2004
Sent: 7/20/2004 11:09 AM
Wednesday, clipped a few docks & built a small lattice cover for the stack of tires where the sweet potatoes are growing. Compost bins 1&2 were warm to the touch but the small one was cold and kind of smelly so I added paper.
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Recommend Message 18 of 56 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameKathyAnnsCottage Sent: 7/20/2004 8:23 PM
Also Tuesday, replaced mosquito dunks and made a good start at weeding the stone patio. It's the area that used to be the garage floor back in 1930, made of granite pavers. My knee pads are uncomfortable and the stones are too rough to sit comfortably on, so I used the low beach chair, which is a tip I learned at Maine Garden Day. It was quite comfy and I could reach quite a ways all around without my legs going numb! I can see that a person with reduced mobility would probably need one of those garden kneelers with the high sides though, for safer getting up & down.

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Recommend Message 19 of 56 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameKathyAnnsCottage Sent: 7/20/2004 8:24 PM
Oops, I wrote Wednesday on my first entry for today. It's Tuesday.

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Recommend Message 20 of 56 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameKathyAnnsCottage Sent: 7/22/2004 9:52 AM
Thursday, mowed, weeded some, tidied up the irises a bit. Turned compost. We have lots of pretty clarkia, and the yellow bleeding heart made quite a lot of prigress in the last week. It even has a bloom, which I was not expecting til next year.

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Recommend Message 21 of 56 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameKathyAnnsCottage Sent: 7/22/2004 9:54 AM
P.S. quite buggy today but no Jap. beetles yet. Last year I did not see them til the 27th. Also last night I went and dropped mosquito dunks into two small pits created by the crew working on the field across the street. There's water in there that will probably still be there into August.

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Recommend Message 22 of 56 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameKathyAnnsCottage Sent: 7/24/2004 11:25 AM
Friday, replaced slug beer and out down some corn gluten in the southern quad. I also pulled up one row of stepping stones and added more sand under them.

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Recommend Message 23 of 56 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameKathyAnnsCottage Sent: 7/25/2004 11:25 AM
Sunday, turned compost. Saturday and Sunday, planted the rhododendron that I had bought for Bill and Harriet Stretton, to commemmorate his year as Worthy Grand Patron. It's a purple one, part of a whole bunch of nice plants & shrubs that had been loaned to them by Longfellow's for the Grand Chapter Session. I bought the rhody and kept it at home til the chapter was able to get together and do a little ceremony on Thursday. I made a stepping stone to go with it, with the star in the center and his penguin pin, shellacked and embedded in the stone. The Masonic Assn met without Bill and voted to let me plant it. I found a good spot where it will be shaded from southern exposure by a huge evergreen, and it will be sheltered from winds. So yesterday I planted it and today went back to dig a larger perimeter for the guy who does the mowing. I used my upside-down turf method, but this time I went down 3 feet. After it was all finished I found I had about half still left, so I piled it in a corner and I will add it back in as the ground settles. I mulched 4" with chopped leaves. I find that if I soak the leaves for a second in a bucket before applying them, they are not as likely to blow away. It looks very comical next to the giant evergreen.

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The number of members that recommended this message. 0 recommendations Message 24 of 56 in Discussion
Sent: 7/25/2004 1:50 PM
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Recommend Message 25 of 56 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameKathyAnnsCottage Sent: 7/25/2004 1:51 PM
I have been doing a little more research on stunted plants and I am thinking I may have marginal drainage that is being aggravated by the plentiful rain. This is the only way I can explain the edmame behaving differently in different beds. So I'll be piling on the compost this winter and I'll make sure to scratch it in really deep next spring. Probably should have mulched with chopped leaves to smother weeds AND add organic matter for drainage.

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Recommend Message 26 of 56 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameGreen_Side_Up Sent: 7/25/2004 4:55 PM
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Busy gardening day today! I decided to start on what will be Steve's garden in the southern quad. A nice person on GardenWeb suggested barberry for a shrub that birds would like but cats would not, which was a great excuse to liberate that poor purple barberry from under the pine tree. It has a slithery insect which I do not like. I will have to research it. It's in a bed made of layers of newspaper and then bagged topsoil with compost. I added 6 of the white lavender irises I got from a California grower on Ebay. The other 16 I then installed in dry beds on the northern quad. While I was doing that I spotted some of Aunt Rose's stachys which I had thought were gone, struggling among the weeds so I liberated them, probably too late for this year. I moved a mini-petunia from a hidden spot out to the front and I hope I didn't tear the roots too much. I gave it some worm tea. Aunt Rose's hosta is blooming, blue-eyed grass is having a second bloom, cosmos is blooming. Those sweet little purple sages I pulled up 2 years ago have reappeared, I hope they will make a full comeback. I counted 5 today. Goldenrod and sedums are getting ready to bloom.

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Recommend Message 27 of 56 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameKathyAnnsCottage Sent: 7/27/2004 8:54 AM
Monday, filled in a little bit around the rhody at the Masonic Hall. Still not seeing any japanese beetles, but I neemed the big climbing rose and other things that have finished blooming because they are losing a lot of leaf surface to something. Also the rose has a lot of yellowing on old leaves so I will look that up and see what needs to be done. Monday night I noticed that the yews are really closing off the front porch, so Tuesday morning I went out and did another, more severe, pruning. Very buggy.

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Recommend Message 28 of 56 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameKathyAnnsCottage Sent: 7/29/2004 8:51 PM
thursday, picked up a bunch of different plants for Steve's garden: echinacea, stevia, sweet William, red geraniums, an asiatic called "Reinesse", rosemary, some cherry tomatoes " sweet 100" and a purple-leafed herb whose label has disappeared. I will go back to Farmer Whiting's tomorrow and find out what it is. I got the stevia and the lily planted, then spotted something new: lily leaf beetles. I missed the larval stage completely. So I finished planting the lily - 2 in Steve's garden and one in the western "bordello" quad... and then went around and neemed all the asiatics and tiger lilies. I had already done the roses today.
Today I also turned the compost and sowed some grass outside the mulch ring at the masonic hall rhody, and put on some hay that was already there sitting around.

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Recommend Message 29 of 56 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameKathyAnnsCottage Sent: 7/30/2004 8:50 PM
The mystery plant is strobilanthes, Persian Shield. I really like it. I got everything in, then noticed the new garden has a view of my little junkyard behind the garage, so made a start on that. It will save on mosquito dunks to have that area cleaned up anayway, and there's a few things that can go in my mother's yard sale.

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Recommend Message 30 of 56 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameKathyAnnsCottage Sent: 8/1/2004 8:45 PM
Saturday, didn't get much done except putting up the screen house. I moved it a few times. Moved a couple of ferns out of it into the dirt area. Sunday, put a tarp floor into the screen house and then dismantled some bifold doors so I could rig up a hanging screen along the edge of the back deck to improve Steve's view. After sunset when it cooled down to about 80 degrees, I went out and dug up some ferns, tiger lilies and the last of the perennial bachelor button out of the western quad and brought them into Steve's garden. I still might bring over the beach rose, I need to make space for the new compost bin anyway. Saw some bats tonight.

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Recommend Message 31 of 56 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameKathyAnnsCottage Sent: 8/3/2004 12:00 AM
Monday, did the rest of the mowing. Watered everything. Broke down and used RoundUp on the driveway cracks.