Lawn

My poor brown lawn. Yes, we are officially in a drought, despite the fact that the sky has spit at us twice this weekend...
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Ridiculous

The heat index was forecast for >105F when the temperature was supposed to be 96F. Not sure what it turned out to be.

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Meh. In May??

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Etc...

It rained almost all day today. Glorious thunderstorms this afternoon/evening. I love thunderstorms, but it's not great gardening weather...

It did let off for long enough to go out and do some more figgerin' on the greenhouse. Basically, the only things that are left to do in order to make it usable are the vents around the bottom and the doors. And fix 4 panes from one window that were damaged in the windstorm a week or two ago. I'm hoping to at least have temporary doors on it by the end of this weekend - I bought a roll of 6 mil plastic for that purpose. For the permanent doors, I'm going to need headers, sills, and all manner of time consuming nonsense. But plastic (and 4 panes of glass, and flaps for the vents) will get it to a point where I can move the seedlings on my dining room table out there before they get much leggier.

I hate when people leave cards stuck to my mailbox, on stakes in my yard, and in my door, but I actually called the number for a place that left a business card on my porch last week - I need to get a price on pea gravel for the greenhouse floor, and it was a local guy who does all manner of gravel and stone, plus we were going to get a quote on our driveway. What do I hate more than litter on my property? Unprofessional/weird voicemail messages! I didn't leave a message, too annoying. The Mr can call if he wants, or I'll do it when I'm feeling a little more tolerant.

I started reading through all the paperwork that came with my shipment of mushroom spores. Imagine my surprise when I realized that they need to be planted almost immediately, and I need three gallons of spent coffee grounds for one of them. I bought "The "Espresso Oyster" Mushroom Patch™" with the intention of recycling more of my coffee grounds (because I drink more coffee than I should, and more than what needs to go on my regular compost piles), but I hadn't actually started saving the grounds by themselves yet, since I didn't get information about how much of what I would need until I received the spores in the mail with instructions to plant them within a week. So now I'm off to one of my favorite coffee shops in the morning to see how long it will take them to come up with 3 gallons of spent coffee grounds and whether they mind saving them for me. I may need a whole new fridge for mushroom spore storage, seed stratification, etc... soon.

Sigh

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Do you see all those lovely plum buds? It's supposed to get down to 29 degrees this weekend. That will make it the 3rd year in a row of early warm spell, late freeze, and no plums. :(

Re-Working

Today, I went out and re-mulched all the beds that I'd already done once, but had the wind undo. I raked up most of the straw out of the paths and the leeward side of the garden, and just tossed it in the compost pile, since it was hopelessly tangled with all manner of dead weeds. I've still got two beds left to prep - one is cleared of weeds, but needs a new soaker hose laid and mulch. The other will be a more arduous task - in the beginning, I used a bed as my compost pile, a different one each year. It made for good rich soil in that bed the next year, but the bigger the garden gets, the more compost it generates, and it just doesn't fit anymore, so now I have 4 piles in the gaps between the trees in the back. The last bed I used as a compost pile still has those remnants in it, so there are some things still not broken down, a lot of weeds, and a big hump of good rich dirt in the middle. So that's on my list for sometime within the next week or two. And I'm going to need another trip to Southern States for more straw.

Wind

Well, last you heard, I'd accomplished quite a bit. All my veggie beds were nicely mulched, among other things. Then came the wind, which was insane for about 24 hours. 30mph winds, 60mph gusts, for over 24 hours. I mulch my veggies with straw, so although some of it stayed pretty well, at least one bed was stripped bare, and my entire backyard now has a yellow glaze.

Worse, I left a 10 gal bucket that I use as a trashcan sitting out in the yard, full of pots, broken glass, old bits of soaker hose and weed barrier, construction scraps from the greenhouse, and other assorted debris. Someone was kind enough to gather up most of it and put it under my propane tank. The rest of it I gathered from the next 4 neighbors' yards into a large contractor bag. Sigh. How embarrassing. I saw my bucket tucked in behind a neighbor's utility trailer at the back of his yard, looking as if it'd been put there purposely. A small price to pay if he was the one who gathered up the rest of the trash for me, so I left it there. Times like this, I almost wish I knew my neighbors a little, but I don't. We've lived here for almost 8 years and I don't even know their names. I would've liked to apologize, but I don't know who to apologize to. So I've said nothing, for now (I haven't seen any of my neighbors since the wind came and went anyway) but next time I see him out mowing, I'll stop him if I get a chance, just in case.

And tomorrow, I guess I'll go mulch again. I really didn't get anything done out there this weekend, thanks to the weather, and it was snowing on my way to work tonight. Craaaaaazy weather.

Spring!

OK, it's not really spring, it's mid February, but it was 73 degrees today, which feels an awful lot like spring to me. And to my plants, unfortunately - this is shaping up to be the 3rd year in a row that we lose our plum tree's productivity for the year to a frost after unseasonable warmth. The strawberries are peeking out, or were, but they've since been mulched with about 6" of straw, which should keep them.

I've used the unseasonable warmth to get a lot done. The raised garden beds are almost completely ready - weeded, soaker hoses checked and repaired, and mulched. The perennial beds have been started, and I'm looking into just buying bulk mulch this year instead of bags. Some of the raised veggie/herb/fruit beds need some shoring up, and I'll probably replace a few more sides over the next few months with concrete, rather than oak.

My greenhouse is nearly finished, at least the structural part - it's got a roof and windows, it just needs the vent/doors put in around the perimeter and the man doors in at two corners. And a chandelier. I've decided to put a chandelier in, just because it's my greenhouse and I can. The tap needs to be installed - right now I just have a dead end plumbing line, capped off inside the greenhouse, and an old fashioned spigot still in the box. And I'll need to build racks/shelves around the perimeter for my lovely little seedlings. I'm thinking two levels and more in the middle, but I'm going to worry about the perimeter first and then decide what I want in the middle. I may just put in a little bistro set with a table and two chairs, at least in the winter. I have this romantic notion of getting some sunlight without freezing, possibly reading a book and sipping tea amongst the lettuces.

I know it's coming, but I dread the resumption of winter in a few days.