Preparing for Plant Sale

Yesterday I emptied most of the gallon pots.  Today I put the pot away.  Most of them went into the shed.  The round pots went into house four.

I loaded two tubs of plant tags into the truck.  I put all the garbage containers which held broken pots and trays and some dust.  We went to the dumpster and unloaded

I picked the pumpkin.  Carol wanted it on the front porch. I planted four seeds in four different hills sometime in early July.  Then I pulled all of the plants except one in each hill.  Then a staked with a six stake.  As it grew I tied it to the stake and cut off all branching.  I thought that it might have been planted to late to turn orange.

All week I have been posting on face book a perennial and native plant sale this afternoon and tomorrow morning.  That is the reason for so much cleaning.  I gathered up all of my small plant signs and picked the one that matched my native plants.  I had enough for most of them.

One customer came.  I call it one, but it was a man and his wife that recently moved into Holden.   They spent $25.00.  We will see what tomorrow brings.

Almost finished with cleaning the shed.  It looks a lot better and there is room for a few more things.  I swept it with the big push broom.  I have hundreds if not thousand of azalea pot of different sizes.  The next project if group them according to size.  I bought these pots for the poinsettias which I haven grown for years.

I emptied the cone-tainers and stacked all of them which make thing look a little neater.

Comments and questions are welcome.

An Hour in the Dental Chair

I worked in the shed this morning, rearranging pots and trays.  I cleaned way more dirt.  It is starting to look a little better.  Below is a picture of the east side or east isle.  There is a stack of pot in a seventeen inch tray.  I want them off the floor and in a shelf.

Below is a picture of the west isle.  It is cleaned up pretty good.  There are a lot of azalea pots of different sizes.  On the top shelf on the east wall are more azalea pot.  I want the all together and sorted by sizes.

I had to quit working and get ready for the dentist.  His assistant took x-rays in two different places.  When the dentist came in, we visited for a moment.  I told him of the discomfort of a tooth.  He did an x-ray of it and right a way concluded that I had a huge abscesse below that tooth and the tooth had to come out.  It took him about forty-five minutes to remove the tooth which broke into quite a few pieces.

Carol made soup a couple of days ago.  There is still some left. I put it in the blender.  After a couple of minutes in the micro-wave oven.  I was able to eat it without any chewing.  It was really good.

I deleted the voice mail number a couple of days ago.  I called the Samsung number to see if they could help me listen to my voice mail.  My phone didn't work well.  The person who answered the phone wasn't able to help me.  He transferred me to another tech man.  He was able to help me some.  I gave him the house number and was easyier to communicate with him.  I was finnaly able to understand him.  He told me how, but it didn't work of poor signal and me pushing the wrong number.

We made Elderberry jelly.  I picked the Elderberry fruits on Monday.  We put them in the steamer and got one quart of juice.  We ended up with five one half pints of jelly.

One of our home teachers came this evening.  He brought a loaf of bread.  I got him a watermelon.  I a little of the blosoom end.  It was a good melon.  I ate it.  I had to scrape it with a spoon.  When I got a spoonful I would swallow it with out and chewing.

For supper I walked out to house one and picked seven tomatoes.  I put five of them in the blender, added pepper, salt, and garlic powder. I boiled it for about ten minutes and thickened it a little with corn starch.   It made two cups of tasty soup.  It is in the photo below with some saltine crackers.

Comments and questions are welcome

Most Pots are Empty/ Cleaning Shed

The cats and kittens that live at our place, about eleven of them, are eating a lot of cat food and pooping all over the lawn and close to the house.  After a few days it really sinks.  I have had the trap out for several day.  We put a small frying pan which hold some of their food.  This morning three of the kittens were in the trap.  I pulled the trip wire and the gate fell down and locked them in.  They have been relocated.

I spent much of the morning and early afternoon empting the pots.  Most are empty now.  Below is the a 48 foot bench.  At times it is filled with plants.  Now there are some plants on the east end.  I dumped the pots in a large nursery can and carried them into house two, where I put them in the new raised bed.

I continued in the organizing and cleaning in the shed.  I have a lot of plant tags that I have had for years and years.  I don't even grow the varieties and more.  I started dumping them in large nursery cans. I filled up two.  They will be going to the dump tomorrow.  The photo below shows the boxes that I removed.  There was a lot of dust and dirt on the floor.

The picture shows some of the shelves and the stuff on the floor.  I want all of that on the shelves or stacked neatly under the shelves.  The one nursery can is filled with pot tags.

 There are a couple of Italian squash.  I brought them in the house for the picture.

I cut an eight piece of the end, cut it in half, and wrapped them with aluminum foil.  Carol baked the while I was out side working.  Below the plate with potatoes and gravy with the squash covered with butter.  Tasted pretty good.

Before supper Carol fed the cats.  I put some cat food in the tramp.  The cat that we wanted to relocate went in, I pulled the trip wire, but she was not all the way in and she got a way.  Another cat came in and she was caught.  I relocated her to another place.

I opened another water melon.  It was red and sweet.  We gave the rest of it to the Stephensons.

Comments and questions are welcomed.

Frost Again on the Lawn

After morning activities were over I went out.  Frost on the lawn again.

I worked at the computer for several hours.  The were two 941 forms that I had sent in.  One was for the first quarter last year and the other one was for the third quarter.  The only time I had employees was the second quarter.  I finally got it right and took it to the post office.

We have been putting cat food in the trap.  The cats go in and eat.  There were three in at one time and I hid the door and it wouldn't go down.  The cats quickly left.  I made a hole in the door and used a long piece of tire wire with a loop on one end and the other end was pushed through the hole for about one inch.

I removed the foliage from the sweet potato plants.  Removing a little soil from the center plant there were five sweet potatoes visible.  It doesn't show in the photo below.  I covered them again with frost protection fabric.   I put the stems and leaves on a new compost pile.

I dug up one sweet potato plant that got a late start.  There were a couple sweet potatoes.  I took them in the house, cleaned them up and might eat them tomorrow.

I finished the raised bed.  To move it into place, I used two four inch PVC pipes.  One under the left side and one under the right side near the far end.  I was then able to lift the front end up and roll it until it the far side.  I started to put used potting soil in the bed.  I was able to empty a lot of pots that contained dead plants.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Frost Damage This Morning

Killer freeze that froze all of the vine plants.  It did not seem to harm the pepper and tomato plants.

First thing after breakfast was to take the dead chickens to the dumpster.  There were two in the nests, two at the south end of the chicken run and one outside with its head caught in the netting.  I put them in a large garbage bag and drove to the dumpster.  The photo shows the two at the south end on the left side behind the netting is the third one.

Cow panel collapsed because of the heavy fruits and foliage.  This is the first thing I saw when I checked the luffas and Italian squash.  The trees are in the background and the cow panel at the bottom edge of the light is almost flat.  The conduit pieces were bent into an "L" shape.

This is what it looked like from the south side.  The goose neck object is a mature Italian squash.

Did more cleaning.  There a lot of pots where plants have died I need to empty.  What to do with the soil other than dumping in on the ground somewhere was somewhat a problem.  That is when I decided to build another raised bed.  I put the soil in the raised bed.

Last night I put the surviving hen near the heating lamp to help dry her of and keep her warm.  She hadn't moved and this morning.  I opened the gate so she could leave the hen house.  She didn't move until this afternoon.   She did come out, and I gently herded her to the north side where she could get in the sun.  She stayed in the shade.  She did get a drink of water.  I threw her some chicken scratch.  She didn't move.  Later she was out in the sun, but she stayed out for a short time and then sit in the corner looking out.  It looked like she wanted to watch for a fox and being the corner the fox could not sneak up behind her.  I picked up as the sun was going down and put her back into the hen house and shut the gate.

Frost revealed some sweet potatoes.  I have been closely watching the sweet potato vines the last couple of weeks.  The vines have grown so thick they hid the potatoes.  I looking at them this early afternoon and found two large sweet potatoes.

I covered them just before it got dark.  I don't think that the coming freeze tonight would hurt them but to be safe if covered.

Made framework for another raised bed in house two.  I have a stash of lumber.  From this stash I got two 2x6x12' for the sides and there was another 2x6 that was about 11 feet long.  The one left is badly twisted I have a wood clamp with a cement block holding it. It still has a way to go to remove the twist. The one on the right is slightly twisted.

The photo below shows the left corner.  You can see how much more I have to twist it to get it in the right plane.

I made four 2x2 corner blocks  that were 1 1/4 inch longer than the width of the 2x6. They would hold the raised be a little higher in the air.   The one in this corner split while trying to remove the twist, so I used a 2x4.  It seems to be holding.

I picked the watermelons and a Topaz melon.  Some had a drying or a dry tendril and others did not.

This is the biggest melon that I have ever grown, 27 1/2 pounds.  The tendril was not dry.  We will see if it is ripe or not.

Watermelon vines, Armenian cucumber vines and Topaz melon vined badly damaged by the frost.  Burpless cucumbers some slight damage.

Comments and questions are welcome.

The Freeze Never Happened in our Area

Today, I turned the furnace own. The temperature in the house was 63 degrees.

I was working again cleaning around the greenhouses.  I keep finding trays all around the south door of house two.  I worked some there this morning and again in the late afternoon.  The germination trays can get extra heavy when it rains and if they out in the rain.  Rain was the forecast this afternoon.

While I was doing this Robert and Frank, Andrew, the furnace guy arrived about the same time. Andrew got the furnace going.  It didn't take him long.  The valve attached to the furnace would not turn for me.  It turned for him.  Isn't that the way it works.  He loosind one of the gas pipes to bleed out the air.  He tightened it up when he smelled the gas.  He lit the piolet light and turned up the thermostat.  The furnace worked.  I had him pick some tomatoes while I got the check book.  $15.00.

Robert and Frank removed a lot of tomato plants out of house seven.  The weight of the tomato plants hanging from the bows was putting some stress on them.  Robert and Frank picked peppers, tomatoes, The mature Italian squash and some watermelons.

I dug the onions before lunch.  They were laying on the black weed barrier.  After lunch Carol and I cut off the onion tops.  I put them in the garage for them to cure a little.   Later we drove to Fillmore from some groceries.  We got a roast and hamburger at Ashton Farms.  Eric, our son, called and wanted to know if the could visit us tomorrow.  That was the main purpose going to Fillmore.

I moved the compressor into house three to get it out of the rain.

It rained on the way home from Fillmore and it has rained quite a bit this evening.

No pictures today.  I got too busy to document the day with photos.

Comments and questions are welcome.

The Day Before the Freeze

Every time I go into house two I am faced with jalapeno peppers that have fallen out of the raised bed onto the ground.  I put off tying them up.  Except today I drove to four foot 1/2 " conduit into the ground.  I tied blue twine between the two conduits.  You see how it looks in the picture.

Made labels for some of the tomatoes in house one.  I attached a theme clip to the overhead wire with a hog tie.  I printed the name of the tomato plant on a sticky label.  Attached it to a card and then fastened it to the theme clip. I made labels of the following tomato plants.

I picked a couple of watermelons and a bunch of Topaz melons.

Below are the plastic tags on the ground which were replaced with a printed tag hanging from the overhead wire.

I am having a perennial plant sale a week from today and tomorrow.  I worked yesterday and today cleaning house two and three.  I removed weeds in house one.  I Sorted all the trays and flats.  The photo below shows the different stacks of trays and flats.

Carol and I went for a little ride.  When we got back we picked a half bushel of tomatoes.  It was cold.  It might freeze tonight.

The second to the last thing for the day is to removed the timers that turn on and off the water for Robert's garden.  I was a lot easier that what I thought.

I was deleting unimportant emails and spam this evening.  I found one email from the mother of a scout who was working on his Eagle project.  She wanted Bitter Brush, Sage Brush, and Curl-leaf Mahogany.  I have the Bitter Brush.

Comments and questions are welcome.

A Lot to Do

We had some cucumbers and tomatoes left over from yesterday.  Two of the cucumbers were quite large.  Carol took them to the display box at the post office.

There were two T-posts used to make a place for the ducks that we had several years ago.  I removed the plywood that was there which left the two posts.  I dug them up and was able to pull them out of the ground.

The furnace piolet light went out sometime yesterday afternoon.  I worked on it for over and hour this morning and could not get it lit.  I could not turn the valve to piolet.  finally I called Andrew Brown who is a furnace man.  He will come tomorrow afternoon.

I picked Anaheim peppers, jalapeno peppers and egg plants this morning.  I put them in separated totes.  One of our cats came by to get in the picture.

Here they are at the post office.   I made labels for each.

 With frost in the forecast, I moved the tender plants back to house two.  below is the pomegranate bush, three lemon trees, and three lantana plants in front.

Below is the Dracaena  that is nearly six feet tall.  I pulled up the geraniums that were growing around the base of the plants.  I used the ball and burlap cart to get it to house two.

The Dracaena would not stand up straight.  I blocked one side up so it will sit straight.

Yesterday, I picked a watermelon.  It is pretty much ripe, but seeds has not turned black.

Walking through the garden I took a picture of this crookneck squash plant that I have been training up a post.  It is over five feet tall.  This was planted in mid-July.

 I filled this clam-shell container with Sun Gold cherry tomatoes.  The weight was 2 1/4 pounds.

I worked for a little over an hour pulling weeds out of the pots.  The blossom from the Salvia pachyphylla plant looked pretty nice.  Here is the picture.  It is one of my favorite native perennial.

Below are the Round Leaf Buffalo berries.

 Fremont Barberry

 Bristle cone pine seedlings.

 Monroe Globe Mallow

Luffa sponge that finally produces fruit.  This one is about six inches long.  It should have been that size back in June.

 The next two photos are in house six.  The tomato plants have been neglected during the last month.  The weight of the vines have broken the twine that hooked to the overhead wire.  The are just laying on the ground.

Comments and questions are welcomed