June 15th through June 21st 2008

June 15: Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there! 83 hi/61 low: It seems as though the heat has finally broke. Sasha and I went to work on the soil (it really was a two person job, so happy Sasha was able to help out!) When we filled the boxes, there did not seem to be enough, but we put the lathes on top, to make it look neat.

Got the gardening done, had lunch and got to work in the nick of time. It was a pretty quiet Sunday, but quite beautiful too.

June 16: Monday 80 hi/61 low and Severe Thunderstorms - when is it not going to thundershower? The storms were very windy, I was a little bit scared this time around, thinking that the wind would tear off the awning. But that did not happen, thankfully. I got plants for the garden today and planted all of them, two of tomato, one jalapeño, several marigolds, one nasturtium, two chive plants, and three cucumbers. I could not find plants for peppers, eggplant, or beans. I did get a small plant of basil. I have radish and arugula seeds that I will plant on Tuesday. 

I also went berry picking and got rained on. The berries were slightly disappointing because there were many out there that were mushy. Still, I managed to get 4 pounds, so not too bad.

June 17: Tuesday: 73 hi/58 low! Being a little lazy, I read a couple of books and then got out into the garden kind of late. I plan to go grocery shopping and get a few things, but today is much cooler than the last couple of days.  I hope my little plants survive this cooler weather.

I just went to Wal*Mart - I figured, I only needed a few things, why drive further? I also got a couple more plants, a pepper and a sweet basil. As we have three cucumber plants and two tomato plants, we are going to need the metal supports. Sasha and I will have to get those this weekend.

Prices are seeming to go up every time I go to the store. The only grocery store that I have not seen too much change is Aldi. Getting a garden in might just be a good idea with all of these high prices, meat is getting really high, bread and corn product are high (chips and pretzels) and milk products like sour cream and yogurt.  I keep trying to re-stock what we have, buying extra dried milk, dried berries, oatmeal and pasta every time I go to Aldi, but with some of these things, we are just not buying as much. We hardly ever eat meat anymore, just a little in salads, and sometimes I get kielbasa, a Polish sausage. I get smaller packages of deli meat too - like turkey and ham.  

We are also trying to sell the ATV, but it is definitely harder to sell than the dirt bike. We have someone coming out (I think) today to look at it, so maybe it might get sold. There just is no place to ride here, and we probably will not get another one until we are out west.  And that might not be for a while.

June 18: Wednesday: 72 hi/52 low: will be working today, but did take some time in the garden, including taking some pictures:

The first row closest to the gate (which is west) has marigolds (two per square) in the first two squares, then nothing in the third square and a habenero (sp) pepper plant in the last box.

The second row has chives in the first square, nothing in the next two squares, and then a tomato plant in the last square.

The third row has a sweet basil plant, nothing in the next two squares, and a tomato plant in the last square.

The last row has chives, nothing in one square, a nasturtium plant, and I think, it is a pepper plant. Where I got the plants, they transported this plant to its own container, without the thing stating what it was. So I do not know. But it looks like a bell pepper plant.

Here is the two on the south fence. The one box to the left does not have enough soil in it. I am going to have to make the mixture again to fill that box. And as soon as we can, I will put an eggplant and a zucchini in there.

This is the third box, it is against the east wall.

The top row has a cucumber plant, then nothing in one square, then arugula, then clover (I think).

The second row also has cucumber, then nothing, then radishes, and arugula.

The third row has cucumber, then nothing for two squares, then mini basil.

The last row has a pepper plant, then nothing, and then two marigold plants per box. I suppose I could have put one of the marigolds on the other side. Marigolds are supposed to keep away the rabbits and other stuff. We shall see.

June 19th: Thursday hi 74/low 51 - It is almost down right chilly in the morning - the temperatures are acting all weird here. I called around to different garden shops to find out if anyone had eggplant plants and found one that had. When I got there, they stated that NO they did not have them and who did I speak to? Hello! Like I am going to remember the person's name? I was just so excited that someone actually had the plants. But still I bought more peat moss, compost, and vermiculite from them. Stupid on my part, but at least they had Zucchini, squash and I got a couple of peppers. So we will have a few of those.

Here are the pictures again (I added some stuff):

These are the two boxes on the south side and the close up is the left box. Since squash and zucchini require so much room, there are only three plants in this garden.

This garden has a squash in it as well. I'm not too sure about it as I do not want it to overwhelm the other plants. But we will see.

June 20th: Friday hi 80/low 56 - Starting to get warmer, but it was a mostly cloudy day. However, still warm enough to have storm clouds and a quick shower (less than 3 minutes) so that Mother Nature could tell you who is the boss. 

June 21st: Saturday hi 85/ low 59 - Worked in the morning and in the afternoon we sold my little donkey, (slightly weepy) BUT at the same time it went to a good home where I think the people will like it and hopefully take care of it. The reason we sold her was because I was not using her AT ALL. It really makes no sense to have something unless you use it.

After we sold the ATV (we had to bring it to Vienna), we went over to Sasha's parent's house for an improvised dinner. Bo was also there (Sasha's brother) and we dined outside under the table's umbrella. It was a beautiful night. Dad had a growing garden, with radishes and lettuces that I picked for our dinner's salad. Dad grilled up some hamburgers, chicken and hot dogs and we had several types of bread. Mom, Bo and I had wine while Sasha and Dad had beer. It was a truly great evening.

After dinner and desert (home-made baklava OMG the best!) we were flipping through the TV stations and Jurassic Park was on - it had JUST started, so we watched that. Of course, by that time it was late, and Mom asked us if we would stay over. They have an air mattress that takes seconds to "air up" so we stayed over.   

Check out the next week, June 22nd through June 30th Plus