Fun in the Garden

We have harvested a night crawler for one of the upstairs garden planters....at this size I shall only need one per planter!  After all it is too big for bait, it would scare the fish.

One of DH's friends found it as he was coming in last night.  He hid it as he handed it to me, expecting me to shriek and drop it.  You should have seen his face when I said "How wonderful, let's put it in one of my planters on the deck."  I am no fun at all! 

 

This was the first sunny rain free day in over a week.  I spent all afternoon in the garden today weeding, planting a Coleus, weeding, planting a gorgeous blue Columbine, weeding, choosing spots for two pot Mums {not planting them, just choosing spots}, weeding......it must be time to get more mulch but the Viola have self seeded and I want to move some of them around yet.

 

Went to Canadian Tire for aphid spray for our apple tree...it is infested again this year. I wonder if we will ever get fruit.  I bought Roundup for the parking lot next door....that man never cuts his weeds so I just kill 'em.  I don't know what I will do when they ban the stuff.  Normally I don't like chemicals, but that seems to be the only solution here.  When we moved in it was a three to four foot swath of almost waist high weeds, all blowing seed into our side.  Sheesh.

We are in the second floor of a commercial building right in the middle of downtown.  There was a tiny patch, about 20 by 40 feet, of weeds and quack grass nestled between two parts of the single storey back of this building.  The landlord said if we would mow it we could garden in it.  We are making a little pocket park. 

This gorgeous Hollyhock froze out last winter....darn!  I have purchased a wonderful dark purple plant to replace it, and we are doubling the depth of this bed this year.  The small lawn is getting smaller.  It takes DH longer to set up the electric mower than it takes to actually mow the grass.  We have to scrounge for grass clippings.

 

 

This stuff is Round Leaf Mallow.  I think it is the Canadian version of Kudzu Vine.  I cut it back to the edge of the concrete and it grew half way across again in 18 days!  I let it grow last year just to see how it would look. It was lush and lovely till the middle of July, then went to seed and looked awful.  It is going to be all gone this year and other ground cover put in to replace it.  I would let it grow on the parking lot side, but it is just too invasive and would hop over the fence in a minute!

 

I have had to explain to DH that you cannot use Roundup in a sprayer to kill dandelions in the lawn.  It now looks like a dog park!

 

I bought some fertilizer for the garden planters, and I found Scarlet Runner Bean seeds.  I have been looking for those for two years.  While in CT I chatted with an elderly fellow about gardens and invited him to the parking lot to see ours.  He told me that that spot used to be his wife's back yard many many years ago when there were houses here!  Neat coincidence!

This was last year in early July.  We mulch with grass clippings from a local church.  Left over stone from the lot was pushed on to our side.  Too big a job to move it so we are just working with it.  It is not a problem, it is an opportunity, right?  Now if we can just stop the kids, who use our yard and the passage between the buildings as a short cut, from knocking the stone towers over as they go by......

I will post some 2011 pictures when we get it a little further along this year.

Now I will go sit down and work some more on my handbag.......I am too sore and tired to do anything else!