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Whew what a morning. I lost two peonies I think. Turned the compost bin upside down and mixed it all up with some new green and brown. I don't have nearly enough green to do much good as far as heating it up but I did what I could.

It's nice and moist in there anyway so I can probably go several days without having to water it. I took some compost out and put in the lower bed that I need to fill for next years flowers.

I won't be planting it until spring I don't think but who knows I may find a full sun seed that needs fall outdoors planting running around the apartment somewhere lol.

It's so aggrevating that the compost is so close to done. If I hadn't put the newspaper in there the entire can would be done by now grrrrrrh. Oh well there isn't anything I can do about it so I'll just keep turning every week until it's black gold.

Lets see I dug up some grass that is growing on top of the concrete where my compost bin is. Has something to do with the area never being swept until this year when I started the garden and as a consequence began keeping the area around my stuff picked up too.

That's a good thing at least.

Now I need to get back out there and sweep up around where I dumped out the compost to turn it lol. Whew, did that and swept some of the gravel back into the mudpuddle depression and I'm absolutely purple and dripping sweat. Whis the temperature would go down some.

TK its a nice 70 here this morning but with rain! I so wanted to prepair a few little areas for some holly hock seeds while it was comfortable. I have a few things I need to get planted before the end of August according to what directions I have been given. I realy need a tiller. Maybe I can get a greenhouse for our aniversary ahd he can get a tiller.........I dont think he will fall for it though, especially since for fathers day "he" got a john deere with a garden cart. That he had only rode once and that was to pick up beer at mom and dads for a party!

Well its another rainy day here! First time in weeks we have had temps comfortable for working in and it rains! I am about to put on a slicker and head out, if I thought the kids would allow it. They'd wanna play in the rain too, which I normally wouldn't have a problem with but they both have colds! Yeah you read that right colds in this darn weather. I think the shots got em down a lil. Well forecast says rain all day I needed to mow and get some areas dug up for some fall flowers, guess its all gonna have to wait.

You can send the rain this direction. I could use a bunch and cooler temperatures too. I pulled up some weeds around the compost bin and then added some mimosa leaves and then some brown leaves hopefully that will get something going. That bin just isn't interested in heating up anymore lol. And it's bad because it's almost black gold but not quite. Makes life just a little bit difficult lol. Next sunday it'll got out on the yard no matter what and the bugs can finish off decomposing it. My patience has worn alittle thinner than is workable for me lol.

I lost several of my tomato plants that hurts my feelings and another zinnia bit the dust that wasn't a very happy situation either. The miniature snapdragon foliage is looking a little thin and in general the garden is looking like it's been way to dry this year. So for my 3 season garden next year I am looking into drought tolerant plants. Hopeful I can find enough to get something pretty going. But Hopefully things will get better.

Sorry to hear about your losses TK, My petunias in the wall sconscas look like such crap they are about to go. The glads that my husband got for me look like crap too. Not sure if its transplant shock or because I seperated them from the original grouping. They were all seperate bulbs in the same container so its not like I divided them from one plant. But the grass is yellowing, that realy had me depressed. All I can do is let them go till they brown and then cut back and hope for the best. I am honestly about done for the year I am starting to think. I keep day dreaming about the green house and planning for next year. Actually I am kinda ready for winter! Its been too #*!* hot this year!

I am so right there with you with your thinking that you could have been reading my mind. This morning I was busy looking for drought tolerant zone 7 plants that bloom at different times during the year to plant next year so I don't have these loses. They just hurt to much. I've found several so it looks like I may be able to pull it off which has me rather happy. And at least the portulaca, chives, green onions, and marigolds look like they are going to do fine so I can plan on using their seeds to plant something for next year. And if the columbine and snapdragons come back this fall then I can plant those too. So what I've done this year won't be a complete loss. I definitely want some of those Heuchera (Coral Bells or Alum-Root) ‘Amber Waves’ they are listed as drought tolerant and I love the idea of fall colors during the spring. That would be so cool.

Yeah I do love those orange coral bells! Such beauty in that color. You might want to look in to some sedum, is quite drought tolerant and hardy. Its a ground cover but comes in an aray of color varieties I have dragons blood and tri color. They are on the side of my house tat receives full sun and its also hard to water due to its location. Also the soil there is very shallow due to the bed being raised on the driveway side of the house. I water them never and they look real good. The tri color is quite pretty too. Their great if you dont have to have actual blooms on everything, the tricolor does have tiny tiny little what looks like pink roses on it though. http://www.santarosagardens.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=214 There are some real pretty red varieties as well an some wiht a blue color to them. I have this one here its quite pretty . http://www.outsidepride.com/store/catalog/Sedum-Dragons-Blood-p-16467.html There is another one I want its called voodoo its got a nice kinda violet red color to it cant find a picture of it that shows the true color, but its pretty too. Some may even be evergreen to your climate.

I love your links I spent about 1 1/2 hours looking through their items for drought tolerant flowers to put in my 3 seasons garden. I'm getting there. I found a couple in those links, Thank you. And thank you so much for the rain. It finally got here and none to soon. I was just dying in the heat. This is much better. I have the door and windows open and just feel so much better.

I did get the mowing done yesterday! It looks so darn good. It felt great. Picked enough wild black berries to make 2 pies today! I need to get out and weed eat but other then that and watering the container plants its gonna be a lazy daisey kinda day!

I think I'm very happy I don't have to mow lol. I went out to get some grass comming up around my glad bed so it wouldn't get inside it and reak havoc Of course some of the grass was that sharp edged stuff and I didn't know until I sliced my finger open good. So now I'm typing very badly with my taped up finger lol.

I hate berry cane because of the thorns but that's just me. I had to combat a patch of it behind one of my dads houses and it was so difficult to get rid of. But I guess if you had a large enough yard it would be ok to have some.

I need to do some digging around in the beds where I put down the extra leaves because boy howdy are there bugs all over.

Well I definitely went out there and bugged the bugs lol. Since there isn't enough stuff to make a good hot compost bed out there the bugs are doing it the slow way. But I still needed to get under there and dig up more of the clay so that's what I did this morning. I got 3 feet done and another 3 feet to go. It's the lower tier where I moved the peonies that I worked on today. Tomorrow or later today I will go after the bed where I planted the wild garlic and nothing happened. To much clay I'm sure. Even wet it is hard as a rock under there. But I'm going to fix that.

Did some indoor gardening last night too. So many of the pots had those low spots in them that I decided that it was time to use some of my miracle grow to fill them up. Can someone explain to me where the soil goes? That's very confusing for someone like me who has never had plants before. Are they eating the dirt?

Well I'm very proud of my self anyway. I'm that much closer to having nice beds on the bottom tier of the garden. After I finish that off I plant to work on the glad bed again. I noticed while I was out there that some of the grass has already invaded the bed and I need to get that out of there. I also want to breakup the soil and add some more compost to it.

If I learned it right the new bulb/crom? Will grow on top of the old one so it's going to need an inch of new soil added to that bed or the crom is going to start creeping up. And with the clay I had to fight to get it in the ground in the first place I don't think there was that much top soil to begin with.

I can't wait to get my own place where I can have everything my way lol. I am so spoiled.

I emptied the wall sconces today. It looks so sad out there. Even yellowish plants looks better then no plants. I want to put in some mums in them, but feel guilty spending the money so foolishly. They wont last too long in the containers but would sure look pretty. I love the containers but there are so many. I just cant make up my mind to do it or not. I mowed the front yard again, seems like I need to mow about every 4 to 5 days lately. Well the beautiful blue sky let go while I was out there so only the front yard got mowed, but everything including me and the kids got a good watering. Since there was no thunder or lightening we played in the rain. It was nice. Other then that just attacked some grass and weeds popping up in a few places. I need to weed around the large bed in the front the weeds are creeping in from the sides. Not sue what to do about that. Its is cut in to the ground so its inevitable that stuff is gonna creep in. I could put in that black tube landscaping trim but I really wanted to go natural, so I guess pulling it out is as natural as it can get!

TK I sure hope you get your own place someday. Your compassion for an area that is not even yours is so admirable. I hope others there appreciate all you do for them!

I don't have flowerbeds exactly I have places with weeds and places with flowers and places with clay that i am working on getting the weeds out of lol.

I think if I had a lawn I would look into finding out which weed and feed type stuff was best and then put that on the lawn very carefully so it didn't get on the flowers lol. But I could be totally wrong cause I don't have any lawn to speak of. And then there is the fact that i'm not organic. Just cheap lol.

Well it is raining just the littlest bit but I got out there and dug up that last three feet of clay and added leaf mulch to it. It will probably pack right back down to clay until I can get some sand to add to it. I'm not at all sure how I'm going to pull that off. But where there is a will there is a way I guess.

I've also started adding height around the edge of the glad bed since when the leaves die back that is going to have to have about an inch of soil added to it so that next years bulbs don't pop right out of the ground lol. Are those bulbs or croms? I get so confused lol.

Well today was a wonderful day. The landlord brought over a huge bag of grassclippings for the compost bin. So I played in the compost for almost 2 hours. I took some of the finished compost over to the new flower bed that I'm working on. And then I layered the new grass clippings into the partially composted stuff that I am still working on. Hopefully by mid September that will be ready to go and i can add it to the bed just in time for the fall planting. Woohoo fantastic. I'm just a very happy camper today. Then this after noon I got back out there and gathered up some leaves to add to it because I am somewhat light on brown with that much green coming in all at once. But it sure heats up the bin in a supper hurry lol. I hope it doesn't cause any more grass pellets that was a pain to work with lol.

You can tell I'm kind of excited right? Yeppers I am. Hope you are having a good day.

I din do much work in the yard today. Of course I walked around ane enjoyed everything and worked on some ideas for gardens next year. Harvested some seeds from the neighbors snapdraggons. And weeded his flower beds. Kinda took it easy this weekend. Seems weird to not have to water all the container plants!

Yep I did the walk around too. This morning I noticed that where I have the edging some grass has decided to make a home so I may get out there after that this afternoon. This morning I was working on getting browns to top off the compost bin. And making a pile of extra leaves that I can use once what I have has broken down some. I have a poplar tree that is shedding it's leaves early for some reason and that has allowed me to continue composting right through the summer.

I also crushed up some eggshells for putting around my hosta. It's only about a 3 inch ring but then the hostas are babies this year anyway so it's enough. Hopefully by next month I'll have a ring around each of the three. It looks very unfinished right now since two of them have the eggshell mulch and one doesn't lol. But I've been lucky so far and the sluggs haven't found them yet.

Well today it was clean out the shed. So I could clean out my train planter and put it away for the season. I just love that lil thing. weed around the premiter of the large bed still got a ways to go on that one though. And pulled the last of the petunias in the front. The ones on the side of hte house are still beautiful as ever! I was sitting in my neighbors house the other day she has a beautiful view of my petunias from her couch. I was so jealous. They are on the side where I dont get to sit and look at them through a window. Hopefully by next summer the front bed will take off so I can watch it from the couch. They have a great view. They should send me a thank you card! lol I bet they dont even appreciate it only green the like is the cold hard kind in your hand! lol Not much else to do out there now other then swing!

Yep I have a view of route 1. And the trucks and the buses and the commercial buildings. Not a pretty view at all. The garden is at the back and I have a front apartment. But that's ok, I enjoy the gardening and I can always walk back there to take a look. A have frosted windows, and an indoor garden in my livingroom window so it looks pretty nice. Not as nice as a good view of an outdoors garden but nice.

Today I deadheaded the snapdraggons. My goodness those things have gotten huge, I am thinking maybe one more set of blooms before they go. Thinking means hopeing! cut back the hydrenga. Well baicly I just piddled around the yard for a bit. Its spitting rain now and then so it was a quick visit with the flowers and back in to the cave!

It's raining here to and I love it. I went out to look around and harvested two tomatoes. I think considering the condition of the soil this year that the plants have done amazingly well. But they have certainly now produced very large fruit. Next year if I decide to try tomatoes and that's questionable at this point I will definitely add almost all compost to that bed to a height of at least 6 inches. That should give the plants something to work with.

I'm thinking about adding some late Hollyhock seeds to the bulb bed so that they will pop up this year and bloom next year. I started some earlier and they have come up pretty quickly so I think I can get away with planting some more. Which is a cool thing lol.

Well that's about all for me at this point.

Well TK you just inspired me to go plant my Hollyhock seeds. I think I will plant half of them and save the other half for spring planting. I will give em each a year and see which method workes best for me. I will be back later to post on the rest of my daily adventures!

Definitely half and half because I think they are biennial so I'll get foliage one year and blooms the next so I want to stagger the planting over two years so I always have some that will bloom each year. That's how it works isn't it? I'm really glad you got inspired.

Woohoo I turned the compost bin. There wasn't much finished compost in there that time and it hadn't heated up the way I expected either but I sure did. I'm dripping sweat inside in the airconditioning. But it only took me about 45 minutes to turn this time and I was able to add about 4 buckets of brown to the mix so I am hoping for good things. The poplar tree that was shedding leaves has stopped so I'm not going to have any brown to use on the compost pile next week which is a bad thing because I used up my "extra" brown pile this week. I guess I'll just have to dig around and see what I can find. At least the landlord won't be adding anymore green for a couple of weeks so I have a chance to even the ratio out.

Well with luck the ground should be nice and soft in the bulb bed for me to add the Hollyhocks this evening after it has cooled of some. I don't think I want to try this at midday lol. I'm for a shower to rinse some of this dirt off. See you this evening after the planting season lol.

Ok Sunday evening is here, my back aches, my feet ach, and my arms achbut my heart is content and joyous. My Hollyhock are planted. My delphinium is planted. My husband and I dug up a 6 x 5 bed for them dug down about 8 inches deep discarded that part of the dirt. Dug up about another 6 inches loosened the soil and added garden soil. Which by the way I got a great deal on. It was on sale at walmart for 50 cents for a 50lb bag. I swear every time I take that man out with me everything ends much larger then I had intended, but I am not complaining. Except it takes lot of begging and cooking to get him out there. lol I think that area is going to be so pretty with pink Hollyhock black Hollyhock and 4 different colors of delphinium. We are going to put a white picket fence around this area to help stake the flowers next year. Should look cute.

We got the mowing done and took a load of stuff from grandmas to the dump for her. And competely finished cleaning out our storage area. Also got the invisible fence for the dog moved so she cant get to the new flower bed. We also dug out the area around a rather large property marker we have its a large cement X that marks the property line. Well since we own both properties on each side we dug out all around it. I planted an iris bulb and some daffodil bulbs, after they are cut back we are going to throw some Zennia seeds for the summer and fall color there. I tried to pull out that pin when we first moved in here I thought it was something that the construction crew left there. I about tore my truck up. Then the neighbor comes over and explained to me what it was. I have lived here my whole life it is the only one like it in the area. I din know all the others are just little metal pegs in the ground.

Whewww what a day! No wonder I am wore out!

Next weekend we are going to try to find another barrel for compost the hubby is really jumping in on that with me. I am so pleased he is starting to show some interest in it. His grandma told him his grandfather used to love to compost when he was young, and since his grandfather is his hero/idol that was all the inspiration he needed. We got hibiscus seeds from the flowers his grandfather planted 15 years ago. We need to find a place for them. I think we can wait till spring for them.

We found the cutest little brick at the dump I brought it home it will make a perfect planter when I figure out where to put it. It is probably 2ft by a foot and a half large square with a lot of little holes 1 inch by 3 inch long around the outside edge and a large center hole. I think I will plant some sweet alyssum in he little holes and a gerber daisey in the large one or some coleus. (sp) Well I think that sums up my day. I love days like this where so much is accomplished!

It sounds like you had a really busy one. I went shopping and spent all my money lol. And came home and the landlord had overloaded my compost bin with grass clippings. Now they are heaped all around the compost bin because I didn't have the energy left to sweep them all up I will do that tomorrow.