I'm Free!

I'm free!  I'm free!  At least until September 14, that is.  The rest of the plant will be free as of 2:00 PM today, but thanks to judicious scheduling of my vacation time, I have today off, too.  And as usual, at least one of my coworkers said, "You're so lucky to have these three day weekends!"  And also as usual, I replied, "It's not luck.  I saved my vacation days, and you too can save your vacation days to have three day weekends."  

"Oh, I don't want to do that!" this particular coworker replied.  

By the way, they already started re-arranging stuff at work, and we can't find anything.  "I feel like when they re-arrange Walmart!"  I told my coworker.  They're still determined to put the sub brazers back on the lines, though.  I think they have meetings up front to decide on the absolute dumbest way to do things.  Seriously, every time they have these big announcements telling us they're going to change stuff and it's going to be so much better, all that ends up happening is that my job becomes so much harder.  

And they can't figure out why their turnover rate is so high....

Enough of that.  I don't have to think about work for a while, so let's move on to something more pleasant, like my garden.  

It's so much nicer to be able to get up and work outside in the cool of the morning, even though the humidity still makes it miserable.  It has been so hot and dry here lately that I gave all the beds a real good watering.  I probably overwatered some of the beds, but they'll dry out quickly enough. 

While that was going on, I built up the tomato cages on my second batch of plants.  

This will probably be as high as I need to make them, though I can add another tier to the cages if I have to.  All of my plants are struggling in this heat, so much so, I'm considering going ahead and pulling these old tomatoes out and composting them. 

Especially this one.  It's got some sort of fungus or mold growing right at the base.  

I don't know what it is, but I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be there.  I've sprayed it with Neem oil, but it keeps coming back.  

By the way, I was watching a video by The Millennial Gardener about making a hot compost bin out of a black plastic garbage can, and I think I'm going to do one for myself.  What with that, and the composting bag I have, I can make myself a two bay hot compost system, then when the bag finally tears up for good, I'll replace it with another garbage can.   

There isn't much else going on in the garden right now.  It's just too hot.  I gave my lemon balm a good haircut, but didn't save any to dry.  

I've already got so much of it, I didn't feel like I needed any more.  I've been thinking about moving my lemon balm away from the house, so it will have more room to grow.  I'd never expected it to get so big, because it had always stayed small when it was in the planter. 

I may put my cayenne peppers into those beds alongside the house, because they are doing very well there -- even better than the ones in the 4' x 4' bed.  In fact, I'm still getting a good harvest from them.

I might try to overwinter these plants -- the ones in the beds beside the house -- and let the others go to that great compost bin in the sky.  

I've been thinking about planting a fall garden, but don't really know what to plant.  The extension office posted this on their Facebook page earlier this week.  

The things I like most on that list are the onions, but I've already got so many in the freezer, I'm not going to plant any this year.  Garlic isn't on the list yet, but I expect it'll come later.  Even so, I have a bunch of it in the freezer, too.  I like baby spinach, but I don't think I could eat it fast enough to make it worth planting.  I don't know...with it just being me by myself, it's hard to plant for just one.  I'm seriously thinking about making another batch or two of pepper jelly, because I still have so many banana peppers in the freezer.  At least I can give the jelly as gifts.  Heh, my sister has already laid claim to a jar.  

Speaking of my sister, she finally got the headstone for our mother installed.  She sent me these photos this morning. 

She told me not to worry about the weeds, because they'll all be covered with snow soon.  It's already getting down into the low 40s up there.  They plan on doing something in the spring, when the snow melts.  I'm sure she'll send me photos when they are done. 

But I digress...

The extension also posted this list, but pretty much all I'm going to do on this is to put down some Weed 'n Feed in my front yard.  

I bought some last week, and I'm probably going to mow the front and side yards sometime this weekend, then put down my fire ant treatment first.  Then, in a week or two, I'll put down the Weed 'n Feed.  

OK, OK, I know I'm boring you with all of my garden talk, so I'll just say that the last thing I did before retreating into the air conditioning was to plant a couple of my packets of Bluebonnet seeds.  I've got several plants coming up from the ones I planted last year -- either the seeds still in the ground or from the ones cast by the plants that grew.  

Still, I put a few seeds in the bare spots, just to fill in some.  I've got three packets left in the freezer, and I'm thinking about making that bed wider.    It's only about 10" wide right now, and I have a couple more pieces of that edging, so I can extend it a bit.  I'm definitely going to wait until it's cooler to do that.  

Unless I can fit it in early one morning this week.  I've got so much on my to do list, but unlike my friend Marcy, I am not good at multitasking.  My main project for the week is to finish cleaning out that shed so I can call the clean-up man to come haul my junk off.  But I also kind of want to call a handyman and electrician.  However, I don't feel I can make those calls until I've got the first project done.  I mean, what if they all show up at once?  Then I'd be wayyyy overwhelmed. 

Speaking of my friend, I channeled her a bit this morning.  Not on the multitasking, but with the coffee creamer. 

Since she doesn't like pumpkin spice, she associates Hazelnut with Fall.  And yes, I did think of you when I was buying it in the store.  

I know you all know I love my pumpkin spice, but I think this is taking things just a bit too far. 

That fresh pine, on the other hand, kind of appeals.  I think that's because we associate pine scent with cleaning because of certain products that have been around far longer than we have.   I might get some of it next time I go into the Mart of Wal. 

And finally, I'm ready for some cooler weather!  

 I'm getting mighty tired of these 100° + heat indexes!  Bring on the sweater weather!