August 28

Amazed at the size of the sunflower-must be at least nine feet tall with the blossom about a foot across

The bees love it!

June 20th first day of summer

I watered today, and replenished the depleted rain barrel. The rain barrel holds 55 gallons. 

Our new next-door neighbor, Juanita , did a beautiful job enclosing plot 17 with a wire fence. The garden looks so much better than it had last week – the weeds are mostly gone and she has actually put in some plants!  I am so impressed – I think back on how long it took Ginny and Me to put up the fence around our plot, and the fence doesn't look so great! Oh well, so it goes.

 I sprayed for whitefly last week with the insecticidal soap I got fromMary-field  Garden center. The Man I asked for advice told me it would kill on contact, and he was right. I don't see any evidence of any eggs or nasty White stuff. Hopefully this will improve the-yield on the tomatoes and brussels sprouts. I guess I need to keep a supply of the insecticidal soap on hand in the event that I get re-infested.

I did harvest some garlic on Sunday, it is drying out in our garage.

Beautiful day, blue skies and white fluffy clouds. The day started out nice and cool but by the afternoon was in the 90s.

First fruits....what a surprise!

I was removing my cold weather covers on the potato seeds and discovered Mr Potato Head! What a surprise. 

Wednesday is for weeding

Popped over to Nottoway late this afternoon just to get away. The basement  floor was not installed  properly... They glued it rather than "clicked" it in and then ran out of tiles. The issue is that the flooring was ordered properly but  not  delivered properly Ed compared what we ordered to what was delivered and there was a one letter difference 

The plumber had to be cancelled    as well the tv  delivery because of the flooring usage. There is a huge box in our dining room with a toilet in it.

I weeded and de cluttered the  garden box....the weather is going to be cold this weekend so I don't want to plant stuff yet although many gardeners have planted cabbages and lettuces  

Potato day 3/28

Beautiful day- dug up the area to the left of the gate and set two cinder blocks from George Baker. I placed the rain barrel on the blocks and then poured about 4 gallons of water in the rain barrel

A slow start but at least a start

The water is turned on so tomorrow I will connect a hose and fill the barrel...the water will have a chance to warm up a bit 

I also dug a sort of trench for potatoes ---the directions said the trench should be a foot deep---and planted 8 Yukon gold and then covered the potatoes with leaf mulch and the miracle grow plant dirt

I covered the trench with plastic and the fabric from the hoop covers

The last frost is supposed to be April 10th so I'm being a bit hasty but I think that potatoes are early 

I didn't put in the shallots even though  I was tempted....I felt that the potatoes were enough of a risk.

The straw bales are still dormant....I need to really soak the bales to get the fertilizer into the interior of the bales

Perhaps I'll wet them down tomorrow and set up the soaker hose all will depend on the hose - such a pain in the neck to have to connect 120 or so  feet of hose 

Will take some pictures tomorrow