May 29, 2025

As before mentioned, this has been a strange spring. Right now, we've had several days of chilly, cloudy, sprinkly weather.  Jim planted all the early seeds and potatoes, and most of them didn't come up. It didn't warm up like some years and we had no rain, so we blamed it on that. Jim planted again in early May, we had some warm days and some wet ones and things are coming up. The lettuce, though, not at all. 

I planted these flowers in my flower garden with the intent to write down where I planted them. I didn't so I'm going to try to remember now. The Alyssum I planted next to the iris south of the house because it is supposed to like hot, dry weather. That spot doesn't get watered. I planted one next to the back of the waterfall into the pond, and one some place in the rock garden section, and the zinnas ... I can't remember. It's getting pretty weedy out there and Jim helped me one day getting the rock garden section cleaned up. Then it started raining again. We got 2". It's a big help for the new grass planted where the old septic tank was and the new one is. 

 

April 19, 2025

A new growing season is upon us. I thought we had a pretty mild winter, with a couple of weeks of near zero weather and a total of 9" of snow in the only significant snows we had this winter and they were after the first of the year including the one in March as evidenced in the first photo here. 

Last fall mom shared some spring bulbs with me and I evidently planted them and forgot about them because I was surprised when they bloomed. The funny thing is, Mom forgot about hers, too.

According to my brother, netted iris.

I've never been able to get crocuses to grow, so we'll see how they do in future years. If they look like they are lying down, they are, because the wind is blowing.

I love my scillas. They are the only thing in the garden that is really blue. My blue bells are very blue and are growing into a big clump, but I didn't get a picture.

I love all the different kinds of daffodils and jonquils I have. It has been a strange spring with hot and cold weather at the wrong times and some of my jonquils at the front of the house didn't bloom at all and my hyacinths never came up.

Pear blossoms.

End of the day.

 

May 1, 2024

 Gardening season has started, albeit a little late on our end. Jim has been sick with a very tiring and coughing virus and finally has enough energy to get some planting done. He planted potatoes two days ago, onions, beets, peas, lettuce, carrots and swiss chard yesterday. We don't have spinach seed. We got almost 2.5" of rain last week, which was nice, but also hindered the planting. I have been slowly weeding and getting trash out of the flower gardens. It's been windy the last few days and it hasn't been a fun job. Today was cloudy as well as windy, so I didn't go out at all. I planted a couple of perennials. One I don't remember just now and the other was and ice flower plant. Our mix of shade, sun and clay soil limits what and how things grow. 

I have what I think is a spaghetti squash plant growing in a pot in my dining room. The last spaghetti squash we opened to cook had two sprouting seeds and I planted them. One came up and is blooming. Since it grew among all our other squash it could be cross pollinated and who knows what we will get. 

May 3, 2023

 Spring has been a slow starter this year.  We've had plenty of cold springs of late, but as soon as we get a bit more green or a few 'soft' days, we start hoping the cold is gone and warm and growing days are right around the corner. Hope springs eternal. We had some hot days in April, but more often we've had chill and wind. A lot of wind. Several days with 30+mph wind made it unpleasant to want to be out working in gardens or at all. 

Yesterday was a very pleasant day, with 57 degree temps and little wind. I even felt warm digging out a few weeds and planting seeds. I planted moss ross by the mailbox and some more in our little corner plot at the front of the house, along with some snapdragon seeds.  I'm not sure I'll have much luck with growing things from seeds, except zinnas which a harvested myself. The alyssum I planted under the flag pole are tiny things just starting to come up.

Jim says that the peas are coming up as well.  

April 15, 2023

Spring is coming, although it doesn't look like it from these pictures on March 26th. We woke that day to a surprise of 8" of snow on Sunday morning. 

Now, nearly a month later, our garden has been covered with chicken manure and compost, chiseled, tilled and planted with early crops. Potatoes, spinach, lettuce, beets, peas and onions.  We have been having a problem with two kinds of fungus on our onions, root rot and black mildew. The online solution is not to plant onions where there is fungus for 6 years. Our solution is to plant fewer onions and harvest them before the fungus does. 

We bought a dozen JetStar tomato plants. We really liked the way the produced and stayed healthy last year, so we are trying them again. We have 2 milk jugs of the 12 we need to cover them, and we plan on getting some yellow tomato plants later. 

I have planted alyssum seeds by the flag pole and the spot by the driveway. I planted snapdragon seeds there also.  (by the driveway) I intended to plant them in two spots, but when I was half done I noticed I spilled the rest onto the edging, so now I will have plants were I don't want them. If they come up, anyway. 

After three hot days last week, two of which the temperatures approached 90. we are expecting frost for the next couple of nights.  We had drizzle today, which was welcome.  We are very dry around here at the moment. 

 

May 10, 2022

Things are marching on in the garden department.  Saturday, we bought 12 tomato plants, Rutgers and Better Girl.  We also bought some yellow tomato plants, planted three and gave three away to friends. Jim got the hitch on the MT fixed so that he could use the planter to plant sweet corn.  It was still a bit wet, but he planted 4 short rows anyway. 

I didn't' post anything about our new chickens.  These are the meat birds, we bought 25, 2 were killed and three turkey chicks.  Unfortunately, the turkeys were picking on the chickens, so they are separated. They turkeys did not kill the chickens, it was an unfortunate accident of a falling brooder house cover. We also have 6 new layer chicks.

I think Paislee has a turkey chick.

 

May 3, 2022

 
I've said this before, this has been a strange winter and spring weather-wise.  We didn't have any appreciable moisture in the snow variety or any other variety over the winter.  The temperatures have been volatile. On April 29th we got 2" much needed rain with mostly marble-sized hail, plus a few a little bigger in 45 minutes and then another .6" overnight. That hail propelled by a strong west wind banged on our brand-new living room picture window. I was a bit nervous, but it stood the onslaught. Usually, that isn't a worry with the long roof overhangs we have. The only real damage was some bruising on the onions and rather battered tulips.  

Then on May 2nd we got some more rain ultimately another 1.5" with snow.  And here is proof.  

It was cold this day.  I don't think Jim has ever mowed in coveralls. 

Weird weather.

April 21, 2022

It's windy out here, and dry.  This will be a common theme among residents of this area and this blog.  It's hard to get outside and remove garden trash in the high winds we are having.  Yesterday was a quiet day in the wind department so I cleaned out the second iris patch.  I was out earlier this morning and as it was nice I was determined to do another iris patch clean out.  That was a job!  When the wind was not gusty, I could put dry iris leaves in my garden cart, but when it was, I would watch my efforts blow across the lawn. Eventually, I put my jacket over the trash to keep the dry vegetation inside my cart, and then the jacket blew off.  Thankfully, not much blew out before I put the jacket back in place and moved the trash to the compost pile.  I'm hoping for the best that that loose pile of dry stuff won't blow from here to kingdom come after all. 

Here is further proof of our windy weather.  The wire holding this birdfeeder up has given out, or worked itself off.  Jim found it blown onto it's side, and it is now residing in the shop waiting for this windy season to be over.

Here's our first mess of asparagus. I had a little white chicken gravy we had on biscuits so I cooked this up, put it in the gravy and we had it for breakfast on toast.

Jim has planted more potatoes.  There are two full rows out there.  He also planted spinach, lettuce and swiss chard.  The soil is dry as a bone so we are letting them just hang out there until we have time to attend to constant watering. 

 

April 2, 2022

 Some days it acts like spring.  My scilla's are ready to bloom, the daffodils are starting to bloom and my white hyacinth next to the front stoop has three blooming stalks.  Today was a perfect day to work outside and I dumped two cartloads of garden trash.  Jim planted onions.  We are using only white onions this year.  We have onion fungus running rampant in our garden.  I looked up information, and it stays in the ground for years and the yellow onions are infected more so than the white ones.  He planted potatoes last Saturday.

We are in desperate for some moisture around here and many other places in the state as well. We had a little snow a few days ago.  Nothing much, again. It looked white out, but didn't cover all the grass.

Jim fixed the sprinkler system that broke because it didn't get drained and turned off in the fall  That caused a flood in the basement that included one bedroom, the laundry room, under the stairs and a little water leaked into the furnace room closet. We had been gone all day and Jim went out to hunt deer at the farm after we got home. Later, a neighbor told us water was shooting from the side of the house.  Thankfully, I know where the water shutoff is.  I didn't know what to do.  The big shop vac was at our business.  I couldn't get a hold of Jim, no cell service. Fortunately, we have good neighbors with a big shop vac. I called Jim several times so he would know there was a problem at home and our neighbors started slurping up the water with the vac and I started hauling things off the floor.  When Jim got home (without any deer) he took over.  After getting up all the standing water everywhere except the carpet, and some towel mopping, we dragged the carpet outside to get it dry.  That was quite the experience, since water soaked carpet is HEAVY.  Jim rolled it and then it was 1, 2, 3, HEAVE, stopping to breather, rest and regroup and heave again. Adding insult to injury, it rained so when I tripped over the carpet and fell into the rain wet grass, getting more of me wet than the bottom few inches. The next day, Jim hung it over the chicken fence, and after it dried, rented a carpet stretcher and reinstalled it. 

So, now it's all fixed and watering the lawn. Jim has to fix a few sprinkler heads every year. 

June 16, 2020

The garden is all planted.  The corn, especially those first two rows, aren't making a good stand.  Jim had to replant the okra, none came up.  He also replanted cucumbers, zucchini and yellow summer squash, because only half the hills came up.  The spinach did badly.  I only have one plant.  I have four heads of lettuce coming on.  I wish there was more.  Our beets are doing excellently well, having been eaten off by rabbits, the last two years.  Our potatoes and tomatoes are both doing well, as well as the beans, which will as usual, prove too many.  I still have two gallons of frozen beans left. I think the cold weather we had in the middle of April may have been the reason for non-productive seeds.

We've been having a spell of very windy weather.  This is really a more normal weather pattern for us. A few years ago, we had three summers without much wind.  It felt strange at first, but it was a very pleasant change.  We seem to be back the way we were, and are as aggravated as ever with so many days of 30 mph wind.  I think it's windier than usual.  I say that we don't consider it a windy day around here until the wind reaches 25 mph. 

Jim bought me a water hyacinth the other day.  I want to take pictures as it grows.  It grows fast and and enjoy watching it. It's that tiny plant in the smaller area in the pond.

April 25, 2020

We bought a yellow tomato plant, some red and white petunias, and some snapdragons.  I intended to plant them today, but after we spent all morning cleaning out the garage, I was too tired. 

Jim has to switch the tires on the tractor so the wheel track is wider when he plants sweet corn with his cute little 2-row planter.  He planted 2 short rows of sweet corn today, below the asparagus bed.

April 18,, 2020

We had our freeze and then a warm-up.

I worked in the flower garden and wore myself out.

My scillas looked pretty bad after the freeze, but they perked up a little after it warmed up.

More snow -- April 16

It snowed ALL day. Quite a bit melted as it came.

The morning after.

April 13, 2020

Saturday the 11th, was a beautiful, sunny, non-windy, almost hot day.  

Jim worked in the garden all day planting early vegetables, 

carrots, beets, peas, lettuce, spinach and potatoes. 

We need to remember it takes 5# of seed potatoes for one row.

We didn't get some of the varieties of seed we usually get, the seeds were well picked over by the time we bought ours. 

I spent my almost hour cleaning up and weeding my flower beds.  I work until I start getting tired and then take my cart full of vegetation to the compost pile. 

I also picked a lot of daffodils since a freezing cold snap was expected.

Today we woke up to a 17 degree morning.  

I haven't looked out to see what has survived.  

Here are some before photos.

My pile of daffys

And in pint jars.  My favorite flowers.

April 6, 2020

Today was a the first really nice day in April.  It was especially so, because of the lack of wind.  

It's the first time I was out cleaning the flower gardens in April.  I picked all the daffodils that were out.  They seem late, but we had a hard freeze that did the hyacinths in.  

My scillas are blooming as well as the creeping charlie and hen bit.  I'm hoping to be out early enough to curb some of those. (not the scillas)  I take boiling water and scald the ones in the brick garden walk.

Jim planted onions this weekend, and mowed for the first time today. He also extended our sidewalk with rock.  

April 3

March 24, 2020

Every year I know I need to get out and start cleaning my flower beds early in March, because we generally have some nice days then.  

But, I don't do it.  

This year March came in like a lamb with sunny days and temperatures in the 50s-70s.  

(We also had some really nice days in February, but I refuse to work outside in February.)

This winter wasn't as cold or snowy as the last two years.  We had our biggest snow in last December,

almost 11 inches.

Dec 29

This is still the same snow. 

January 25

Windy days and bag kites

March 5

March 9

March 13 

March 19  --- Hail

I got out March 21st and cleaned out flower beds to the tune of two garden cart loads and two more loads today.  

Jim is outside planting rhubarb, which we have never had any luck with since it needs acidic soil and we don't have any, and asparagus to add to our current patch.  

After that, he's building rafters for our new chicken house/garden shed.

This project will take awhile, because even though he got most of the wood free as leftovers from some of the Costco chicken house projects, (we put the gas in), there will be a lot of other expenses and we pay as we build.