stubbed toes and mud pies

[flowerbug]

worked on one side of the driveway culvert today. the excavator didn't put any weed barrier fabric down before putting down the concrete chunks and also i knew that if we ever had one of our extreme rain events where water goes over the driveway that it would wash out the driveway mix and concrete chunks if they weren't more protected.

removed the small concrete chunks and then put down two layers of weed barrier and then put the concrete chunks back in place and then put larger field stones on top. i still have to get a brick edge up top done and eventually fill in more gravel on the driveway surface, but that doesn't have to get done right away. i want to get these edges reinforced before we get any heavy rains. one mostly down and one to go tomorrow and then i can finish up some other time on the more decorative parts which puts things back in place that were there before.

 

[flowerbug]

i made sure this season to pick the pea pods so that i get some seeds to replant, plus we actually have some harvest and food from them too. didn't see a single pod damaged by chipmunks. i hope they can't read!

and they are delicious!

i picked everything i could find this morning and now whatever is left i will harvest for seeds. after last year's disaster with the chipmunks eating almost my entire crop this was a much better result. so i guess i learned something.

i aleady have enough seeds that i can regrow for next year without issues so any more seeds i get will be for sharing with others and as a back up supply or if i want to do a larger patch next season (i do!) or if i want to try some earlier plantings (i do!!).

since these seeds are not a uniform variety i found today as i was munching on a bowl that some of them have quite a different flavor and there might be three or four different varieties in there.

the next time i harvest, since it will be for seeds i will pick each plant and keep those seeds apart from all the others. i only have so many plants so this is possible, but it wasn't possible this morning and that was ok.

 

[flowerbug]

today was the day i set aside for doing indoor chores that have been on my list. one of them i was dreading because i thought it might involve bleaching black mold in a small enclosed space (behind the washer/dryer).

as it turned out (and made me very happy) it wasn't black mold at all. instead it was crumbling something coming out of the back of the dryer. not sure what it is, don't care, if it blows up i'm ok with that. probably some kind of gasket. considering the other issues we've had with this washer/dryer unit i'd be happy to throw it out along side the road if i could lift it.

i got the mess cleaned up, but now that i know it isn't black mold it can put a nice thick layer of dust and dryer particles back there and i won't bother touching it until the thing blows up or needs to be replaced again. at the rate this is going it may be a year or two or five to ten years... we'll see...

 

[flowerbug]

chipmunk is being persistent this year about having a burrow in a particular spot along the side of the garage. as part of that it is digging down through gravel and under the edge of rocks and cement we put along there. repeatedly. i'm pretty sure it is trying to store up food there and also bringing in leaves to make the nest comfy.

to make it harder i've filled the hole in repeatedly and put more gravel down into the tunnel. i've gone out and piled more gravel on top so it takes longer each time to remove it. then i put three small bricks in the way so it was trying to dig in from the side. then i added three more bricks and a rat trap with peanut butter trying to catch it. it completely ignored the rat trap, but it hadn't yet been able to get through the bricks or gravel i piled around the bricks because i'd checked it often enough and kept moving the gravel back.

with last night and possible chance of rain this morning i haven't had a chance to check it yet (also being somewhat lazy i have zero gumption until i get hungry enough to get up and find something for breakfast/brunch).

 

[flowerbug]

finally did catch the chipmunk. i'm leaving the bricks and gravel in place because i've already seen some other curious action around there and want to keep any critter from using that same burrow.

mowing was today's garden task and since it has been so dry it wasn't too bad out there. it's been i think about three weeks or more since we last mowed. Mom is on restriction for now so i told her that she wasn't allowed to mow today which meant i had to get it all done. 2 hrs and 20 minutes. it helped that it wasn't thick or wet. it also helped that it wasn't rediculously hot out there (another reason i picked today to do it was that it was the coolest day in the forecast).

i'm resting up a bit, having lunch, going to hit the shower and then we'll see if i feel like puttering around more today or not. it's nice and breezy out there so it would be ok even if it gets a bit more toasty out there.

 

[flowerbug]

the tomato patch is doing pretty well this season

 

[flowerbug]

picked more tomato worms today. i wasn't going to look at first but on the way back from checking out the long bean garden (outside the fence) i decided to peek through the fence to see if there was any new chewing going on and i saw a worm right away so since i could actually tell where it was for a change i went in there and picked it off and smushed it.

nine worms for today. most were the medium sized ones like what i picked off before. a few were smaller and one was big.

last year it seemed like almost all the worms i found were on the bigger side (which means they'd done more damage before i found them).

for some reason they were active later today and right out where i could see them, perhaps the early fog changed their schedule.

plenty hot and humid out there already.

cleaned out the birdbaths and refilled them and that was it for today out there.

 

[digitS']

I am guessing that you don't have many nearby fields of tomatoes nor, perhaps, other gardens close by.

What are the host plants for earlier generations of these pests?

I swear, the Colorado potato beetles like nightshade weeds as well as they like potatoes. The nightshade is common .

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

I am guessing that you don't have many nearby fields of tomatoes nor, perhaps, other gardens close by.

What are the host plants for earlier generations of these pests?

I swear, the Colorado potato beetles like nightshade weeds as well as they like potatoes. The nightshade is common .

Steve

there's only a few gardens around us that i know of, but these creatures can fly for quite a long ways. i'm pretty sure that my limited tilling of the tomato garden means that i'm not destroying them in their burrows. oh well, share and share alike. some i find before they reach adulthood and others i don't. i've never seen them on any other plants of any kind - always just the tomatoes.

 

[flowerbug]

picked tomato worms again this morning. 12 more.

starting to see some ripening tomatoes and also seeing the beginning of the end of the foliage. plants were looking good up until this hot moist weather landed. i removed what i could but there's going to be a lot of dead leaves in there in the next few weeks.