Mother nature has some wicked timing, this Spring
The garden got tilled on Friday. My plan was to let it settle, finish the fence repair and then start the garden on Tuesday but I was exhausted from Sunday and Monday's Memorial Day activities. So Wednesday. Definitely Wednesday. The soil had baked from the heat that the best I could do was to put down the lawn scaping fabric. I had to use a rubber mallet to pound in some of the pins. Not a good sign. Then I gave it 2 really good soaks with the sprinkler.
So this morning, before the temps get too bad (it's headed into the 90's) I'll do my best to get things planted.
Of course, next week's weather is going to be perfect for outdoor work.
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That heat dome missed us in the western part of the state, we're going to have rain for the next several days and we're back in flood watch warning world. There's still snow in the high country since it has been pretty cool up there even with rain. The river is pretty high already so the rain will bring flooding, two weeks before the anniversary of the massive flood last year. The one that closed Yellowstone NP for a week.
I managed to get flower beds in around my velveeta box of a dwelling over the last month, when the mowing people showed up, while I was not home last Sunday, they mowed down a clearly marked flower bed and shaved my grass - actually had grass rather than alfalfa and weeds like last year -so short that it is now dying even with watering and rain, nothing over +75F. I had to have a talk with the big boss on Tuesday about that. Him and my therapist and then I had, thankfully, a massage scheduled. My body feels better but I am still dealing with being pissed off. It's a long story.
But we have been experiencing seasonable weather the past month so it's been great for planting. I have a combination of seeds and plant starts from a nursery. Up here on the hill we have deer passing through all the time, trying to chase them off is fruitless, they'll look right at you like, "and your problem is..?" until you're five feet from them. So I planted flowers they won't eat, Nasturtiums, chives, lavender. Hopefully that will do but then they trample them because they can't eat them! Grrr.
My solution for growing anything else was to put them either up on my partially enclosed porch (6'x10') in pots and at my buddy's place down off the hill and out of the wind but the same deer. I out onions, potatoes and tomatoes there. Deer and rabbits don't seem to like nightshades, onions and peppery greens (nasturtiums).
On my porch I have a 16" pot of sugar snap peas for snacking on and for ambiance, because the enclosure is 1x6" in a slatted formation with 2" gap, I also have in pots verbena, morning glory and sweet peas... all of which the deer would devour. Then I have some petunias and moon flowers on a spiral stand in the corner and last but not least, a grape crate (30"x 12"x 8"
which I lined with newspaper, filled with dirt and planted short rows of radish, spinach and 2 kinds of lettuce. Micro gardening, haven't tried it with so much gusto in a while but I need both fresh food and flowers for my mental health. Gardening is good therapy.
Sounds like you have a large yard, over the past few decades I have come to recognize what a blessing that is. There are a few in my past that I really miss.
🧑?🌾 Still want to garden…watch Luke aka MIgardener on YouTube.
He’s in the Port Huron area so it’s nice to get someone in the same growing zone. So many gardening sites you have to try to calculate what it would be like in your zone makes it hard to digest sometimes.
Latest video is watering your garden. Seemed timely.
Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!
https://youtube.com/@MIgardener
