The Lazy Gardener, 2020 edition

[Prairie Rose]

Work is still crazy...I ended up putting my notice in. An extended notice, because I don't want to lose my health insurance until I find something else, but my days at the grocery store are numbered and it is a relief. Last night I hit my elbow on the corner of a slicer so hard I was worried I had cracked it, and now I can't grip anything with my dominant hand.

Haven't managed to do anything outside because of work being crazy and it raining sideways on all my days off, and the weeds are taking everything over. Hoping to plant my seedlings this week.

 

[digitS']

Injuries probably indicates that a new job should be found. It's too bad that it came to that. "Work through it." That risks repeated and permanent injury. Prairie Rose, I hope that you are soon "fit" for some applications and interviews.

I had a fair amount of weeds to take out of the little garden at the neighbor's, through the back fence. It was once much worse over there. Quack grass and morning glory are pretty much, things of the past.

Good Heavens, it was not always that way. Ill health had incapacitated the neighbor until those perennial weeds had gained control. He had also tried to use it for to many perennial garden plants which made his cultivation so much more difficult. Annual crops have their place and his raspberries are now confined to one fence line and his hollyhocks are against the garage.

Steve
who had some dead nettle to take out over there with a spading fork and cultivator ~ now ready for garden varieties.

 

[baymule]

Work is still crazy...I ended up putting my notice in. An extended notice, because I don't want to lose my health insurance until I find something else, but my days at the grocery store are numbered and it is a relief. Last night I hit my elbow on the corner of a slicer so hard I was worried I had cracked it, and now I can't grip anything with my dominant hand.

Haven't managed to do anything outside because of work being crazy and it raining sideways on all my days off, and the weeds are taking everything over. Hoping to plant my seedlings this week.

I'm so sorry that work has been such a crazy house. You might want to get that elbow looked at, that is a work injury and would go under workman's comp, but it must be reported or it won't be covered. There are nerves that go through your elbow to your hand.

 

[Prairie Rose]

Still dealing with grocery store craziness, but I think I have roughly two months to go. My elbow still hurts, I am going to call the doctor tomorrow. It's been a month, I am still having issues gripping things, and it's my dominant hand. I'm not willing to mess around with that too much longer. Garden wise, I haven't done much, it has still been really wet here!

Since my last update I planted two apple trees in one of the side yards, a red delicious and a pink lady. One to make sauce and cider from, and one to eat There are still two flats of assorted flowers and veg to plant, and I have had to hill my potatoes for the first time. I am growing those in grow bags, so it was just a matter of opening up new bags of potting soil and pouring it in. I found some egyptian onions in my new flowerbed, and some volunteer cilantro. One bad night of rains killed my peas.

All of my purple alliums are spent, and the white ones are beginning to bloom. I planted another delphinium, some columbine, a night sky pansy and some pink celosia in my flowerbed, as well as a lavender hybrid rose and a purple-leaved coleus.

I have five yards each of mushroom compost and plain untreated mulch coming in after the weekend to amend each of the current beds, and hopefully have enough left over to make two new vegetable beds. They won't produce well this year, but I have more seedlings than garden space at this point and I need to have somewhere to plant them. I an hoping to have one for squash, and one for green beans. Anything after that is a bonus. If I like this place's products, I will order again in the fall to expand my beds one more time before next year.

 

[Prairie Rose]

This morning I went out and weeded everything, replanted some pumpkin seeds, and discovered that I definitely DO have bees again! The new girls are much darker than the Italians I had originally, and hopefully, since they came off a wild hive or one of my more distant neighbor's hives, better adapted to my conditions than my original package bees.

I have green beans sprouting, my zucchini and cucumber starts are finally taking off, and I have been wistfully eyeing the first green tomatoes and coolapenos, still way too small to eat, but definitely there. I really should be out there laying out soaker hoses and setting up my irrigation before it gets hot and sticky all the time, but my couch is calling

The goal for this coming week is to mulch the larger fruit trees and mom's flowerbed. After that I am going to start the beds down the side of the house...there's a couple of plants I want to salvage, but the rest of it is getting knocked down with a weedeater. Then a few layers of cardboard or brown paper, more mulch, and letting them sit until next spring.

 

[Trish Stretton]

Congrats on your newbeez!!

 

[Prairie Rose]

*peeks*

Hi everyone, I know I disappeared for most of a year....just wanted to pop in and say hi, and that I'm still gardening! We had a lot of cold weather very late in the year locally, so I missed my spring vegetable beds and am going straight into warm weather crops.

This year I added a pair of gooseberries to my mix as a mother's day present for my mother, and we are both really enjoying last year's new roses and filling out the now three year old "new" flowerbed.

The most exciting thing that has happened recently is that I'm pretty sure a swarm has taken up residence in my empty bee hive, for the second year in a row! I didn't discover until after I tried keeping bees the first time that I go into anaphylactic shock when stung, and I let last year's swarm peter out because I was too afraid of being stung to manage them properly. I want to do better this year, planning on suiting up tomorrow afternoon and seeing what is in that hive, exactly!

 

[ducks4you]

Hey, Girl!!! Long time, NO HEAR FROM!!!
AWFUL Spring weather this year. I started spinach and radishes. Barely grew, and now are bolting.
What else are you growing?

 

[Prairie Rose]

I have some summer cabbage and brussels sprouts, tomatoes, and a few different types of hot peppers in the ground. Regular potatoes and sweet potatoes. Walking onions, plenty of herbs (this is the first year that I have ever had sage overwinter, and the blooms are beautiful!) Garlic that I didn't manage to plant until very early march, hoping to get just enough of that to taste and see if I like the variety before replanting in the fall. I have to consult with the farmer (aka Dad) to make sure I won't be risking cross pollination with the field before I plant it, but I have some container-sized sweet corn and some flint corn too (i can plant whatever I want, as long as it won't cross pollinate with his field corn). In the next week or two I am going to plant mom's special variety of green beans, and my melons and squashes. I have lettuce in a pot, and strawberries ripening in the mini-hugelkulture.

Over the winter I have discovered the wonders of an aerogarden. I planted the herbs I grew all winter outside this morning, and I have a seed starting plate to drop in and start the rest of my flowers in stages. Zinnia, cosmos, sunflowers, etc. My summer garden is going to be mostly flowers this year, with just enough veg thrown in to keep me happy. A couple of my beds are getting covered with black plastic over the hottest part of the summer to kill out some persistent weeds, so I am limiting my planting space until fall. I am hoping to add three more long beds to the raised bed area this year for next year's planting.

 

[baymule]

It’s good to see you posting again. I have missed you. Flowers! They are so beautiful and really dress up a garden.
I hope you have good luck with your bees. Let us know what you find when you peek inside the hive!