Cat C L – Page 15 – Cat's Garden

Cat C L Uncategorized April 8, 2013

This weather is making no sense. We had rain last week, then dry. Then this past weekend it began clouding over. Right now it is cloudy, kind of misty, but 68 with 91% humidity. At least the good thing is its nice weather for gardening. Not too cold, but not too hot either.

I went over to my neighbor last week to see her iris’ in bloom. She had given me some rhizomes last fall which I attempted to plant. Attempted since the deer insisted on pulling some of them put. Well, it appears they are growing. This one is blooming in my garden. Some of the others have buds, but have not quite bloomed yet. We can hope.

The roses I had purchased online are also blooming. Here’s three of them. Right now they are in pots, that’s the best I can do. But they seem happy. Hopefully soon they will get a better planting.

The greenhouse has been well worth the time and trouble.

I’m not sure what kind of peppers these are. They are actually a plant I bought last year, wrong time of year. But I put it in the greenhouse and it has survived. And now I have peppers.

The bird feeder we put up recently, well, the birds love it.

It tends to look like its alive. And the area under it, where the birds throw seed is just as alive. It appears we are now on the birds radar as a place for food. They are happy birds, and since they also have the water fountain behind it, and trees, they now have food, water and shelter. What more can they ask for.

We did put a small bird house up also. Its attached to the back of the house. It took all of 1 day for it to be occupied. I guess that’s good. And I’d say we have a thriving bird ecosystem – we had a hawk flying by last week. It landed on one of the branches while we were outside working. I guess that’s good.

We had help this past weekend. Pat came over and we got a lot of yard things done. I now have a small – 3′ x 3′ raised planter. I moved some of the tomato plants into it, along with a pepper plant, watermelon, and bean plant. We’ll see how they do. I still have the netted cover I can use if birds began eating any of the veggies. We’ll see how the plants grow first. This is barely spring. Come summer not much grows due to the heat. But hopefully we’ll have time to get some of these things growing and producing before then.

Cat C L Uncategorized March 30, 2013

The weather must be changing, even if it doesn’t seem like it sometimes. Last night we saw our first scorpion in the house. We don’t get a lot of them, but because of where we are we do get scorpions. We do have a pest control system built into the house walls so that keeps most of the bugs away. But last night I saw the first scorpion of the season in the house. Bill stepped on it since I was barefoot – no more worry about that one. But we must be changing seasons for them to show up.

The weather has been strange. The past couple of days have been overcast but warm, in the 70’s. Last night only got down to 62, so that is a change in temp. Especially since earlier this week we had night time temps down in the low 30’s. They keep saying we may get rain, 40% chance for tomorrow, Easter. We even have a 50% chance on Wednesday. I’m not holding my breath on it, we’ll see if we actually get any. But it is overcast with big billowy clouds.

Now that we have the fence in we’re starting to look at planting some more things. Its nice having a lot of room to work in but its going to take a lot of work. We’re already looking at putting in some sort of retaining walls and filling them with dirt so we can plant shrub/trees. We get such wind we do need some sort of wind break. When we got those 40-50 mph winds our back patio got covered in dirt and leaves. And a neighbor from across the street came over when we were just breezy up here. She was amazed. She said it was calm at her house. But at least now she realizes our problems.

I had talked with my neighbor a couple of weeks ago and mentioned that we get windy. She understood windy, but she said that they don’t get much wind at all. So she was a bit skeptical about what I was saying. Her house seems to be in a low calm spot, relatively speaking. She said they rarely get much wind at all. But next door to her is essentially a greenbelt and that might break the wind for her. But now that she’s been to our house, she understands what I mean when I say that we do get wind.

When we got that windy spell all the dirt I have moved got blown away. The problem is that I need to have dirt in order to get something to grow, and I need something to grow there in order to hold the dirt. We’ll figure something out.

Cat C L Uncategorized March 23, 2013

Go figure. Yesterday (Friday) they said today’s (Saturday) forecast was a high of 86. That has now changed to a high of 70. It’s already noon and we are not even up to 60. Hopefully we’ll get to 70, but we’ll see.

The deer are not happy with the fence. They keep coming up to it and looking in, like kids staring at a candy store they can’t go into. I figure they’ll get over it. But we did get a bird feeder up. And the birds have already found it and are coming. We did find some old niger/nyjer seed. The birds won’t eat it but we put some outside the fence, just trying to get rid of it. Well the deer like the niger/nyjer seed.

The greenhouse is doing great. The squash plants have blossoms so hopefully we will get squashes soon. The herbs are doing very well. Even the berry bushes are putting out new leaves and growth.

I have had one unusual problem. I set some seeds out on a tray, it came with those compressed round soil pods. You just add water and the pods expand. Well, not a single seed has sprouted in that. I don’t know why. I find it odd. I don’t think the soil would be the problem, but I don’t know. I may add some more seeds to them and see what the problem is. Since everything else in the greenhouse is doing fine I don’t know why these are not sprouting. It may take some investigating. I don’t think its too warm in the greenhouse since everything else is happy. I’m not sure why they haven’t sprouted and its been over a week. I put geranium and impatient seeds in the the tray and I would think they would have sprouted by now. Something I have to look into.

Cat C L Uncategorized March 14, 2013

Go figure. I planted how many daffodils and only one came up.

I know, be thankful I got one. Maybe the others will bloom. But its mid March and that’s the only one so I’m not real hopeful. Maybe we just didn’t get enough cold. I don’t know.

But the fence has come along nicely. Its 6 feet tall and will hopefully keep the deer out. That remains to be seen, but we can hope.

supplies

construction

lots of fence

portion of front fence

I’m rather excited about the fence. I’ll be able to actually put plants out in the yard. I’ll be able to plant the new roses. I’ll be able to get some stuff out of the greenhouse! Now if the deer will just cooperate and stay out.

Cat C L Uncategorized March 8, 2013

The fence is coming along well. Most of the columns are done and almost all the posts are in. Next week they should put up the fence sections. Then we’ll actually have a fence and be able to keep the deer out.

But weird weather – this morning we woke up to fog, cool weather (we made it to 64) and heavy mist with light rain later in the day. We need the wet weather and I’m sure the plants are thrilled to get the moisture. Tomorrow should be similar weather. Next week we’re supposed to get into the 80’s. Summer is on its way.

Cat C L Uncategorized March 4, 2013

Okay we have a problem after that wind. My bougainvillea is naked – it has lost every single leaf. It was a new plant and looked nice. But its only naked, not dead so I’m sure it will come back to life. I may need to find a new place for it. Right now it is sitting on the stairs so it is out getting the full force of the wind. I may have to move it someplace where it still gets sun but maybe a bit less wind.

The real problem is in the back. All that dirt I moved in the back then seeded with buffalo grass seed, well the wind moved it. Don’t know exactly where it got moved to, but I’ve got some definite bare areas again. Of course, that is exactly why I’m trying to get grass to grow there. The back patio is also full of dirt, weeds, twigs, and leaves from the wind. We’ll have to use either a blower to move that dirt out of the patio or we will have to sweep it off, but somehow we will need to clean that back patio off. But the amount of dirt on the patio is much less then the 3 or 4 wheelbarrows of dirt I put on the ground. So I’m sure the rest of that dirt is off some place else. I’ll have to do this all over again – move dirt and throw seed. Sure glad I still have some seed left over.

Cat C L Uncategorized February 26, 2013

Oh my goodness. Yesterday was windy. We hit gusts of 51mph here at the house. It appears some areas even had power outages due to the wind. It blew hard enough to tear one of the vents off the greenhouse. Bill was able to retrieve the wayward vent so we’ll try to repair it and re-install it. But it meant that plants inside the greenhouse had to be covered last night. And they will have to be covered the next few nights – we’re due for night temperatures near freezing, below 40 for the next week or so. And I still have those little seedlings growing and they will not survive those cold nights. Hopefully we won’t be getting wind like that for a while again. The center of the country has been in a cold spell with snow and such. Us, we just got the wind. Not even any rain from it. Oh well.

Cat C L Uncategorized February 23, 2013

Things I need to remember for next year’s winter. Cover the Esperanzas and the Plumbago. They both got a bit too much freeze damage. Luckily they are both coming back. The crowns are alive but the branches got too much freezing temperature. I also had a small problem with the iris’ that Leena, my neighbor, gave me. The iris’ look like they are growing. But for some reason the deer keep trying to eat and pull up one poor iris. I don’t know why. I keep replanting it, and they keep pulling it up. I’m going to move it to the back and put it in a pot and see how it does. But overall the irises look good, like they are alive and growing.

The good new is it looks like we will be getting a fence. It will be mainly black 6 foot tall iron, but it will have stone work columns sprinkled in there. Since its about 350-375 feet of fence (maybe more) it will give me a large yard. I just hope it can keep the deer out. That’s the clincher. But we have the HOA’s approval, we’ve found someone to build the fence, so we should be getting it built soon. It doesn’t really cover much of the front of the house, and it doesn’t cover any of the front of the yard, but it does cover the side and the back area up to the green house. We will have a couple of gates which will be nice. I just hope all goes well and it gets built without any hang ups. We can hope.

This is how the plumbago is doing. It is coming back after its freeze, but not all plants look this good. Some look much worse.

This is an esperanza, yellow bells. At least its coming back from its base and from any canes that didn’t freeze too badly. I should probably cut back any canes that don’t sprout new growth.

The rosemary did fine. They look healthy, have some flowers on them and are doing great. The only one not doing great was in pretty bad shape before winter came. So I’m not worried about that one.

This is lantana. I thought it was able to take the frost and I think it did an okay job. It also appears to be coming back from some canes and from the center. But these are plants the deer will eat, Improved Yellow Lantana, so whatever cames back is great news.

One other thing. I’ve been setting lots of seeds in trays in the greenhouse. They are just coming up gang busters. I’m thrilled. It’ll be less expensive then buys a lot of plants for the garden. And since most are annuals, its not like I expect them to last until next year. I am starting some perennials, we’ll see how they grow. But the nice thing is at least this year we’ll be able to get plants in early, instead of getting them in as late as we did last year. At least I’m much more hopeful this year, we should have a better looking yard then last year.

Cat C L Uncategorized February 8, 2013

Oh how my garden grows.

Jan 29, 2013

Same plant Feb. 8, 2013

These were summer squash seeds I put in a pot in the greenhouse. The dates of the pictures are accurate. Good thing I only planted 4 seeds. I didn’t expect but 1 or 2 to come up. Now we’ll see how they make it thru the spring and summer.

This is a before and after of oregano. This is a pot I had from last year. It wasn’t doing much.

Jan 29, 2013

But it is definintely picking up this year.

Same pot Feb 8, 2013

I admit, I don’t remember if this is peas, but I think it is. I set it from seeds.

Jan 29, 2013

Same pot Feb 8, 2013

So it looks like the garden grows better then last year. I admit last year this time we were not in the house. So last year plants that got started, even in pots, started late, usually in the heat of summer. That anything survived is amazing. I even had a geranium in a pot that looked like it died. Well its now got small leaves coming back up. I’m tickled.

Cat C L Uncategorized January 21, 2013

Glad to have nice weather back. Last week was cold, both day and night. One day we never got above 36 degrees. Today its almost 1:30pm and we are already at 64 degrees. Much nicer weather.

I think we may have lost a few plants from last week’s cold, but we will have to wait and see on that. Some of the plants in front look just brown, like they may have frozen. But I don’t know if they have died. Some of the bulbs I planted are trying to grow. They would do better if the deer would leave them alone. But the deer outside are not looking good and are looking for whatever they can eat. Hopefully they will leave my bulbs alone long enough for the bulbs to grow. We can hope, and wait and see.

The plants in the green house are doing fine. I did move some of the house plants that were outside into the green house. Most of those house plants look like they will survive, though they do show some signs of damage. One in particular, a spider plant, does not look good. I’m not sure if it will survive.

But I repotted one lemon tree and it is doing much better. The repotted lemon tree was the older of the two trees. The younger tree is putting out blossoms. Since it is in a green house, and I haven’t seen any bees in there to pollinate, I will have to take a paint brush and go pollinate my lemon tree. We’ll see how that works. I hope it works well.

I received my 3 x 3 foot planter. I haven’t put it together yet. Bill and I have been discussing what to do for a fence in the back yard. If the weather stays this nice, I may want to put up the planter sometime soon. But right now we are on a wait and see. And of course if the weather stays this nice, I will need to start planting seeds soon.

But we are starting to get some more work done on the front yard. Today Aby’s workers are working. They are grading the front area, near the street and will lay down rock. This should help with weeds and drainage, at least we hope it will.

UPDATE: I went into the green house with a paint brush to pollinate the lemon tree. There were bees on the flowers. I guess with this nice weather the bees made it into the green house and found the lemon trees. I just hope the bees know how to get out of the green house before the top louvers close tonight.