Still Hot. But that's okay. Lots of arranging and rearranging in the garden areas can happen now. I have to admit that I love the gardening foreplay: Planning, figuring out how to store all the bits and pieces I'll use this year. Big stepping stones used as bucket covers for seedlings too young to survive a downpour. Plywood, unwieldy yes, but perfect to lay across four buckets of those fragile seedlings. Concrete blocks and a two-by-four will balance four fabric baskets of potatoes. Shovels and trowels, rakes and claws, clippers and cutters, hoses and watering cans, vermiculite + peat moss + compost, worm castings and fish emulsion. A sprayer of soapy water and one of vinegar. Plastic containers for the garden twine, scissors, markers, paper, reading glasses (!), labels, piks, stuff. You know, all that stuff!
I love spending time mixing dirt, filling up the buckets in the raised beds, and the ones that will hold court on the ground. Planting seeds. Marking them. Making notes to put into the laptop: Date planted, days to germinate, number of days until harvest. Reading my books to be sure plants play well together. Moving around those that are more friendly to others.
Every morning I take a soak in the hot tub around 7:30. Rocco reminds me if I'm busy working. Then I take a walk around the gardens, evaluate what's happening, and make a plan for that day's "tend the gardens" work.
Almost always I'll have to water, unless we are being blessed with decent showers. I check the radar and the forecast. If big rains are coming I set an alarm on my phone so that I get back out there and cover those fragile seedings in time. I am so spoiled. I'm thankful for the technology that helps me garden well, but sometimes I think I'd be better off "roughing it" in preparation for a time that all this ready information is not available.
Speaking of roughing it, no time spent in the garden is complete without the pool cool-down. Rocco waits patiently for this part, too. See that tanning ledge in the foreground, right under the umbrella? That's his spot and he takes his pool guard job quite seriously.
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Little by little I am creating this Fall 2020 Garden. I'm loving the anticipation of what is to come, but equally enjoying the tending.
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I'd love to hear what's going on in your backyard today!