Rain

It rained overnight.

Sure, it wasn't much by the rest of the country's standards but it will be just enough to boost rice grass production.

Unfortunately, it will also be just enough to boost weed production, too.

I got the newspaper and landscape cloth laid out in the front.  Hubby moved the 1/2 wine barrels over after I emptied them.  I'm going to do flowers in the barrels on drip instead of having sprayers in the front.  I'd like to do a pond out there as well at the end of the boardwalk.  Maybe a seer ball with water trickling over it or a rock with a hole in it and water spewing out the top.  Some gold fish would be nice.

Really warm overnight at 45 degrees.  Cloudy but 60 already today.

I have to go.  The homemade hamburger buns need to go into the oven:)

Warming Trend

We are on a warming trend.  7 degrees or so last couple of nights and above freezing for the daytime highs.

Today was 43 degrees but the sun is going down soon and the temp is already falling.

It's sunny but it sure isn't warm.

Yesterday, Hubby and I burnt four brush piles.  Today I got out there and with the hedge trimmer and cut down some more of the Saskatoon grass and cleaned out some more of the back flower bed.  I burnt the duff.  So much easier than composting all of it.

Plenty more to do in the flower beds and I want to get them done so I can realize my vision of revision on the East side of the house this spring and finish up the project I started over a year ago out front.

We'll see.

My Climate Sucks...So Why do I Live Here?

Yeah, I ask myself why do I live in this gardening hellhole sometimes.  Look at this.  The moon going down as the sun is coming up.  That is why I live here.  So beautiful some days.  Wide open spaces.  Plus, no fleas on the dogs and cat.

A couple of my domesticated pennestemmons. One in purple and one pink.  This variety is called Origami.

Speedwell or veronica in the front and alfalfa in the back.  Both a love purple blue.

Chocolate flowers.  Yep, they smell like chocolate.  They are a western flower and cannot take the humidity of the south and east. if I recall correctly.

Spring Has Sprung

Nice for the last several days.  Well, above freezing in the forties or low fifties overnight and in the sixties and low seventies during the day.

I know, where are the photos?  I will have some up over the weekend.

The hummingbird has shown up although last year we had several by the end of May.  One of the orioles is back to steal from the sugar water feeder, as well.  Hummer season is May 1st through Labor Day weekend.  You are supposed to pull the feeders after Labor Day so the little goobers will fly south when they are supposed to.

Hubby and I got the compost mountain spread over the new North Veggie Garden section.  Hubby then rototilled it all in.  Let the melons begin officially on May 15th.  The whole areas is bone dry so I am watering the veggie garden to try to keep that compost decaying into the dirt.

The peas are coming up and so are the rads and the beets.  The finger potatoes are starting to come up but the German butter and Red Sotos are still trying to reach the sunlight.  The row filled in, as usual, when we had a couple of windy days so they are planted deeper than I like to start them but since that happens almost every year, I am pretty sure we will have plenty of potatoes.

The onions and garlic are growing like gang busters but the carrots are having a hard time.  Need to start some more, I think.

The irises are starting to bloom with the standard purple ones coming on first and now the yellow ones.  Wonder who will be next of the irises to bloom.  Easy to care for and pretty.  I have quite a few irises in the yard.


We took little Wiseguy out carting for the first time yesterday.  He did great and tried really hard.  The street is dirt and it goes a little more uphill than I thought.  It also has quite a bit of sand on it this year.  The little guy had a bit of a hard time pulling me so we definitely walked up the hill and through the sand.  We went maybe half a mile up and half a mile back.  Next time we will be sure to go the easier route so he can trot more.  He likes trotting.

What's the Damage?

So far, the plants don't look too bad and I can't for the life of me figure out why not.  Looks like one more really cold night tonight and then a somewhat cold night the next night.

The biggest casualty seems to be the manifold for the veggie garden/hose complex of irrigation tubing and hoses.  One of the valves froze and then busted.  Fortunately, Hubby can fix that although I have to make into Home Sleezo to buy the part.

One of the forsythia looks a bit unhappy but it was the first to bloom so maybe its just done blooming?  Perhaps I will notice more damage from the big freeze when I get out there tomorrow.  We shall see.

I'll have to go to Carson City on Saturday.

The good news is that I haven't bothered to plant the veggie garden yet.  Peas can take a freeze but a freeze down to 21 would have wiped them out!  I am planning on doing some planting this week coming up.

My tomato babies are doing great.  I haven't been leaving them in the greenhouse overnight but I have put them out there several days so that they get as much sunlight as possible.  I am not really using the greenhouse to its fullest extent this year.  Last year I did annual flowers and it turned out wonderfully but this year I bought perennial flowers that would prefer to be direct seeded.  Oh well, I will simply have to use that greenhouse for fantastic lettuce all the way into winter:)

Bruce had some heavy duty freezing as well in Ohia.  Looks like Raymond had pretty sparkly frost.  He is in Ontario.  That is Canada, don't you know?  He is behind us on spring so I don't think this cold snap quite the agony that it is for Bruce.  Here in the barren desert, we are just starting to see spring so I am hopeful that it won't be a huge set back.

Last year was a minor disaster.  The trees were all leafed out and we got a dip below freezing and that set the trees back about three weeks while they regrouped and tried to shoot out some new leaves.  It took half the summer for some of them to recover.

We had a mild winter and it seemed like the trees kept getting fatter trunks.  I didn't realize that trees kept growing in the winter time.  Deciduous trees, anyway.  The pines, Barker cypress and Rocky Mountain junipers all did really well this winter.  Nice to see us finally getting to a point where we have visible trees.  We have been here 6 1/2 years after all.

Summer

Suddenly it is summer.  We went camping for four magnificent days in the far north of Nevada.  We come back and suddenly it is summer.  I summerized the place today by getting the mister system up and making sure all the screens were in the screen doors.  Storm windows are in the ready for next winter.

Got a few clothes on the line. Got the camping gear stowed and all the clean clothes back in a drawer. Made sure all the plants are getting watered around the yard.  Watered the street zone overnight last night.  Most of my plants are in great shape but the bronze leaved weigala still looks unhappy.  Darn it!

The whole place is popping all of a sudden with three kinds of penstemmon blooming.  The purple penstemmons [they just went in last year] are really pretty and the garden variety of penstemmons are very nice.  The crimson penstemmons are coming up in several places and I didn't plant them there.  In our climate I think volunteers are great.

The trumpet vines are working it.  I have tried for several years to get those going and this year I have the big one I bought coming back all over the vine and the little guy that is three years old is really trying hard this year.  Might need to make it a trellis.  Yeah!!!!   I noticed that one of my tiny oak trees in the front yard is alive and growing as fast as an oak tree can.  Another small victory for the desert garden.  A lot of the pine trees are putting on a lot of growth this year.  I couldn't be happier overall.

The peas in the veggie garden are just starting to put out flowers.  The lettuce is coming on strong.   The melons are coming up and the winter and summer squashes as well.  I need to get the Arminian cukes planted and some more radishes and lettuce and what ever else I can think of.

Delicious meal today of smoothies with last years cantaloupes [still a bit left in the freezer] and home grown strawberries.  I put the over ripe ones in the smoothie and sent the rest to work with Hubby.  Also, trout from our camping trip with Almondine sauce.  And a green salad of mixed lettuce and rads we grew ourselves.

Planted:

Asian cukes
Garden cukes
Rads
Head lettuce
Cabbage, Mitchelli
Chives
Dill [left over from a couple of years ago]
Beets

Emerging:

Beans, melons, winter and summer sqauahes

Tomato and garden peas are just starting to flower.  I am so excited to see a tomato flower already as I always seems to get tomatoes just as the weather turns frosty.  Maybe I will be having a plate of tomatoes before fall.

Fed the goats weeds this evening.

Watering NOrth side over night.