Nad R wrote:
songbird wrote:
Nad R wrote:

The first good soaking rain since May. An all night slow rain. I can here
the sweet sound of thunder in the distance as I type this.

i was watching it as it went and hoped it
helped over there too.

as it turned out here we had five or more
inches of rain that evening. the rain gauges
top out at five inches so i'm not sure what
we totaled. i do know that the ground was so
dry that it soaked up much of it. only a few
puddles remain in the low seeps and catches
i have set up. normally from what is in there
it would indicate about a 1 to 2 inch rain
and the field next door starts flooding us
at about 4 inches, but there is no standing
water there. so we were well due...

this is the first time we've had that much
rain in one night since we've been keeping
track of the gauges (14 years).


Big cracks also in my new soon to be garden area. It will take time to
transform the soil like the rest of the yard. My main lawn has no cracks in
it. Last year that section of land was a hay field. The newly planted grass
has already made it look good from a distance. But I will add compost and
grass seed to the area each fall. In four years it should look good.

i'm confused, are you transforming hay field
into garden or hay field into lawn? or lawn
into garden?

Turning a 1/4 acre Hay Field into a lawn/garden with raised beds this
summer.

ah.


Grass will be in between the raised beds, I have just two 4x24 ft raised
beds in it for now. Hope to have a dozen raised beds built over the years
in that area. Using perennial grass next to the beds in the hope it does
not spread by the stolen like Kentucky blue grass does. I use a mower
string trimmer that makes the trimming around the beds a lot easier.

those are nice to have. it was before my time
here that they had blown up one of those (didn't
mix the oil properly into the gasoline). they
used it to keep the two wild patches in the yard
and the ditches trimmed once in a while. now we
have a mower with a blade that uses lead-free
gasoline and starts easy. except for the lack of
edging it is much nicer, quieter and best of all
i don't have to get involved other than changing
the oil.

the wild patch closest to the house is now gardens
(when it was wild it had too many mice) and the
other one i've turned into a mixed legume garden
that i harvest for green manure to feed the worms
and put about 80% of the trimmings back to encourage
the clay to have more worms too. it being the end
of the first year for that process i've seen good
signs so far that the soil is improving, but it will
take more time. if a friend comes through with
several yards of ground up tree parts i'll spread
some of that out there to speed things up.

as for grass stolons... i won't say how many
hours i used to spend tracking them down through
various gardens, but it was enough. and the patches
of decorative grasses that i've had to eliminate
and then chase down all the escapees, i'm still
trying to get some species gone completely but
they keep popping up, and then the wild rice ...
well, let's just say that if the remaining 5% of
lawn/grass were to be turned into gardens i'd
shed tears alright, but tears of joy. not
too likely to happen anytime soon though...


have you ever tried growing romaine lettuce?

Every year I grow lettuce. This year the romaine had a HOT taste to it, the
neighbors also had the same results and ended up pulling it up. However, my
Butter Crunch lettuce tasted great this summer. So it was not a total loss
for leaf lettuce this summer.

i'll pass along the comments to the management
(that wants to grow romaine next season). thanks.


The dog is back indoors and I think I will get more sleep in. Rainy days
are shopping days... I will take the dog to the groomer, go the gym, get a
hair cut, do a little clothes shopping, look for summer bargains. By then
my little Yorkie will be ready for pickup.

a while ago someone described their yorkie
as going "noise first" into a snowbank and
that has always made me laugh to think about
it.


songbird