October 5, 2008

What a day!  The forecast was dead on, if not a bit warmer than expected.  The day started early with a smoothie for the family.  Then my father showed up and we went to Lowes for the corregated fiberglass panels.  I'm really glad my dad went too because he's better at planning things than I.  We ended up getting three 12-foot panels and three of the corregated 1 by's.  It was a pain standing in line to pay because they were so flimsy that you couldn't stand them on their edge or they'd buckle and crack.  Here's what one looks like next to the kid's playset.



So we started by using scrap wood to build up one end with a 4x4 and a 2x2 in the center.  Then we started screwing it down to the corregatd 1x's.



I like how one panel covers both beds perfectly.  What I don't like is that it is not easily removable.  I also noticed a bit of a dip in the middle that couldn't be helped.  I guess I could shim the middle to make up for it.  But what we can't change is the middle of the bins. It won't handle much weight but hopefully the pitch will keep the rain from pooling.  However if it snows hard we'll have to get out there and clear it fast.  Hehe the covers cost $60 in materials.  But doesn't it look good!?



So check that off the list.  Of course while we were working my neighbor came out and had to comment on how many blackberries were ripe in the back 40.  So even though it wasn't on the list my dad and I geared up and went to do battle with the bramble once again.  The nemisis...



And the prize...



As you can see, the dead canes are thick and numerous.  The rest of the year is scheduling out to make it very unlikely that I'll get back there with a saw-tipped weedwhacker.  And boy would it be hard work to remove all those dead canes to allow for the new canes not to grow on top of a mountain of dead branches like they currently do.  Most of the harvest today came using a rake to pull vines down to something reachable.  The bramble is well over 10 feet high.  In other words, it's a mess.  Cleaning it up may have to wait until spring.  But today we got about another gallon of berries, bringing the total jelly harvest to about 3 gallons.  That should make enough jelly for three families to have homemade jelly for the coming year. Whew!

The next item of the list was the daunting task of fall cleaning of the beds and removal of the trellis.  I got my motivation up by starting with the cucumbers.  First I harvested everything ready to harvest.



And all that's from plants that are almost covered with powdery mildew.  I chickened out and didn't rip out the plants.  Despite the rapidly spreading disease, the cukes keep on growing.  So I took pains to unthread the vines through the trellis, keeping all the vines that had inch-long cukes growing. 



Notice how I just left the vines sprawling all over the place.  And look at what I am still hopeful to harvest.



The scene was chaotic, but the kids had a blast playing in the garden with daddy.



But there was still a ton of work to do... and I had a party to go to in the evening!



Next task was to harvest every tomato that had any chance of ripening this winter wrapped in newspaper. I got a decent harvest, mostly of Early Girls.  I am on the look-out for an early variety slicer that's slightly bigger and NOT owned by Monsanto.  For salads I think I'll grow a couple cherry varieties.  But anyway, here is the harvest I still have to bleach and wrap in newsprint.



The next step was to attack the tomato jungle.  It was much easier to remove than the cukes because I wasn't saving it.



So all the dead vines and the totally green tomatoes went into the yard waste container.  I didn't want to spread the blight to the rest of my plants in my compost.  I don't have the means to kill it off like Cedar Grove likely does, especially since we can now compost meat and bones and pizza boxes etc.  /boggle

After the tomatoes came out the toughest task was next.  The pole beans twirl themselves up the trellis and were all but impossible to remove gently.  So all I could do was rip and rip and rip.  I only broke the trellis in two places.  It took forever, but I was in the zone.  During my demo I found about a pound of beans that were in various states of green/brownishness.  So I pulled them out and will attempt to dry them and harvest bean seed for next year.  I guess I'll have to figure out how to dry the beans now. Ah research!

The next time I stopped to take a picture, this is what I had left!



So the dauntiing task was finally finished.  We folded up the trellis and hung it and the tomato cages in the shed for next year.  A note on my shed.  It's 8x8 and very disorganized.  I've got shelves that I don't even use.  I really need to gut it and organize things better. I bet I could store a ton more stuff in there if I just had the time to do that.  Maybe this fall or winter I'll bundle up and head out there, set up a tarp to keep the stuff dry and organize.  Anyway, here is the shot I took as I was removing the 2x4s.



What a change from yesterday huh?



I didn't have time to set up the trellis, but I moved it over to the bed, and I also have to clean up the SWC for next year.  Unfortunately it's filled with water so it's going to be harder to empty.  Maybe I can handle both items some day this week if the weather holds and I can get home before the sun goes down.

Although based on DoubleD's advice I didn't want to set up the hoop covers, I did want to see how the hoops worked and train the PVC to bend right.  Unfortunately the first pipe I installed was an oopsie.  I didn't think of the fact that the small bed is only 3 feet wide rather than 4 feet.  The 3/4 inch pipe didn't bend well enough and it creased and broke.  Drat.  I didn't think of that before hand.  I should have gotten thinner walled PVC I guess.  Thankfully I bought more than I ended up using so I had extra and I can use the pieces for a top brace for the small bed.  But to try to train the PVC to bend that much, I bent it temporarily between the foreground holder and the second bed over.  The hoops look great together!



Hopefully in a week the PVC will bend enough to make it to two feet more to the bracket.  If not, i've got to re-think the materials for the hoop cover for that bed.  x this is me crossing my fingers, hehe.

Lastly, I am not sure what to do with Judy's marigolds.  They're mamoth.



But I don't want them under my hoop cover, unless they're perennial?  If not, i wonder if they'd hold up to being kept in a vase.  I could get a month or two of fresh flowers working through this 1 SF.  Speaking of flowers, I didn't take a picture, but that wind storm we had the other day destroyed my centerpiece rose bush. It's currently laying down in the rose garden.  /sigh  I hope if my aunt and I can butcher it it will stand back up and grow again.  If not it will be a major loss of a very mature rose bush.  Of course I would replace it with something other than pink, hehe.  Maybe yellow for my son.

So, going through my to-do list, here's what I crossed off.

• Plant garlic in the blueberry bed.  I couldn’t find out if it companions they dislike each other, but they companion with raspberries, so I’ll give it a shot.  I plan on planting six inches apart with I think 4 inch spacing.  My brother will set me straight and provide the seed from his 2008 harvest.  Keep it going in the family.


• Plant more lettuce, successioning it in October for late Winter harvest.  My existing lettuce is doing better such that I may even get some to harvest soon.


• Harvest final cukes and tomates for storage and ripening. 


• Rip out the beans, cukes and tomato plants.  I think the only ones I’ll compost are the beans because the rest have succumed to blight or mildew.  I don’t want to take the chance that it’ll carry on in my compost.


• Remove the trellis and install my old tiny 2×2 trellis with jute twine that I had up when I first started.  It will fit nicely under the hoop cover and be my only trellis this winter. I ran out of time... next week maybe, it'll go up easily but I may need to re-string it with twine.


• Buy the corregated roofs for my compost bins and install them.  The rainy season has started!


• Consider covering the beds. Not sure.  Maybe DoubleD will chime in to help me decide. Per DoubleD, not yet, see above.


• Buy a few bags of beauty bark and mulch the new blueberry bed.  Maybe install landscape fabric under it to keep the weeds and trees from creaping into it. I decided against the landscape fabric partly because I was lazy, partly I forgot and already had started, and partly didn't have that kind of time to sculpt the fabric around everything and get it covered with a limited amount of bark.  I may regret that. hehe


• Help my aunt transplant plants to wherever she wants them, including the one into my front yard. She didn't ask me, and she got my father to help do everything she needed. I'm sure I'll help tons once the new house closes next week.

So all in all, it was a very productive weekend.  And until I was writing about it, I didn't even think about the work week to come.  Perfect!  Just as a garden should do!

Hope you enjoyed your garden this weekend!

October 4, 2008

Boy am I sore, and not just because I got a tetnus booster Friday and my arm aches whenever I move it.  Today was a decent day, though I wish I'd got a bit more done.  The weather cooperated for the most part, it only rained slightly when I was working.  But most of my day was spent spinning my wheels.

I got the truck and went to Lowes, but I couldn't figure out what was the best option for covering my compost bins.  It looks like the best option is to buy 12' corregated fiberglass, but it's fairly expensive considering the bins and what fills them are free.  I would need 2 sheets at $18 a piece, and that's for the thin stuff.  Not going to break the bank, but is there a cheaper way?  I've asked my dad to go with me to help me figure it out tomorrow.  So much for checking that off my to-do list today. 

I did however, get the beauty bark there.  I got three bags total or 6 cubic feet.  One bag was pine dust and the other two were small piece beauty bark.  I figured since pine needles are very acidic, then pine bark would be too.  I put that down first, and then layered the beauty bark over it.





Not sure what I'll do against the house.  It's under the eve, but I don't want anything growing there either.  I've got a bag of sandy mulch that is left over from the compost rings I cut out around the fruit trees. Maybe I'll fill it in there. It won't look good but either that or I buy another bag of bark at the store tomorrow. Since it's only $3.50 I may just do that.  By the way, doesn't it look nice!  Now for the grass to grow back outside the bricks.

Another thing I checked off my list was to plant lettuce.  It was raining and terribly windy when I did it, so I just sprinkled a few seeds on the ground and covered them with some finished compost.  Note that I'm using the original batch that's been cooking nicely since I started my second bin.  I even transported a couple worms to my bed.  Doubt they'll survive, they never do in my beds for some reason.  But unfortunately, the packages of lettuce got wet in the rain. I hope the seeds are ok.  Since two of them are Monsanto owned now, I won't be buying them again.

The third thing off my list was to plant the garlic.  When I picked up the truck from my brother, I grabbed three of his biggest garlic heads.  Then I used a garden hand rake to clear the ground of beauty bark in five rows about three feet long in my old blueberry bed. 



These three were in between the two bushes, and the other two were on the other side of a bush.  I found a great deal of worms in the clay-heavy soil, as well as quite a few weed roots spreading out underneath the bark.  Very interesting, they weren't morning glories but they acted very much like them.  So I cleared out the area where I was planting the garlic to the best of my ability in the short time I had.  Then I used a hand shovel to break up the dirt in a small hole pattern where I would plant the clove.  Finally I covered the cloves with the beauty bark that I raked away.  According to my brother you plant them only a half-inch deep, but I think I went a bit more than that with bark.  Let's hope they make it through easily enough.



When I was talking to my brother, he questioned whether garlic would do ok in an acidic soil, and if so, would it change the taste of the garlic?  So I looked it up online (after I planted it, hehe live dangerously).  Apparently garlic likes slightly acidic soil.  Since I didn't amend the soil between the bushes except for beauty bark, which is slightly acidic, I should be fine. /whew!

I'm not sure what I'll go when I run out of space to plant between the bushes.  Maybe I'll get a kiddie pool and plant half garlic and half yukon gold potatoes in six inches of dirt.  Unfortunately I wouldn't want to put it on the grass where it would kill it.  Hehe maybe I could put it on the roof of my shed, kinda like a roof-top garden.  Wouldn't that be funny?

So unfortunately I only got three of my chores done today.  Thankfully tomorrow is supposed to be mostly cloudy with no rain.  That way I can get a ton done.

Before I went in though, I had to re-cover my potato bin several times because the wind was so strong that it blew off the tarp (I ended up weighing it down with a brick).  I also examined the cantaloupe plants.  Unfortunately they look like they're coming down with blight due to the damp dark weather we've been having.  Maybe I should use stakes to create a make-shift hoop cover and cover it with the plastic I'm using for the potato bin right next to it.  I think there's enough.  Anyway, here is the biggest cantaloupe growing to-date...



All the plants have females on them now, but I'm not holdling out hope for any but this and another one that are growing nicely after I juiced them with fertilizer.

Well, it's late and I've got a long day ahead of me.

Enjoy your garden!

October 3, 2008

Well, the week is over, and it appears for the time being, the financial industry has calmed down a bit.  Who knows what the bail-out package will turn out to do, but know this, the economy isn't getting better overnight.  Without confidence in the investment, credit and consumer markets, the stock market will ebb and flow, banks won't lend to each other, and people won't consume again.  And frankly I don't blame the consumers.  If they can't use their homes as ATMs (DO NOT DO THAT, pay off your mortgage as soon as possible), then they won't consume like money's going out of style.  In case you're wondering, I've done all this and it ain't that hard, even to keep it up for 5 years...

All that means that it's every family for themselves!  Take ownership of your own household.  Spend less, make a budget and stick to it. Cut out what you don't need.  Use that savings to put it away for a rainy day.  It may rain sooner than you think.  So try to build up 6 months of your budget in conservative savings accounts and let it sit there and don't spend it on anything unless you ABSOLUTELY need to.  It's as simple as that. 

OK, sorry for the rant, but someone's got to say SOMETHING about taking your own financial present and future seriously.  Oh, one more thing... start a garden, start one in a small sunny patch in your yard, on your patio, in pots or SWCs, wherever.  Just start growing something for your family to eat!  Lettuce, carrots, radishes, they're all amazingly easy to grow.  If you're not already a gardener, then start! 

Ok, for some reason I felt compelled to start with that.  Of course you're already a gardener, nobody comes here that doesn't garden.  So add a veggie, preserve something, bake some bread, stretch!  And let me know what you're doing...  Oh and if you want to start a budget and cut back voluntarily, let me know that too.  Or don't let me know, just do it!

So, for me, I couldn't be more happy about the weekend, despite the rainy weather we're having, I have tons to do and I'm excited to get started.  I called my brother to order up some garlic for planting and the truck for going shopping for beauty bark and corregated fiberglass.

Not sure how much I'll get done tomorrow (shopping for sure) as there's an 80% chance of rain.  But Sunday is supposed to be partly cloudy with a high of 58... burrrrr.   No problem, I've got sweatshirts I should pull out. 

Well, that's enough for me. I didn't have much but wanted to rant away. 

Enjoy your garden and start a budget...

October 2, 2008

Where has the year gone? Fall is here and it is time for winter planting and prep.  So this weekend, despite being crappy weather, will be busy in the yard.  But before my promised to-do list, a couple of things to mention.

The first is a great honor that my friends bestowed on me.  It started with Granny's Blog getting an "I Love Your Blog Award" which you have to pass along to seven more blogs, but she passed it on to a good mutual friend EG's Blog who generously passed it along to little ol' me.  /bush.  These two are great friends and extremely knowlegeable.  So I guess it's up to me to pass it along.  I don't normally do chain letters, but this is a worthwhile cause! ddf

It's a really really hard decision, I like so many blogs that I try to get to at least weekly.  But I think I have to go with one that couples both decades of gardening experience, well written prose and an amazing friendship and desire to help others, something gardening is ALL ABOUT!  Drum-roll please... A big thank you and endorsement to DoubleD's Blog!!!  She's local, she's always around to talk gardening or finanical news. She's a homesteader and the CFO of a major municipality in the PNW.  Who'd have thought a person like that would have the time!  She's nothing short of amazing!

 

 

 Boy was that a hard decision. If you could only see the blog section of my bookmarks, it's amazing!  I look forward to the weekend when I have time to cycle through them all.

Another difficult decision... I get a ton of spam.  Thankfully Judy fixed it so I have a spam stopper program, so it's much easier to control it.  They're easy to spot, a few words and a half-dozen URLs from places nobody would want to go.  However, today I got a different sort of spam comment.  For one it didn't get caught by the spam killer. For another, it was well written and polite.  Finally, it's an advertizement for not only a gardening product, but an organic one.  They wanted to give away organic bug spray to one of my readers.  I looked at their site and found that they sell at Albertson's down the street, so they're legit.  All pluses.  So, do here's the message she sent.  What do you think of it? Do you want to participate?  I could have them send it to me and then I'd forward it on to you so you didn't have to provide your address.  I'll leave it up to you.  Doesn't matter to me.

"Hi there!

My name is Alyssa I am with Branding Brand, an online marketing firm that represents EcoSMART, an organic bug spray that is 100% safe around children, plants & pets.

Given the interest of your blog, we’d love to give your blog readers the opportunity to win an EcoSMART product by randomly selecting someone that comments on any of your blog postings. It’s a great way to generate more interaction with your blog.
All we ask for in return is a link to our website (www.ecosmart.com/household) and for you to provide us with the address of the winner so we can send them their free can of EcoSMART (or we can send you the product to send to the winner).

If you’re interested please let me know.

Thanks!"

Ok, that done, here's my to-do list:

• Plant garlic in the blueberry bed.  I couldn't find out if it companions they dislike each other, but they companion with raspberries, so I'll give it a shot.  I plan on planting six inches apart with I think 4 inch spacing.  My brother will set me straight and provide the seed from his 2008 harvest.  Keep it going in the family.


• Plant more lettuce, successioning it in October for late Winter harvest.  My existing lettuce is doing better such that I may even get some to harvest soon.


• Harvest final cukes and tomates for storage and ripening. 


• Rip out the beans, cukes and tomato plants.  I think the only ones I'll compost are the beans because the rest have succumed to blight or mildew.  I don't want to take the chance that it'll carry on in my compost.


• Remove the trellis and install my old tiny 2x2 trellis with jute twine that I had up when I first started.  It will fit nicely under the hoop cover and be my only trellis this winter.


• Buy the corregated roofs for my compost bins and install them.  The rainy season has started!


• Consider covering the beds. Not sure.  Maybe DoubleD will chime in to help me decide.


• Buy a few bags of beauty bark and mulch the new blueberry bed.  Maybe install landscape fabric under it to keep the weeds and trees from creaping into it.


• Help my aunt transplant plants to wherever she wants them, including the one into my front yard.

Well, that's about it for my to-do list.  Another busy weekend. Let's hope Mother Nature cooperates.  Doubt it.  But that's what why we PNW gardeners have webbed feet, hehe.

Lastly, I have not been so happy with Master Gardener Smith and his Edibles column in the P-I.  Not particularly useful to me despite my love of fruit/veggie gardening.  Instead, this week's article from Ann Lovejoy was great!  It talked about composting and mulching with leaves, something we used to mulch last year and I plan on using for the final push for composting this year before it goes dormant for the season.  But then she mentions garlic and lettuce planting (two things on my to-do list).  Great article!

Enjoy your garden!

September 30, 2008

Well, I got out in the garden after work again. In fact, the kids were outside when I got home.  I must say I didn't do a whole lot, mostly puttered.  Theraputic. 

Only two of the last batch of peas sprouted so I took a cue from Rebekah and soaked some more peas.  After an hour I just planted them haphazardly in the in the squares that I had one or two seedlings in the hopes that something grows.  It's reminding me of the bush bean incident all over again. You'd think that area of my garden is dead or something, but once they get going they grow fine. 

The reason I'm so adamant about these squares is that they're in the middle of the bed.  The planned trellis configuration will focus all the growth to the middle so it fits under the hoop cover.  At least that's the plan, if I can get these seeds to grow.

After planting I sprinkled some of my doctored 5-10-10 veggie fertilizer with bloodmeal over it and watered it in.  Maybe it's just me but I think the lettuce I fertilized yesterday looks perkier, and so does the cantaloupe!  It's probably just wishful thinking. 

Finally I watered and checked on my next harvest.  My cukes are going gangbusters. I swear I've got 2 more jumbo slicers and a half dozen pickling cucumbers that are either ready now or will be ready this weekend. That and I counted a handful more just starting out. I even hand pollinated one that looked like it needed it.  Insane!

Oh yeah, I found reference to a cool idea for deterring raccoons (and other nocturnal pests).  It's a solar powered red light that blinks like an eye.  Apparently nocturnal animals fear being watched, so they stay away from this.  Not sure how many I'd need but at only $30 a piece, it would be a reasonable investment if the number was small enough.  Interesting.

Well, I'm going to hit the sack early tonight. I stayed up way too late last night getting re-acquainted with GardenGirl's forum.  Whew, I'm on a ton of forums.  They're all great.  Each has their own special people who are equally passionate and knowledgable about gardening etc. But what's a guy to do?  Is it too much to ask for a universal forum and community site.  I must say even in beta mode Freedomgardens.org is the best design, and with over 1,000 members it's always hoppin', but GardenGirl has some high powered contributors and she's very very active on the boards herself.  Then there's Gardenweb and Ft2Garden.com.  Both have dear friends but at least GW it's mostly a few of us helping out others.  Don't get me wrong, it's fun and I love helping others, but I hate it when someone asks a question of me and it takes me a week or more to get back to that thread and see it.  Whew.  I've been thinking that for quite a while now and it's good to get it out.  I'll still be active on all my favorite sites, just maybe not as timely.  And of course all my garden buddies are near and dear to my garden!  And look at the bright side, I've learned a TON this year.  I've got a ton more to learn and experience, but it does me proud when experienced gardeners compliment me on my knowledge and are surprised to find I don't have a full season under my belt, hehe.

Lastly, it's all about the gardens!  Enjoy!

September 29, 2008

Today, after an annoying day at work, I got to do two of my favorite things, play with my kids and play in the garden.  The kids got pushed on the swings and time with dad at a tea party my eldest delivered an invitation for.  For my part I brought the last two plums from the well-harvested tree we dined under.  They had fun, though they aren't fans of the sun going down so early.  Boy are they in for a rude awakening come December!

The garden part of my evening, I started by grabing the bloodmeal and 5-10-10 organic fertilizer mix I made up for the corn and sprinkled it in a plus fashion between my four lettuce seedlings and around my cauliflower.  I also hit the area where my peas aren't sprouting.  Who knows if they're down there, but darn it, one or two plants per square will not make for many meals come winter.  Grrr.  After I fertilized, I watered it in.  Oh, and as a silly side note, I figured out why I've been having really poor water pressure from my hoses.  Someone, likely 2 or 4 years old, unscrewed the adjuster peg in the back.  Tightening it up fixed my pressure issues right away. /sigh.  Kids. hehe

I also checked the temp on my compost pile.  Alas, I think it may be just about done. Although it's tall and deep and I only have a meat thermometer, I couldn't get it to read over 100 degrees anywhere.  Normally the day after I fluff and add it's over 130.  Ah well, I won't be adding too much after the leaves and the grass clippings from the final lawn mowing.  Then it will sit for the winter, hopefully under corregated fiberglass roofing to stay relatively dry.

Other than that, I watered in the blueberries again, and gave the existing blueberries some more water.  I must say a year after I planted those bushes, they still drain like a dream!  Gotta love Mel's Mix with extra peat moss.  The new bushes don't drain so well!

To make EG happy and prove he's not missing anything, I haven't harvested my russett bin.  Here is a pic of it all wrapped up to keep water away to dry out the soil.



I wasn't so worried about covering all the leaves, mostly the top of the bin.  However, if I stake it up, I could probably use that cheap thin plastic drop cloth to cover the cantaloupe to warm it up if it gets too cold to ripen.  You can see how close the cantaloupe is to the potato bin, it's at the bottom right of the picture.

Speaking of cantaloupe, I finally got the courage to pick off some of the redundant female buds.  Looks like I got good pollination, but I didn't really want 6 cantaloupe per plant.  Especially when it was all one plant.  Now I have the three best growing on the most productive plant, and as many as may be growing on the other two.  Odd that the most productive plant is to the north.  /shrug.



Here is a close-up of a baby cantaloupe.  After I took this I found one farther along, but I settled with this pic.  Hehe, I'm reminded of a thread where EG shared a similar pic and took flack for it.  Good times!

Finally, after reading on the PTF journal tonight, I found out something VERY disturbing. Territorial Seed Company may have signed a pledge to keep GMO free, but that doesn't mean they don't sell Monsanto seed. Apparently with the acqusition of Seminis seed company in 2005, they acquired ownership of countless popular vegetables, two of which I am currently growing in my garden... Red Sails lettuce and Early Girl tomatoes. I am so mad and disappointed I could spit. One company should not have that sort of monopoly through acquistion. That's what anti-trust laws were made to protect against. People get on Microsoft for anti-trust, but they created products that dominated the market, not through acquisition. Big difference folks. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Well, on that note I'm hitting the sack.  Long week ahead of me.  Here's to a little garden time for everyone to smooth out the rough edges of the week!

September 28, 2008

Ah, what a glorious day here in the Pacific Northwest!  The sun was shining, there were only wispy clouds in the sky, who'd have known it was fall and that we'd missed most of summer?  Unlike yesterday, I had the entire day to myself for work in the garden.  And boy did I make the most of it!

Thankfully my folks came over to help, because I wasn't looking forward to liberating a corner of my yard and planting my two new blueberry bushes all by myself.  After a half hour of planning, we finally settled on where to put them.



Notice the close proximity to the existing blueberry bushes on the other side of the yard.  I think the bees will have no trouble making the rounds, do you?

Notice that the blueberry bush is still in the transplant bin, that's because I had to mix up some planting soil for them.  Since blueberries are acidic, I wanted to make the soil about as acidic as an orange.  Not easy to do, even though we've got a pretty acidic soil here in the PNW.  So to accomplish that, I took the potato bin soil (Mel's mix minus the peat moss) that I'd amended with a healthy dose of coffee grounds last week and added peat moss and a sprinkle of fertilizer for acid loving plants. 



An hour or so later and presto!



Of course the bush on the right couldn't go there without a bit of work first.  I had a rose bush right next to it.  And since these bushes will eventually grow together, that wouldn't do.  So we moved it.  I sure hope it survives.  It didn't look good a few hours after transplanting.  But here is a shot of all three plants we tinkered with today.



I also hope that the downspout is far enough away at 3 feet to not flood the area with water in the fall and winter months.  If I see it's not doing well, I'll buy a rain barrel and install it there with the overflow over the fence into the front yard.  Apparently you can't kill the tree on the other side of the fence (I have forgotten its name).  Otherwise rain barrels are likely a project for next year.

Finally, if you noticed the scalloped concrete blocks in the various pictures above, well we "borrowed" them from my brother's house and my folks house and my house to piece together a border for the blueberries to match the rose garden.  I think it turned out decent enough for piecemeal.



Now all I have to do is buy some beauty bark and spread it over the area.  I think this time I'll put down landscape fabric between the bushes before I cover it with bark to keep weeds from growing up.  Why beauty bark you ask?  Well it's highly acidic which helps treat the soil as it leaches down.  At least that's what I hoped for when I did it to the existing blueberry bed.  Now it's just a symetry thing, hehe.

After that project was done, I cleaned up the yard.  I hosed down the tarp to put it back over the kids outdoor toys when it rains. It had been used to hold the dirt when I broke open the potato pinata, hehe.  Multitaskers.  Then I also dismantled the yukon gold potato bin for storage in the shed for next year.  I saved the douglas fir boards but recycled the pine 2x2s because they just weren't holding up.



After that project I cut the plastic for the hoop covers.  I sure hope I cut them right so I can cover all three beds now.  Anyway, now that the plastic is cut, I can install all three hoop covers in less than an hour if it looks like it's needed.  While I was in the garden I sprayed Spinosad over all the plants that something's munching.  I sure hope my cauliflower survives. I'm not hopeful.  I scrounged a clear tarp to cover the potato bin to let it dry out.  Then I fertilized the cantaloupe bed with bloodmeal for a nitrogen boost.  I've got a half-dozen or more cantaloupe forming.  I'd be happy if one or two make it before the frost.  Maybe I should have cut off all but one bud per plant, but I just don't have the heart to choose which one makes it.  hehe

Lastly, I was energized but exhausted.  Still I bundled up myself and my eldest and we ventured out into the back 40 for what's likely our final blackberry harvest.  This time I armed myself with a machette and went jungle exploring to find hidden blackberry treasures.  It worked like a charm.  I cleared out a fair amount of old inch-thick dead blackberry canes and picked an over-full gallon ziplock bag of berries in the process.  It was slow going because everything low was relegated to my 4 year old.  He was really good about staying away from the big sharp knife though.  I was proud of him.  We had some great father and son time.  What a perfect end to a productive weekend.  I finally finished up with my arm and back giving out on me just in time to pick up the yard and head inside just as it got dark. 

So I didn't get my garden mucked out and trellis taken down, but I think I've got a bit before the hoop covers are needed.  Let's hope so.  I also didn't weed the garlic bed, though it doesn't need it bad and I can weed when I plant garlic.  Speaking of which, my dad thinks I need to research whether garlic will work with acidic soil in a blueberry bed.  Something I should do soon. Maybe after I'm done here.  Lastly I didn't buy the clear corregated fiberglass to cover my compost bins, but I didn't have the truck.  Again that's something I don't HAVE to do but want to do. 

All in all, not a bad weeked, all things considering.  What's more, I think it recharged me enough to tackle the office again.  Whew!

Hope you all were as productive as I and enjoyed your gardens this weekend!