petmoosie: (lizard)
It's raining, it's pouring. It's been a long time since we have had a long steady rain like this. The pollen is being forced down out of the air and many of the flowers are falling off the bushes. Everything bloomed pretty early this year: the azaleas, and the cherry trees.

All the surviving trees have leaved out. The county planted a large number of trees in the medians of the big roads nearby. Survival rates are correlated with the nearby trees, so you will find one median with all surviving trees and a nearby median with all dead trees (you will not find as often a mixture of living and dead trees in the same median). I suspect that the county will remove the dead trees sometime this year. They may not remove the branches of the ones that are alive low down and dead higher up. It is pretty difficult to work on those trees, just because the roads surrounding them are so busy.

I have planted a mixture of a type of beans, peas and corn. The peas came up first, then the corn is starting to come up fairly well now, and I can just see the beginnings of the beans. I took the easy way out, I spread the seeds and then added more soil on top, instead of digging them in. I also let them be planted fairly close together, so I may (or may not) thin them to get closer to the ideal spacing. I am planning to grow some morning glories around the corn, once it is well established (and I have done any thinning I wish to do).

I haven't mowed my yard yet this year (and it will probably be harder now that the grass is taller). I have weeded out quite a few things. I tend to recognize one type of weed, pull it anywhere I see it, and then move on to another type of weed. One of the weeds that I haven't messed with yet is a very spiky weed. Another one is the poison ivy.

My compost bin/heap is full of decomposable bags of kitchen refuse and weeds. I am completely out of leaves from last year. I've turned the top layers a few times, but I have not dug deep or moved the bin. I can definitely see that the bags from the earliest times are composting fine. I got the bags as a Christmas gift, so they are only 4.5 months old. It is still not enough material for hot composting; in a small house like ours, there will never be enough material for hot composting. I do worry that the weeds will go to seed, even though I try to get them in there early enough that there aren't seeds yet. The heap is very near a pile of sticks from a branch that we had to take down.

We still need to get those sticks out front for yard waste pickup. We also have a tree to take down in the front of the house. It's been leaning at a angle since Snowmegeddon. We need to finish the branch in the back; we were working under a time constraint to get it down before Hurricane Irene came through.

Our fence could use repair or replacement. One of the gates will not close. I don't really know how to fix that myself. The ground has come up under it. On the side of our back yard, we have the ground sloping rapidly away into the fence. It would be nice to add more soil there and flatten it out and use the fence for terracing.
petmoosie: (Default)
Multiple days below freezing or close to it. Winter has decided to show up, but not wintry precipitation (yet).

Travel. The whole family enjoyed taking a weekend away.

School. A large project suffered from neglect while we were away, and also while we were here. Basically, the child wants to do it all in school and put it off until the last minute. It is not a good situation. Also, Valentine's Day is the day before the project is due. Not wonderful timing. I am pretty much solely responsible for the Valentine's Day cards at this point.

Car. My car is not a happy camper, and must visit the experts. However, I never have large tracts of time where I don't need it.

Work. Well, this is what is making sure that my car doesn't have vast amounts of idle time. Plus volunteering.

Volunteering. Still a large amount to do. Keeping me busy and occupied.

Spanish. Only getting a tiny amount of Rosetta Stone done per week.

Garden. Thanks to the multiple days below freezing, I am not thinking about it at all.
petmoosie: (Default)
Lovely game of baseball. Emily was out of town with her uncle, so mrmoosie and I got to go on our own to meet up with [livejournal.com profile] starstraf and her sweetie.

Some animal is knocking over my corn!!! Anything that got high enough has now been killed. GGRRRR.
petmoosie: (Default)
School is done. I am not going to worry much about it over the summer. Emily may need a push in reading and to learn her math facts, but I will let it happen, especially the reading, since she is interested in many books.


Garden is growing (corn). The lettuce is growing (black-seeded Simpson, there must be a sale). The peas are trying to give their last pods for the season. It will get hot again, but today and recently, it's been cool. I've had to water several times, since there has not been much rain lately.

Work is heating up for the summer. Some of the last of the old-style GRE courses. And some chemistry for MCAT. All good, of course. My bank account will be fuller than I have seen it in a long time.

[livejournal.com profile] mrmoosie and I are contemplating going to a Nationals baseball game next Tuesday. If we do, Emily and I will have to take the Metro and mrmoosie will have to drive.



Garden

May. 12th, 2011 01:57 pm
petmoosie: (Default)
Transplanted my tomatoes on Monday (only the most grown of them). I lay them down for maximum root growth. Today, they were looking dehydrated, so I watered vigorously.

 I'd been letting this one plant grow, thinking it was a surviving seed from last year. I'm pretty unsure about that now, so I am pulling it up.

I am done with writing questions for GRE (I hope). I've revised several and that should be that.

Not much work scheduled for the summer so far. That's going to be just fine.
petmoosie: (braids)
And now it is very much ahead of me. I have some (quite tall) plants that I suspect are brassica of some sort. I planted a bunch of brussel sprouts and broccoli seeds at the tail end of last year's growing season that never came up. They could be weeds of some sort. I have thinned them extensively.

The raspberries are doing quite well; Emily and Mrmoosie staked them today to (hopefully) avoid the chipmunks eating them all. They have the smallest beginnings of flowers.

I've got two (three) tomato plants ready for transplant. I am attempting to remember to harden them off, by putting them outside during the day.

The peppers are still quite small. I am trying to remember to put them out for hardening also.

The lettuces are doing very well, I made a salad on Friday with some leaves.

The carrots are growing. Not very fast.

I staked up the snow peas both in the pot outside and in the garden. The ones in the pot are flowering vigorously.

I planted another type of pea. It hasn't come up yet.

I planted some corn. A bit early, but we'll see. Not up yet. Probably will come up this week, if it is going to.

A melon or gourd of some sort is growing outside of my garden. It looks a lot like the pumpkin that my niece planted recently. So probably pumpkin.
petmoosie: (Default)
This weekend, we (Mrmoosie, Emily and I) put in a few hours of work clearing leaves from the community pool. I also took a trash bag around for trash between the two fences. Emily was helpful for an hour and whiny for an hour. My legs hurt after all that. It's clear that I've been getting out of shape steadily. There will be another work day next week, but I will be busy.

I still have two more math problems (to edit) and one passage to write for Princeton Review. The timelines are pretty short, given the other constraints in my life. One of the biggest constraints this past week has been Emily being home from school. Another constraint has been actual tutoring and/or teaching. I am hoping not to get any more assignments for writing questions after those are finished.

The lettuces in my garden are growing faster than the ones in the pot. They are ready to harvest a few leaves from. I put some sticks for peas to climb up on in places where I have peas doing well. Only one set has fallen down so far, but I am not optimistic for most of them.
petmoosie: (lizard)
I sowed grass seed in the backyard yesterday. It will be wet later this week. It will also be cold, around freezing.

I am hoping for some sprouting and development of roots in order to keep the soil from eroding. I don't specifically care *what* grows there, as long as there is some soil cover.

Gardening

Mar. 22nd, 2011 11:25 am
petmoosie: (lizard)
My peppers (indoor) have *finally* sprouted. They are still quite tiny, compared to the tomatoes started at the same time.

I started with a full new round of Jiffy Pots of pepper seeds (on 3/20/11). I started two more tomato seeds at the same time.

The large pot has three growing snow-peas. No lettuces, so far.

I put more snow-pea seeds in the large pot and more lettuces. I also put some in the part of the garden closest to the house, as well as some carrot seeds.

I dug in a few places to see if I could see worms. Nope, not yet.

Cold

Mar. 16th, 2011 04:22 pm
petmoosie: (Default)
I'm feeling unusually cold today. I suspect it will turn out to be a fever.

long division. Emily is learning long division in math at school. So far, so crazy. She and her friend are not sure where on the paper any of the numbers go.

One of my outdoor peas is coming up. And I finally see something green in one of my peppers. I hope it is a pepper sprout and not mold.
petmoosie: (Default)
I planted some snow peas in the garden today (about 6) and some black-seeded Simpson lettuce (about 20 seeds). Two of the carrots in the indoor pot have just come up.  The tomatoes in the Jiffy pots are looking good, but the pepper seeds in the other Jiffy pots haven't germinated.
petmoosie: (Default)
I scattered some carrot seed today in the garden. According to the 7-day forecast, there will not be frosts for 7 days. Again, these should be able to tolerate a bit of frost.
petmoosie: (Default)
"Each winter, on average, your risk of frost is from October 21 through April 16.

Almost certainly, however, you will receive frost from November 8 through March 26.

You are almost guaranteed that you will not get frost from May 7 through October 3.

Your frost-free growing season is around 188 days."


That's for my zip code.

petmoosie: (lizard)
Planted some peas and lettuce in a pot outdoors. We'll see.

I finally found the seed packet for the mixed wildflowers that I planted in the spring of '10. It was a mixture of 22% of Centaurea; 17% each of Gypsophilia and lupine; 11% each of Coreopsis, Delphinium and Echinacea; 5% of Rudbeckia; and less than 5% each of Chrysanthemum, Clarkia, Lychnis, Monarda and Silene.

"Most varieties bloom second year"--we'll see.
petmoosie: (Default)
I planted 10 Jiffy Pots of tomatoes and 10 Jiffy Pots of sweet peppers today. If they survive, I should be transplanting them outdoors in 8 weeks (April 22, which is in Spring Break week).
petmoosie: (braids)
It's supposed to be cold today and tomorrow. Well, I don't have to go out today any more, so just tomorrow.

It's supposed to snow flurries tonight, I think.

I bought a ton of "humus and manure" from Scott's (8 of the 0.75 cubic feet bags). I wonder if it will help in my garden. I've done that before, but never quite as much at one time. It has raised the level of my garden about 1 inch.
petmoosie: (Default)
My brother took my child with his two out for a weekend+ at the beach. It's the week before school.

[livejournal.com profile] mrmoosie and I saw the cold-war-type thriller, SALT, with Angelina Jolie. Man, she makes an attractive man.

Although the prediction is for thunder today and rain tomorrow, I am seeing lots of sunshine here. I was screening my compost today and made a lovely dark pile of dirt. I still see small eggshell bits in there. But my compost tests at about 8 on the pH scale, so I am sure that some Ca++ is becoming available to my plants.

[livejournal.com profile] starstraf 's gave [livejournal.com profile] mrmoosie many pairs of pants, jeans and shorts on Saturday. I am checking the pockets, washing, and folding them.

petmoosie: (Default)
The chipmunks are jumping up to get the low ones. The birds are getting at the higher ones. They are all very determined. It seems that I will need to think about netting to protect the raspberries if I want to eat any of them.

Other neighbors complain about deer, but I can see who is attacking my bushes, and it is not deer.

Emily is sick today and [livejournal.com profile] mrmoosie will be taking care of her all day.

Gardening

Jun. 1st, 2010 01:47 pm
petmoosie: (Default)
I am finding it hard to stay in the house. I mowed the front yard already today. Now I am tempted to cut my neighbor's wisteria, which is poking over the back fence.

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