At least, I think it was compost.  May have just been a mounded bit of topsoil.

Whether or no, after that it was time to make a new compost pile where that bit had been.  Didn't have a lot of "green" material, unless you count the Virginia creeper I pulled off the fence.

Organic parfait

Instead I made layers of grassy sod and leftover unmulched leaves.  Yeah, I know you're not supposed to put dirt in the compost heap. But what else am I supposed to do with all those turves?

A lot of the leaves I was using for that I shook off the branches and sticks that came off the limb that fell down last year.  There weren't too many large ones left on the pile to cut up for kindling today, so I just took the leaf rake and drew the leaf residue off the old pile to use it on the new.

Where things got left, in a hurry

Or I did until some apparent residents of the old pile took exception to this disturbance. First I knew of it was when something  tried to fly up my right nostril.  I sniffed out violently and tried to bat it away, whereupon it stung me twice on my nose right above the lip, on the septum.  Ow!

Quick but careful removal of self into the house-- don't want to be precipitous and trip on the porch stairs-- all the time hoping it wasn't a honeybee, since their stingers remain in and you have to tweeze them out.  Quick, find the baking soda and make a poultice with water.  Dab it on the affected area . . .  know one looks like an idiot, but never mind.  It kept the swelling down where the creature plugged me, and within five minutes the pain was gone too.

Returned to the scene of the incident, though not to do any more raking.  Yellowjackets, it was.  There were still three or four hovering around.  Not going to mess with that pile again until I've consulted the exterminator.

So as much as I wanted to get that pile turned for the first time in three years, it was time to drop it and do something else instead.

Like plant the Berberis thunbergii "Crimson Pygmy" barberry I bought Thursday night from the Outside Lawn & Garden department at work.  I was thinking I needed a reddish specimen in front of the right-hand Alberta spruce . . . but one will do, since my neighbor to the east has four or five or these.

She was out in her front yard, too, while I was planting this.  I told her about the yellowjacket sting.  I mean, I didn't expect to go into anaphylactic shock from it, never have before, but I know some people develop that reaction when they get older.  So in case I suddenly quit breathing and keeled over . . .

I didn't.  I finished getting the red barberry into the ground and went on to transplant a few volunteer Blackeyed Susans into the little strip next to the Siberian iris at the toe of the slope to the sidewalk.

Still so much to do, but the light ran out.  It'll all get done-- eventually-- if I keep plugging away at it.  At this rate I should be able to go back to working on the inside of the house by, oh, late September or so.

It Never Fails

Well, after studying over it and contem- plating it and poking at it ever since Memorial Day week- end, I put in a plant order with Wayside Gardens early this morning.

Was not that easy a process.  The biggest hassle was trying to come up to the minimum order to qualify for free shipping while incorporating only plants that'd make the biggest impact.  If I were flush with cash I would gladly have sailed on past that benchmark and loaded up on shrubs and perennials at up to 70% off.  But no.  Even as it is, I'm making this order on faith that this investment will turn out to be worth it later.  Made my final decisions early Thursday morning and was ready to submit my order, once I would receive the free-shipping promo code they were supposed to send me via email for signing up on the site.  But there was some sort of hitch and the code never came.  Waited two days, and by last night some of the plants I wanted were sold out.  Annoying.  I'd get even more annoyed, except that my computer has been working really slowly lately and my email software is even worse.  It's just possible that the registration message to Wayside never got out.

Never mind.  The plants I wanted most were still available, and I came up with replacements for the ones I couldn't get.  And found another promo code via a Google search that was better than the one I was trying to get before.

So the order is on its way, as of 1:55 this morning (I know it is; I got the confirmation).  It includes

• (2) Berberis "Helmond Pillar" European barberry shrubs (to flank the gate from the back yard on the east side of the house)



• (3) "Royal Candles" speedwell plants 

(3) "Blacknight" Alcea rosea hollyhock plants (as I pursue my never-ending quest for something tall for the back of the front border)

(3) "Millennium" Allium ornamental onion plants

(1) "Ostbo Red" Kalmia latifolia mountain laurel shrub (Pennsylvania's state flower-- this'll go over by the west fence, probably where the useless woodpile now is), and

(1)  Asteromea mongolica Kalimeris double Japanese aster.

All at very good end-of-season closeout prices.

So this noon I walk over to our town's annual Garrison Day fair, and I make a point of visiting the booths that have plants for sale.  Got a new rosemary plant (to replace my old potted one I underwatered and killed over the winter) and some basil seedlings at one.  But at this same booth what else did I see?  Three (count 'em, 3) "Blacknight" Alcea rosea hollyhock plants, in gallon pots, for sale for a buck less each than the pint-potted ones I ordered last night.  It never fails!

Just for a moment, I considered running home and calling to see if I could cancel that part of my order, and replace them with something else to keep the discount, and . . .  No, forget it.  What's done is done.  

A grassy mess

And on a brighter note, what else is done as of this afternoon is rooting the grass out of the ground- cover roses and the ornamental deadnettle in the front border.  Figured I should do that before I plant anything more.  It's true the thorns will get you if they can, but I discovered that if you pull the trailers aside with a hand-held garden fork, the weight of the handle will keep them out of the way as you weed.  So the flower bed got a hair cut.

Gradually pulling it clean

Cleaned up

And I got the first third of the open compost heap turned.  Which is to say I pulled the brush off it and cut up the sticks to give to a friend to use for kindling.  Got too dark to do anything else this evening.

The compost heap is next to the fence.  The pile in front of it is turves from the front yard.

Kindling

What else?  I picked up a used thatch rake Thursday afternoon but haven't used it yet, and the trash haulers took the bags of nutsedge-contaminated soil I put in the trash to go to the landfill (not into the borough compost pile!).  So far, so good.

What I'm hoping now is that the plant order takes its time getting here.  I have so much to do before I can get them in.  And I still have those lupines, and the broccoli and eggplant I bought in May to plant, and the herbs I got today at the fair.  Not to mention the vegetable beds have to be cleared for seeds, and tomorrow I'm getting some tomato plants from the guy the kindling is going to.  So much to do, and I'm still fighting nutsedge in the front garden, and well, you know, life is so comic that the Wayside order will probably show up the day after tomorrow.  It never fails.

Marking Boundaries

Gratuitous existing front border shot

I don't need to tell chronic house renovators how often one can make a reasoned, cerebral decision regarding phasing on a particular project, then suddenly change one's mind for any reason or none at all.

In my case, I'd decided to put off doing much planting in my new front garden bed until the path and seating area could be done. But then I came across a really good sale on plant materials at Wayside Gardens' online store, which included items I've wanted for years.  Should I?  Could I?  Would I be more foolish to spend the money on plants now, or crazier to wait and risk the things I wanted not being available in the future?

I've been leaning towards doing it . . . provided I can come to a decision on the minimum amount of plant material to qualify for the free shipping offers that seem to come and go on the site . . .  But if I'm going to go through with it, I have to know exactly where I can put the shrubs and perennials I might be getting.

Which means defining where the shrubs and perennials won't get put.  So this afternoon out I went with the tape measure, the string, and a handful of millwork off cuts to use for stakes, to lay out the area that will be paved.

Since I'm working with curves I had to use a lot of stakes, and I ran out before I got to the other side of the bed.  Had to use metal plant stakes, and broken-off paint stirrers (which don't stand up too well). It has occurred to me that those pieces of 5/8" painted quarter round I put out for the Large Item Pick-Up three or four weeks ago could have been cut up for layout stakes.  And plant stakes, too, for that matter.  Oh, well.  Inutiles regrets.

Didn't take too long to get the general shape down and marked, a couple hours or so, though I had to tweak the shape of the path a time or two.

I tested the width with my lawn mower, and initally it wasn't wide enough.  No problem, move the stakes and shift the line over.

Once the stakes were in the right position, took the string and marked the line on both sides.

Frankly, I wish there was a longer path in relation to the size of the seating area, but it is what it is.  And how I pave it will make a difference.  Right now, my hope and dream is to do the paving in flagstones.  If I can get them free from some friend or acquaintance's land, all the better.  But that means the boundary line doesn't have to be precise.  And I want the flag at the west end to intrude into the grass past the brick border.

It'll also need a teeny-tiny "retaining wall" at the south edge, since the ground slopes as much as 6" in the 6' or so this area will be wide.  Rough ashlar limestone blocks?  Or nice Beaver County breadloaf-sized roundy rocks?  Whatever's cheaper!

Once the paving area was laid out, I had just enough time before getting changed for work to move the brick border to reflect the bigger radius I scribed and grubbed out yesterday.  This time I broke the line where the path will emerge, so only a couple non-matching bricks were needed.  Nice.

I think the enlarged curve looks a lot better.  What do you think?

Credit Where Credit Is Due

The past three days I've been getting the rest this year's vegetable garden planted, and there's a bit of a story behind that.

And the story is that I did not exactly do it on my own. So credit and thanks will be hereby given where they are due.

In the first place, I didn't do the heavy digging this year. Or at least, not much of it.

I wasn't allowed to do anything of the sort until the 2nd of June, when my doctor cleared me for regular activity. And then I had enough to do getting the potatoes moved. My dream-- my fond, fantastic dream-- was that I'd locate some friend or neighbor who had a small rototiller that could do my small kitchen garden beds without tearing up the cobblestone paving. This was rather necessary for my purposes, since as I've posted before, my vegetables share the yard with two large maple trees. They simply love getting their roots in the beds and cumbering up the dirt, and any vegetable starts just popped in would face too much competition.

My friend Frieda* thought her husband might know someone who had a small rototiller, and the idea was to get whoever that was to come over and do my garden before the end of May.

Didn't happen, couldn't happen. This friend of a friend and his rototiller was too busy.

But a week or so ago, Frieda's husband found an old gas rototiller in the back of their garage. And with a little tuning up, it worked! And this past Sunday, while I was at church, they came over and churned the soil over.

I have to admit I was disappoin- ted in my hopes for a completely maple-root-pulverized garden. Obviously, the tiller tines don't go as deep as I'm used to plunging in my garden fork. But often as not, whenever I yanked on a root, it came loose. So the machine got in there and cut more than first appeared. The three beds still needed weeding around the edges and some general forking over, but the worst of the job was done for me.

(By the way-- who knew that white clover had such tenacious roots? Ye gods!)

So I thank Frieda and her husband, but that isn't the extent of the debt of gratitude I owe. For barring the onions and the leeks that've been dividing and going to seed around the edges the past two or three years, all the plants in these three beds were given to me by an elder in my presbytery who owns a garden center and nursery over in Butler County. He went through surgery and chemo for Stage III colon cancer three years ago and graciously said I could have whatever I wanted. I drove out to Quality Gardens last Thursday to pick up my haul, and came away with an amazing variety of plants.

As I mentioned, I took three days planting them all, starting Monday evening. I don't want to turn this into a cancer blog (feh!), but it turns out that you can't go full speed gardening after a five hour dose of chemotherapy.

Never mind. The plants are in! In addition to the snow peas, lettuce, and potatoes in the north bed, here's what I've got:

South bed: Crucifers-- "Premium Crop" and "Romanesco" broccoli and Brussels sprouts (variety not tagged).

West bed: Tomatoes-- Big 'uns "Brandywine Pink," "Cherokee Purple," and "Mortgage Lifter" (I wish!), then "Yellow Pear," "Small Fry," and "Ildi," the last three all grape/cherries, then "Speckled," a paste tomato I may not have given enough room.

East bed: Cucumbers-- "Sweet Slice," "Diva," and "Muncher." Sweet peppers-- "Lady Bell" (I'll let mine go red) and "Mohawk."

And in the border at the front of the house (yes!), "Bambino" miniature eggplant and two starts of broccoflower. Should have been three, but my greedy beast dog ate one!

I love the heirloom names. They bring up such an idiot sense of romance in me. And as I've learned in the past, the taste will give me even more to love.

So thank you to Tom as well, and I hope the yield I get pays him for his generosity.

Worth the Effort

Considering that my stoopy tumor turned out to be a Stage 1C, Grade 1 ovarian cancer, and considering that it was 1c instead of 1A only because it ruptured during surgery, there certainly is a little voice in me that questions whether it would have made a difference had I been able to get it all out on March 25th as originally planned.

But accepting that the bad cold I got prevented that, I have to be glad for the four additional weeks I had to do things and get ready before I went in.

Like getting my hollies planted. I am so grateful that I made the effort to get those rocks out and get that job done.

Here's some pictures taken today:

See that? That's berries. Meaning that the clerk at Lowe's was right: It was okay for me to plant two female Blue Angel hollies on my property, provided there was some kind of male holly bush within a block. I don't know the paternity of these green offspring, but there they are!

The second bush that didn't come through the winter as well is nowhere close to catching up to its sister, but it sports new growth and berries, too.

In other garden news, all the roses have buds on them and in a week or two I should have blooms.

The white lilac I transplanted two autumns ago is very happy in its new position on the east side of the house and promises to present an abundant display of blossom pretty soon.

The year-and-a-half-old blackberry bush is running riot in the east back garden border. It looks like I should have berries (yum!)-- if the birds don't get to them first.

The kerrias are the best they've been so far, and the bearded irises and the clematis lift up their heads for joy.

It's really chilly here in southwestern Pennsylvania today, in the 40s and 50s, and they say it'll get below freezing tonight. I heard on a radio garden show this morning that my perennials should weather that just fine; it's annuals, only, one needs to cover. Makes me wonder if I should put sheets over my leaf lettuce and snow peas. But both of those like being planted before the last frost, so unless I'm feeling really energetic after evening service, I'll let them take their chances, too.