I can't catch a break here. It's going to be raining all weekend again. I really need to divide and replant my daylilies before much longer, they're already almost a foot tall. It's been too wet to dig and till the new bed, so that's that. We're going to decide where the new raised beds are going this weekend. I'm thinking eight 6 x 6 beds, with 36" between them should do it. That will allow for adequate crop rotation and large enough for semi intensive growing of produce that can be easily preserved. At least I can head out and look for some cedar planking today and the hardware I need to erect them. This is probably going to be more expensive then I'm imagining, but I don't want to use treated lumber, I don't care how safe they say it is these days. I'll let you know where we finally decide to situate them, once we stop arguing and I give in, as usual! :) Later.
It was supposed to be dry, sunny and close to sixty today. It's drizzly, cloudy and chilly. No yard work today. I've got to create a new bed out by the brook for some of my daylilies, they're choking themselves to death in their bed right now, but it's not a real nice day for that sort of task, so maybe next weekend. Speaking of the brook, it started to back up on me last weekend after a few heavy rains. After it run across my property, it goes underground into a culvert that runs about two hundred feet under the old railroad property next door and exits about thirty feet from a larger brook, which drains it away to an even bigger brook that ends up in a large lake about four miles away. The exit end of the culvert was fouled, I had to dig it out get things moving again this morning, it seems to be doing the trick, my end of the brook is now running, instead of just sitting there. I've been doing some research on raised bed gardening, I think I'm going to go that route this year instead of the traditional in the ground beds, lots less work in the long run and high yields, from what my reading tells me. I'm resistant to change like that, but I'm also becoming a fan of working less and getting more. I'm not aging gracefully...
The mfcs Commies in Congress are working toward making small farming operations, organic farms, backyard gardeners, vineyard, small animals raised for food all illegal under this effort... If this passes, the states will no longer have regulatory powers over any or all food production, no matter how large or small. The Government will have the power to not only confiscate and destroy your backyard produce, but you will forefit your property as a result of a successful prosecution. Welcome to Amerika, Comrades. What was is Lenin said? "If you control the oil, you control the country. If you control the food, you control the people." Well, any asshole that tries to fuck with me and my garden will get a full dose of my Second Amendment rights before I go down. Get in touch with your so called representatives in Washington and let them know that this needs to stop, now. Right now.
sort of... it's in the high fifties right now, breezy and high clouds. Perfect weather for yard work. I raked and cleaned up the Western side of the grounds proper, cleaned out the kitchen yard annual beds and the foundation plantings. I also pruned the Crape Myrtles, getting rid of all the suckers and inward growing branches and pruned off all the growth up to about five feet high so they form a canopy this year and I can put some solar lighting under them to accent their form. They have a wonderful peeling bark that looks nice and the pruning will open up the area underneath for some base plantings. The Autumn Sedum, Bearded Iris, Daffodils and the Day Lilies are all poking up, checking things out. My Coral Bells seem to have survived another winter. The Acuba have suffered a little winter burn, as have some of the new Thuja plantings across the front of the property, but nothing that will stunt them, I'm sure. Tomorrow its more pruning, I have to lift the canopy of some Hemlocks that line the drive so the Mock Orange hedges get a little more light and airflow. I love this time of year, it's unpredictable, and a tease, but it sets my green thumb to throbbing and I just have to get out and play in the soil.
