What did you do in the garden today?

[igorsMistress]

Good morning gardeners

Yay for dogs that are critter getters LG. We had a collie/shepherd mix that even scared opossums into the trees, he was a very good boy. My garden was never at risk from anything.

I watered the sod and made some mud puddles for the girls. Put wood ash in a few more dust baths I found.

I have some red cherry tomatoes, will check them tomorrow morning. None of the big tomatoes are ripe though. The second watering yesterday seemed to help everything. I hope we actually get some rain in the next few days, our chances have increased a bit.

Have a great day everyone

 

[deepbluesea]

Morning all!
We had ANOTHER gully-washer last night. Craziness. The raised beds and driveway plants are fine for drainage, but the backyard is a swamp. Soggy chickens are funny, though!

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Good girl, Maggie! I suppose it's worth noting that my husky also hunts rats. We had a litter of rats emerge into our garage last week and she took out two kits and both adults before she got a nasty bite on the inside of her lip and we brought her back in. She didn't even care. I treated all her wounds (orajel and iodine) and took her out to pee... She immediately tried to go hunting other rats again. We sealed up the holes in the garage and haven't seen them in the garage since. Now if we could only get rid of the ones in the chicken pen...!

Today I will be trying to fluff up my trampled strawberries again and generally weeding around the lawn/gardens. We have some water hemlock (related to but different than poison hemlock) growing that I need to get rid of. It's a neat plant, good for pollinators, grows in wet environments and is native to this area, but has a super bad neurotoxin in it that causes seizures if even a little is consumed. Probably a good idea to be rid of it then. I normally don't do my gardening with gloves on cause I dislike the way they feel but this will be an exception. I will be giving it a few days in the sun to dry out and make sure it's very dead before burying it in a shady hole, not the compost pile.
While I'm out there I might try to dig up some of the awful dock leaf we have growing all over the yard too. That stuff is the worst to try to remove.

 

[Chris2018]

Enjoying the growth of my mycorrhizae.

 

[dunnmom]

Thank you for sending the rain our way. We don't often get storms from the NE, but every now and then. Most of them dissipate in the mountainous regions before they get to us. Ours usually come from the SW, where there's not a lot standing in their way. This one has cooled us off, temps in the 70's this morning.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Last night the rats came back into the garage. Their mistake - the dogs took out four (three young'n's and a smaller adult) and didn't get a scratch on them. Husky got 3/4. Big dog is prissier - she doesn't like things moving in her mouth - so she only caught one and refused to bite the others, though she gladly chased them and flushed them out.

I did actually get some of the hemlock patch pulled. It's way worse than I thought. It's got some similar looking plants in with it that are COVERED in big, angry, painful thorns that go right through the gloves. So I have to be extra careful not to get a nice, hemlock-covered stab right into my hand. Additionally there's dozens of tiny hemlock plants that aren't blooming yet in that spot. It's been slow going and I only got about 1/3rd of the patch done. The hope is to plant less dangerous plants in that location and out-compete the hemlock in the future until it dies back all the way.
Today it's raining. I am always pleased when it rains. The plants need it. They've all been growing really well. Today I won't be doing much of anything in the garden but if it's drier tomorrow I might tie up some tomatoes! They are getting nice, thick stems and have grown much larger! Everything is starting to get big and I have to focus on airflow management now.

 

[Birdsong 82]

Morning all!
We had ANOTHER gully-washer last night. Craziness. The raised beds and driveway plants are fine for drainage, but the backyard is a swamp. Soggy chickens are funny, though!

I hear ya! Chickens goats and pigs soggy... actually soggy humans too. Lol Apparently huge storms here when gone sat and tons sun evening and tons all day and all night yesterday When my friend and I were leaving NC sun It slowly changed to clouds and 5 miles after va state line rain. We almost turned around and went back to Raleigh. So worth the trip. The show was amazing!

 

[Birdsong 82]

I’m still repairing things in my garden. I had a total loss of two tomato plants one potato plant and all of my lettuce. I have 20 tomato plants so to gone I guess I can deal with. I have lots of potatoes growing so I guess that’s not too bad and I can always re-plant lettuce. I’ve already had to do it twice this year. LOL. I thought I had lost a couple of pepper plants but I think they’re going to make it. Oh and lost one cucumber plant so not too bad. It was weird because the cucumbers or knocked on the ground and ripped off the trellis but all my trellises stayed up

 

[igorsMistress]

Watered the sod, it's just too hot to cut back yet. Some areas are still filling in, pretty sure it dried out from being in the sun before we bought it.

Tomatoes aren't quite ready yet, the rice flower is dead so that area will go back to the chickens for now.

I'm considering the location for the hibiscus and some companions. My choices are the east side of the garage against a wall, but the neighbors have oleanders and I don't want to water those too. They're huge and drop a lot of flowers on our side of the wall. Or I can plant it in the grass which would provide a natural mulch and it would shade the boys room in the morning and early afternoon. Or I can plant it out by the garden and provide afternoon shade for it. I like the grass idea, hubs won't. I'd have to argue over it, so deciding if it's worth it.

 

[Birdsong 82]

I like your idea of using it for shade. That’s great idea. Multipurpose... beauty and shade. I feel for you. You temp inthe summer make va summers seem cool.