And the season starts

Monday, May 03, 2021

And the season starts

It hasn't taken long for the growing season to get moving and into full gear. It is hard keeping up as grass is growing quickly, requiring numerous cuts per week and weeds are keeping pace and even moving to the forefront.

Seedlings that had stalled out a few weeks ago, now are growing so quickly, there is a need to get them into the ground sooner than later.

Our good neighbor across the way provided us another bucket of leaf mold that will be used for transplants. He also gave us a new redbud planting, as the one of the two we received last summer didn't make it.

The grape myrtle is finally starting to produce lives and buds, along with flowing azalea plants. The Iris's have already reached they bloom and the early ones have had their flowers die back. Our Knock-Out roses are growing quickly and blooming as well.

So far in the ground is the following: Broccoli, onions, cabbage cauliflower, peas, potatoes and corn. Four tomato plants were transferred into the ground two days ago, with many more ready to go. Bok Choi is also ready to transplant.

Our goal is to keep weeds and the Bermuda grass at bay. Some agricultural weed blocking material was bought to help suppress the weeds and, perhaps, keep the Bermuda under control.

Irrigation pipping is still needed to get put back into place, after being taken out for the winter. The well is working just fine, so watering should not be an issue.

Nancy has bought a number of very pretty flowering plants and those were put in yesterday, making for some nice views on our deck and off the front porch.

Lots of seedlings are still growing and new seeds are planted almost daily for later plantings.

A trip to Lowe's is on the schedule as well, as I will be buying wood chips to help protect the soil and keep it moist. I could get free wood chips from the electric company, but they don't let you know how much they will bring or when it comes. I don't see myself having to wheel 8-10 yards of chips from the driveway to the back.

Along the way, we have sold our Class C RV. Although I loved driving the Winnebago Trend, we just never used it very much and it seemed sort of silly to have an expensive unit sitting either in our friend's backyard here in Delaware or in a storage park down in Florida. We also were driving the RV and a car down to Florida and back home, defeating the purpose of having something that Nancy could relax in and rest her back. She has been a real trooper driving the 19 hours each way with two pups sitting on her lap or in the passenger seat. We would stop for breaks and use the RV to sleep in during overnight stopover, but it was still a hard and difficult drive for Nancy. The Sienna has lots of leg room and is able to recline far enough back to help keep Nancy's back from hurting too much on our trips.

So, gone is the RV and we also sold the Honda H-RV and bought a new Toyota Sienna that is now only a Hybrid, similar to our Prius. I guess you can call us an environmental family as we compost, drive Hybrids and recycle. How about that....ha, ha. I guess when my Columbia guys ran the first Earth Day Marathon in New York in the mid 70's, and my friend Cheryl and I ran the second one a year later, the idea of keeping the Earth healthy took hold. I did have an outer body experience while running that marathon, but that is another story.....

Lettuce growing in a concrete mixing container. The wooden table that holds this up has wasps eating the sap, so I will have to get some spray to kill the wasps before setting up the table again.

These are seedlings growing very nicely as they get ready to be transplanted into the garden

Potatoes in the front and thornless blackberry bush in the back. That is one plant bought at a farmer's market last year that has grown tremendously. The blackberries were tasty and abundent.