#August Garden

 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.

#GardenMuse

Day after day, it seems the time spent in my vegetable garden harvests such an abundance of similes that I find myself, hands dug deep in the dirt, grinning ear to ear.

 

Happy young corn and potato plants in their eastern fully sunlit location. 

I don't hear a new life's purpose calling me right now, though there have been several over all my 63 years. But I do have the feeling of being in the right place, growing where I am planted. And, while I grow vegetables to feed my family (and the birds, squirrels, and Iguanas), the feels are that there is much for me to learn while these old hands are buried in the warm soil, planting seeds and tending their young seedlings.

 

Some are wholly independent and do very well on their own. First to my mind is Celery. All by itself, it grows strong, straight, and tall. All I do is add water when there isn't rain. The Pole Beans are requiring more attention. The beans should be picked daily so that it knows to keep producing. Various little bugs nibble at the leaves so I spray them with a gentle soapy water, onion & garlic mixture. Beetles attack the Cucumber plants, so my hands travel their leaves nearly every day, picking off the beetles and moving them to a location far away from the gardens.

 

Tomato plants struggle against cutworms and the scary hornworm. It is easy to see the cutworm damage as they leave trails on the leaves. Since those leaves will wither and die, I prune them back regularly, allowing the plants to take nutrition to their most prolific parts. The hornworm scares the daylights out of me! I mean, have you ever looked one in the face? Those horns are real! It takes every bit of courage I can muster to pick one off the plant using the lip of my jar. Yes, I know they turn into beautiful moths and butterflies, but I don't think I'll ever get over being freaked out when I have to deal with one. Yet, if I don't, my crops can be destroyed overnight.

Some days I study healthy tomatoes. At times I decide to leave them another day or so to fully ripen on the vine. Yet, I am hesitant to do that because of the real possibility the fruit might not be there in the morning. Even my dogs are known to join the other critter thieves picking tomatoes they can reach!

Then there are days when a particular vegetable plant has exhausted itself with growing and producing, when it has lost most of its leaves and color, and when it seems to have no further purposes. So I gently pull it from the dirt and relocate it to the generous compost pile. I feel satisfied thinking of all the food it provided and that now it can rest, decomposing into food for new plants. 

HERE is an informative composting article.

Nearing the end of their season.

THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

#Tomatoitis

Crazy Tomato!

This guy grew around its cage.  I'm not sure how I feel about this variety of tomato. With the exception of one, so far every tomato has had deep brown gullies, cracks, and bad spots. 

This could be the fault of the gardener, of course. 

The taste is good but not the best of the best. I've spent more time coddling this one than the others. It bears a fair amount of fruit and we've been able to salvage some good parts of every tomato so I can't be too critical. 

I might not plant it again though, so let's just enjoy this:

PINK BRANDYWINE HEIRLOOM TOMATO

Crazy, right? 

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Welcome to the #StrineBackYard

For the past one hundred years, I've been looking at the world through a lens. My photos are scattered everywhere. FaceBook, Instagram, my Desktop, Laptop, a couple of external hard drives, and maybe a zillion flash drives. Thumb drives? Whatever. 

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New goal for the time I've left on this earth:

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Get Photos in One Space 

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I am sure the *right way* to do this would be to start at the beginning. I don't even know when the beginning began so I'll start with what I shot this morning. Things always have a way of working themselves out.

Welcome to the #StrineBackYard