One Bed of Peppers

After work I went out and dinked around -- too pooped to start being really productive.  But dinner helped, and I went back out and got 16 peppers into the ground.  That's one bed planted.  Two more to go. 

That's a lot of peppers, I know, but they are easy to freeze and so very useful!

Wind

Sooo much wind.  The boys weeded before they left, so there is a clear place for melons now.  But the wind.

I had hoped to plant the peppers today, but it's just too violent out there.  Maybe some tomorrow after work.

Work

The boys gave me a couple hours of their time, and three walkways were cleared and mulched.  I got the north edge done, and by the end of the day the sweet potatoes were in the ground. 

In the coming week it's supposed to be in the nineties most days.  I've been waiting for warmer weather, but some middle ground would be best! Great Plains weather: last week forty-five, this week ninety-five.

Visitors!

Philip and Peter arrived and we all went to dinner -- at The Black Crow in Beatrice, a place I've always wanted to go!  Lovely.

Sunshine Again

Anna and I put a fence next to one of the rows of peas that needs support -- two more to go.  These are blooming a bit, so it's time to get ready for a crop. Yum.

What a Day!

It was warm once -- I remember!  But right now it's fifty degrees with the wind blustering like it's March.  As I have mentioned, the peas are loving this spring.

At least there's no warm air to make tornadoes with.  Today, anyway.

Rain and More Rain

Maybe half an inch fell this morning.  Clear skies for the drive home, but now the dark clouds are gathering.  I forgot the rain gauge at Home Depot today.  Of course.

But the BIG news is that some peas are blooming!  They need to be put on a fence...

Trees

The toughest "weeds" in the garden are the ones that we are reluctant to pull AND that are hard to pull.  Trees meet both criteria.  They are cute little maple trees, or hardy elms, or friendly mulberries.  Even when they are small, but especially if they've made it through a season or two, their roots are tenacious.

So Saturday I recruited Doug the Olympic-style, over-the-head-with-who-knows-how-many-pounds  weight lifter, to deal with the trees.  He would squat, wrap the flexible little trunk around his hand, and stand up slowly, back straight, thighs doing all the work.  Perfect form.  And the trees came up.  Hooray.

A Beautiful Day

Today was as lovely a day as any Nebraska can dish up: sun, a soft breeze, no hotter than seventy-five degrees, and little puffy clouds in a light blue sky.

We started on the south end of the property, visiting the fruit trees.  There are tiny little apples and peaches, but no apricots or plums that I can see.  Hmmm, do apricots need to cross-pollinate with someone else?

 Then we walked past the garden up to the north end to visit Corbie and Serena.  They considered us to be strangers, mainly because we brought no salad offerings ( a wheelbarrow full of garden weeds is their favorite treat right now).  Corbie stared at us silently and mooed not a single moo.  Serena snuffled hopefully and squelched around in her pen (lots of rain equals good squelching), but we had no treats.

Back at the house, we picked off ticks.  The count?  Three so far.  They're in the tall grass but not, thankfully, in the garden.

The Girls

It's cloudy and rainy and a little bit thundery, so here's a picture from sunnier days.

Well, I know what picture I'm going to put here, but my computer won't do it for me. Later.

Steady Gentle Rain

Lovely.  Yesterday we got some more weeding done, and Jeff prepped the ground for the 9 (count them, NINE) grape plants he bought at Menard's.  They'll get in the ground next week, perhaps.  But grapes do grow in Nebraska -- lots of vineyards springing up -- and as long as we keep the goats away, some of them will survive!

On the inside the house front, my thyme seeds have sprouted.  They are SO TINY.  How does anything that small get a start out in the great outdoors?  The parsley seedlings are gangly but are getting their first real leaves, so that's progress.  And the peppers are waiting patiently for after this rainy period to get into the ground.

And last night I found a fat packet of carrot seeds.  Where shall I put them?  They're not in the plan!

Action Before Rain

Little cabbages are transplanted, with some dill left in between.  Some peas have fencing, some don't.  The raspberries all have support fencing -- hooray -- and there's sand to dig in around the grapes.

Of course, no rain gauge yet.  If I buy one, will it rain?

A Productive Weekend

It felt like March -- Monsieur Owen, cleaner of the mudroom, had put away all the coats, so I was out in the garden sporting the layered look:  fuzzy jacket I wore around the house all winter plus a lined windbreaker on top.  Weeding warms one up, I find.  But the nose was cold!


The peas are loving it, but I had planned to transplant peppers into the garden.  Turns out that cold, not just frost, can traumatize them for life, so I whisked them back in the house and put out some tomatoes instead. And cleaned up around the grapes. I hope to have some nice before and after pictures to put up for the rest of the week.  

Note To Self

A rain gauge.

I looked for upright buckets (one with a split bottom, several on their sides), I stuck a finger in the bird bath (unknown beginning water level), I eyed the mud (not much since it was so dry).  One-half inch is quite a guess.  And more has come, with quite cool temperatures (45 at night, 50 during the day).  


A rain gauge.

Rain

Perhaps one-half an inch of rain, that came down all at once, but soaked in quickly and made pulling the rejuvenated weeds much easier. They will now make their attempt at a really big takeover. We got one bed cleared for planting peppers this weekend, so progress was made.

The Shepherdess

She claims to be calling the sheep.  She just looks comfortable to me.

Did I Say "Cool"?

 

  Did  I mention what a lovely cool spring it has been?  

Well, that's over.  Today it  got up to 94 degrees. 

I did haul a little mulch and pull a few weeds after work, just to try to get my back in shape.  "Weekend warrior" syndrome makes for a miserable Saturday night.

Here's hoping for the thunderstorm that's in Wednesday's forecast -- without tornadoes, of course.

A New Year

Raspberries.

Onions.

Peas.

So here we are.  Last year was the first summer working full-time.  No gardening, to speak of.  It was out there, but there was little that made it into the house: some Lazy Housewife green beans, and tomatoes.  The rest...did not.

But this has been a lovely spring for gardening.  It has been cool -- the peas love it -- and rain has fallen at reasonable intervals, and we got out and got started at just the right time.  So now there are onions, peas, potatoes, spinach and cabbage all started.

We'll see how it all comes out!

Violets in the Garden

I've been welcoming violet volunteers in the vegetable garden for years.  This year, some of them are blooming.  Was I just unobservant?