CUL-223054 Digital Storytelling: May 30th, 2011, Memorial Day Weekend update

The last 10 days have brought many changes to Mom's garden.

The rains of April have become fewer going into May, but there has still been plenty of rain coming. As Mom gets items planted she starts to worry about critters like cats and skunks and rabbits starting to nibble on them so she purchases this type of product. This is sprayed all around the yard. It is a liquid made up of animal urine and the odor acts to keep unwanted animals out of the yard and prevent nibbling on Mom's vegetables and fruits.

Asparagus. These have been coming up for weeks now. She planted these in April.

This is one of Mom's tomato plants that went in last post. She has added this stake to it for it to intertwine with and to be tied to when it gets larger and starts to produce tomatoes. The tomatoes will be heavy and will pull the plant over which isn't good. This can cause the tomato plant and the tomatoes to lie in the dirt and start to rot.

This is the row of tomato plants she put in last post. They have lost the yellow and are no longer wilted.

Mom also has two ivy plants, a male and a female. If you want to have sprigs of ivy with red berries for the holidays at the end of the year you have to have a male and female plant for the red berries to develop.

This is one of Mom's ivy plants. We don't know which is female or male until the berries show in ther Fall, but this one was starting to get too big and so Mom cut it back this year. Ivy leaves have sharp points at the ends so you need to wear gloves and long sleeves while doing this chore.

Mom started putting plants into her flowerbox out front last week.

The flowers in her front corner plot have started to bloom. I don't know the names of these. If you do, feel free to let me know.

And with the sunshine and all the rain the front flower bed has really taken off.

Her irises have started to put out blooms. This shot is from about 9 days ago. At the end of this post I have a shot of an open bloom from this Memorial Day weekend.

This is called lovage. It grows like mad and will have to be cut back about halfway through this year because it will become too large. Mom grows this because you can make lovage soup from it.

The raspberry bed has also gotten much bigger. These won't get trimmed back as the more berries you can get the better. Mom will spend a good bit of time in August harvesting, then freezing and making jelly from the berries that come off of these. I don't have a shot of them right now but Mom has discovered she has blackberries growing now as well.

These are heading for the front flowerbox.

Lettuce. This box will eventually be moved up under Mom's apple trees for shade. The hot sun will beat them up and be hard on them so into the shade they go.

The watering can sitting on the Thyme. This can is fairly light and has a large shower head. Mom fills it from her rain barrel at the side of the house. I'll get a shot of the rain barrel posted so you can see it.

The apple trees have lost their blossoms. Mom had it sprayed during the rains in April. She is not sure if the pesticide spray is going to work as the rains may have washed it off. Mom likes fresh apples from these trees but usually has to go pick apples at one of the professional orchards in the area.

This is the Georgia peach tree. It has been producing for about 20 years. Unfortunately it wasn't pruned right when it was young and it is suffering a lot of water damage as a result. You can't see it from here but the other side has lost nearly all of its bark. Last year I took a tub of quikcrete and filled in everywhere the bark has dropped off, which is to cover the exposed inner meat of the tree to keep it alive. I will have to do a touch up again this year as a chunk of the concrete broke off near the bottom of the tree, and the concrete has also cracked some. So it needs filling in. My brother said he hasn't seen so many blossoms on it before. My work will pay off with lots of peaches this year. Everyone in the neighborhood will want these. They are very juicy and very sweet and pretty big too. Mom will make a couple home made pies, and most of the rest will be used on ice cream. I'm allowed one or two. They are so juicy you have to wash up when you're done eating one. We have been trying to propogate this tree for two years now but so far have not had any luck.

This is Mom. 'Getting ready to do some work in the garden. She has decided to have some of the garden rows tilled and unfortunately the fellow that usually does it has a busted tiller. So she has called her other friend Chris to come and do it.

This is Chris and his tiller. I am not sure but I think this is a Troy-Bilt tiller. I don't know if this is still true or not but these use to be built in Troy, NY. They are well manufactured. Buy one and it lasts a lifetime.

Chris gets his instructions. You have to get it right or watch out.

Chris tills this row.

Mom is pleased with his work.

It goes in like this:

And comes out like that:

The next thing was to plant some more. Here is a tray of leeks:

Here is what they look like after planting in the newly tilled row:

And here are some other veggies that were planted as well:

Cucumber, zuchini and cabbage.

The flowers have also been popping, here's lupins:

That's a buttercup, the one before it is unknown to me.

This is a perenial geranium. Lovely fragrance but these are growing in the middle of Mom's pachysandra and she hates that so these will be getting pulled before too long.

Here's some carrots:

Carrots are tough. The seeds are tiny, tiny. And then cats and rabbits like to come along and eat 'em. Mom tells me to run out doors when she sees cats or rabbits and to shoo them away, so I can sometimes be seen running after cats telling them shoo.