Ghostwater Garden

The next day...

Took all weekend, with the heat, to get things arranged the way I wanted them. With typical Michigan aplomb, we went from spring to dead summer in a blink of an eye.  Temperatures reached 90 F yesterday. 

Come mid-summer, I won't even notice this kind of heat and humidity, but this early the heat and humidity are a huge impediment to garden progress.   (and I know those who are south of me are laughing into their hands.  hey.  drive around in some snow storms and then we'll see who's laughing!  ;D)

I waited too long to get the dirt delivered for the weekend, which in one aspect was a good thing.   I needed to go slow and easy in moving all that stuff.  No sense in giving myself a heart attack on prep work. They delivered it to the driveway this morning. 

The bad thing?  We are expecting the skies to open and dump rain at any moment, now.  Sigh.  The life of a gardener is mostly that of creatively working around obstacles, no? 

And now it's raining, and I need to get some real work done in order to pay for my garden addiction!

Busy Busy Busy

Much to do and so little time.  Writing this as the tea kettle works toward a boil, once the tea is made I will be out to the 'patio' (otherwise known as a driveway) to do my scheduled rearrange.   

I do this every year and it drives Mark nuts. Why? Because my 'pots' are those half whiskey barrels that weigh a ton when loaded with dirt and plants. I do this every year. I hardly ever change around the furniture, and I don't know what to tell him. This behavior's not going to change. Next year I will do it all over again. 

This year's shuffle will be such that it will accommodate a load of 10 yards of 50/50 planting mix in the middle.  Mark didn't like my idea to modify the ditch such that we only had to haul the dirt a mere 15 feet to get it into place, so into the driveway it goes.  I also have to clear the narrow path between the house and garage the stuff I have stored there so the hauling is at least unimpeded.  Other than by the soggy soil we live on and the long path back to the far corner of the yard.   A long slog.  Not looking forward to this work.

All of this in creation of a new vegetable bed.  Never one to do things by halves, I've planned out a 14' x 35' garden area.  Overly ambitious... But I am planting corn and squash, so it'll fill up - of that I am sure. 

And there's the kettle.  Gotta run!

Frost Warnings Tonight...

We had a frost about ten days ago that caught me by surprise.  I didn't know it had happened until I went out to look around on lunch break.  It hit the canna lilies I had put out early (no surprise there) and it hit the japanese anemones -  which made me sad.

I brought the cannas back in, to the sunporch, where they will wait with the dahlias for the projected last frost date of May 15th before I will put them back out again.  But the anemones had to deal with the loss of their first leaves.  They recovered quickly and are showing more growth now that they were then. 

So tonight the temps are dropping fast and I thought to ask Mark to check the net for the forcast.  Sure enough, tonight and tomorrow, possibility of frost.  So out we went, armed with a box, some empty nursery pots, and an old sheet. 

We carried in the pond plants that were waiting for me to fill the pond with water and put them in relative warmth on the sunporch. We manuvered the box over the pelagoriums and potted miniature roses.   We draped the sheet over the potted japanese maples and tied it down to a few poles stuck in neighboring whiskey barrels.  We upended the nursery pots over the japanese anemones and the balloon flower that has sprung out of the ground since that last frost. 

All hatches are battened down.  Let the temps drop to 34F, we're ready!

In other news, I had the first sighting of our northern oriole today. He's such a handsome fellow, and his cheerful bold call is welcome on a hazy day like today.