Gardening 2024

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I got in the back seat.    We toured the greenhouses another group has.  They have a really nice setup.  It takes one person a half hour to water the greenhouse with a hose.  Marsha heard the hose answer several times.  Not sure she'll let us do it but she wasn't arguing against it.  They grow very little from seed and order just about everything from plugs.  They only sell perennials that people dig up from their yards.  They aren't into natives and could careless about attracting bugs and pollinators.

On the way home, we stopped by the wildflower nursery.  I got two additional species of milkweed, tall green and purple.  Didn't find Sullivant's.  Getting excited about putting in my milkweed display but our temps have dropped and we might get a little snow in the morning.  I got Showy Goldenrod for the Bee Bar and New Jersey Tea for the Moon garden.  I could have shopped a lot longer but it was freezing so I got a sweat shirt instead. 

The wildflower nursery is a pretty cool place.  They were growing and selling natives long before it was a thing.  Their catalog is the native plant bible in our state.  I picked up a bunch of last year's catalogs to hand out to our students.  They tell you where the plants grow best, rate them on their looks in formal gardens, tell you what bugs like them.  You can buy all the plants for a certain kind of garden from them like a shade garden.  First time I have been there.  They do pop up stores at events around town.  They have a dirt driveway through the woods to get to the nursery.    Plants were cheap enough.  Then again they set the price for plants for the whole state.  Everyone knows a native will cost you six bucks.  I picked up a couple of pots with babies in them which only cost $3.50.  Figure early enough in the season I can grow them up before planting.

[cineater]

We've had a little bit of luck.  Gary is tearing down a composite deck and bringing us the composite we need for Marsha's area.  That will save us a lot.  Hopefully it will be enough to finish it off.

Finished transplanting the marigolds, all 450 of them.  It's nice sitting in the plant room moving little plants into bigger pots.  These will go in the miniature garden.  Last transplanting and seeding party is Saturday.  Not the end of it because we still have all the tomatoes to do in the greenhouse.

Tim dropped me off two stumps I use as legs on my bench.  They are a lot taller then what I had.  Will have to get use to them, kind of like getting use to the taller toilets.   

[cineater]

Marsha didn't accept any of the composite.  Said it was trash but she did promise him the trade, my milkweed plants.  Wait we didn't get anything and you offered up the swamp which I don't have a lot of.  She was suppose to offer up the showy.  Somehow this all has a very deju feeling to it, like something like this happen last year with him.  The trade didn't happen but they gave him the wrong product anyway.

Demo garden plants are getting the boot from the greenhouse to make room for the sale plants.  Took out my four flats and kept 5 at home with me that could have come in.  The garage is filling up fast.  They go out in the morning and come back in at night.  Marsha gave me shit for doing the 5 flats at home.  She wanted the group to do them Saturday.  Believe me there is plenty for them to do on Saturday.  And was not what she said when I told her at the start of the week I was doing them at home.  And then she started another little thing about the tomatoes and yeah I'm not sticking around for this, bye.    Three weeks before plant sale and she's feeling the pressure.

I haven't told her yet I'm not coming to steering committee next Friday.  I could give a flying fuck about how people record their hours.  We have nazies in charge of it now.  Everybody is bitching about it and Marsha has taken it on.  Not throwing my tits in there.  They already don't like me because I don't take them seriously.  It will go a lot smoother without me there. 

[cineater]

Last transplant party today.  Just the tomatoes and peppers left to transplant and they need a little more growing time.

I cleaned out the soapwort in the bed I'm using for the milkweed.  I need to move a few bulb plants, throw down some leaf mulch and I'm ready to plant.  I ordered some butterflies on sticks to use to mark the plants since they are so small.  Purple coneflower and zinas and that should be it for the year.  Don't get much easier than that.  I hope they all grow. 

[cineater]

Marsha's been annoyed with me, lord only knows why.  Yesterday she threw out some leftover plants she knew I wanted.  Today I asked another person what happen to them.  Marsha fessed up later when she got there.  Okay no big deal, they were going to the parks.  Bees like that plant for making their nests.  And I left it at that.  Get a call from Marsha later wanting to know if I want another group of leftover plants, sure.  Has realized it was her and not me so she's going to make up for it.  We go through this cycle every year.  And because we go through this cycle every year, I know where she dumps the plants and I'll just go retrieve them.    I even have a place at my house where I hide the plants Marsha has dumped and I've rescued.

Dumping plants isn't about not letting people have them.  It's about making room in the greenhouse and recovering our resources, ie the containers and the soil.  I collect containers to put plants in for the parks and they give them back to me to plant up for next year.  The soil comes from the used soil the seeds were started in.  Everything stays at my house.  They take anything we send their way.  Fun and games, right?

Got to work on the milkweed bed.  It's ready for its plants I'm hoping I can do next week.

[cineater]

Those missing plants aren't any where.  I suspect she gave them to somebody.  At least they didn't die.  Dusty Miller, not a great looking plant but the bees take the fuzz off of it for their nests.  It won't sell out at the plant sale.

Looks like we are going to stay above average.  We have several days of on and off rain this week.  I'm going to look at the 10 day forecast after that and if it's good, I'm going to start planting.  I can always cover with frost cloth all though my 'can take that full sun all day long' plants won't like it.  I've swung back to wanting to use only natives. I do have all my beds cleaned up and ready for planting.  The annual weeds are still around back flowering for the early pollinators.  I won't pull them until the flowers are done.

[cineater]

70 feels hot to me.    Started mowing at the garden.  I feel like a slug.  The thought of hefting one of the trimmers around the garden feels like it may be too much.  That was my favorite thing last year.  Following my rule of just keep going, don't stop.  Hope that gets me back up to speed pretty quick.  We have the morning tomorrow before the rain comes in.  I got in my monarch markers, really cute.

Rough count, I have around 600 plants for the parks.  Last year we sent 900.  I'm missing marigolds and zinnias for them.  The milkweed is a jewel but they need annual plants.  I may go pick up some more seed packets for them.  And dumpster dive for stuff to grow them in. 

[cineater]

We might have lost one of our exhaust fans.  I walked in the greenhouse yesterday and it was 90.  Reset the one fan down to 80 but I couldn't get the other one to kick on. 

Today was all about getting the gardens ready.  We are over ran by henbit and deadnettle.  Good annual weed for your early pollinators.  We try to leave those up as long as we can.  Surprisingly, my knees don't hurt.  Once down on the ground I'm not getting up until my bucket is full and I have a pile of weeds by me.  Might have helped that my knees were in cold mud. I wore eye protection!  And a cap on my head so I wouldn't be tempted to put my glasses on my head.  Cloudy and a little rainy so the bees weren't out!

I got my butterfly weed today.  Only 3 more plants to round up and I'll have all the plants for the milkweed display.

Extension is sponsoring a two week period in June for the community to decorate their yards.  I've got Grateful Dead bears, pink flamingos and Phebe has the ducks.  Ken, our resident artist already has some ideas.  I hope he can out do what I've got!     Oh, I have monarchs on sticks.

[cineater]

Left before the final diagnosis on the fan.  Gave some university people a tour of the gardens and tried to recruit them to take one of our open positions.  I am shameless. 

Maureen showed up late and went into meltdown.  She was waiting to get to the garden to lose it.  Her husband wasn't up by the time she was ready to leave and she was afraid he was dead in his bed.  He woke up so she didn't have to go in and see.  He could go any day or hang on a few more years.  As I've said or meant to say, it's good we have gardening to take our minds off things.  Never occured to me that I would be there for so many people dealing with death.

On a happier note, the parks picked up their milkweed today.  She came in a short bed, pick up.  I filled that up.    She left with 9 flats.  I threw in a few of her annual flats.  Well over $1000 worth of plants if they had to buy them.  That milkweed is gold and I can tell you one of the easiest plants to grow.  I thought she was going to dance out of here.     Showed her my groundsel and she would like me to grow some of that for them next year for their shade area.  I'll give it a shot along with more milkweed.

I went to pick up a Sullivant milkweed for my display but they aren't in yet.  Picked up a Whorled one instead because you can't go plant shopping and not buy a plant!     Did get all their plant labels ready to go.  I so want to jump on my display and get it in the ground.  Hopefully next week but I'll be waiting on two plants.

[cineater]

   "She lied to my face."  So glad I couldn't make steering committee today and let Marsha take it.  She didn't quit but they took away the other girl's absolute power over the recording of volunteer hours.  She already hates me and now she hates Marsha.  I'm hoping she was just trying to save face and goes home and quits.  It's nice she's not directly pissed off at me but still says I'm a problem.  I am, I don't give a shit about that.

Marsha is not coming tomorrow.  I'm hopefully taking a team of volunteers around to weed.  Marsha starts telling me where we can weed in her area.  There's some history.  She says I never get to her garden when I do that.  She has 7 team members and the gardens I take them to only has a lead.  She wants a weed team, call for one.  I'm calling mine for the benefit of the whole garden and where I have to lend a helping hand.     And I have the trainee team working the 3 bed renovations.  Fortunately Beka leads that but we'll all be working the same side of the building.  Weeding and planting, one would think that's what I'm doing all the time.

[cineater]

Not sure what is up with the bees. 3 or 4 people got stung today and they were chasing folks.  Reported them to the bee keeper.  Thought it might be some in ground bees but the one we took out of Melanie's hair was a honeybee.  We weren't even close to the hives.  Tim says they just requeened yesterday.  Not sure what that means about the bees activity.  They do that when the hive gets aggressive and it calms them down.  Maybe it takes a few days or they put a bitch on the throne.   

We did get the tree trunk installed and holes drilled in it for nesting bees.  While we were there we had a bee checking it out.    Leslie found my Sullivant's milkweed on her way in so I'm just waiting on the one Beka is digging up from her yard.  I'll do the initial install without it since it isn't up yet.  We installed the chocolate vine.  The ones I am rooting up look good but somebody bought us one so were using it.

Only had 3 trainees show up to weed, at least two of them got stung, the third new last year.  I kind of lost track how many people were getting stung.     But all of them were on my projects.  I'm not making a very good first impression.   

[cineater]

I'm sitting at the greenhouse with a flat of plants.  The bee hives are all the way across property.  This bee will not stop buzzing me.  I go to the car and roll up the window.  He kept diving the window!  And the windshield and the other side of the car.  I finally moved the car, asshole bee.  After a while I ran back over to the greenhouse and grabbed my flat and ran away.  

Two weeks before plant sale and the plants are ready to go out the door.  I'm putting a half a gallon of water in the coleus flats and they are soaking it right up.  It's so hot in the greenhouse I'm meeting my evening waters after the sun starts to go down.  It is my last day of a full greenhouse.  We'll sell some next weekend and the big sale is the following weekend.  All tomatoes are to report to the greenhouse tomorrow to be transplanted.  Too bad I'm babysitting and can't get there till 6.  I'm hoping they are done long before that.

Forgot about the tic.  Some where between home and the greenhouse Carman got a brown bump on her eyelid.  From the other side of the table I tell her it looks like a tic.  No she looked it up on the internet and it some kind of growth.  Doesn't make sense to me but I offer to pull it off with the tweezers.  No that's not the right thing to do.  DJ goes over and takes a close up look.  "It has legs."     What I said, I've got eyes now, I can see that all the way over here.

[cineater]

Why do I always end up with the poisonous plants?  Picked out Ballerina Purple Trumpet seeds for one of my beds.  Who knew?  Not ordering any more cheap seeds from China.  They did give me about 50 seeds and the packet says 15.

Marsha better never accuse me of over watering again.  Don't ask why but she decided to do another flat of the purple shamrock.  They are for me to put in my garden but I already have a bag of them and I'm direct sowing.  Anyway I look at them and say they are awful wet.  She starts bitching that they didn't get watered in the greenhouse and were really dry.  I carry them to my car thinking they are really heavy and why are there 3 flats doubled up under these.  Closer look and I can see the soil is basically floating in the water.  It's like a soup.     The whole way home, every corner I turned, some of it spilled out.  Tomorrow they go out on the driveway in full sun and hopefully they dry up before the bulbs rot.

Somehow Marsha has twisted what I said, Joe shouldn't be president and the other Kevin should be in charge of membership.  What I said was I don't think Joe will serve another term as president.  And that I didn't know if Kevin would be good in that job but I would tell him she wanted to talk to him.  My real opinion, better Joe than anybody else and oh hell no on the other Kevin. 

The weather is headed for summer.  We have heat and humidity.  I haven't had the AC on in April since I was pregnant.  We cool down the next few days but still above average.  We've had rain but we are still in a drought.

[cineater]

I'm down 4 pounds but I am dragging.  Having a harder time coming back this year, probably because of the heat.

Request for weeding help is not working.  Probably didn't help that Joe announced we were being attacked by the bees.     They continued to buzz us today but not sting.  Only got half of the bird garden done today.  High winds and storms expected tomorrow.  We cool off after that.  Bees stay in the hive below 50 so maybe we can weed over by the hives.  I'm hoping if we cut down all the annual weeds they won't be so protective of the area.

[cineater]

I will not bee detoured!     The bee keeper let us use the netted hoods.  I felt invincible and worked right up by the bee hives.  We only got buzzed a couple of time.  Might bee respect for the uniform or the bees have calmed down.  Daylily garden is mostly done.  All that mulch I put on it last year didn't get washed away in spring floods and the weeds just came right out.  Only have about 12 plants to go.

We have big storms coming in this afternoon.  Beka and I put off our nursery crawl to get home and get our plants in.

[cineater]

Last Sunday in the greenhouse, public sale next weekend.  I was going to install the milkweed display today but we are getting frost tonight.  They are harden off so they would be okay but why stress them out.  So instead I spent 5 hours washing pots and flats, stressed my back out. 

The beekeeper took the hives away for a while to calm them down.  I didn't hear of the bees bothering anybody this week but the beekeeper knows his bees.  I wonder where he takes them?

I'm in a rush to get all the garden stuff out of my garage.  It's taking up valuable real estate. 

Marsha gets chemo tomorrow.  We're hoping she feels well enough for the public sale.  She didn't last year so we muddle through without her.  Saturday's sale for our group earned us $7500.  Around what we normally do.  Warm winter so Donna has a bunch of perennials.  At $5 a gallon size, it's a deal.

[cineater]

I went ahead and installed the milkweed display.  As I was finishing up it started to rain and has rained all afternoon.  Nice watering in for them and nice nap for the gardener. 

All of the sudden everything has popped out.  Ot's green out there.  I even had things in the garage in pots coming back.

[cineater]

Something is wrong.  Marsha's doctor wants her to do 5 days, for 2 weeks of chemo.  They are still running tests.  We're chatting in passing because we are busy with the plant sale so she can say something quick otherwise I'm pretty sure she'd be crying if she tried to say more.

[cineater]

Public plant sale this weekend and I'm sick with a cold.  Not sure if I'm going.  Don't want to give it to Marsha plus I'm sick.  They plan to destroy all the leftover plants after the sale to get back their soil and pots to re use.  In the past we have tried to find them homes.  Has a lot of people in an uproar.  Marsha's call and I'm staying out of it.  Part of being in charge, deal with your staff when most of them disagree with what you're doing.  Donna told me she would give me back the milkweed I donated to them that doesn't sell but they are going to bare root them.  That will probably kill them but it gets my message across that I am not growing stuff for you next year only to have you kill it if it doesn't sell.  I'll grow their stuff for them but I'll keep my stuff and give it away.