Perfect Gardening Weekend

Saturday, Mar. 15, 2003 – 1:14 p.m.

2003-03-15 1:14

In the Garden

Well, the weather finally cooperated. This weekend has been sunny with the temp in the 60’s. PERFECT weather to work in the garden… and the garden needed it! I spent the morning Saturday going to Lowes, Home Depot, and Fairview garden center getting the supplies that I needed to get things going.

I need to fertilize so I bought a 25 lb bag of Rose-Tone, a 4-4-6 organic fertilizer for roses. Last year I used a time release variety of fertilizer and things did not do very well, so I figured I would try this stuff this year. It needs to be applied once a month but I figured that will keep me going to the garden. The stuff comes in a bag but I dumped it into one of the old Kitty litter bins… It fit perfectly!

While at Lowes, I also got 7 bags of composted cow manure, a roll of fencing (more on that later.), furnace filters, a bottle of Neem Concentrate, paper lawn refuse bags (the city of Cary requires you to bag your yard trash in paper bags or a reusable trashcan but not plastic bags) and two bags of lawn Weed-n-Feed. That ran me about $135, Yikes! Ok, guess that can come out of savings.

I also looked at pruning shears. The ones I have are ok but I am thinking I need to upgrade. Nothing really grabbed me… the Fiskar at Lowes seem to be pretty nice and Fairview had a few of the classic Felco pruners with red handles. I decided to do some more research so I didn’t get any new ones and I disassembled my existing pair when I got home and sharpen them.

Oh, while I was at Home Depot, I noticed that the roses that were 3.95 the other day had been reduce to $2.50! The Rose de Rescht fell in this category so I bought two more plants. Now I just need to figure out where to put them.

After sharpening the pruners and having a bite to eat, I started my primary task of pruning the existing rose bushes. As it is, I have about 35 roses so it was going to take some time. I started with Peace and worked my way up the row. These plants looked pretty good and I managed to get all of beds 1 and 3 done! That pretty much filled the yard refuse bag with very prickle branches. In order to maximize the space in the bag, I took the time to cut each cane into pieces about 6″ long.

Friendly Neighbors…or maybe not

One of the interesting things that happened was I woke up to find that my neighbor to the north (well, one of my neighbors to the north… I have a long lot line so I actually have 4 neighbors to the north.) had replaced the post-and-rail fence that we shared with a 7-ft privacy fence. He was perfectly within his right to do so since the existing fence had been six inches on his side of the property line. However, it would have been nice to HEAR his plan first. Since he put the fence another 6 inches into his property, I actually effectively gain about foot of yard space. It also means that I should not get barked at by his doberman either… except that the fence is not actually completely enclosing his yard… there are spaces on the ends where the privacy fence does not connect to the existing fencing. Therefore, the doberman can actually come into my yard… and he did this morning. It is rather disconcerting to be barked at by a dog that is in your own yard. Fortunately, I was able to find a piece of fencing to put in the corner that the dog came in by way of. Now I just need to put some up on the other side to block it from that side.

A bluebird on my fence post

While working in the yard, I was treated to the experience of several bluebirds come through and sitting on my fence and in my trees. I really enjoy seeing such things. It made my day.

The Lake and MS-Access tasking

At this point, I had to pack it in for the day… I had said that I would go walking with Nia and Nikulai so I took a shower and headed for the park where we were going to walk. Now… I have not been walking for exercise much lately so doing the 3 mile walk around the lake was a bit of an effort for me. It was not so much that I didn’t have the wind to climb the hills; it was my calves that were cramping so badly that I could hardly walk. Ok, I need to get in better condition. Nuff said.

After walking with Nia and Eleanor (Nikulai had Chow over at his house doing tree work), we headed for Nia’s for supper of lentil soup, which was very good. Nikulai, Bryn and Chow, and their new dog, also came to Nia’s for supper and we had a good time sitting around and talking. However, one of the reasons for going to Nia’s was that Nikulai wanted my help in setting up an MS-Access database on nia’s computer. The purpose of the database was to track reservations for Sapphire Joust. Well, about 1:30 am, Nia decide to throw us out so she could go to bed. The database configuration is mostly done but there are a few little things that I could not get it to do right then. I am not an MS= Access guru but I am familiar with the product and with programming/DBA tasks. Tag…I am it.

Well, I am going to stop there considering I have been working on getting this entry online for the past WEEK. I will post follow up with Sunday’s activities later.

Until then…