The Flowers & the Veggies

 Time for an update on the flowers and the vegetables around the yard. 

Hibiscus tree on sale at Menards this week

I couldn't refuse

that is the blue pot of the three I painted in May

bush cucumber plant

pots of two herbs: Mojito mint and dwarf basil

the cucumbers in the raised bed are doing nicely

they should be vining within a week

the Container Garden Stand holding the pails of tomatoes

the rabbits have left the new columbine alone

deer like the pin cushion flowers

they bit off six of them last week and spit them on the ground

this is the columbine the rabbits stripped

it is growing new leaves at the base

the other new columbine

I noticed the onion chive plant had really reduced in size from earlier this spring when I pruned the dead stalks and removed some of the flowering heads. I weeded the flower bed earlier in the week and there were maybe a dozen stalks. Today (Thursday) when I filled the bird bath, there is one stalk left. The deer must like chives. A few of the flower heads are on the ground. There is no gopher action and the stalks are not chewed off...they are gone! Another backyard mystery...

Music Camp

 Last week Miss W attended a four day music camp hosted by our church. M prefers not to participate and did not have to this year. The kids start practicing the songs on Sunday evening and on Thursday afternoon share their first performance and a second one that evening. Every song has movements and actions. 

the story of the prodigal son

the circus came to church

Miss W middle clown

singing her solo 

All of the second through eighth grade kids do an amazing job of memorizing the eight songs with all the actions and movements and all the speaking parts in just four days of four hour camp. It was great to see Miss W in her element!

The END of the Projects...sort of

 On May 24th we started the projects I mentioned in the May Projects on June 1.  On June 12th we completed the two main projects, the porch and the deck, but that lead to some other projects. Twenty days of sawing, staining, trips to Menards, and repeat.

front stoop

back deck with new area rug

and the deck steps

Every board was removed and sanded and then stained three times on every side and every end. Then every spindle and railing board was removed and painted, after several trips to match a paint to the stain. As of June 12th...DONE! We enjoyed a HH on the deck to admire our work.

Since some of the deck boards had to be replaced we had some extra lumber in the garage. I found a Container Garden Stand pattern and asked Hubby if we could make it using the extra boards.

It is intended to hold the pails hosting the tomato plants. A future blog post will show it in use.

Then I looked at the deck side tables and decided they also needed a redo.

the brown had to go

much better

Then I noticed the wooden arms on two of our folding lawn chairs and thought they could use a touch-up.

three coats of stain on all sides...

looks like new!

We have had these two hand-woven chairs since 2007. A neighbor friend in AZ who has since passed away, wove lawn chair seats and backs. We bought the frames and the yarn at the craft flea market in Quartzite and Billy did his magic. The chairs look darn good for being 15 years old and traveling along on many camping trips. The chairs were the last of the extra projects and were completed today, June 15th.

This sign was given to us by my brother and his wife as a Christmas gift MANY years ago. It hung above the garage of our Watertown home for years and then made the move to Sioux Falls. It was very faded and weather-worn, but a couple of coats of stain and it too, looks dang good.

The paint cans are put away. The saw horses are folded. We are done...sort of...There is another project on a waiting list but for now it is on a contractor's list.

The Flower Bed

 I spent some time in the flower bed over the weekend. Mostly I planted the annuals for bees and butterflies and weed whacked the hillside. The perennials I planted earlier in the week are doing well. So this is what is blooming in early June.

recently planted columbine

the other newly planted columbine

tiny pink flowers

the leafless columbine

This is the older columbine. This one and a yellow one were planted in 2019. Last year the yellow one lost all its leaves. I thought maybe when the lawn care guys sprayed for weeds they may have gotten some on the yellow columbine, but no other flower was affected. The yellow one did not make it through the winter. This year I noticed some leaves missing on this columbine and thought the same thing may have happened. Hmm. Earlier this week I saw two little bunnies in the area. Earlier this week there were SOME leaves on the columbine. It's the bunnies! All the other flowers have gotten sprayed with a deer and rabbit fence product. Hopefully it will keep the bunnies from eating the leaves on the other columbine. They got to chew on the tulips; the least they could do in return is leave the other flowers alone!

pin cushion is a new plant

these beautiful peonies are in a yard on the other side of the ditch

my peony had two buds; only one is left

with all the rain last weekend, I had to cage the plant to help 

keep it upright

As I was weed whacking the ditch hillside, I noticed some new tracks in the mud.

Deer tracks! We know deer visit the area as friends post photos of the deer feeding from the bird feeders. This is the first time I have seen evidence of them on this side of the road.

Lots of green in the flower bed. Hopefully, there will be flowers on those plants come summer!

This is the area planted with the annuals for the bees and butterflies. Light rain is in the forecast this weekend. I am hoping it is a light rain and not the gushers of last weekend that washed away the wood chips from the perennial bed.

The neighbors and I have some wild rose bushes on our side of the ditch between their raised vegetable bed and my flowers bed. We try to nurse the bushes along by carefully trimming the grass around the little bushes. 

And I have a wild yarrow plant that needs some TLC. At least I think it is yarrow and not Queen Anne's Lace. I try to keep the grass trimmed around it. 

*** An update on the hillside mounds from the Maybe Spring Will Arrive blog post. The lawn care company  told us the mounds were caused by voles. The only way to get rid of them before they invaded the lawn was to contact a pest control company, which I did. The pest control company told me they were caused by pocket gophers which I have never seen in the area. I since learned my neighbor smoothed out the mounds with a rake because she thought I had emptied my flower pots on the hillside. The guy from pest control could not find any holes because the mounds had been raked. There are no new mounds. The pocket gophers have moved back to the area fields. I think they liked my hillside because there were lots of flower seeds from the annuals and perennials last fall. So there. Mystery solved. Pocket gophers eat seeds and I had plenty at the end of summer. 

May Projects

 And the unpredictable weather continued. The days and nights were too cold to purchase plants or work in the garden until the very end of May. I purchased some tomato plants and cucumbers, some potting soil and waited for the perfect day to tackle the projects.

tomatoes in the buckets ~ bush cucumber in the planter

cucumbers in the raised bed

At the end of summer season a couple of years ago I purchased 3 planters in an ugly sage color at a very good sale price. I intended to paint them and finally did that this year since planting season is later than usual. Another of the 3 planters is in the first photo. The other is a very vivid blue. You will see them again as summer progresses and once I decide what plants/flowers will make their homes in the 'new' planters.

The other project that has been awaiting warmer weather is the stripping of the deck and the front porch. We painted (not stained) the deck in June 2019. Deck Saga Continues

The paint has been peeling from some of the boards and chipping from others leaving a very crappy look. Hubby decided something needed to be done. He purchased a pressure washer. Some of the paint came off very easily and some...not so much. We asked the advice of my brother who has built and stained at least 3 decks. His advice: Three coats of stain on every board, every side, every end before assembling. In this humid and unpredictable weather, that is taking a LONG time.

Rather than stripping the front porch or removing the boards that seemed to be unremovable, we are building over the existing porch. It is a work in progress.

And we are making progress on the deck. The stain repels the rain as seen by the puddles on the tree boards closest to the door. The other five boards were added just prior to another downpour and quitting time. Maybe this project will be done by the end of the week. Maybe...

The weather continues to be unpredictable. Storms and severe thunderstorms were forecasted for all of Memorial Day weekend and beyond. Our part of the city did not experience any damage from the winds or have the large hail other parts of the city experienced.

We have received almost four inches of rain since Friday night. (as of Monday evening) The plants and lawn are very happy.