DIgging In – The Legacy Gardens Diary – September 2019

September 4, 2019

I’ve enjoyed the fried green tomatoes the summer. And tried a few experiments to test a garden-less hack for this comfort food. People who have no garden can still eat the good stuff!

The tomato patch is about done for the 2019 season. We had some good eating and have stashed pasta sauce away for later. R actually ate too many of the fresh tomatoes. He broke out with hives and we’ve had to put him on a ‘tomato fast’.

It’s getting to that time of year to split and trim. This week was a new moon. I’ve pruned the newer hydrangeas which bloom on new and old wood. The planting has been in place for several years, but no blooms till this year. Thoughts on why and my management plan will be in the blog.

I’ll be splitting off some peonies. The new ones will probably be gifted out as we don’t really need more. But, I need to see what I can do!

Also clipping the decorative sweet potato vines to root for next year.

Pup report! The people who made her into such a sweet dog abandoned her on the gravel road. We enjoyed her company for two weeks before she was able to move to a new forever home. We are not set up to take more dogs because of the highway and the resident dog. This little gal is STONE DEAF, putting her at greater risk with the highway.

She moved to a new home with other red heelers to guide her and a lot less traffic.

September 9, 2019

Time to take out the Early Girl tomato vines. They aren’t producing. The old leaves and branches are ugly. A skink lives in the rocks and may be the critter who bites off the blossoms before they could ‘make’ on one plant still lush. But, the upper blossoms which the skink can’t reach don’t mature into tomatoes either. I gave the pulled vines and some of the accompanying grass to the chickens.

Yesterday, I found that a horned tomato worm had decimated one of my banana pepper plants, including the peppers. I took it and the pepper to the chicken yard.

We have two chicken houses. One is tiny. It was built for chicks with a very closed pen. We have a gate in the fence so the hens can go over to get weeds out of the chick pen. This week, they have cleared out the weeds and broken into the chick house. I penned them out of the chick yard and check the little house to be sure no hens were inside.

There is a bucket nest in there, which I checked. Those rascals have been hiding eggs in there! SEVEN. I have not idea how old they are. I threw all of them back to the chickens!. We have no rooster, so they weren’t trying to hatch,. The hen or hens laying in that bucket nest simply liked the little house.