Hey, you're almost done so why not come over and help me with my garden? :-) Doesn't it feel great to get so much stuff done?

Cheers,
Michelle
(taking a break and swigging a quart of iced tea, too!)

This might be my last day of no garden work for the growing season. It's 59°, we've had nearly 1/2 inch of rain falling until about an hour ago (complete with lightening strikes overnight!) and there's a 10 mph wind. Okay, it's not terrible but it IS Sunday! And, it is my day to spray weeds and bugs and do a little extra. Everything is too wet to spray and the "extra" can wait until tomorrow.

The Spokane River has been above flood stage since May 20th and is not expected to drop below that stage until mid-week. The Coeur d'Alene River flood warning has been canceled as of today.

Perhaps the next 7 days will be the rainy week the Weather Service predicted for the last 7 days. That just turned out to be cool and sunny.

The area may move back to widespread flooding and . . . I might get another day off! Right now, I'm hoping that I don't have to turn the heat on . . . maybe I should just go back to bed and enjoy an Sunday afternoon nap.

sleepy digitS'

Put sun shade mesh over greenhouse. Tidied up greenhouse (once a year, whether it gets dirty or not - snort). Planted cloves side-by-side from 40 garlic bulbs that I'm trying to keep alive 'til fall, I don't think they'd have made it over the summer. Weeded umpty-gazillion baby dill plans from the onions and leeks. Pondered if the out door bugs will find the aphids on the pepper plants, or if I'll need to spray 'em with something. Cussed at the new ditch rider, who, like all previous ditch riders except for the one, that one year, who lived next door, doesn't realize that the first weekends in the spring, everybody all along the ditch is putting in their gardens and using water, so that them of us at the end of the ditch see nothing after 6:00 pm Friday until 11:00 pm Sunday. But, since I knew this would happen, I soaked it all Friday Morning. Just wanted to divide up a bunch of mums and water in a new, dense border of them in front of the newly planted plum starts, which hides the black plastic mulch.

Went over and watched the mud come down the Dolores river. Drank the requisite qt of iced tea. Which reminds me, if you love iced tea, the linked source is fantastic. I get the organic black tea with the 15 2 qt packets, but its all good stuff. These guys, its $5.00 something for shipping, no matter how much you order.

Here is a link that might be useful: Iced tea thats sooooo good.

I love Harney & Sons!! My preferences are Yorkshire Gold, PG Tips and Harney & Sons.

Today was instant that the neighbors gave us. "Do you need this 500000 gallon container of ice tea mix?" they asked. "Why no, I said." But Darren likes the stuff and he brought it home!

Perfect for that half-second gulped-down gallon of tea.

It does feel great and now I'm almost sleepy...

:)

Inside taking a break too! Qwiturbitchin, Jennifer! I don't know what your temp is out there at 8000', but it's not the 82 it is down here in the lowlands! Oh, my! It's hot!

Have been planting a whole bunch of stuffÂthings from the swap, things I overwintered that never got put in last year, tiny little babies from the winter sown stuff........ I still have a ways to go to finish it all up, but I'm hoping to get most of it finished this week so I can start the daily walks around the yard to fluff and primp and just generally enjoy it all!

Before I started planting today I sprayed some dandelions that were growing in the cracks in my walkway with Roundup, and then gleefully watched them MELT! Evil, evil! I'm FINALLY getting my yard close to weed free! What a wonderful feeling! WellÂthere IS the tomato forest I've been pulling out of my veggie garden. That seems to be what happensÂtomato forestsÂwhen you have a politically incorrect compost pile, and spread the compost all over. If I had let them all grow I think I could have gone into commercial production! And I have a kazillion dill seedlings tooÂbut IÂm letting them happily live wherever they happen to be! Can always pull them out later for sniffing purposes if they happen to get in the way!

And the day before yesterday I got my two new whisky barrels "installed," but I still need to finish filling them with soil and find something to plant in them. I think I have enough upright stuff, but I still need to find some Wave petunias or some other draping thing for hanging over the edges.

No iced tea here! Just plain water! Lots and lots of plain water! (And maybe a glass of wine in a couple hours!)

Hard work is goodÂafter itÂs done!

Skybird

I just want all you low-landers to know it was a nice 71 degrees here. Ahhhhhh

I planted your mums today, Skybird!! They look so cute and fluffy.

So nice and warm but not too hot ;)

90º yesterday, but a refreshingly mild 88º today.

David, you got me beat. And here I thought I was going to be the winner with my 87 degrees!

Too hot to plant anything here today, but I did cut the grass and do a little weeding. After yesterday's planting marathon, I really don't have much left to plant anyway. When it gets close to 90 or better, I tend to lose my motivation to be outside though.

I don't have any tea made, but it sure sounds good right now.

Bonnie

The thermometer set up in my raised bed area said 94 today. I planted more lettuce and carrots yesterday. Fertilized the garlic, peas, lettuce, carrots, and spinach. Yesterday I weedwhacked about half the back yard. It took a while for my arms to quit vibrating after I was done. Today I planted the last of the potatoes and a bleeding heart that I got from Lowes. I now have three by the fence under the peach tree. All of the tomatoes are out in the raised bed area. And I weeded. And weeded. AND WEEDED! I still have stuff to do. I need to finish the weedwhacking, rake and mow the front yard, kill the weeds in the rocky area in front with some Roundup, and fertilize the lilacs.

My Mesmerizer iris is blooming. My garlic is beginning to send up scapes. My melons and zucchini are finally sprouting.

It was a good day in the garden. Then I came in and had a glass of cold white grape peach juice, thinking about this fall when I can have peach juice from my own peaches.

My yard doesn't look anywhere near as good as some of my neighbors'. But considering what I had to work with, it's looking a lot better than it did.

Just a thought from up here in the cool north . . . about ice tea - you know you can make that in the fridge? It needs about 12 hours in there for me.

Here's research done by Prevention magazine. They didn't do a taste test but rather had the antioxidant levels measured. Taste - that's subjective anyway. You can see what Martha Stewart recommends if'n ya want.

The issue of bacteria in tea is another question. All I know is that fridge tea is not CLOUDY. And that's something I'm still looking for in June . . . a cloudless day. Rain again this morning.

digitS'

I finally finished planting the veg garden yesterday (put in the peppers and found room for one last tomato plant for a total of nine).

And, I know the timing is wrong, but did some over-seeding on the bad bit of the front lawn.

Also, I quit smokeing (a 20+ year habit) back in January, and the smell of all my roses and peonies is almost overwhelming to me this spring.

Hooray for Meteor for quitting smoking! :-) Three cheers for that.

I just finished planting some things today - sorghum, beans, more sunflowers. Interspersed nasturtium, marigolds, and cosmos just for fun. I've never grown a 'fun' garden from seed.

Cheers,
Michelle

Over 90 right now. I'm not going to weedwhack until the temp drops a bit.

My roses have begun to bloom.

Congratulations to Meteor!!

Okay, we got home and to, our shock and horror, some creature had not only dug out of the ground my brand new Icelandic poppy, it had also left a mess of dirt and tore the buds off. There it was, my sad and wilted poppy just lying on its side nest to its dead buds.

Well, Not sure what to do about it. I put it in a pot and could leave it in one...

Over the weekend, whilst I slaved away in the mildly hot sun, Lucy, the vole-eating dog, captured and tortured two vole babies. Oh, poor critters. She has been outside since the moment we got home today. I hope she gets the rest of them!!

:(

Oh, Forgot to mention...Eating tons of peas!

My Sugar Annes are produceing like mad. Digits, didn't you say you thought they weren't a great producer? I'm not having that problem. I've been harvesting a good sized bowlful daily, and they are just accellerating.

I've forgotten how to do math. I kept thinking, "I have two of each type of tomato & pepper I WSd", because there were two cups of seedlings. :-) I ended up with at 4 to 6 of each kind for a grand total of 27 tomato seedlings and 22 peppers (not including the extras I bought Sunday). If history repeats I won't end up with that many surviving plants.

**Warning - showing off my projects below ;-)**

Most of the peppers and all of the tomatoes are crammed in this bed

More peppers (right), eggplant (left) and watermelon (center front) are in this bed with some WSd flowers (center back)

The rest of the WSd flowers are around the outside part (I used the chopsticks and clothespins I had in the baggies as plant markers

Jen

I have said that peas, in general, aren't a very productive crop. I don't really remember how Sugar Anns did for me but congratulations on your production. And especially, congratulations on quiting smoking, Robert.

I was also a smoker for about 20 years. I really couldn't quit by myself. There was ALWAYS a reason to light up another one! I was often trying to quit and had the good fortune to meet a smoke-hating girl during one of my clean times. She would just get sooo upset when I slipped back into my wayward ways. The stress of one was balanced by the stress of the other.

digitS'

I want to add my congratulations on quitting too, Meteor! Besides things smelling better, I bet those peas taste better too!

And I don't know when you quit, Digit, but congrats to you too! Anybody who quits smoking deserves congratulations!

Skybird

My snow peas have begun to bud out. I hope the hail didn't hit them. I don't care how productive they are, as long as I get some to toss into my stir fry.

Congrats, you guys, on quitting smoking! That's awesome. I was an asthmatic kid among a family of smokers, and I never had any desire to start.

Looks good, Jen. Is that sandy soil? It looks fairly dry and sandy compared to the red clay here.

Cheers,
Michelle

I quit smoking over 20 years ago. But, here's a caution for those of you still smoking: Maybe like me, you've heard that even tho' you are doing damage on a daily basis, the respiratory tissue heals after you quit. That may be true, I don't know.

After about 10 years with no cigarettes, I had a physical which included breathing tests. It was pointed out to me that my many years of smoking were apparent. Daily damage accumulates.

As far as 2nd hand smoke, I know that my 90 year-old father still feels twinges of guilt about smoking around us when we were kids. I truly believe that the most important incentive for him to quit, long before I did, was because his sons had become smokers . . .

digitS'

Wow, lots of busy-ness in the gardens this weekend! We were no different here, and my hamstrings and hubby's back will argue heartily with anyone who dares suggest it wasn't exercise (once they recover, that is). :-)

Sounds like everyone is doing well with the planting and "chores"! I finally got my veggies in this past weekend too, after we finished the new raised bed. We spread around 3 yards of mulch too...and I've been planting out flowers here and there as well. Gave a bunch of extra veggies to the neighbors Sunday afternoon when I finished planting.

I'll have to post some pictures soon - the roses were budding out already! I disbud the first flush to let the foliage have more time to develop, but it was fun to see the buds coming on already. Even the dahlias we started have buds (not touching those, since I know next to nothing about them). I got those transplanted into the garden Sunday too.

Jclepine, one of our dogs is named Lucy too, and one of her favorite things is to chase mice. :-)

Michelle, I wish it was sandy soil. It's clay for the top 2 feet then sand below. Roomie says at one time a long long time ago you can tell there was a stream bed in the area. I dug up the clay about a foot down and mixed in claybuster compost and steer manure and left it for about a week before I planted anything there. I still need to get mulch for the plants this weekend.

No luck quitting smoking, though I have cut back to half a pack a day. I smoke less when I'm working in the yard than when I'm working working, so I just need more gardening days.

Dafy, Your 'maters are going to eat that smaller bed for lunch! That's interesting that it's a clay mix. It looks so sandy from here.

Jami, my roses are blooming! The foetida hybrids are going full steam, and Morden Blush & Reine Des Violettes have blooms! There are lilac, iris, and roses blooming at the same time. It's swoony-licious.

Dig, My grandma smoked for ~30 years and then quit. Many years later, she was diagnosed with scar tissue throughout her lungs and now she has a trach to breath. Some of the damage may heal in some people. I wish more of it had healed for her.

Cheers,
Michelle

My mother is in her eighties, and she's smoked for 70 years. She now has emphysema, but she still claims that 3/4 of a century of smoking had nothing to do with it.

Cleopatra is her middle name!

The hail damaged a lot. :-( I think the broccoli and Brussel sprouts I had out are a lost cause. The hail killed some pea plants and trashed a lot of lettuce and spinach. The garlic and potato plants were ripped up, but I think they'll be okay. When I harvest the garlic, I'll reseed some lettuce and spinach for a fall crop. I will get my salads!

On the good news front, the melon and zucchini hills that I'd given up on have sent up a couple sprouts, and my replacement zucchini hill has sent up sprouts, too. So squash and melons are a possibility.

I, however, have several nickel-sized bruises from where the hail hit me as I was frantically getting the tomato containers onto the porch.