On Tuesday morning I was up at 5:30AM and got my post up. I got a load in the dishwasher and finally got out to the gardens at 9:15AM. I was determined to at least get the new rose planted.
I collected all the equipment for the Big garden and what I’d need for the planting and dragged it to the Big garden. The rose had been in the cold frame since Saturday.
It had a large dead branch on it and I tried for a discount because of it when I bought it, but no dice…
So the first thing was to prune off the dead from the winter. I found a single bud on it when I was doing this.
Next I dug a hole where the dead rugosa rose had been and got out all the old roots. The new rose went in but because I had recently put down FlowerTone and greensand, I didn’t add more.
It was only 9:45AM when I finished and I had to go by the poor Big rose so I stopped and decided to prune that.
It still had a lot of oak leaves around it, but not much mulch. I got it cleaned out then got the loppers and started cutting off the dead stuff. There seemed to be a good amount of life at the base of the rose and some leaves had come out.
I put down FlowerTone and greensand and mulched it well. I had a leaf of hay left so I cleaned out the hibiscus and put down FlowerTone and mulched that. It had tiny leaves just starting at the base.
Once I cleaned up from this, I headed into the Big garden.
I started laying out in the middle third of the garden to find out where the sugar pod pea fences went. My helper friend arrived at 10:30AM and after getting the chores in the house done, he came out to help.
I started moving mulch for the sugar pod pea area and he raked it behind me. Then we went and got the T posts out and got them up. We had gone to get the rest of the T posts and the pea fences for the green pea area when I realized at noon that I should deal with the tarps as it was to rain for 2 days starting Wednesday.
So we dragged out the plastic that had covered the cold frame and got that folded and put away. Then we dragged out the tarps that had covered the kindling in the truck and got them on the line to dry.
I had to go to the barn to find wire for attaching the fences to the T posts and my helper friend brought the rolls of fencing to the garden.
As I was thinking about how he wouldn’t be back until next Tuesday, I decided to layout the green pea area and see how many posts we had and needed. Turns out I was 5 short, so he went to the lumber yard to get more while I finished laying out.
Then he got them pounded in. It was 2PM by now and so we cleaned up and went to get the tarps off the line and put away.
I sat under the trees and made my notes and rested a while. My helper friend has a new app on his phone that can identify bird calls from an amazing distance. So we listened to the songs around us and he read off the IDs as they appeared. I think this has been the most useful app anyone has had on their phone.
Once he left, I went in for something to eat and laid on the couch “watching” ‘Murphy’s Romance’ but really dozing for an hour. I got up at 5:30PM and got a shower and made some supper. Shortly after, my #1 intern arrived with her nephew who is 3. He was sleeping over in Auntie’s room.
I was in bed after pulling shades by 8PM. My son would light a fire during the night as it’s to rain most of the morning on Wednesday, then cold and cloudy and start raining Wednesday night and all day Thursday.
Too bad we didn’t get the peas in…sigh…
The window guy is supposed to arrive at 9AM so I have to prep the second floor for that. I also have to water all the seedlings. That ought to finish me off in grand style…