Garden ⁽¹⁰⁵⁾

Brian Bilbrey May 15, 2016

15 May 2016

According to the record books, this last stretch of rainy days ended at 15. But that was measured at a local airport. MY backyard meter got measurable rain on 18 consecutive days, with today being the first rain-free day. Yowza! And let me tell you how unhappy my plants are! They're not as unhappy as they might have been with a late hard frost, but too much water stunts and kills. The tomatoes haven't grown, and continuous moisture encourages early rust, which would be ... bad. The cantelope seedlings are dead. The happiest looking plants in my backyard (aside from…

Brian Bilbrey April 21, 2016

21 April 2016

RIP, Prince. Helluva musician and entertainer. * * * I'm taking a couple of days off "work", so that I can get some work done around the house. This kind is much more tiring. Today: This year's mix - 28 tomato plants: Rutgers, Better Boy, Sweet 100's + two other varieties. 16 pepper plants: sweet bell, cayenne, habanero, jalapeño. Cucumbers. Zucchini. Butternut squash. Cantelope. Broccoli. Hmmm. I may be missing jalapeño, I'll have to check. I *do* have four varieties of pepper... So, that was a pretty full day, and my back kind of hates me right now. But that…

Brian Bilbrey April 17, 2016

17 April 2016

This was a good week. Not a great week - that would have required all seven days to have been above 32° F for the full 24 hours each. That only happened four times. That said, work was good and productive, including the weekend work that ate half of yesterday, as well as patching last night and this morning. The rest of the weekend was given to yard work of assorted types. I mostly did lawn care, but we did get a couple of new rose bushes for the front porch pots, a couple of herbs for the herb box…

Brian Bilbrey March 27, 2016

27 March 2016

Boring, I'm sure. First mowing of the year, yesterday. The front lawn is looking lush - that's normal for this time of year. Today, no shopping because the store was closed for Easter Sunday. But since Easter is also a sigil of Spring, I used the day to clean house. It's not perfect, but it's much better than it was before I started. Oh, oh, we saw a WONDERFUL Annapolis Shakespeare Company production of The Importance of Being Earnest. The excellent company cast was superbly directed by Founding Artistic Director Sally Boyett. It's a great play, Oscar Wilde was such…

Brian Bilbrey March 13, 2016

13 March 2016

Friday the thirteenth falls on Daylight Stealing Time Sunday this month. Yay? * * * A good week and a productive weekend. Yesterday I got the spring fertilizer down on the lawn (in time for today's rain-in), and got the garden beds cleared of all the fall and over-winter cruft. I still have to turn over and amend the beds, but a start is a start, so I'll take it. I also did some aggressive pruning of the crepe myrtles in the front of the house, and weeded some of the beds there, too. Today? Well, I'm a bit sore…