Rugosa rose buds
I woke up at 5AM on Saturday and was achey and tired. I worked on the dozens of photos I had taken on Friday until it was time to go out to do the trash shed. I got the truck loaded with the trash and around in front of the house and my general helper arrived at 7:30AM.
The first job was to get the netting off the Little Trees. The netting had come off the Juneberry again and I figured the birds had finished it off. But amazingly, they hadn’t touched it. So we harvested the ones that were ripe. There are LOT more to ripen. I’m not sure why they are ripening so late in the year. I mean, they are called JUNEberries for a reason…
So we took off all the netting and then used one of the bigger ones from the elderberries to re-wrap the Juneberry. I plan to freeze the ones we got in a vacuum bag and keep collecting them until I have enough to do something with.
We took the netting over and were able to get it on the remaining clotheslines. As we turned from doing this my helper said, “Look at that!”
There was a hot air balloon really low over the barn! I thought at first it might be trying to land in the pastures, but they weren’t mowed and they don’t like to land in that. But as we watched it slowly rose again and the wind wafted it up over the trees to the north and it was gone.
So we returned to getting the netting on the line and then went to the dump.
Deep, deep blue sky
We collected all our equipment and resumed work on Row 4. The north side hadn’t been weeded so we worked on that. I was working both sides of the walkway, while my general helper just worked on Row 4. Once we’d cleared down to the peppermint, she prepped the beds while I went to see what had survived.
I was astounded to find Sweet Annie in really good shape. In the past it has died by July. The pennyroyal had run all over the other pots and was hard to get out. The arnica was still doing excellently, another surprise. And I found 4 bibleplant/costmary in pretty good condition.
The rosemary had done very well all summer. On the back porch I had some really healthy plants and when I checked to see what they were, they were from seeds my sister had sent me. Neither one of us knows what they are, but they have a yellow flower. The lavender had died so these went into that bed.
I had cleared most of the first bed in Row 5 and saw it was supposed to be stevia. I found 4 stevia plants in decent shape, so my general helper finished prepping that bed, planted them, and mulched them. Then she started mulching Row 4. When I finished planting, I started mulching Row 4 too. She also managed to get the first bed in row 3 mulched too. We quit at 10:45AM as she had to go.
I was pretty tired but got my shower, some lunch, and went to bed and slept 2½ hours. I spent the rest of the afternoon editing photos and writing posts.
On Sunday I plan to go out and finish mulching Row 3, then finish weeding Row 4 and half of Row 5, and maybe even get the rest of Row 4 planted and mulched. If I can do that, I’ll be half done in the New Herb garden.
In the afternoon I am going to a classical concert and an art show afterwards.
So another busy day…