During the afternoon, the neighbor kids came over and played in the backyard and the garden section for like four hours! The weather was AMAZING so we parents are finally giving the okay to some summer fun outdoors. Man, it has been painfully hot this summer! About the time the neighborhood crew left, the girls' friend arrived for a sleepover. They're doing a mock trial this weekend and had important things to discuss (and of course they just love baking and playing board games and making silly mannequin challenge videos together :) They are also so great about including their brothers; it makes me very happy!
Buck was off of work early, which worked out perfectly because . . . 1. We needed groceries--big time--and he had time to shop for them and 2. Our neighbor got his tiller back from his daughter and brought it over for us to use! *Retired Mark* stood up on the hill and explained the whole process of running the machine, switching the depths, changing the directions, etc. to our boys (all the Marks have a designation so we know who we're talking about, Twin Mark moved and our Mailman Mark retired, but there are still three Marks on the block!) The boys do puppy pick-up for Retired Mark, so he's become their buddy. Anyway, I'm so glad we didn't have to rent a tiller . . . actually he let us borrow two tillers, the big daddy whopper that is in the pictures, and then a smaller more *our garden sized* one that is currently chilling in our barn. R. Mark says he doesn't need it til spring, and we want to till up some land for flowers, so that's a great situation to be in!
This dirt is seriously, so weird! I have never worked with dirt like it before. I hope stuff (besides weeds) grows in it :) We dumped our black dirt herb boxes into the mix to try to change it up a bit, but if our attempts at growing this year don't work, we'll buy some top soil to mix in for the real planting in spring.
After the sleepover broke up around 11 this morning, the kids and I set out to run some errands. We restocked the fodder for all the critters (tomorrow is cage-cleaning day; I think they've almost all been bathed and had their toenails clipped in the last week, so we're pretty fancy when it comes to animal stylings around here :), we picked up some binder dividers to prep for school (oh, yeah, August is prep time! I ordered the last of the curriculum today), and we went to grab groceries (yes, more groceries; we have to shop at three to five stores to get everything on the bi-monthly list).
We were happy to discover the grocery store still had seeds left, and they were 40% off. I guess not many folks do fall planting around here :) But everything we've read says it's totally cool to plant in late summer and early fall, so by golly, we're going for it!When we got back from errands, our first job was to *plant* the assembled solar lights. I think they'll look cute shining at night around the fence, barn, and coop.
Then Brennen and Gabby worked on making two long rows for green bean planting, while Graysen helped make mounds for the pumpkins (not 100 lb ones, just the normal size, which grow three weeks faster :)
Once the beans and pumpkins were planted, I realized it was super easy to rake up all the dead, dried out grass and weeds that the tiller had pulled up . . . duh, wish I would have realized that a little sooner! But, we got a lot of it cleared out after the fact and then moved on to watering. At first, the kids tried the watering can, but that was not going to cut it. We ran the hose up the hill and Graysen tried spraying--but I forgot he didn't know the thumb-over-the-nozzle technique, so I had to step in and teach a lesson. I'm sure he'll do better next time :) He rebuilt the mounds that the hard stream kind of disassembled. The ground is so dry . . . it's like grainy dust--I have the grit in my teeth just from raking it. I think watering is going to be a fairly consistent chore for the next few weeks!
The flowers are growing alongside our house . . . they are hibiscus. We didn't plant them, but we have kept them alive! This gives us hope for the things we are planting and also hoping to keep alive :)
3 comments:
You should have incorporated the boys job with your garden! Dog poop is fine fertilizer!! And, you could go into the woods and pick up deer pellets.
Just trying to help.
Ha! I actually read about it online, because I was thinking the dog poo could be used for compost . . . but apparently there can be all kinds of nasty parasites in doogie doo that do not die during the composting process. They say you can compost it for flowers and plants but DO NOT for anything you plan to eat. No puppy poo veggies for me, please :)
Your hibiscus are beautiful! If you can get hibiscus to stay alive in your climate, then you certainly should be successful with what you are planting!!!
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