Rain

Saturday August 12th

Cool but humid this morning with rain in the air; perfect day for work in the garden. Arrived about 10 am and met Fernando and Vivian of the Blueberry bush gardens. They also have another garden and both are in great shape. Vivian told me that she is glad we are working the garden ---that it has been years that our plot has been empty--- the one that is catty cormer from ours - the one full of weeds- Vivian said has been unworked for over a year. They showed me their plots and we discussed fences and deer and stink bugs. They said they lost a lot of veg b/c of the stink bugs. 

Vivian suggested that we look at garden #5 which belongs to an architect. She likes the fence and thought we might want to look at it for ideas. As I was spreading wood chips along the path that Ginny dug , Ginny arrived and we trotted off to look at garden #5. The fence has   aluminum poles about 6 or 7 feet high and wire tied to the posts. The fence door was a anchor fence type of metal door. While it was nice, it did have a Stalag 15 feel about it. Ginny mentioned lattice gates and an arbor over the entranceway and I think that I prefer her idea that is, a less institutional look to the fence. Deer got into the next door plot and ate the sunflower plants.  Vivian said we’ll need to build a high fence not only in the outside edges but also on the interior edge since our adjoining neighbor has 3 feet high fences.

Ginny and I chatted awhile about how being negative and judgmental are habits and how understanding that is a drag because one can’t blame one’s personality for being judgmental and critical. Unfortunately, its all under one’s control…so much easier to be able to attribute being judgmental to a genetic flaw. Despite the resolve to be less judgmental, I did wire the composter to the wire fence. Just am afraid that someone will be tempted to take it.

Made a second wood chip run and dug up some pink coneflower plants. Dumped the chips, replnted the plants and met Leslie (Lindsey?) who has a garden adjacent to the Plot 21 ladies. She is very nice and told me she is the source of the  wood boards. She said she got them from the dump and thought we might be able to use them. They were from a deck that was being discarded. She said while they don’t like people trash picking at the Fairfax County dump, if one is quick , it’s possible to get stuff that is usable for the garden.

She is a first year gardener and told me that someone came in during April  and stripped  her plot of the fence and a  row of rose bushes that were left from the prior owner. I suggested that perhaps it was the former owner and she said “no, the prior owner had died”. She said she thought it was another gardener and she shrugged and said “what are you going to do about that stuff?” 
All of my judgmental reflexes sprung into action and I was glad I wired the composter.

Leslie said she laid down landscape cloth and used a lot of leaf mulch and has not had to water much at all. She has beautiful eggplants and said she just planted some brussel sprouts.  She was so excited about her tomoato harvest and said “Here, take this” and gave me a huge tomato- it looks as if it weighs 3 lbs! At that point, we heard thunder and scurried off to pick up our stuff. I finished the wood chips and loaded up the car and left- she said she was going to see it she could wait it out. The rain will be good for the coneflowers I just planted around the composter.   Left about 1pm.