Weeding and Mulching

It's been so hot and humid this summer that  I've neglected the garden.  The once pristine (well maybe pristine is pushing it a little 😉) flower beds now resemble a jungle of weeds and grass. This nice little area, for instance looked fairly tame in May.

But now it looks like this:

The iris  and shasta daisy bed looked even worse, so I decided to tackle that first and managed to get  an hour or two of work in yesterday and this morning before the heat and humidity drove me back inside.
I pulled a lot of weeds- some were over knee high.  I filled one trash can and had to start on another.

Mr. G filled up a wheelbarrow with mulch for me so I wouldn't have to haul heavy bags of mulch around and it didn't take very long at all to use most of it up.

There's still a lot of work to do and  it's frustrating  to not be able to work for very long at a time in the heat and humidity, but  it feels good to have made a start.  And I think the butterflies agree. There were several fritillaries  flitting in the zinnias  this morning, and this lovely swallowtail who  kept me company for a while.

Weak, Woozy and Wet Weather

I may have overdone it by going to the market on Saturday.  I spent most of Sunday feeling weak and woozy, which was most frustrating. I did get a few things accomplished but not much. I decided on something simple for supper, so made  a chicken and avocado salad with  almond/orange dressing, using a recipe from Annabel Langbein’s cookbook.  The chicken was surprisingly tender and juicy, which was a surprise since most of the breasts we’ve cooked lately have been tough and tasteless. I’ll probably use her method of poaching chicken using mostly residual heat, from now on.

By Monday I was feeling a little more energetic and got plenty of exercise by going up and down the basement stairs to do several loads of laundry. For only two people Mr. G and I seem to have a lot of dirty laundry. Sometimes, when I view the pile of laundry that needs to be washed, I wonder if   someone isn’t sneaking in and dropping off their laundry hoping I won’t notice.  But alas, it is all ours. After getting the laundry washed, dried, folded and put away, I  decided to cook some of the shiitake mushrooms we had bought on Saturday.  I chopped about half of them, along with some white mushrooms I already had, and made a  mushroom velouté. I don't know if it was the mushrooms or just time doing its thing, but I do feel more energetic today and not nearly as fatigued as I have been feeling.

I had hoped that when my energy level improved we’d be able to get some things done in the garden, but the weather hasn’t been cooperative-  it’s been rainy, windy, cloudy and  generally not good weather for being outside, and it looks like the forecast is calling for more of the same.  There’s plenty that needs to be  one inside, so I won’t be idle- but it’s more fun  to be outside playing in the dirt!  Meanwhile, I’ll  look at  pictures of past efforts in the garden and  keep hoping I’ll be able to  get out there soon to finish  weeding and bed prepping and get on to the business of planting!  Last year, not sure  how I was going to react to the chemotherapy, I pretty much   did my gardening on the deck, in containers, which worked out well,  as  you can see from these pics, 

 

but  I’d like to get some stuff in the ground  again this year, and  rework my  little raised beds again   These pics are from 2014, and that’s what I’m aiming for, as well as having a  nice deck garden again. Except for the Squash.  I will not grow squash.  Squash vine borers and other  critters that have attacked   my squash plants every year leaving a   limp and wilted  mess rather than the nice  healthy robust plants I began with have convinced me that I am no match for them. I have tried every non-toxic remedy I could find, to no avail.  I admit defeat. I will concentrate my efforts instead on picking off the  tobacco hornworms that  seek to destroy the tomatoes every year. Organic gardening in the Deep South is a challenge.  I love a challenge- as long as it isn't TOO challenging ;-) 

CT Scans and Craneflies

I had a CT scan yesterday with contrast.   Since I had a nasty reaction to the barium solution I drank beforehand for the  previous CT scan,  I was told to arrive an hour or so before the scan to drink  a solution they had  at the center.  After I  registered  a nurse brought out a bottle of what appeared to be clear water.  It was Omnipaque, an iodine solution in powder form mixed with water. It actually was  nearly tasteless and much easier to get down than the barium solution.  Best of all, it caused no  nasty reactions. About an hour after I’d  finished drinking it,   a technician called me back,  took a finger prick blood test to  check kidney function and had a nurse access my port. While they were doing the preliminary positioning, test scans, etc., we discovered that the buttons on my new shirt are not plastic, as I thought, but have some metal component that  screwed up the image, so we  began over, sans shirt, and they  began pumping in the iodinated intravenous contrast. That is always such a strange sensation and I’m so glad the tech warned me about it he first time I had a scan. Within   seconds of the dye pumping in, you  feel   a lot of heat,  especially in the groin area,  and get the sensation that you  are wetting yourself.  If they had not  warned me I would have sworn I WAS actually wetting myself. It’s very strange, but passes quickly.  The table slid  into the CT doughnut,  the whirring began, a disembodied voice ordered me to " Breathe in," "Hold your breathe," "Breathe!" a couple of times and   before I knew it, the tech was telling me we were finished. Now to wait for the results and keep fingers and toes crossed that the rectal tumor and  metastasized  liver tumor have shrunk, there are no new lesions anywhere, and the existing  spots and lesions have disappeared or remained stable.

Not having had anything to eat or drink since supper the night before I was ravenous when we got home at around  1 P.M. and desperately craving  a cup of coffee. Mr. G made some coffee, and  ham and cheese sandwiches, with loose leaf lettuce from our own little crop growing on the deck.  After that I napped for a little while before going outside to do some watering in the greenhouse and weeding in my little jungle of a garden bed.  It is somewhat frustrating to get tired so very easily, but   working fifteen or twenty minutes then taking a ten or fifteen minute break DOES get the job done, albeit a bit slower than I would like. The plan was that   I would cook supper early than take a short  break before getting ready for yoga. I had told the instructor that I probably wouldn’t be there because  I’m usually so fatigued for  three or four days after I get unhooked from the pump, but this time, I had a lot more energy, so I planned to go. Problem is, I fell asleep on my “short” break and by the time I woke up  it was too late to even think about cooking supper, getting showered and going anywhere, so I missed yoga class.  We did have a nice supper, though: more recipes from Annabel Langbein: Mediterranean baked fish and a slightly tweaked version of her parsley mashed potatoes (I added sour cream), and  spinach bacon and avocado salad with raspberry vinaigrette.

Today I’ve been back outside weeding the jungle, fighting to control the  ever expanding soapwort, watching   the cedar waxwings   gobbling the berries off the holly tree, and  wondering why these two,  who I think are craneflies, were at it for well over an hour on the back door didn’t  get a room somewhere!

More yard work

The weather wasn't quite as  nice as yesterday.  The sky was overcast all day, but the temperature was mild and the wind wasn't quite as strong so it was a good day to be outside again.  So we were back out doing yard work again.  Mr. G finished raking up the pine cones and pine straw and I began   pruning the roses,   getting rid of the honeysuckle  and greenbrier vines that were strangling the roses and cutting out the forest of privet that had grown up in the flower beds. We're predicted to get rain beginning late tonight  lasting through Wednesday so we were trying to get as much done as we could before the rain got here. Of course we didn't finish but we made a pretty big dent in it. I finally had to  stop because the  thorns on the briers and roses were   getting through my gloves and sleeves and sticking me. It's  frustrating  to have to be so cautious, but the nurses warned me to be very careful gardening while on the chemo since it is so easy for a cut or puncture to get infected and one of the drugs actually inhibits  wound healing. I was beginning to think I might need falconer's gloves  and a suit of armor  to tackle the roses and briers since we had let them go last year and they had gotten  quite big and out of hand.  Also the  vines had   wrapped so tightly around some stalks of the Zephirine Drouhin that the   wood was completely dead, so she looks pretty bad right now.

We got the Ballerina, Red Cascade,  Zephirine Drouhin pruned but still have some pruning  to do on the Katy Road Pink and the Perle d'Or.  I hope the ones we did today  put off a lot of new growth  and bloom well this summer despite the drastic pruning we  gave them.  Here are some pics from previous years of a few of the roses in bloom.  I was surprised that  I didn't have  many pics of the roses among my garden photos and none of the ballerina or red cascade in bloom. The first three are  pics of the Katy Road Pink and the last is a little vase of  several different ones from the garden, along with some blooms from the buddleia - they smelled heavenly, especially the Zephirine Drouhin and the Katy Road:

An brief intermission in winter's long performance.

The robins  from yesterday  have moved on- we saw very few today, and that was early this morning. What we did see at the feeders today were  brown headed cowbirds. I have very mixed feelings about cowbirds.  While the males are  really cool looking with their black bodies, brown heads and  short  little beaks,  they are brood parasites and may have contributed to the decline of several rare bird species. On the other hand they've developed a pretty  sneaky way of  getting  their young raised without any effort on their part, leaving them free to pursue other interests while still maintaining a biological edge. If you'd like to learn more about them, NestWatch at the Cornell Ornithology Lab has some interesting info about them.

 Today was  one of those  lovely  spring days that create a welcome interruption in the  gloomy, cold winter  weather.  Blue skies, warm temperatures,  a gentle breeze, perfect for  getting outside and  puttering around.  I'd love to say I  got my hands dirty today, but I didn't- I got my gloved hands in the dirt for awhile, though. I usually wear  gardening gloves when I'm working out in the garden, but hate wearing gloves to  pot up seedlings.  However, since the chemo has left me with a  compromised immune system and even sterilized potting soil, once opened, often contains bacterial and fungal pathogens that can cause some serious  illnesses, gloves  are  now  part of my potting attire., I wore purple  rubber gloves today when I potted up the little lettuce seedlings. The seedlings were getting their second set of leaves and were ready to come out of their vermiculite  birthplace, so now they're   stretching their roots out in  potting soil in little  six  pack type  pots.

Tomorrow  I'll probably sow more seeds in vermiculite since we are now about eight weeks away from the last frost. We're supposed to have a few more nice  days like today before the temperatures go back down and rain moves in,  so I'm planning to make the most of them. May even  trim some  shrubs and prune the roses if my energy level holds up. And the girls will be anxious for another walk- we had a nice little walk this afternoon.  We don't walk very far but  they seem to enjoy just getting  out of our yard and smelling the more exotic scents of the wider world. Needless to say, they left their own scents for the next  dog that  comes  through  to smell, but fortunately no pooper-scooper was needed today.

Sproutage! We Have Sproutage!

The last few days have been rainy, windy,  gray days with no sunshine to brighten things up. So it was a lovely surprise to be greeted by the sight of  little green plants popping up in the trays I seeded last week.

You can barely see them, but that's the Swiss Chard on the left and some basil on the right.  I seeded the basil a bit more thickly than I would have liked.  Well, actually, I shook the packet a little too vigorously and the seeds are so tiny that there was no way to fish them out of the vermiculite, so I'll have  more little  seedlings of basil to pot up and may have to  make a much larger area for basil in the herb garden.But, really, can one have too much basil?  I think not ;-)

There is something so exciting about  those first seeds emerging. Like the jonquils that  pop up, sometimes through the snow, they are little messengers from Mother Nature, sent to let us know that winter will end soon and Spring is on its way.  I'm excited about the prospect of having  the tomatoes and eggplants emerge soon, and sowing more seeds.  I've already set the  fluorescent lights over these two sprouting babies to make sure they get about 15 hours of light  a day. I was able to turn the lights off  for most of the day today because we had beautiful glorious sunshine streaming in the greenhouse, making  artificial light necessary only when the sun faded.

Yes, Spring is on the way! There may be  more dull, gray days of winter before us,  maybe even some snowy days, but there will be  more sunny days, too, and Spring WILL come!

A Well Traveled Herb

This was one of those rare Alabama summer mornings--the temperature and humidity low enough to make working in the garden a pleasure rather than a painful necessity. Never mind that the idyllic state lasted only a couple of hours as the clouds drifted off, exposing the relentless rays of the sun. For a brief time, I was able to weed, water and enjoy the garden in blissful early morning coolness.

While I dispatched a number of weeds today, one weed I like to leave in place, or sometimes transplant to a more appropriate place, is mullein (Verbascum thapsus). Common Mullein is an herb that grows wild throughout North America in fields and along roadsides, but is often referred to as a weed, and has actually been classified as a noxious weed in Hawaii. I once thought that common mullein, being so widespread, was native to North America, but according to Steve Brill, mullein is Eurasian. It grows throughout most of Europe and temperate Asia, and has been used in European folk medicine for centuries. Soon after its arrival in the Americas, Native Americans discovered mullein’s healing properties, and adapted it to their own healing traditions. Known by various common names, including Our Lady's Flannel, Blanket Herb, Velvet Plant, Rag Paper, Candlewick Plant, Clown's Lungwort, Jupiter's Staff, Shepherd's Staff, Beggar's Stalk, Adam's Flannel, Beggar's Blanket, Old Man's Flannel, Hag's Taper, mullein has been used for everything from candles and candle-wicks to bandages to cures for colic, catarrh and diarrhea .

The mullein in my garden keeps guard beside the greenhouse, rising tall and erect from it's fuzzy gray feet, with a spiked cap of yellow flowers to beckon airborne pollinators (as you can see in the photo, one little winged critter is zooming in toward the flowers). In past times, mullein had a reputation in Europe and Asia as having the power to drive away evil spirits. Unfortunately, it does not drive away evil , seedling-chomping, seed-eating mice;it allows those nasty little greenhouse squatters free reign to come and go as they please. But I can forgive mullein this failing, and enjoy it for the many virtues it does possess, including those lovely yellow flowers.

Back to Blogging

Egads! It's been over a month since my last post. Since then, I must sadly report that Henrietta died, here's the last pic of her, helping to dig out some new veggie beds last month. Poor Henrietta, blind in one eye, survived a vicious pecking by the other hens and Sam, and seemed to be doing fine, laying an egg a day and digging around quite happily. Then one morning, she didn't come out of the coop. I still don't know what killed her, she wasn't pecked, and I don't think any possums or racoons got in the coop-Sam usually raises a ruckus if any nocturnal critters come around.

So now we're down to Sam and Monique- who has stopped laying. Her only interest seems to be eating, avoiding Sam's amorous advances and digging holes in the garden so she can take dust baths.

The area that Henrietta is pecking in the photo is now part of my new little veggie garden. It was so overgrown with weeds and honeysuckle vines that digging it out was a real chore-- so much of a chore that the garden fork couldn't take any more and had to be replaced. I use a modidified version of Square Foot Gardening, and it is now planted with tomatoes, cabbages, squash, carrots, bush beans, leeks, herbs, marigolds and okra. The squash has little baby squash and the tomatoes and beans are blooming, so if I can just keep the nasty bugs at bay, we should have some nice fresh veggies in a few weeks.

I put together some bamboo bean tepees in another part of the back yard for pole beans. I had Mr. G till that area (I'd used up all my energy digging the other bed), so now we have a nice long bed with pole beans, more tomatoes and some cucumbers. The beans are beginning to wind their way up the poles.

I haven't been on another jelly roll, but did make some strawberry jam with some of the most delicious strawberries from a local farm. The jam wasn't a complete success, it's a little too runny, but should make a nice topping for ice cream, and it still tastes good on toast- albeit a little messy. I froze about a gallon of the berries, so may make some more jam later.