Grass Clippings

Cutting the Grass...

It was supposed to Thunder storm today but it was just overcast and sunny on and off. So I went outside and rather than my usually maintenance I decided I wanted to deal with the issue of the grass. The 10 inch tall grass that wouldn't grow an 1/8 of an inch last year but somehow boomed this year. So I got the weed hacker/trimmer out and started trimming. It was an absolute disaster. The grass went flying all over my legs were covered in it and the clippings kept flying into the beds. So I went looking for the lawn mower. 

I finally found it in front of the house. I dragged it and the 50 yard extension chord attached to it to the backyard and plugged it in. I figured out how to turn it on and started mowing in patches around the boxes. It worked better than the trimmer but it didn't get the grass I especially wanted to get, the grass growing so tall it was leaving into the boxes (Potagar not Patch). I raked all the clippings up and put them in a trash bag the tried using the trimmer on just the hedges. It was still I mess so I moved on to the clippers. They were small and too hard to use on such an enormous space. We'll have to get larger clippers and cut by hand. 

I was so hot sweaty and frustrated i did nothing else in the garden, either. 

Major Change

Rain Day...1

The weather for the week has luckily changed from all rain everyday but today to no rain except on Thursday when we'll have thunder showers. I'm so glad... My plants need the sun. We've had the rainiest month of May in a long time. I hope July isn't going to be like this too. When we get a rain spring season we usually get a July filled with thunder storms bad enough to take out trees. For now its sunny days ahead, unless it changes again.

Patch Market...

I went straight into PM today and had a look at everything. I wasn't going to water because I thought we were still going to get rain all week, at this point. So I just looked. I noticed that the second rotation of radishes have germinated. They look a little different then the last bunch, darker leaf color, but strong. It may be due to the warmer soil temp or the fact that I plant there before. I should have amended the soil with some compost but didn't. Anyway, I moved over to have a look at the strawberry buckets and noticed that a few of the blooms have berries starting. Not berries like the first one but ones already double the size of the ones produced by the small initial flowers. These will definitely be berries, well hopefully. Then I noticed that most of the blooms and berries on both the buckets and the topsy turvy each had the little dark striped crunchy bugs. There tiny but when you kill them they make a Big Crunch noise. I have no idea what they are but have seen them inside the house all my life and smashed them all my life. I've never once seen them outside. To keep my strawberries safe I went in to get the Cpt. Jack's spray. I sprayed the strawberries then checked the weather. I wanted to make sure the weather still called for rain because it was/is hot and dry. It didn't so I watered everything in Patch, carefully. I didn't want to wash of all the Cpt. Jack's I'd just sprayed. Then I moved into Potagar Schoultz.

First sizable start of a strawberry. Few more but this is the biggest. 

Same bloom in 5G bucket a few days apart. 

Second round of radishes. 

Potagar Watering...

Everything in PS needed to be watered so I hooked up the new hose and hose gun. It was amazing. I watered the entire garden in a matter of a minute. I filled the watering can with the "bucket filler" setting on the hose gun and watered all the potted plants and plants waiting to be planted. Then I grabbed the EcoSmart and sprayed the grass in the far beds, again. I don't recommend EcoSmart for grass it works way too slowly. The party pan and crookneck squash are dying to be transferred they have squash blooms and baby squash starting. The party pan plant bloom basically overnight. They are ready. So I tore the grass up with a large wooden board and mixed it in. We need to get the Corn Gluten preemptive weed killer before it starts growing back and we need to add some compost to the bed to stifle the turned grass and get it to start breaking down. 

It was so hot I came inside but I still have more to do like spray epsom mix and weed. I'll cool off go back out and write a second entry for the one I didn't write yesterday. 

Six Trellises

Dollar Tree...

This afternoon I maintained the garden mostly. Pulled a few weeds and watered. Nothing too crazy. Then around 5ish I went out to run some Potagar related errands. I stopped at the Dollar Tree up the street to get some cheap, large, plastic containers. I thought they sold assorted neon color 2 ft tall circular bins with rope handles. They didn't, I asked the clerk and he said that since I'd asked he'd order them but in the mean time I picked up three, 2ft wide and 1ft deep, containers. They weren't a dollar but they were much cheaper than the plastic planters they sell at Home Depot. After I went to The Dollar Tree I went to Home Depot for a few things and made a point of comparing prices. The same size containers at Home Depot were $13.95, more than double the price.

Home Depot...

At Home Depot I grabbed 6 wooden trellis all about 4ft high and 2ft wide. They look a lot better than the ones I made and are much sturdier. I'll use the bamboo to make container trellises. I got a bag of mulch and then went looking for preemptive weed killer made if corn gluten and organic weed & grass killer. The corn gluten doesn't allow seeds to germinate but doesn't kill existing weeds. The organic spray kills existing weeds but doesn't stop them from coming back. So I needed both. I looked all over the garden center and to be honest didn't see but 3 super toxic versions of weed killer. Finally, I asked an employee and they told me that they kept that stuff inside. Duh! He walked me in and I found the EcoSmart Weed and Grass killer. It wasn't the exact one I was looking for but it worked the same way. Then I looked for the Corn Gluten. They didn't have it. They were supposed to have it but they didn't. Online it said they carried it in stores. In the same aisle they stocked weed killers they stocked pesticides an I found a spray bottle of Captain Jack's organic pesticide. I was so psyched to see it. I like the dust but it washes off in a heavy rain and you cannot reapply for 2 whole weeks. I grabbed a bottle and headed to check out. 

Tomorrow ill work on setting up the trellises, poking drainage holes in the containers, planting the plants that don't have bed space assigned to them, spraying Captain Jack, and most of all doing it with La mama. She has the day off, so we'll lunch then work! I'm excited to work in the garden with anyone but especially her. Usually I garden alone.