March 10, 2012 - More Spring Cleanup

Weather in the 60s today meant the seedlings got to spend the day outside. I was expecting some fairly strong wind gusts, so I didn't take the tomatoes out today. I really need to devise a little sheltered spot for them. Since the wind gusts didn't happen, I wish they had gone out after all. It was a perfect day for more garden and yard cleanup, not too hot, not too cold.


I finished removing all the dead morning glory vines from the kennel garden, then raked it all out. I did burn a tiny pile that was left after filling a large garbage bag, but it's basically ready for garden preparation. The inside perimeter will get a good application of composted manure dug into the narrow beds to get it ready for Grandpa Ott morning glories, nasturtiums and Johnny Jump Ups. The columbine that was moved there last spring from the fern garden, where it was being crowded out, is really enjoying its new home. It is already putting forth lush new growth.


The sod was hauled off yesterday, just a few small pieces are left to be removed. Mr. Granny spent the day burning the smaller roots and garden trash that couldn't be composted. Tomorrow he'll begin cutting up the large roots so we can do who knows what with them. We'll probably have to just put a few in the garbage can each week, until they are all taken to the landfill.


The yard still has the "winter uglies". I should have taken a before photo, it looked much, much worse before I removed all the dead Four 'O Clocks, alyssum and tons of leaves.


"The "servants' entrance (LOL, it's just a pet name for this side of the house) was a real mess of pine needles, boughs, pine cones and sycamore leaves, plus the winter killed foliage of all the ferns that thrive here. I probably spent 2-3 hours just cleaning up this area alone, including trimming back the bushes that want to bite me every time I walk through here. This will be "tomato alley" again this year. Mr. Granny has been asked to find a better place for the concrete blocks and the metal pipe.


Mr. Granny was really very helpful today, he even cleaned off the patio for me! Methinks I need to do some patio decor this year, it's looking quite dated and shabby.....just like Granny and Mr. Granny :-)

March 9, 2012 - Planting the Garden, Day One

Both triangle beds were amended with compost, which was scratched into the top few inches and then leveled. Then the first seeds of the 2012 garden season were planted. Just a few radishes, along the edge of triangle bed #2, that will be pulled long before the space is needed for summer squash. Hopefully I'll find a spot to put in a short row or two every couple of weeks for a continuous supply this spring. The remaining garlic was moved from the east garden, and a dozen plants filled the allotted spaces perfectly. The soil isn't as dry as it looks, it was nice and damp an inch or two below the surface. I did, however, carry out several 2 gallon watering cans to give the seeds and transplants a drink. I'll have to hook a hose up to the house water soon, as our irrigation water won't be turned on for at least another month.

The garlic I moved earlier in the week seems to be surviving just fine.

It was actually 69F in the shade today (32F when I got up this morning), so I treated the seedlings and the tomato plants to a day on the front porch. I forgot the onions in the laundry room window. They need to start going outside to harden off, as it will soon be time to plant them.

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.

March 8, 2012 - Thank You, Mother Nature

She was nicer to me than I expected on Tuesday. It was supposed to be cold and windy, in the low forties, but it turned out sunny and calm and perfect weather for the new garden project. I donned my coat and gloves, but the coat soon ended up over a fence post, rather than on the gardener.

It took most of the morning to get 40' of the fencing installed, and 24' of the welded wire dog barrier put on the bottom of it.

The afternoon was spent raking smooth the first 12' x 36' section of new garden and staking off the first four beds. I marked 20" pathways, which will be wide enough for my rake, and tromped down the loose soil on the walkways. The first four beds were marked off, visible small bits of root removed, and each was leveled and smoothed out with a rake. It was quite an easy job in that soft soil.

I tore down one of the three old half barrels that was rotting out, hauled that out of the garden, then raked the soil from it into a bed by the back fence for pole beans. The other two barrels will also be removed, and the Fortex beans will be planted in all three new beds next to the fence. Amy T., from Issaquah, WA, is sending me some fresh Fortex seeds! I had asked her to watch the seed racks in the Seattle area to see if she could find me a packet, as the seeds I had saved in 2010 turned out to have crossed with my nearby Kentucky Blue pole beans. I really wanted a new supply to grow for seed saving this year, but I was hesitant to pay about $14 for a few seeds and the shipping charges. This year, Fortex will be the only pole bean I'll grow, so unless my neighbors grow beans on the other side of my fence, the resulting seeds should be true Fortex!

I raked up and hauled out the pile of sod and roots that were in the middle of the garden. The largest roots of all were there, and impossible to remove, so I will move the bottom half of the old compost bin to set over the top and plant the butternut squash in it. The vines should grow down to cover its ugliness, so I think it will work out OK.

The new area of garden is beginning to take shape. The old fence line was right up against the raised beds in the background, so I gained about 12' of extra planting width. The triangle beds were necessary, due to the TV/phone/internet cable that is buried just beneath the surface. It will make an interesting visual arrangement! I have to make the best use of some odd spaces, so the top half of the old compost barrel, in the background, will hold a hill of cantaloupe.

I reused the plastic mesh fencing that I had installed last year. I really like this stuff, it stretches tight, never sags or bends, and is practically invisible, allowing a good view of the garden. The welded wire fencing was also repurposed from the old east garden. I cut the 2' high fencing down to 1', and used cable ties to fasten it to the bottoms of the fence posts. That keeps my nosy garden dog Annie from pushing under the flexible plastic fencing.

My preliminary garden plan for the first four new beds. After I went through all the work of planning this, I discovered I'd made the triangle beds a foot deeper than they really are. That means a do-over, but it will still be similar to this original plan......or maybe I'll just plant everything a tiny bit closer together.

I still have all this mess in the old east garden! My son-in-law is supposed to come over today or tomorrow to load the sod and take it to a new home they are sodding in their mobile home park. I have no idea what we'll do to get rid of the pile of roots, as they are too water logged to burn and too large to put in the garbage can for pickup.

Once the mess is cleared, this area will have to be refenced (red lines). It's too bad we dug out the posts last weekend, but the original plan was to sod this entire area. Now I've talked Mr. Granny into letting me keep most of it in garden, minus the area around the lilac tree (a source of multiple suckers, which cause me so much extra work to control). I want to set the corner posts in concrete, as I'm having trouble keeping the T-posts straight in this soft soil. This area will be perfect for planting corn, potatoes and onions.....the garden space hogs. There is still a long section of welded wire fencing, waiting to be cut for the final installation.

While I'm waiting for it to warm up enough to get outside and start working, I'm going to have my morning coffee with my nose buried in these lovelies, the first sign of spring at Granny's house.

March 5, 2012 - Plans Gone Awry

I had big plans to get in another six hour day today. As usual, I headed out to the garden at eleven this morning. Son Scott came over to help me straighten and finish setting the T-posts for the garden fence. Once that was done, he headed home, and I pulled a lawn chair out to the sunshine and started cutting the old welded wire fencing down into 1' high strips. The plan is to use the plastic mesh fencing that I installed last year. I was very happy with it, as it's nearly invisible and doesn't bend or sag. However, Annie has figured out how to push on the bottom and scoot underneath. The 1' high welded wire keeps her from getting through and into the garden beds. Just as I finished cutting all the fencing, the wind picked up and it started sprinkling. So much for finishing the fence today. I had also planned to measure and mark the garden areas onto graph paper, which was also out of the question due to the weather.

So I cleaned out the garden shed. Now the mini greenhouse is ready for the cool weather seedlings that will stay in the cold shed, under lights. That gives me the entire indoor shelving system for warm weather seedlings, like tomatoes and peppers.

Speaking of seedlings, I'd never used Miracle Gro before, simply because of the bad things that I'd read in other blogs. However, when I was ready to start some seedlings there was nothing else available on the shelves, so I grabbed a small bag. I ran out when I was about halfway through seeding the beets, and by this time the stores had stocked their garden shelves, so I bought a large bag of a "professional" type potting mix and finished planting the beets in that. Well the Miracle Gro beets are four times the size of the others. That being said, I don't think I'd ever grow beet seedlings inside again. I think they grow much stockier when direct seeded. I do think I'll turn a deaf ear to the naysayers and buy another bag of Miracle Gro for starting the rest of my seedlings.

After lunch, there was nothing I could do outside, so I spent the afternoon resting. So did Annie and Otto.....silly Mr. Granny, he thought this room was his man cave.

March 4, 2012 - Garden Progress

Oh, my. As tired as I was last night, tonight I am exhausted! It was gloriously warm and sunny by 11:00 a.m., so I headed out to work in the garden. I got the entire back fence flower bed cleaned out, raked and amended with composted manure. I dug some of the garlic I had planted last October, since it was smack dab in the middle of the area we will sod, and replanted it in the small bed, next to the lettuce box, that I had prepared yesterday. I'll still have to find room for the remaining plants.

Just as I finished the flower bed cleanup, and had started raking the area where the sod was removed yesterday, both of my sons showed up. Scott was ready to help pound in the fence posts, and John planned on getting the old tiller going.

I've never had to transplant garlic plants before. From what I've read, some people have good luck and others not so much. I guess I'll find out, as they had to be moved. I trimmed the roots just a bit, and trimmed the tops, just as I do when I plant onion plants, and set them 6" apart in all directions. I think I got about 15-16 plants in this small bed.

There are still about a dozen left to find room for.

After Scott and I got the fence posts started, to mark the edge of the garden, John got the old tiller running. We bought it new, about 36 years ago. That shows you how well things were made back then. Of course, we've always kept it garaged and out of the weather.

John hit a lot of roots. He had to chop them out with an ax, and I picked them up and put them in a pile. That's an 8' 2x6 to the left of the pile, to give you an idea just how big they were.

The roots were huge. This one is leaning on a 4'x4' post.

Oops. I knew there were no gas or electrical lines back there, but I forgot about the TV cable//internet/telephone lines. You would think they would have buried them deeper! Luckily, they weren't cut. It will, however, necessitate having to make two triangle shaped garden beds, with a path in between, to protect the cables from any future digging. It also means this is where the gate will go, so the fence posts are in the wrong places! Oh well, I'm not going to make Scott move them. If it looks odd to have a 3' gate and posts in this 8' section, so be it. We're going for function over beauty in this case.

We were getting a lot more done than I thought we would! John kept tilling, I kept pulling out the roots and stacking them up.

He definitely earned his keep, what with all the tilling and chopping.

We're not talking tiny feeder roots here, people!

Many were this size.

And some were even larger!

Finished! The pile of sod in the middle is over the top of the old tree trunk. There was no way it was coming out, so I'll build a raised bed over it and plant it with winter squash.

Tomorrow the plan is to straighten, plumb and finish pounding in the T-posts, so they are all 3' high. Once that's done, I'll either put up the plastic net fencing again, or buy some new welded wire fencing. I wanted chain link, Mr. Granny didn't, and I lost the battle.

A battle I didn't lose was keeping the old east garden plot, rather than putting it in sod! I will sod the few feet at the south end, around the lilac tree and its suckers, but I will retain much of last years planting area. That means the 2012 garden will be considerably larger!

I had a rather scary incident happen today. Around three o'clock, I hadn't yet had any lunch, so I decided to take a short break to eat something. I had a leftover cube steak in the fridge, so I made a couple of slices of toast and fixed myself a steak sandwich. I took it out to the patio, where son Scott was sitting, and started gulping it down as fast as I could, so I could get back to work. I'm afraid I gulped without chewing well, and a piece of steak got stuck in my windpipe. I couldn't breath, I was panicking, and I couldn't make a noise to alert Scott to what was happening to me. I was on the verge of passing out, when I somehow got out of the chair and lunged at Scott, pointing to my throat. Of course, he really panicked! All he could do was stand there and yell "Dad, Mom's dying! Dad! Dad! Mom's dying!" Well, Dad (Mr. Granny) was in the house watching a ballgame. He has priorities, you know. By the time he did get to the patio, Scott was trying to hug me, and I was pounding on my own chest, which finally dislodged the piece of steak....and none too soon! Scott finished off my steak sandwich, while I drowned my sore throat with a few glasses of water. Scott kept muttering how he never learned to do the Heimlich maneuver, and I told him it wouldn't have done any good in my case anyway. After all, I had on an oversized sweatshirt and no bra. He would have been hugging me around my knees, thinking it was my chest!

Mr. Granny sent out for a pizza for our dinner, then I'm off for another hot soak in the tub and a few Tylenol.

March 4, 2012 - Update on Ginny

I called Ginny of Gingerbread's House 7 this morning, as I and many others have been quite concerned about her. I spoke with her daughter, and she informed me Ginny had suffered a stroke while having her procedure done. She is home now, and is expected to have a full recovery. Her daughter said she would try to post something on her mother's blog later today.

I'm sure Ginny would appreciate receiving cards from us. You can email me at anniebloom1 at gmail dot com for her address. Let's send her some love and get her back with us soon!

March 3, 2012 - Biting Off More Than You Can Chew

Maybe I bit off a bit more than I can handle when I decided to enlarge the garden.

Our day began at 10:00 a.m. when Mr. Granny and Scott began digging out fence posts after I'd removed all the clips and fencing.

Bryan unloaded the sod stripper and fired it up, while Kevin began rolling up the strips of sod.

They loaded a trailer with rolls of sod, and still had all of this left over. I'm thinking it would have been easier to reseed rather than try to lay all of this into the old garden area, and "somebody", I won't name names, neglected to follow my instructions to keep the sod rolls up next to the fence. That entire area will have to be leveled, so the sod will have to be moved again! I worked on leveling it with a rake for about an hour, and didn't even make a dent in it.

So....here is the garden extension. Pretty rough right now, and the old maple tree roots were so near the surface it made stripping the sod very difficult. It will have to be tilled up, and that might prove interesting what with all the big roots.

Areas like this will either have to be chopped out with an axe or made into a raised area for squash. The roots are huge, and right at the surface.

Remind me to never, ever, ever plant cosmos again. These 10-12' giants had to be cut into sections then pulled. Now what will I do with them? Too bad I don't have a chipper. Our only alternative is a big bonfire.

I put in a full day. A bed was made for Grandpa Ott morning glories. I dug a couple of buckets of compost into the soil, raked it smooth and added a mulch of grass hay. A week or so before it's time to plant the seeds, I'll scoot the mulch aside to let the soil warm up. Strips of wire fencing were tacked to the back fence to give the vines something to climb.

The lettuce bed was dug, and compost and alfalfa pellets were scratched into the top few inches. It's all ready for seeding when the time comes. A small bed next to it was also amended, mulched with hay, and fenced off to keep Annie from sleeping on it. I haven't yet decided what will go there, possibly a small herb bed.

I cleaned up and mulched the lily bed, and that pretty much took care of cleaning and prepping my "back 40", the area behind the garden shed.

Is it bedtime yet? My body aches all over. Oh, it's only 4:15. Darn. I feel like I put in a lot more than six hours!