August 14

2005

2006

2005

Gardening in the High Desert
[Sunday] I won't be building a garden room any time soon, but I wonder how my garden bench would fare outside all winter.
WINTER THOUGHTS

• Bulbs for forcing
• Don't forget that you got a bunch of Christmas stuff last year
• Bus some music or nature sound CDs

2006

Gardening in the High Desert

• Some of the hybrid popular [trees] are 3 feet tall. so hard to start holding back on water, but if I want to see them next year, I better! [2013-08-11 I presume this is so they will harden off for the winter]
• Mulched the ones along the south fence, but still need to mulch the ones against the west (2006-09-03) [Presume that the date in parenthesis refers to when I mulched the ones against the west fence]
• Need to keep pinching flower buds back on the basil.  They looked so naked after I harvested my little bit, but I hear they will grow back with a vengeance.
• [Check marked] Buy bleach, rubber gloves
• MDH flattened out and graded where the chicken house will be, and also the area he wants to put rock in to store his cars
• I so don't want to work today.  Just want to sit in the mellow sun
• Mulch tress n. of metal building 9/6/2006
• Make concrete Garlic signs 9/2/2006 Made a wood one [not concrete]

December 05

2010

Gardening in the High Desert

• Deep watered orchard trees
• Watered garlic & beds 1 - 3
• Watered new beds - hoping to encourage wee germination - then can till in to both kill weeds and add organic matter to sand
• Added one 5 gal bucket sweet smelling compost to two different beds.  There is a lot more to put out.  Then clean coop and start another batch of goo stuff 

September 13

2007

20013

2007-09-13

Gardening in the High Desert

• Moved big, fat cat from red round toms to lush growth in VB [Vegetable Bed] 1 - took photos
• Watered apple trees, garden, front fence row
• Garlic order from The Garlic Store came today!

Garlic Order for Summer 2008 harvest:

• Georgian Crystal
• Korean Red
• Siberian
• Polish Hardneck
• Bogatyr
• Surprise Bonus

I am very excited about garlic planting time!

2013-09-13

Gardening in Middle Tennessee.

We are less than 300 feet from a small lake - meaning lots of skeeters - and the wonderous (sic) chirping of thousands of frogs. I have so missed such a chorus. And, of course, I hope all those frogs are eating LOTS of insects!!!

May 06

2008

2011

2008

Gardening in the High Desert

• Watered beds, sunflowers, weeds
• Looks like volunteer oregano germinating in bed #1
• Took some photos of strawberry blooms
• Sunflowers planted kind of close, but since it's only one row, hope still will be OK. Need to plant more, more, more. Some for the backyard, too.
• Is the last hard frost gone yet? Can I try toms outside? Time for another sacrificial tom? Time to plant some purple "cool soil" beans?

2011

Gardening in the High Desert
I can't find my garden journal!

• Planted out 4 toms today:
  • Red cherry between beds 2 & 3
  • Super Sweet 100 + yellow pear at end of bed 3
  • Early Girl between half barrels
• Also planted some plants in my sitting area
  • 1 Shasta Daisy "Alaska" [2012-05-06 Bunnies ate it down to the ground]
  • 2 Chamomiles [2012-05-06 Didn't survive not being watered when I was on travel]
  • 2 Salvia Blue Bedder [2012-05-06 Didn't thrive, but didn't die, either. Bloomed for two months or so.]
• And more
  • Culinary sage in the garlic area [2012-05-06 It grew well and has come back this year]
  • Taragon in SE corner of bed one [2012-05-06 Doesn't appear to have come back; something kept eating it]

• Windy like crazy. Sprinkled in the a.m. but not enough to be useful. I manually watered.
• Elm and maple in the back yard budding [2012-05-06 I think they have both finally died :-( ]
• Apple trees about done blooming
• Desert marigold blooming
• Desert mallow has first leaves
• Ate small plate of spinach
• Observed a duck bathing in water tub
• Ducks moved outside today
• Strawberries blooming
• Some type of bok choi has sprouted, as well as some chartreuse lettuce. Very tiny.
• Sunflowers under row covers sprouting. Primarily north fence near sitting area and w[est] fence near garlic
• Pulled weeds - made a path from gate. Also semi-weeded main garlic beds
• Watered and turned compost

January 27

2007

Gardening in the High Desert

19:36

Lovely warm day

• Granddaughter and I filled the bird feeders
  
• Watered hybrid poplars on north side of metal building
  
• Watered fruit trees using 15 gal ATV tank as [the] water to [the] far back [area] is still frozen - about 5 gal per tree and 15 gal to the large apple tree
  
• Returned some library books last week and got more. P Alan Smith is becoming my next favorite author after Derek Fell, as far as gardening stuff goes
  
• Fruit trees appear to be doing well - no dead looking branches or buds so far
  
• Two [bearded] irises exhibit some frost heaving, but the rest look good
  
• More seed catalogs have arrived to seduce me. I am trying very hard to resist; I have way enough seeds!!!
  
• Trying to learn more about my houseplants
  
• Snow still hanging on on the north side of the house, metal building and back yard fence
  
• Basils and garlic are well represented in this year's catalogs - awesome!
  
• Daughter brought our brought our 1994 garden journal home - awesome and way cool.
  
• Taped some bulb package labels into my journal [2012 Note: I don't know where I taped them as they are NOT in the journal that I am currently transcribing]
  
• Scanned the journal [from 1994] that my daughter found
  
• Rotated ficus this afternoon and opened the drapes for it
  
• The herb growing containers I bough don't have drain holes and are not very big. I hope the plants will be ok. Have to be very careful with the watering.
  

December 30

2005

2007

2008

2005

Gardening in the High Desert
Productive day, today. Nice to feel like I did something after being sick all week. Finally deep watered the trees, put some mulch down, ceased the dogs' pen, washed all their towels and hung their carpet to air out.

The folks at DG (Dave's Garden) seem to think that even with these winds, I won't need to stake bearded irises, and that day lilies should also do just fine. I hope so. I saw some beautiful inspiration photos at DG. [2011 Note: Irises have done well for the last 6 years without staking; dogs kept digging up day lilies and things kept eating them, so I can't say for sure, but I do believe they would be fine, also]

My very own copy of The Vegetable Garden Bible came yesterday. Too sick to even look at the pictures. I've check it out of the library enough to know a lot of it already - just nice to have my very own copy.

Can't wait to feel up to snuff. All these days off and I'm sick. So sick that I barely glanced that the seed catalogs that came the other day. Well, a time for everything in its season.

2007

Gardening in the High Desert
Happy Birthday to Me!

• Filled bird feeders
  
• Cataloged more seeds in my garden database
  
• Finished reading books from the library
  

Perennial Vines - haven't found any I really like yet. Question on seed saving - Can I use used drier sheets to "bag" tomato flowers for seed saving?

2008

Gardening in the High Desert Harvest Eggs 14 Total
3 EE [Easter Eggers], 1 olive
4 Maran
7 SLW [Silver Laced Wyandottes]

08 – August – To Do – Week 1

2007

2010

2007

• DONE – Water Trees – Back yard, Gala Apple, [September Wonder] Fuji Apples
  
• DONE – Finish tacking fence wire (2007-08-12 started)
  
• DONE – Return [extra roll of] fencing to HD [Home Depot]
  
• Spray Deer-Away
  
• Fill bird feeders
  
• Transplant Russian Sage
  

2010

• DONE – Turn compost
  
• Clean Chicken Coop
  
• DONE – Deep Water Trees
  
• DONE – bag sunflowers [to prevent wild birds from eating the seeds off of the ripening heads]
  
• Dig compost into future garlic bed
  
• Start another compost heap – include more browns – dried stuff
  

May 16

2006 - Journal Entry

Mosquitoes: 150
People: 30

The mosquitoes were the unequivocal winner in last night's challenge. Even MDH was chased inside. Tree went un-watered, dog pen was left un-cleaned, dirty coveralls were left outside. Lesson to be learned - don't plan on accomplishing anything when the vampires are out.

Got all 26 of the large poplar cuttings planted out, but only about half of them got all the water they needed. Supposed to be in the 90's today - we'll see if they survive. 2 or 3 of the first 10 (9" cuttings) are looking very poorly, and a few are looking very well. The rest are just kind of hanging out, although their leaves are nice and deep green. These are tough old trees, though, so I am continuing to water them all, even the one that looks pretty much mostly dead. :-) About 50 more 9" cuttings are sitting in water, languishing... way too much top growth for the roots to support at this point.

[Incomplete]

March 07

Planting 2007

• Potted rosemary from Wal-Mart (Note: 2011-11-14 this plant is now 2 ft in diameter and two feet strong)
  
• Ginger bulblets (didn't grow)
  
• Avocado seed in dirt (didn't grow)
  
• Garlic for greens
  

Journal 2007

• Worked on chicken coop/greenhouse design
• M watered back yard trees
• Added parrot food mix to my bin of sunflower seeds
• Filled bird feeders & water dish
• Peanuts in shells are too big for feeder, so I thew them over the fence for the evil chipmunks
• Went for a walk around property with the dogs
• Enjoyed potting up some stuff - ginger bulblets, garlic for greens, rosemary and an avocado seed.  Love the smell of the dirt.
• The 20 gal metal trash cans are great for storage
• DJR cleaned the dog pen
• Cypress in front of dogs' pen look poorly
• One [Black Austrian] pine in driveway is decidedly dead
• I love this time of year
• Forcing pots not showing much life
• Warm days mean time to water more
• TO DO - Water front yard trees
• TO DO - Water side hybrid poplars north of metal building
• TO DO - Sprinkle some low growing something in the jasmine tub? Lemon basil?
• Can I really green up the place?
• Spring is seductive
• TO DO - Pull mulch from tubs and put around trees
• TO DO - Start Snap Dragons?