On Friday morning I was out to the garden by 6:15AM. But I had a LOT of prep work to do before I could start planting. First I had to mulch the ginger area that I had stripped on Thursday. That took 2 bales of hay. Next I brought in a third bale because I would need it.
Next I had to find a place to dig up a LOT of dirt to fill the hole the sneezeweed from last year left. Once the hole was filled, I had to go to the barn for the T post puller to get the T post out.
Then I decided I would bring over the tray of seedlings I would be planting. But I couldn’t for the life of me find the agrimony. I was sure it had come up. So I went inside to see if it was in re-starts. Nope. But the restarts were big enough to go to the cold frame so I carried out both trays. So the lights are finally off. When my general helper returns from vacation, we will take these down and put all the stuff away, finally.
So I decided to substitute snapdragons for the agrimony and carried the seedlings over to the garden. I could finally start planting, at 7:30AM.
I was about half done when it started to rain at 9AM, so I stopped and put away all the stuff rain could harm, and went back to planting. I had decided if I had to stop in the gardens, I would spend the afternoon updating the plant labels.
So once Row 4 was finished, I cleaned up, got my photos, made notes about the labels and went inside for a shower. The rain had stopped and the humidity had skyrocketed and I was glad to get into the cool house.
Here are the plants in Row 4 and notes:
Arnica: a lot of the arnica had moved into the walkway, trying to get out from under the sneezeweed last year. So I dug it up and put it in the newly filled hole. There was enough that I didn’t need to plant any seedlings.
Bible Plant/Costmary: I have tried for several years to grow this and this year I managed to get 2 plants. My sister had put this plant in the West Herb garden in 1992 and it had died away in the construction in 2020.
Baptista: this is not doing as well this year. It’s much smaller and has fewer pods. I hope it does alright this year and gets bigger next year.
Balsam: These plants get enormous in a short period of time. But they send roots out their stems, so you can plant them deep. They are prolific flowerers.
Snapdragons: These usually flower right up until hard frost. I’m hoping for a lot of flowers.
Pennyroyal: This plant doesn’t often survive the winter. I use it in the cedar closet to keep bugs out of the clothes.
Peppermint: This bed is lined with a double layer of plastic edging. It slows the peppermint down, but I still have to pull roots out of the beds and walkways at least twice a year.
Balloonflower: My old helper friend gave me the seeds for this plant and it does really well here. It will have lovely blue flowers in a while.
Honesty: This plant prefers to flower very first in the spring, but it just got planted so we will see if we get flowers this late. It’s also known as money plant.
Echinacea Paradoxa: I was gifted the seeds to this plant several years ago by someone from the Ozarks on Steemit. It’s done very well here, considering it’s several zones from where it grows.
Winter Savory: This plant had a hard winter and only half of them survived. But those 2 are doing well.
Once I’d cleaned up outside, I brought out the bucket of labels to see if there were any I needed for this year. Then I made a list of the ones needing replaced or made new.
I finally figured out why some of my labels stayed black and others turned green in the sun. When my printer was working, I’d print in black, best quality. But later, to save ink, I just printed in gray scale, figuring it would just be black anyways. Not so. These were all printed in gray scale. Outside they look black, but not for long…
I laminate them twice, the second time with extra support where the staples go through (See garlic chives label). They last about 3 years.
Then I staple them to the stakes with 3/8” staples, hammering each one down firmly so the wind doesn’t flap them. It took me about 4 hours to get a couple dozen new labels made and put in place in the garden. Now all the signage is up to date and correct.
I had no sooner finished that job when the contractor arrived for the last time until September. When the floor had been repaired in the fall last year, the last board to go in cracked. It had risen up and become a tripping hazard. So he was going to cut it out and replace it.
He worked a long time on it as the bamboo flooring is VERY hard wood.
I think he did a good job matching the color and fitting it in closely.
On Saturday I hope to get out to the New Herb garden early and get a couple rows done, but we will see…