Yard, Gardens, Birds and Critters

The garden was over run with weeds as I wasn't around to work in the garden.  Life gets in the way sometimes and you have to take care of business. Yesterday was my first time back at the Master Gardener's gardens - River City Gardens - across the river - North Jefferson City.  Going to do some up-dating of the Medicine Wheel. Today was at the garden plot and Wow!  The weeds did take over.  I got out the weed eater and went around the outside edges of the garden.  I thought that Parks and Rec were supposed to mow from the road to the edges of the gardens but that hasn't happened all gardening season. After the weed eating, I pulled out my little pallet that I sit on, grabbed my trusty hand shovel, put the refuse bag just behind me so I could pull it along with the handle at the bottom and started to work. As I was working, I was listening to all the sounds. The bugs making noises, the birds singing away and the corn stalks making rustling noises in the win...

Seeing as the squirrels tore out my experiment on the tomatoes, that one has ended.  This is going to be a real short post.  I checked that pepper and would you believe there are blooms on it.  Now, I sure hope we get to see a pepper growing. That would be the best ending of all! Oh and the Crossandra has more blooms and a seed pod. Did you all know how easy it is to start new Coleus.  If you break a piece, take off the lower leaves, leaving a couple at the top, put in water, making sure, no leaves are in the water. If you notice blooms starting to form, pinch them out also. Within a week or two, you will have roots growing and you can plant it probably the next week. See how much of a root system there is.  If it looks good, plant it.  I just planted three that were broken off. They had been in a glass of water on my windowsill. Notice the flowers on the peppers!  Picture taken today 8-14-2018

I was disappointed because I couldn't plant all the flowers I usually plant. Garden kept me busy and then there was colder weather with rain and I just wasn't able to do much.  As I was walking around this morning watering the plants, I took a really, really good look and saw all kinds of textures and colors in my yard.  Yes, I did have a few plants that were blooming, but when you have a fairly nice large area, you would think I would have more. I decided to do a little picture study of the different leaves, the textures and the colors.  Some had bloomed earlier in the spring but just leaves now.  Some have beautiful leaves and insignificant flowers, such as the Coleus.  Posting the pictures on here is tricky but I will try. You will see how pretty all the leaves are!  If you would like to see these pictures in a larger size I am going to upload all to my Flickr account.  The URL is :  https://flic.kr/s/aHskFXT2gW      ...

I was on the deck brushing the dogs when a few brave birds came flying in. When they saw us there they flew off. The Downy Woodpecker doesn't do that! The Downy is a brave soul and comes in to her feeder and looks at us and then continues to feed.  I, of course, had the camera handy and took a couple of pictures.  That doesn't bother Mrs. Downy either.  About 6 different species of birds flew in and right back out.  I laughed because Mrs. Downy was eating in peace, didn't have to fight for the feeder and ate her fill! I took pictures of my little Crossandra that I grew from a broken branch.  It is looking so pretty. This flower is an annual but I did keep it over winter. Those three are in the front yard and have bloomed all summer long even in all this heat.  I just make sure I water them.  The other Crossandra was given to me by my movie buddy, Jenelle Schwieterman.  So now I have five of them and I am determined to overwinter them again. Th...

I know it's just a dumb tomato, but darn it, I wanted to see it grow and bare fruit! I guess it would have made me feel good that I saved the tomato and it became two tomatoes. But, Alas, it wasn't meant to be! I had all my bird seed to refill the feeders. The birds are in a feeding frenzy. Finishing off the 5 x 6 block and the round donut block in just over a day, plus the mixed seed in the platform feeder gone in a day. The platform feeder had help with Chipmunks taking a good majority of the seed! I turned around to look at the one bird feeder to see if I needed to refill it and saw the tomato leaves all over the soil of the planter!  I said "oh no" and started crying! I was so darned upset! Again, it's crazy, silly, dumb and other adjectives I can't think of, to stand there and blubber on the deck over a tomato.  Because I am who I am, I calmly walked into the house and went and got my camera. I took pictures for the documentation of the experiment gone ...

Too much to do! Not much sleep last night! You know, it was one of "those" nights!  I managed to get some laundry started and even did some dusting before I laid back down to see if I could get a couple of more hours of sleep.  Finally off to the gardens and picked the last of the corn.  Picked a few tomatoes and checked to see if the Butternut squash was ready, Nope, not according to the videos I watched earlier.  Patience! Grabbed the tiller and tilled where I dug up the potatoes.  Except where the Zinnias are, couldn't till there very well at all. The squash is getting lots of blooms and hopefully they produce. We have enough pollinator flowers to draw in the pollinators. I went through and marked all the pretty Zinnias I'd like to try and get seed from.  Then watered. While doing that, I noticed I actually have some green peppers growing. At least one plant is putting on fruit!  Hopefully it will rain at the gardens.  Supposed to rain but...