Category: Infrastructure

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01/16/2024 sneaky

The plant window is backlit brightly. You can see houseplants fully visible on the top shelf and the shapes of decorations and pots on the second shelf. On the bottom cat level, Shackleton’s face is in profile as he faces east to the morning sun.
I think Shackleton thinks he is hidden as usual in the plant window. He seemed very surprised when I growled his name sternly as he tried to climb to the forbidden next shelf!! I left a thermometer in there and on the cold nights it was in the 40s F. I guess the sun is very tempting and the fleece blanket keeps the metal floor from being cold and wet as frost melts from the glass.
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01/14/2024 not very efficient plant window

Single pane glass isn’t great in this extreme weather. Fortunately most of the plants are above the thin metal bottom. in past years this has damaged tomato seedlings when we did them in the window.
Frost is pretty though. Mom fixed the stained glass cardinal for me recently! Thanks Mom!
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12/19/2023 power line easement

The mostly leafless red oak in our backyard
Our poor oak tree had to get trimmed the full 10 foot easement along the power line. The trunk is almost right at the 10 foot mark.
A big red oak with almost half its branches gone, all along the power line side.
So, there’s going to be a lot more light along the fence. Today (12/21) I cut some stalks of annual and Maximilian sunflowers, ironweed, and camphorweed to scatter along the fence in hope that their seeds will like the new amount of light there.
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12/16/2023 Maximilian sunflowers stalks in driveway

Sunflower stalks probably 6-8 feet tall tied up with a white cotton rope to keep them bundled up out of the driveway
In late fall rains, the maxes fell over. This has been pretty annoying when backing cars out of the garage or trying to put stuff in the bins. So I have preliminarily tied them up so the seedheads are still there for birds and the stalks are there for overwintering bees. But less aggravating to walk through. I might put a raffia ribbon on it or something if there are Complaints about it.
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11/26/2023 experiment for new vegetable perennials

One plant protector clipped closed by a stainless steel clip. One open with all its cells filled with water. The plastic is a translucent pale aqua color.
After reading about “wall-o-waters” in a book about gardening in the Great Plains, we eventually noticed a similar product for sale in Ellison’s Feed & Seed called Season Starters and decided to give them a try. We got 3 in one pack for about $15. They’re like mini greenhouses using water for both insulation and stability in a series of cells. We clamped ours shut with the stainless steel clips we like for holding plastic on the hoops for the greens. We put them around some new plants we ordered from California (I’Itoi bunching onions, Florida Finley bunching onions, and society garlic which is not actually a garlic though in same family). They should be fine in our winter once they’re established, but they just arrived a week or two ago.
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11/18/2023 green section

The heavy duty plastic garden cart with three full planters in it. Long afternoon shadows on driveway.
We used our trusty garden cart to bring the green section plants from the backyard as well as the verbenas.
The lovegrass had long roots where they hit the side of the pot and went down. The exposed roots aren’t buried again yet.
The sand lovegrass had a beautiful root system!
Two young milkweeds with a lot of soil gone from the rest of pot being planted. My gloved hand is adjacent to the roots to highlight the swollen taproot part.
The green milkweeds had very long root systems. These just sprouted this spring. I think I got 3-6 from this pot into the ground. Not all put up leaves again with the fall rain so it’s hard to be sure.
Big pale rocks frame the newly planted corner in green section of rainbow garden.
Everyone tucked in snugly. I moved the spikemoss from here to the rock garden as the spotted euphorbia keeps almost covering it here.
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11/05/2023 late but clearing for garlic

A series of seven raised beds edged by corrugated stainless steel and connected by three beige plastic trellises. A pile of holly branches in front, and some beds still having tomato cages covered in frost killed cowpea vines. One bed has hoops and plastic over it.
I got probably a total of three beds cleared (two halves and two wholes) for putting our garlic back in. I also moved some yaupon branches into the city compost bins (saving some to try making tea). I put a lot of cowpea seeds behind the yaupon holly in hopes that they’ll take over there next year. The rest of vine waste I set over south of the fourth bed to try to smother the invasive sedges and bermudagrass that keeps creeping in since we haven’t put ground covers there yet. We haven’t got the garlic in yet. But closer. Next year not letting cowpeas bury the raised beds.