4/28/2013

After a few days of rain, we finally got some sunshine today.  He has been taking advantage of that.  He started out with planting marigolds in the corners of the flower beds out front and petunias in the little diamond boxes.  He potted up some larger wandering Jews and some airplane plants.  We re-potted the lemon philodendron into a hanging pot with a drip tray.

Back out to the yard, he then planted 3 wisteria starts around the oak tree in back along with some homestead day lilies around the base of an old stump out there.  I think we may plant some sedum in the top of the stump.  The day lilies have bulbs that are edible, and the flowers can be battered and fried.  At least, that's what we're told; but we'll have to wait till next year before we could try the flowers.  We want the bulbs to spread in the meantime, so it'll be a while before we might sample those.

Now he's working on a 100-foot row of thornless blackberry starts.  We figured the Indian peach tree for the same row as the rest of the flowering trees, just past the mimosa.  The Indian peach does produce peaches, but it sure is pretty when it blooms.  The foliage is more red than green, though.  That whole side of the driveway will be beautiful blooming trees for spring, and the mimosa blooms should last through the summers.

We kind of have an idea where the cherry trees will grow, out back on the other side of where the back yard fence will go.  The violas (which are also edible) will start out in front of three of the bigger flower beds out front.  They can spread to cover that whole little hill and be a nice ground cover for that area.

4/26/2013 A 3-hour tour.

Yesterday, we took a 3-hour (or more) tour of the greenhouses and gardens of some friends of ours up here on C Highway.  We went over there to pick up some fishing pole bamboo and some thornless blackberry canes.  We took Sis with us, and the Blazer was so full of plants on the way home, she was almost crowded out of the back seat.  We came home with two old homestead cherry trees.  These are pie cherries but not too sour, he said.  We've tried other kinds of cherry trees from different nurseries but never had much luck with them.  They have several of these trees in their yard, though, and they are prolific in this area.  Hopefully, they will do the same for us.

We also came home with a bunch more cabbage plants, which he immediately started putting in one of his new raised beds he built for vegetables.  We also got some Wisteria (which I've missed).  We just have to figure out a place to plant it where it can grow up something.  Maybe the old wedding arbor can be fixed, but I guess we'll have to see about that.  We also brought home a lemon-colored philodendron that we didn't have, some caladium, some old homestead day lilies, all kinds of things.  On top of all that, we forgot the blackberry canes.  We did get the fishing pole bamboo, though.

He went back this morning to take them a few helpful things and pick up the blackberry canes.  He brought back some violas and apple mint and 50-75 thornless blackberry root stocks.  These particular friends have a 2-story main greenhouse and several smaller ones that he called "quonset huts" around the property, along with cold frames, flowered planting areas, and beautiful landscaped areas.  Their gardens and planting areas are exquisitely beautiful with paths, retaining walls, rocked areas, a little pond for water lilies, even a sundial on a rock pedestal.  The greenhouses are packed full with all different kinds of cacti, succulents, so many plants I could not even begin to name them all!  I greatly enjoyed the 3-hour tour, although I am definitely taking it easy today.

I love plant sharing.  Landscaping a yard out of a bulldozer pad becomes a whole lot easier that way.  We have some things that we had set out in the yard over at the trailer that he's already harvesting starts from for the yard here at the house.  It'll really be beautiful when it's done.  Of course, sometimes it seems that finding pretty things to plant is never really done.

4/23/2013

We went up to the post office in Norwood today.  While we were in town, we decided to run to Shetler's too.  We found some nice-looking dogwood trees, so we got a pink dogwood and a white dogwood.  When we got home, he planted a row of flowering trees on the other side of the driveway in front of the electric fence.  They will be quite visible from the porch swing without blocking the view of the pond.  He planted pink dogwood, white dogwood, the Redbud, and the mimosa tree.  He has done quite a bit of landscaping so far this spring with more yet to go.  He has got 2 more good-sized raised beds built beside the greenhouse with more planned.  With all he's done already and all he plans to do, the yard is already beautiful; and it will be even more beautiful every year that goes by.

4/20/2013

While he went over to Ava to pick up a laptop stand for me this morning, he also went to the Farmer's market and ran into one of our neighbors who is a horticulturist and master gardener who gives lectures at the university extension over there in Mountain Grove.

Anyway, he came home with the laptop stand plus a Blazer full up with several pots of bushes & trees. There is a double bridal wreath, 3 Goldmound spirea, 2 forsythia, 1 flowering Quince, a Redbud tree, and a Mimosa tree. All are in pots.

Wednesday, we're going to go back over to our master-gardener friend's place and pick up some fishing pole bamboo to plant around the lagoon too and a 55-gal drum of thornless blackberry root stock. Now just to finish deciding where it's all going to go -- and see if anything else he has catches our eyes while we're over there Wednesday.

It's almost 70 here today, and it's been a beautiful sunny day.  I probably should have done some laundry and hung it out, but I never got around to it today.  I really like my new laptop stand.  I'm glad he found it for me.

04/13/2013 - Another project finished.

He brought home the flower bulbs in nice biodegradable peat pots today.  Then he filled the new flower beds up, and we planted the flowers - pots and all.  Now, we have daffodils, hyacinths and tulips.  We will add marigolds to the boxes when they're ready to plant too.  Should provide us with nice flowers from spring to fall that way.

First he lined the planting beds all up and filled with dirt, and then we started planting.

It's been such a nice pretty day outside at 72 degrees and sunny with just a light breeze.  It was a great day to plant flowers.  Once we are past danger of frost, we'll hang flowering baskets from the rail above, so we'll have flowers above and below the porch rail.  These smell so good too!  

Planting Projects - 04/12/2013

A few more finished projects:

The plant bar installed in front of the front porch for hanging baskets of flowers and food:

Plant bar installed

Shade cloth on the greenhouse:

Shade cloth on 4/7

Pre-Flowers:

Pre-flowers 4/7

Add a few geraniums:

Add another shelf, some chains, and a few more geraniums, then some petunias:

and in the meantime, he has been building raised flower beds to go in a row between the house and the main drive.  The dining room table is also half full of bedding plants.  

4/7/2013

Yesterday, we planted some more flats of bedding plants.  I did find that handling the tiny seeds with a pair of plain old tweezers made it easier for me to hang on to them and get them in those little disks:

11 jalapeno pepper

13 nasturtiums

12 sweet banana peppers

18 bell peppers

18 Marconi peppers

24 pansies

24 petunias

He spent his birthday yesterday at the farmer's market in Ava with one of our granddaughters.  They had a good time.  He sold all the Rhode Island Red hens but couldn't even give the rooster away.  He sold one of the Kiko-cross does, but brought the other one back home with him.  He also bought 5 big California/New Zealand cross rabbits for $3 apiece.  They are young rabbits but they're already good sized.

He potted up 3 big hanging pots of philodendrons day before yesterday, and put up a hanger above each bedroom window.  We'll probably put the third pot out in the greenhouse, as he and his sis put the shade cloth on today.  This morning, we also trimmed back the ice plant pretty hard and he worked up a basket that should look very nice when it starts growing in there.  

At this time, he is just putting the last screws on the plant rail that he hung out on the front porch for hanging baskets of flowers and veggies.  It looks great already, and the baskets will be just the right height for me to be able to water them from in the porch.  It's been a busy few days.

Garden 2013 (04/03/2013)

Garden 2013

Since we have 12+ cabbage plants in greenhouse, he will not start more or plant cabbage in the outdoor gardens till fall.  That will give us plenty of fresh cabbage, plus dehydrated cabbage for cooking with, and maybe even give him enough to make some homemade kraut.  In the meantime, he's been filling up little planter cells like mad.  So far he has planted the following for the outdoor gardens.

Starter Plants to go Outside:

24 Mortgage lifter tomatoes.

12 beef-steak tomatoes.

6 Chadwick cherry tomatoes

16 green peppers

6 habanero peppers

24 broccoli

24 cauliflower

24 brussel sprouts

Sounds like a lot of tomatoes, but we always can tomatoes, tomato juice, sauce, and salsa.  Tomato juice and canned tomatoes are the one thing we run out of every single year.  We got our order of hanging basket planters today.  That was pretty fast on the shipping for those.  We did pick up a few bags of potting soil in town to day to get a start on a few hanging baskets too.

04/01/2013

New projects will be under way soon.  Today, he brought home all the parts to build a "plant rail" along the front porch.  We ordered some 10" hanging baskets yesterday for this same project.  The rail will hold hanging baskets full of both flowers and vegetables.  Photos will be posted as the project gets underway.  He also got some more seeds for plant starts in the greenhouse and some for the hanging baskets also.

In the meantime, he took 7 goats to the livestock auction about 10 days ago.  He also sold a nice little Nubian doe kid a few days ago.  We do have a few little doe kids left, but he's only keeping one.  She is a little red Nubian doe kid with silver spots that he has been calling Frosty.  Then we're keeping the buck, along with Moon (who should be pregnant now), and of course we have the werther out there to keep the buck company.  He came home from the swap meet Saturday with two pair of BB Red bantams also.  He's going to get rid of a half dozen of our bigger Rhode Island Red laying hens and maybe one of the roosters, and we'll keep the banties instead.  Banty chickens forage for themselves better than full-sized chickens do.

The fat hog will be on it's way to the processing plant some time Wednesday.  This will probably be the least amount of livestock we've had for quite some time.