Weekend update

We discovered a nursery in shoreline called Sky Nursery, and it had really pretty plants at better prices than the one closer to my house. They ever had composting worms, so if my current batch goes tits up I can get more there. Not that it's likely; they're doing great. I've got lots of big fat ones and a swarm of tiny littles ones. I put some watermelon rinds in there a few days ago, and worms have integrated themselves into the rinds. I think I'll stop fussing with them for now and give them some time to breed and eat undisturbed. Don't want my rummaging to inadvertently kill the next generation of worms.

We did get out of the nursery without spending crazy amounts of money, only 24$ for two lupines that Josh fell in love with, 4 marigolds, and a bag of compost. I think I like this compost better than the cedar grove compost I've been buying, so if I need more I'll get that stuff.

The marigolds will hopefully do a good job as companion plants for the south wall veggies. I saw a honey bee getting dinner there a half hour after placing them. I'm optimistic he'll frequent the nearby tomatillos with the same gusto. Speaking of bees, I found this local woodworker who makes mason bee nests out of reclaimed wood, and I think I'll get a box from him next spring. The internet says mason bees in our area are already done for the year, so it's too late to get one now. But since I want to get a plum tree next year, mason bees are high on my list of desireables. Good thing I did a stitch of research; our native mason looks almost exactly like a house fly.

The lupines are along the front of the house along with a geranium I got for free and some chicks and hens that I had in a pot. It looked like some roly polies had been eating the rotting leaves off the bottom of the chicks and hens, so I put lots of leaves near it when I planted it to give them something useful to much on. Apparently roly polies (woodlice) are good at returning nutrients to the soil but will munch on living plants if dead ones aren't available. It's a good argument to mulch the beds with dead leaves this winter.

One of my coworkers was nice enough to give me dahilas, so I've planted the bulbs between the honeysuckle and azaela. We'll see what comes up.

Slacking off

Here I was with all these rainy days where I could have updated this journal but didn't. The weather's been rainy and icky and I haven't had much of a chance to to much other than looking pleadingly at my tomato plants and pray for their little leaves. A few things seem to be happy. The summer squashes aren't growing much, but you can tell they're putting in deep roots; they look stronger by the day.

The nasturtiums are getting bigger every time I look at them. I'm convinced that they'll bloom by Josh's birthday on the 20th. They're now sharing their beds with the radishes and lettuce, which I just planted in the garden. The radishes are alarming; almost all of them added an extra leaf since I moved them from their egg cartons to the garden on Monday. I'm worried that the lettuce is too bunched together because it's not adding leaves, althought the leaves they do have are getting bigger. It's not a head sort of lettuce like iceberg, but more leafy. The packet said it's a mesclun mix or something of that sort. Either way I left the package outside in the rain so I threw it away.

The herbs all seem happy, but apparently in a fit of crazy I put nasturtim seeds down practically underneath the chives. I was going to move them, but most of the chives are far enough away, and if the chives that are right on top of the growing nasturtium can handle the cramped conditions, it'll look really pretty. I've put down some organic fertilizer and hoped for the best.

Not sure if the pots on the south yard were the brightest idea; they don't seem to be growing much and the tomatillos are getting muched on. I'll move some marigolds over there to tempt away the muncher. Or maybe the excess rain is making it vulnerable. Maybe the potting mix is too rich... Will have to google it.

And the tomatoes... oh, the tomatoes. This el Nino year is just beating them up. In the 20 days or so since I've planted them in the garden we've had 3 days without rain. And most days last week, the weather man said it rained over an inch. One of the tomato plants I think I'm just going to have to dig up and give up. His leaves are half yellow and the two lowest branches have turned black near the stalk of the plant. A few others look fair, and two of them are actually looking great. The best looking one is the Brandywine that gets the least amount of sun, and the other one is planted just north of a large granite rock; I think the rock is keeping it warm. I think it's a cherry but I don't remember.

Well this weekend's supposed to be sunny, so I'll probably start staking what's surviving.