Garden Journal Notes from May 31 - June 13, 2020

Our First Sunflower of 2020 - Grown in Memory of My Mom

5.31.20

In the cool of the morning:

• Watered forget me not seed areas.
• Pulled a few new weeds from window box.
• Harvested Swiss chard for morning shake (I call it a kale-berry shake but any cruciferous green works).
• Put basil outside in unplanted area of window box to start hardening it off.

Lunchtime:

• Harvested bush beans & strawberries (delicious!
• Weeded a tiny bit.
• Watered strawberries, bush beans, carrots, raised bed tomatoes, and back yard fuchsias.
• Not noted previously but most days I fill the bird bath with fresh water too.

Later:

• Pulled obedient plants from neighbor's fence area (she wanted them gone) and planted some by inside of front sidewalk bed, and some under hollies. The milkweed I'd transplanted near there was looking sad so I watered it and need to remember to water all the transplants until they are doing better.
• Used extra water on kale seedlings.

6.1.20

• Lunch harvest: 2 bush beans, 1 strawberry, handful of leaf lettuce, handful of red romaine lettuce, radish.
• Pulled weeds from harvest area.
• Spouse bought four new zinnia plants (an apology for accidentally killing some of my seedlings?).

6.2.20

• Harvested two strawberries.
• Pulled a few weeds.
• Spouse bought and planted two jalepeno pepper plants in a seven gallon grow bag.
• Spouse planted the four zinnias he bought earlier in the week.

6.2.20

• Harvested four bush beans, a huge bowlful of leaf and romaine lettuce and a strawberry.
• Yesterday spouse put a mix of cedar and pine shavings under some of the strawberry plants and the strawberries that touched the shavings were rotted today. Advice to do the shavings mix was YouTube MIgardener video... but he did his much earlier, before the plants set fruit.
• Pulled a few weeds.

6.4.20

• Harvested a strawberry.
• Watered forget me not seed areas, window boxes, recently planted oregano and butterfly bush.

6.5.20

• Harvested a bunch of red romaine lettuce, a bush bean and a radish.
• Pulled a few weeds.

6.6.20

• Harvested five bush beans, accidentally broke plant...pulled off a few leaves and stuck it into clear section of raised bed in case it can root itself.
• Harvested leaf and romaine lettuce for lunch salad.
• There's an echinacea that self seeded by sidewalk that something keeps digging under so I pulled a sprig of peppermint and buried it in the ground to hopefully root and repel whatever the critter is. Echinacea needs staking.

6.7.20

• Wanted to harvest some strawberries but something ate a piece of every ripe one (birds?).
• Pulled vines from iris/day lily area and a few weeds from window box and raised bed.

6.8.20
1st session (~ 4 minutes)

• Pulled weeds.
• Took photos of the four raised beds and a sampling of most of our currently blooming flowers.

2nd session (~ 18 minutes)

• Pulled some weedy vines.
• Deadheaded marigolds, roses and a few lilacs.
• Spread spent marigold flowers in bed along sidewalk where dogs used to dig (I think it's working to help keep them out).
• Pulled weeds.

6.9.20
Pulled a few weeds.

6.10.20

• Harvested one strawberry, a handful of bush beans and some red romaine lettuce.
• There are some nice zucchini squashes forming and maybe one will be ready this week.
• Pulled some weeds.

6.11.20
Weeded for a few minutes. First sunflower almost open.

6.12.20

• Weeded for a few minutes.
• Checked for strawberries but critters got to all the ripe ones already.
• Only the strawberries in the raised bed bore fruit. The ones in the grow bags haven't yet, though they did flower around the same time as the ones on the raised bed.
• The tomato in the reused grow pot has hardly grown. The one in the new grow pot has set fruit (it's the one from Territorial Seeds so had a head start). The ones in the raised bed have grown a lot and some have buds.

6.13.20 ~ 41 mins

• First sunflower is open!
• And by some miracle, the bee balm survived the winter and nothing ate it to the ground yet this year.
  
• Pulled six obedient plants from neighbor's yard and cut the rest (she hates them and gave me permission) because they were entwined with Bermuda grass.
• Planted the saddest looking two obedient plants in my nursery area (shaded) and the other four in the shady side garden. I can move them to a sunnier location next spring, if they make it. This isn't a good time of year for transplanting things but at least the next few days are forecasted to be cooler than usual.
• Finally planted the thyme and parsley gifts. They were pot bound, the thyme more than the parsley. I hope they make it.
• Noticed that the celery experiment is flowering... the plant doesn't look great so I'm not sure whether it'd be worth saving the seeds?
• Radishes are starting to flower too and I think the leaf lettuce is getting ready to start.
• Pulled what I thought were two tomato plants from up close to the siding but it turned out to be three. The tiny one I didn't see looks dead already but I planted it and the other two near the sunflowers in the main front bed. If they make it, I'll give them cages. I haven't grown food there before but I have no where else appropriate to plant them right now and my spouse can't fill any more grow bags for me so I think that's where they have the best chance. Equally sunny but they all look very stressed from being transplanted. Hope they make it! Had to pull a lot of weeds to clear the area first. Planted them in the least weedy spots.
• Pulled weeds around all of my work areas (not all the weeds... there are so many weeds... but every bit helps).
• I don't usually note it, because in my mind it's part of the planting process, but I always water anything newly planted or transplanted. I also have been hand watering the tiny strawberry plants I started from seed, the red romaine lettuce, the fuchsia plants and the things in grow bags.
  

Happy gardening!