March 9, 2012 - Busy Day & Another Blogger Problem

Recently my name is showing up as Annie & # 39 ; s Granny ( I have to use spaces, or it changes to a comma when I save it), rather than Annie's Granny. It just started, so Blogger must have changed something in their HTML code. It's not a new problem with Blogger, complaints go back several years but the threads all end up being closed without an answer, just an admonishment to stop trying to respond to an old thread and start a new one. Well, people have started many, with no answers from Blogger. It looks like I'll have to change my name to "The Granny of Annie", "Annies Granny" (which is just wrong!) or just plain "Granny" and confuse everybody. If any of you know how to fix this, I'll be forever grateful!

Yesterday was a hard work day! My son-in-law couldn't make it to pick up the sod (he'll be here later today), so I had to find something else to keep me busy. I had wanted to move the dog kennel over about 3-4 feet, until it was right up against the neighbor's fence, so I raked out all the leaves and pulled the dead morning glory vines off of the chain link, and then I pushed. And I pulled. And I leaned my entire body into it and pushed with all my might. It didn't even budge an inch! I guess the kennel stays right where it is.

I moved on from that chore, and double dug a 4x4 raised bed, thinking I would soon find time to plant it with peas. I amended the bed with composted manure, raked it all nice and smooth, then dug five nice straight furrows with the hoe. That would have given me the equivalent of a 20' row of shelling peas. I went in and pulled out my two packets of peas, planning to soak them overnight, but when I opened the packets, there weren't very many peas in there! Actually, there were only 36 peas between the two packets, which wouldn't have planted even one of the four foot rows. Plans changed, furrows were raked smooth again, and I'll likely plant a few radishes right away and in May a couple of cucumbers in a bucket, surrounded with a ring of green beans.

I turned my back for a second and Annie scooted under the unfinished section of fencing, and made herself comfortable right smack dab in the middle of the freshly raked bed. I shooed her back out, and pulled a couple of large bags of leaves over to the opening, but it didn't take her five minutes to figure out how to get around them and back into that garden bed.

It was time to finish the fence, even if it was only temporary. Of course, that entailed moving the big pile of tree roots out of the way, as well as one large roll and several smaller, but heavy, squares of sod. The corner T-post was leaning a bit, but there wasn't time to dig it out and set it in concrete so I tied a rope to it and pulled it as tight as I could, then tied the rope to the chain link fence. That kept the T-post straight enough to attach the fencing, even though it's just a temporary fix until I can do it right. I went ahead and attached the welded wire dog barrier to the bottom of the permanent installation, then used folding wire fence along the bottom of the last (temporary) section. There....the garden was now Annie proof! And I was exhausted!

It was still too early to start dinner, so I mixed up a bucket of compost, peat moss and vermiculite so I could plant some seeds. Yes, I made my own mix. You may have guessed I was rather upset over some of the comments I got when I mentioned I had purchased a small bag of Miracle Gro for my first seedlings, as the store shelves had not yet been stocked for spring. Yes, I know how to make my own potting mix, and yes I had all the ingredients needed to do it, but it was January, it was cold out in the garden shed, and all the lawn furniture was stored in front of the shelf that held the supplies. So I bought a bag of what was available, and it grew some lovely plants. So, to those "Anonymous" people who left some very nasty comments, your words were not worthy to be published. I do moderate the comments on my blog, so don't expect to have yours published if you can't play nice.

While I'm on the subject of rude people, yesterday was garbage pickup day and I had an old broken plastic container, filled with trash from cleaning the garden shed, sitting at the curb. There were some short pieces of the welded wire fencing, too small to do anything with, in the bottom. Somebody came by and dumped the contents onto the driveway, took the fencing scraps, and just left everything else scattered all over. I already picked it all up once, I wasn't happy about having to do it again. They were certainly welcome to the fencing, but they could have returned the other stuff to the container.

Anyway, I got all of my peppers, early cabbage, Chinese cabbage, broccoli and Brussels sprouts planted, placed under humidity domes and on the rope lights to germinate. The grow shelves are filling up fast. Now that I have the garden shed cleaned out, I can get some lights up in the mini greenhouse and move the cool weather seedlings out there.

Aren't these pretty! There are two clusters of blossoms, and several clusters of buds on the largest tomato plant. I shake it several times a day, hoping they pollinate.

The large tomato plant grew too tall for the grow shelves, so I moved them all to the laundry room, where I removed the middle shelf to make room. Then I broke the double 2' shop light, so now all they have is a single 18" light on the shelf above. As soon as I move the cool season seedlings out to the shed, I'll get Mr. Granny to help me remove a shelf from the wire rack to make room for these plants to grow.