Pass Alongs

There is a tradition down here in My Beloved South that I love.  It's called Passing Along Plants.  (I'll be honest here and say that perhaps other regions of the country do it, but I never experienced it or even heard about it until I moved here.  And if Southern Living says it's a tradition, it's a tradition.)

Basically people here think nothing of giving you a plant to put in your yard.  For many people, gardening is a serious past time and hobby so passing on their love of plants is a natural.  I've had people give me irises, hostas, stonecrop, lamb's ear, and more.  In fact, a lot of the plants in my yard were pass alongs.

And when Mrs. Social Studies mentioned that her garden was a bit too much for her to upkeep and she was going to get rid of some plants, I volunteered to take care of them for her.  I arrived with buckets, shovel and gardening gloves and scored some hostas and a peony.  I have a very shady corner that grows very little and I'm hoping the hostas can survive there.  Plus I wanted a peony.  Always have, and I had a good location for one.

And surprisingly, for someone who's still trying to figure out what grows best where, I've actually passed on a few plants myself.  It's fun.  And it's a neat way of filling up your garden.

Another Use for a Dissecting Tray

So although our last day of school (for teachers) was on Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day, Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Angora and I, along with our assistant principal and former science Teacher, Mrs. Sparrow, showed up on the first of June to go through and organize (and clean out) our science lab.  This was all brought about because of the huge focus we're seeing in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).  It was also brought about because that lab, in the five years we've had it, is a mess.  People don't clean up after themselves, people have dumped things they don't want in there, and there is a lot of stuff in there that we've had for years and years that no longer applies to any curriculum, that we really don't need.  (Like a box, a big box, of science fair certificates - and we haven't had a science fair in six years.  That went to an elementary school.)

So we went through every drawer and every cabinet, labeled and cleaned what we needed to keep, and had piles of stuff to go to the high school, and the elementary schools, and then a huge pile of just plain trash.

And they had some aluminum dissecting trays.  Which got me to thinking...

I'm having trouble with a crow.

For some reason this year Mr. Bluebird decided he wanted me to plant some sweet corn in the garden.  I'm not sure where this came from.  It's been years since I've planted sweet corn mainly because it takes up a lot of space and I can get it a lot cheaper and easier from the local farmer's market or the Amish farmer I buy from every Saturday.  But, whatever, I said okay, we'll plant sweet corn.

So after the huge rains we had - again - in May, I went and planted a square of sweetcorn.  And about a week later, while looking out the bathroom window at my garden early one morning, I saw a big black crow poking holes in the ground where the sweet corn was planted.

Upon further inspectionI discovered that the darn bird had dug up each and every seed I'd planted.  He'd left tell-tale little holes he'd dug.  This was not good.

So, since I had more seeds, I'd planted another batch of corn.

And a few days later, he'd dug them up again.

This was getting ridiculous.  In the meantime, Daddy Bird and I were at Lowe's (we always seem to spend a lot of time there) and saw that they had sweet corn seedlings in among all the tomato and pepper seedlings.  His idea was to plant the seedlings and then pull a joke on Hubby by making him think that the crow didn't really get the corn and it had come up anyway.  I'm all for a little joke here and there so we bought the seedlings and I planted them and we were all ready for our joke which we were going to do while hubby was cooking steaks on the grill.

Except I went out to the yard about an hour before we planned to start cooking and that stupid crow had already gotten into my garden and pulled each and every seedling up and thrown it on the ground!  ARGH!  I quickly replanted the seedlings, we had the joke on hubby (he figured it out because neither one of us can keep a straight face) and in the meantime I found some gardening fabric I had in the shed to put over the corn seedlings to hopefully keep the evil crow away.

But then I saw those aluminum dissecting trays...which, cut up into eighths, and strung on a string across the garden box, might just keep that stupid bird away from my corn.

So far, so good.

Winding Down

Summer is pretty much over in terms of vacation, but definitely not in terms of weather.

Amazingly enough, a few districts in the region started yesterday, but we don't get our kids until the 6th.  Still, it's time to wrap up those last few in-services (I think I already have something like 18 hours), get into the room and get it put together, and get ready. 

It's been nice hanging out a lot with Hubby, and the Felines, but I'm ready to go back and see my friends, especially the Guidance Group, and my fellow teammates.  I actually almost kinda miss the kids.  I didn't get everything accomplished that I wanted to but that's pretty much par for the course for me.  

My garden has, for the most part, been a disappointment.  I think the early heat in June did not help any, which is why I hardly have any tomatoes this year.  We have massive huge tomato plants but they are just starting to set fruit, which is way late in the season.  I should be canning tomatoes by now and I'm lucky to get any to put on a salad.   The broccoli (which was an experiment) got pretty much ruined by heat and worms so I've tossed that all on the compost heap.  Same with the potatoes.  The beets did well, the lima beans are starting to produce, and the peppers are doing fantastic.  I think I'll do a fall planting this weekend of some of the cool weather vegetables and see if I have better luck with them.

I have planted a lemon tree.

Yes, I know, I live too far North for citrus, but I got this idea that if I could plant a dwarf lemon tree in a pot, and bring it into the kitchen during the winter, I might be able to get lemons.  My folks had a drawf Meyer lemon tree in a pot on the patio when I was growing up, so my dad found one for sale on line, I bought it, and now I've got it planted.  It is 8 inches tall.  (No lemons, obviously).

All this because I hate paying 69 cents a piece for lemons.
  

No, I Haven't Fallen Off The Face of the Earth, I'm Just Summering...and At War With a Rodent

Sorry for not posting much.

However, life is pretty calm when I'm not herding teaching seventh graders. It's time to catch up on reading, deep cleaning my house (you have no idea what a wreck it gets during the school year), clean out closets, work on lessons for next year, organize my office, knitting, and work on my yard and garden. And of course, getting to spend time with Mr. Bluebird and The Feline Children.

And naps. Naps are important.

The heat has been pretty unusual during most of June and into July. That means that my yard work has to take place pretty early in the morning or fairly late in the evening when it isn't so hot. Weeds can grow overnight in our climate, so there's quite a bit of weeding, and feeding of the plants, pruning, and even watering. Hard to believe we had floods in May and now we're dry, dry, dry.

And then there's the chipmunk.

Every year we put out a vegetable garden. This year we've moved the tomatoes over to another part of the yard, and the center raised bed has red and green peppers, jalapenos, beets, lettuce, carrots, bush beans, broccoli, and cucumbers. This garden is fenced off with what we call our "rabbit fence" because we do have quite a number of rabbits that call our yard home. Another fenced off area contains some lima bean plants as well as some potatoes.

For the record, I've never grown lima beans, potatoes, or broccoli. My garden every year resembles a science experiment because you never quite know what's going to happen. I think our cold wet spring, and the early heat wave in June has impacted some of my experiments, so to speak. The broccoli is all leaves with no vegetable part yet, which may be due to the heat - broccoli is somewhat of a cold weather plant. I'm thinking that may be the issue with the potatoes as well as the plants are kind of floppy and leggy and not bushy like the Southern Living Garden Book said they should be. As for the lima beans, they got put in late because the first batch rotted after our flood in May and I had to replant. The jury is still out on them.

Anyhow, back to the chipmunk.

I have never, in nearly twenty years of growing tomatoes, had a rabbit eat a tomato. They just don't seem to like them. So, as a result, I've never put up a rabbit fence around my tomato plants. It just wasn't necessary. However, this year we have a new resident in our yard, and he's starting to really annoy me.

We've spotted him a few times including one time when he was on the sidewalk out front of my office window and I nearly was able to get a picture of him (but of course he spotted me and ran off.)   He's tunneled around the flower beds both in the front yard and in the back.  And of course, he's now eating my tomatoes.

The holes in the yard I can deal with.  But to eat my tomatoes?  That's uncalled for especially since my plants really aren't producing all that many tomatoes to begin with.  For some weird reason all the fruit on the plants is low to the ground (within chipmunk reach) and there's not even a whole lot at that.  I'm starting to suspect these plants, all of which are different varieties, may have had a hard time adjusting from cool, wet weather and then sudden plunge into a heatwave. 

It appears that I may have to put up a chipmunk fence now.

'Maters

Time to get out the canning equipment, I do believe.

I'm Not Gonna Complain...Yet

Remember the great big nasty record-breaking drought I whined about last year?

It's almost gone.

And, if you take into account the nearly five inches of rain we had over Thursday and Friday, then it really feels like it's nearly over.

The creeks and rivers that I have to cross to get anywhere around town are out of their banks, many city parks are near flooding, and the River Walk down along the river has water up over the sidewalk.

And my lawn, that hasn't been green in a year, is at least 6" high.

By the way, if I could find a way to make money out of chickweed and henbit, I'd be rich.

The big riding mower is out of commission. That stupid thing never seems to start up well after the winter and I have trouble with it on a good day. It really needs a tune up and Hubby really needs to look into it, but he's so swamped with his book project right now that I gave up on the mower getting in running condition. However, they're calling for more rain on Tuesday, and I don't see anyone giving me a herd of sheep to mow my lawn the easy way, so I got out the push-mower and went to work.

The push-mower, by the way, was used twice at the end of the year and we bought it when Sears was trying to get rid of mowers. It's wonderful. I love the fact that it starts right up and roars to life without me having to dislocate a shoulder yanking on the starter.

However.

My yard is big, and my house sits on a hill. And it took two hours to mow the entire front yard.

I am trashed.