measureable rain

[songbird]

at last!

Nad, you might get some from this one (if you are between Port Huron and Detroit) :). !!!

looks good for later tonight too for more (but i won't believe it until i hear it on the roof).

it was a perfect day to be out trimming a field and spreading it around (for green manure). i had just finished most of it and had only a little to go and the first sprinkles came down, hmm, i say, so i finish the last bit i could get done, wrap the cords up and get the trimmer in. stops sprinkling. of course. so i go back out and spread the trimmings around and pack a large bin (so i can feed the worm farm tomorrow morning) and used a bunch on the new rhubarb patch to give them some cover and more worm food.

took the hose out there and gave the whole area a good soaking as the clay was heavily cracked and i wanted to get the dry stuff wetted down to keep it from blowing. then i went and rinsed out the bird baths and got the bean patch watered.

nice to have a cloudy cooler day to get out there and get it done. last time i was out chopping last week i had sweat dripping off my nose so fast i had a trail.

now i can hear the tomatoes singing in happiness from getting some real rain for a change. the cherry tomatoes are just now starting to turn.

songbird

[Nad R]

I see rain on the radar, it is raining north and south of me, I hope it does not break up as usual when it gets to me. I could use a soaker, my grass is like half brown half green. I have gotten enough rain so far to fill my rain barrels and use that water between rains. But a bunch of lights rains is ok, but I need a soaker for the corn and grass. Tomatoes are growing nicely again as the temperatures have dropped to normal.

I have to be vigilant now, the good thing about hand watering the plants one tends keep a watch on them. The last three days I have found nine infamous Tomato Horn Worms (Green like Caterpillars). I remove them and smashed them with my shoe. so far they have done very little damage and my plants look heathy. I have thirty tomato plants growing.

The last two days was a picture perfect day. Low Eighties, nice breeze, blue sky with white clouds floating by. I mowed and trimmed the lawn yesterday. Today I took apart my forty year old rusted out gas grill apart and got it ready for the scrap yard. I missed having a good steak this summer. I am hoping for a good sale this fall on a new grill. Looking at a small new infrared gas grills for my back deck. Some day I plan on a building a small covered patio in the middle of the back yard garden with a charcoal grill under it. Sorta like an outdoor kitchen, but will have to piece it together over the years, money is tight.

Big cracks also in my new soon to be garden area. It will take time to transform the soil like the rest of the yard. My main lawn has no cracks in it. Last year that section of land was a hay field. The newly planted grass has already made it look good from a distance. But I will add compost and grass seed to the area each fall. In four years it should look good.

I see my cherry tomatoes coming in also, about two more weeks. Two cherry

100s and one Sun Gold. I hope in two weeks I will have my first complete salad from the garden: head lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots and celery. My peppers seemed to really suffer during the heat and the leaf lettuce bolted.

[songbird]

so far two rounds of rain and more looking very possible tonight. yay!

we have 26 tomato plants, only two cherry tomato plants, oops, i forget we have three other volunteer tomato plants growing in another patch, but i have no idea if they will taste good. if they provide fruit we'll give them a try and if edible they'll be welcome in the jar or on a sandwich.

...

i got more done today than i have in weeks.

i've always thought that separate kitchens was the way to go. use all wood and brick then when it gets too grungy just set a match to it and start over when the bricks cool. especially in the south... having done too much restaurant floors and seen what they look like after a few years (and the smell, whew!) it's bad enough to put you off ever eating out again.

for cooking outside a fire pit and a grate is good eating too. simple and inexpensive if you have a wood supply.

i'm confused, are you transforming hay field into garden or hay field into lawn? or lawn into garden? :)

we had plenty of good results last year from the sweet 100s we didn't put any other cherry tomatoes in. someone gave us some of theirs that they grew and the were horrible (i can't believe i say that about any tomato).

have you ever tried growing romaine lettuce?

the lettuce here did ok as far as growing went, but it was a mix and most of the mix was bitter (i don't mind some). next time we grow the kind that wasn't bitter and leave the mix for a much smaller amount just to add color and variety. the spinach bolted almost immediately. i picked some leaves here or there and even ate some of the seed heads before they got hard. those patches also had peas in them, now both are being taken over by volunteer squash plants. no idea if the squash will be good, but i sure hope so. we love it.

songbird

[Nad R]

The first good soaking rain since May. An all night slow rain. I can here the sweet sound of thunder in the distance as I type this.

Turning a 1/4 acre Hay Field into a lawn/garden with raised beds this summer. Grass will be in between the raised beds, I have just two 4x24 ft raised beds in it for now. Hope to have a dozen raised beds built over the years in that area. Using perennial grass next to the beds in the hope it does not spread by the stolen like Kentucky blue grass does. I use a mower string trimmer that makes the trimming around the beds a lot easier.

Every year I grow lettuce. This year the romaine had a HOT taste to it, the neighbors also had the same results and ended up pulling it up. However, my Butter Crunch lettuce tasted great this summer. So it was not a total loss for leaf lettuce this summer.

The dog is back indoors and I think I will get more sleep in. Rainy days are shopping days... I will take the dog to the groomer, go the gym, get a hair cut, do a little clothes shopping, look for summer bargains. By then my little Yorkie will be ready for pickup.

[songbird]

i was watching it as it went and hoped it helped over there too.

as it turned out here we had five or more inches of rain that evening. the rain gauges top out at five inches so i'm not sure what we totaled. i do know that the ground was so dry that it soaked up much of it. only a few puddles remain in the low seeps and catches i have set up. normally from what is in there it would indicate about a 1 to 2 inch rain and the field next door starts flooding us at about 4 inches, but there is no standing water there. so we were well due...

this is the first time we've had that much rain in one night since we've been keeping track of the gauges (14 years).

ah.

those are nice to have. it was before my time here that they had blown up one of those (didn't mix the oil properly into the gasoline). they used it to keep the two wild patches in the yard and the ditches trimmed once in a while. now we have a mower with a blade that uses lead-free gasoline and starts easy. except for the lack of edging it is much nicer, quieter and best of all i don't have to get involved other than changing the oil.

the wild patch closest to the house is now gardens (when it was wild it had too many mice) and the other one i've turned into a mixed legume garden that i harvest for green manure to feed the worms and put about 80% of the trimmings back to encourage the clay to have more worms too. it being the end of the first year for that process i've seen good signs so far that the soil is improving, but it will take more time. if a friend comes through with several yards of ground up tree parts i'll spread some of that out there to speed things up.

as for grass stolons... i won't say how many hours i used to spend tracking them down through various gardens, but it was enough. and the patches of decorative grasses that i've had to eliminate and then chase down all the escapees, i'm still trying to get some species gone completely but they keep popping up, and then the wild rice ... well, let's just say that if the remaining 5% of lawn/grass were to be turned into gardens i'd shed tears alright, but tears of joy. :) not too likely to happen anytime soon though...

i'll pass along the comments to the management (that wants to grow romaine next season). thanks. :)

a while ago someone described their yorkie as going "noise first" into a snowbank and that has always made me laugh to think about it. :)

songbird

[Nad R]

I have a doggie door he comes and goes as he pleases. A few days ago i saw the dog in the field he would not come when I called him. The little Yorkie killed four new born rabbits. When I walked over he ran from me and completely ate one of the new born rabbits...

I just got back from the 4H county fair with my brother, sister in law and his kids. Had a good time watching the horse pulling contest and watching all these kids with their prize goats, chickens and other animals as their pets. Little kids competing in the Equestrian horse riding contest. Kids young as ten years old taking their AlPacas and Llamas that are twice as tall as the kids through their paces like in a dog show.

It was fun and a perfect night, low humidity mid seventies, after the down pours from last night. Grass is getting green once again.