Dead and Empty

Yesterday I bought strawberry and asparagus plants.  I wanted to but them in 3.5 inch pots.  I opened and emptied the asparagus bag and the only thing in the bag was potting soil.

That was pretty disappointing.  There should have been three asparagus in the bag.  Regular price was $3.00 and it was on sale at Walmart for half price.

The everbearing strawberry plants were also half price.  The strawberry plants were held together with a rubber band.  I took off the rubber band there was not one live plant in the first bag or the other two bags.  Another disappointment.

I started to pull up the carrots in the raised bed that were there all winter.  That wasn't working well so I dug them up with a shovel.  A couple of days ago I dug into the west compost pile.  I was pulling up the weed and found the compost.

The carrots were small and probably not very tasty.  I put them on the east compost pile.

I filled a # 5 nursery can three times and dumped it on the raised bed.

I spaded the soil inside the raised bed mixing in the compost.  With the stirrup hoe I broke up the clods.  

Next job is to plant new carrots.  I mixed a tablespoon of seeds in vermiculite hoping distribute the seeds on the raised bed.  I drilled holes in the lid of a plastic mayonnaise jar.   I mixed the vermiculite and seeds together.  I could shake out the mix over the raised bed putting salt and pepper on a plate of food.  The holes are two small.  I enlarged the holes with a 3/16 inch bit.  The holes are still to small.  I then used a 1/4 inch bit and made a few knew holes.  This time it was easy to shake out the mix.

I patted down the soil so the seeds would germinate faster.  I watered it well with the hose and water breaker.

Elisha came over and put the seeds in a zip bag with a couple sheets of paper towels.  She also bought two large golden current bushes.

I needed a way to water some things in house six without unhooking the drip feed hose.  I cut the PVC pipe with a jigsaw.  I then cut off about two inches of pipe.  I then glued in the inch tee with a 3/4 inch exit.   Then a short nipple and an 3/4 inch ell.  Next was attaching the short pipe to the ell and clamping the other end to the door frame.

Screwing the hose bib to the pipe completed the job.  I found short hose and now I can water the strawberry plants.

My laptop computer that I am using now wasn't working very well.  I made several phone calls and got someone to come.  I waited in the house for him to come.  I left for a couple of minutes and someone called and left a message.  I couldn't understand the phone number.  I listed to it five or six times, and still could figure what the number was.  I messed around the phone and finally found the number.  I pushed the dial button and then was able to call him.  He was here in a couple of minutes.  To make a long story a little shorter, he put in a new router and now my laptop is working so much better.

I received a call from Penny's.  He said that my weed whip was ready.  I drove to Fillmore and brought it back.  I trimmed the lawn making it ready for mowing tomorrow.

As I left Fillmore, I took a couple of pictures of the progress at the Rock Canyon State bank.  They are building a fence on the south side and on the east side.  They are also building a parking lot. 

 There is a pile of lumber in front.

I took a tray of geraniums to Karen Bennett.

I bout fertilizer yesterday.  I cleaned the fertilizer tank and dumped it in and filled it with water.  I watered everything with the fertilizer.


Comments and questions are welcome.

Strange Day, Delay, & Surprise Meeting

I have a need for fertilizer and killz-all.  I have been out of fertilizer for nearly three weeks.  And, I have enough weed killer for two more tanks.   Our first stop was at wall Mart.

I have some geraniums which I am selling for $2.50 each.  I wanted to know what the cost of geraniums were at Walmart. I found them in the garden center.  They were selling them for $2.97 and the quality wasn't near as good as mine.  You can see them on the left side of the above picture.  They were selling larger ones for $4.97 each.

While there are bought three bags of bear root ever bearing strawberry plants with three plants in each bag.  I also bought a bag or purple asparagus plants.  There were three plant in that bag.  We bought a few other thing.

We stopped at Sam's club where we bought wet and dry cat food.  We also got a large bag of paper towels.  Next we went to Miles and Nyleen's home in Linden.  I got a hair cut and we had a nice visit.  We gave the eight geranium plants.  Nyleen gave us two PikRite determinate tomato plants.

We decided not to eat out.  They were not too hungry and neither were we.  We Barnes and Noble in Orem to have Carol's Nook replaced.  It can charge all night and the charge will last for about fifteen minutes.  Carol was waiting for me in the car while I waited an hour for the sales associate give us a new one.  She called the main office and gave them information about her Nook.  She called again and talked two a different person, and gave the same information plus a little more.  After a couple of calls, they finally concluded.  They will ship us a new one.  We will return her old one in a box that will be provided.

Were on our way to Sam's Club to get gas-up our car.  On the way Lisa called with some Mother's day presents for Carol.  They were in Lehi and we decided to meet them in the park on center street in Provo.  We met them at the park and got the presents.  They were going to Nephi to see a lab puppy which Alix was going to buy.   If we would have skipped Barnes and Noble, we would have missed them and they would have driven all the way to Holden. We got the gas and headed south on I-15 to Nephi.  We met them at the Flying J on the south end of town.  We then drove to the home of the dog owners.  They weren't home but we were able to go through a door in the back of the garage where we saw the puppies.  There were nine of them.

The above photo is of the puppies' mother.  Each puppy had different colored collar.  The collar indicates who gets which puppy.

We got this photo show Chase, Alix with the puppy,  then Carol, Merrill, and lastly Lisa.  The mother dog was looking towards the camera.  I looked down, the dog moved a little, and Chase took the Photo.

I watered house six, picked some strawberries, and then locked the doors.  I went back and picked strawberries.  I let the chickens out a six  and locked them back up at eight.


Comments and questions are welcome.

Sat., Sun., Mon., & Tuesday

Not much done on the above days.  Only thin Sunday was a couple of pictures.   My laptop doesn't seem to work properly.  Tuesday afternoon I took it to Fillmore to have and spyware removed.   After I got back to Holden, I stopped at the home of Cloyce and Pat Smith to get some of pictures of their. bailed straw garden.  They were working in the garden and yard.

I got a couple of photos Cloyce in their garden.  Pat did not want to be in the picture.

I got another photo as Cloyce was leaving the garden.

A month or so ago I planted the English cucumbers.  The didn't grow much until the days got a little longer.   Now there are three cucumbers on one plant and the top one is blooming and it looks like it will form our first cucumbers.

Monday afternoon, I dug weeds out of the strawberry batch.  I used the shovel for most of them.  I then used a forked digger tool to dig weeds that were close to the strawberry plants.  I did that on hands and knees.  If I can keep pit the weeds and keep the plants watered there should be some good straw berries.  Also, I have slugs and snails to contend with.

Monday evening we planted and watered the potatoes.   I could not stop the till so I used the two rows that were already there.  I made the rows deeper and broke some of the clods.   Then Carol drop tomato cutting in the trench.   I pressed in the soil and watered and fertilized them.  We planted one full row and part of another one.

Carol is putting in the potatoes.  

I covered them up.

I pulled this wild lettuce weed out of the potted red fountain grass.  Earlier, like maybe a month ago I pulled it up but only got a top portion of the root.  The photo show how it grew multiple stems.  Thought it to be interesting.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Friday

The photos today are not in order of when it was taken or the order of the events of the day.

When I would walk past the large honey suckle shrub between the house and greenhouses, a robin would flutter out of it.

Apricots are Frozen

Last night and the night before, it froze.  There was frost on the lawn and on the roof of our house.  It froze the cherries and apricots.   I worked in house six a couple of hours before lunch.  I was hanging the tomato plants and I was getting pretty fast.

I took this picture of one of the plants.  It looked like something had ate a couple of stems. Deer have be in this greenhouse, but they ate lettuce.  I decided that I broke when putting up the overhead wire.

I opened the truck door and found a wasp nest under the handle.  The wasp came out and I didn't get stung.

Alisha called me about five times.  She came and transplanted one of her plants.  She got twenty of them.

Carol and I drove to Fillmore to get the truck registered and get a few groceries.

I planted some more bunching onions.  I also planted a 105 tray of red beets.

Robert stopped in for a short time on his way home.  He was in big water visiting Richard and looking for plants.   He met an Indian man who grew melons.  He gave Robert seeds of five different melons that he developed.  There are two six packs of each kind.  The man's name was Wimmer.  The names of the melons are Wimmer Gold, Wimmer Sweet, Wimmer Green Meat Dew, and Orange Meat.  To finish the tray he planted Topaz.


Comments and questions are welcome.

Frost, Cool, Ministering, & Deer

First job after breakfast was to vacuum and clean the floors.

I have some leeks that were not planted in the raised beds over a month ago.  I planted a few in the north east bed.

I tied up tomato plants in house six,  I did some before lunch and some more after lunch.  Some of the pieces of twine are visible

Carolyn Stevens brought over some acorns that were from an oak tree whose  acorns came from the sacred grove in Palmyra New York.  There were six. there are shown above.  Only one looks like it is going to grow into a tree.

I planted a few seeds that came from a pea shrub in Elisha's yard.

Alisha called me several time during the day.  I planned to spray some weeds for her this morning, but the weeds were pretty wet.  This afternoon she called so I filled the back-pack sprayer filled with weed killer.  She has a bunch of raised bed that were beds of weeds.

 This one is north of the driveway.  Some are circles, and others are in the backyard and one is on the street right-away.

She called again while I was spraying the dandelions.  A person on main street dug up a large current bush.  She wanted me to plant it for here.  I dug the hole and she held it up while I did the backfill.

We haven't seen the deer for nearly three weeks, But this evening they came.  I walked out to scare them away  and got a few pictures.

They walked the the southwest corner of our yard and jumped over the fence into the neighbors yard.

They are watching me as I walk towards them. Then over the fence.

Carol asked me a couple of days ago to put down contact paper over the two shelves where we put most of our pots and pans.  I took off the door which was pretty easy.  I could take off the bottom shelf so I had to put the paper on my knees.  It took quite awhile.   I put it in and wasn't straight.  I did it again with the same results.  Finally I got pretty good and pushed out most of the bubbles.  The top shelf went pretty easy.  It was setting on the table and Carol helped me.  The paper went of one side a little bit.  It was easy to trim with a pair of scissors.


Comments and questions are welcome.

Tuesday Afternoon

There were a lot of deer on the road south of Scipio about 4:30 a.m.  As soon as we got home I checked out houses two and six.  The temperature in both were over 110 degrees.  I quickly opened the doors in house two and  opened the east door of house six and removed the fan cover.

Alisha Bills called me on the way home from Manti.  She wanted some help with the weeds in her yard.  There is a lot of tall grass on the north and west edge of her yard.  I hope to develop a plan to help her out.

I planted a row of beets along the south side of house six.  The tray has 105 cells.  Some of the cells had no plants in them.  I planted them along the edge of the drip tape.   we will see how they do.

The above picture show the beets, drip tape, dibble, and holes made with the dibble. the plants fit perfectly in the hole.

Above is the empty tray and part of a row of beets.

I used a tube tray as a template to make holes for the tray of onions.  I put the tray upside down and pushed the dibbler trough every other hole.

I pushed and pulled the onion plants out of each cell and stuck them in the hole.

It really worked well.  I later watered them.

I had eight purple plum tomato plants that I rooted several weeks ago.  I put them in a tray of water to irrigate them.

I pulled some beets our of house two and house six.  I cut off the leaves and stems. Then cut the beets into smaller pieces and boiled them for abut forty minutes.

Comments and questions are welcome.