The Weekend

Its Saturday!

Saturday dawns much like any other day: I wake up early, sit on my butt for a bit, I make coffee and go outside. I get wet and complain to the dog about my hands being cold now. I come inside and pour some coffee. Then I sit down and wait for everyone else to get up.

Nothing to exciting. Plus, I get a chrome every morning. I mean so what if he runs off to the back of the property and then tries to sneak up on me two or fourteen times.

I have been getting some ideas lately though.

I have a lone dwarf plum tree in the back. Basically, it’s our mini orchard. There should be two apple trees and a plum tree, but one died and the other broke off at the dirt line. It gets pretty windy sometimes.

Anyway, we have had the tree back there for over a year now, and it’s just a bit taller than me and full of beautiful green leaves. That’s all there is though.

So I did some research and apparently not all dwarf plum trees are self fertile and more often than not, they should be planted at least in pairs. Whoops, probably should have read past the watering and planting instructions on the card it came with.

Reading that made me think about what my other plants might need. Then I saw something swoosh by me. It was a bee.

Of course, pollination! I realized I haven’t seen many bees around the property. Truthfully, we DON’T have a lot of flowers around, but there are some.

So, we bought some flowers yesterday. Petunias that can handle the sun a bit. I also bought a planter of Russian Sage, but that was more because I wanted to have some sage.

My raised bed in the back has now been fertilized, and planted fully. Theres barely a spot that shouldn’t have something growing soon and if there is, it’s probably where I put the cantaloupe seeds (they take some time)

To recap, my garden will hopefully soon have some green onions, okra, spinach, radishes (they’re my favorite. They grow quickly and help build confidence that you aren’t a murderer of epic proportions), bell peppers (hopefully) serrano peppers, more spinach, eggplant, tomatoes and green beans.

Whew! That’s a lot! I’m very excited to see what we can harvest.

The tomatoes, I purchased two tomato plants, a sort of cheat, I know, but its July, for goodness sake I gotta get busy on this stuff.

So, the flowers, we’ll see if they help. Down the road, though, I’d like to get a beehive on the property and be able to have them nearby, so they aren’t travelling too far. My husband agrees, but bees aren’t his top priority right now.

First is a gate for the goat pen. He has a garden gate on it now. Its worked fine, but they’ve all bit destroyed it and it’s being held together by various strands of hay twine, which we have in abundance.

The goats occasionally got out and wreaked havoc on my plants. One day I went out and found stuff had been pulled from.the ground, only to hear, “Oh yeah, the goats got out.” Well, thanks.

So he and my son have constructed a new door. Its wood and heavy, which is what he wanted. It’ll probably go in today, but first we have to figure out how to do it without the goats escaping and eating all my vegetables.

We have an idea, but who knows if it will hold long enough to get everything done.

I guess we’ll find out.