So That's What

I get for bragging about the weather a few posts ago. Serves me right. Spring? Sure doesn't feel like it right now. 45 degrees and rain. Been like this all day. I know others are having a worse time of it right now but it feels good to complain a little from the couch. :)

Anyway I took a quick tour passed the garden this afternoon. Peas have started making their appearance.

Elsewhere, lettuce and onions are trying,

Finally received my blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries Saturday so need to get those planted soon. Still waiting on my soil test kit though. Hopefully it comes in before next week during my time off. 

Short week coming up but it will be busy as ever. I saw this this morning while we were grocery shopping.

It's for those prepaid cell phones, the card on the display. Chit? Odd name for a card. 

Keep your chit together this week kids. Next post may be from West By God. 

Today's Travels

Well, as usual I have been traveling the great state of SC. Left the first jobsite a  little late this afternoon and I knew I wasn't going to get to the other one by day's end so I set the GPS to shortest distance and headed out. By doing this you are almost guaranteed to miss most interstates which is what I wanted to do. It may take a little longer getting there but it is also neat to see small towns here and there.
Noteworthy on this trip were two items; an old house and a company. And they seemed to be within 20 miles of each other.

Amy's dream house, or something like it.

 

 

I see a snake- infested money pit. I'm sure at one time it was nice.

 

Well down the road was the company that I actually placed a couple of orders with this year. Out of the blue and there it was.

 



 

Park Seed Company. I was there too late to go into the shop (Amy got really lucky there.)

 

That was the interesting finds for me today. Played my Powerball so now off to bed, hoping that if we were lucky enough to win, Amy would forget the house!

 

Good luck kids.

 

 

 

 

 

Irish Eyes Are Smiling

Not really I guess but I think there may be Irish somewhere in my family. Never really understood that phrase anyway.

Well it was a beautiful Saturday here in the Sandhills and I took full advantage of it. The boys and I went paintballing all day. To heck with the garden. I did everything I needed to do last weekend and there's nothing too pressing until our stay at home vacation in a few weeks so we went out, enjoyed the weather, shot people and they shot us, and overall had a good time. While doing this Amy and the Oldest boy's fiance' went shopping for things. She was invited to go with us but opted for the less painful route. No pictures from either event but we did get together after supper to mess around in the yard some.

The boys trying out their golf swings. The Oldest Boy (aka Bubby) was a good player in high school before he went into the service but had a hard time hitting them this night. The Youngest Boy (aka Squeak) is playing on his middle school team this year and wants to play through high school too. One's right handed and the other is left handed. 

But before the golf swings it was 'drag the markers out for some more shooting.'

Even Bubby's fiance' got in on the action! She loves to shoot but not get shot! That's what I try to do too. 

At the end all that was left was an orange board and overspray down the side of my truck. High tech huh? A shovel and a board. That's how we roll in the south. 

Today was clean the garage and dogs day. Sort through crap and more crap everywhere. Hardening off the plants good, and with this weekends' weather thought about sneaking a few in the ground but of course the forecast is going to shit so that's off. Maybe next weekend....... if we don't play paintball, or go golfing, or shopping for crap, or anything else. 

Off to do a few more things then crappy week ahead. I can see it now. 2 weeks. 2 weeks. 2 weeks. I'll keep chanting that.

 Have a pint on me kids!

Could Be a "Hooky" Day

Boy is it ever nice outside right now. At the current time of 12:47 pm it is 63 degrees. 63 glorious degrees. Well I didn't play hooky as I'll be off with Amy in three weeks. But it is tempting.

Our Sunday started a little slowly, like Saturday. My excuse was I forgot the time went forward. I did forget. Honestly. So after a quick scan of the paper, blogging and coffee, it was back out to the garden. We got the remaining beds turned over, tilled up a third 25'-0" long row for the 15,000 potato spuds we had, finished planting the 25,000 onion bulbs, and watered everything down real good. I did get a surprise in the mail from Park Seeds. Guess what it was?????? More damn onions. They sent a bunch of Big Daddy hybrids. I told Amy that we would send those to her dad as we will not need onions for a while. Oh, she also got the garlic in the ground and then we pondered green beans. She wants a lot to can so it looks like the tiller will be coming back out. I have 1/2 pound of Kentucky Wonder pole beans and I still have 1/2 a bag of the bush beans from last year. Those will be started around April Fools day along with everything else. I really need to get a soil test kit to check the raised beds plus the new tilled areas. And it also looks like another raised bed or two might be needed. And she brought up a nice sitting area, etc.

Well, that's the after images from the work. I also got my holly bushed planted on the side of the house, my grass planted on the sides on the driveway, and one of the camellias planted. In the evening I transplanted 16 Roma and Amish Paste tomatoes into cups, said a silent prayer for the Mortgage Lifter's as I believe they got too close to the furnace vent one day, and watered the rest. New tomatoes for the father in law and peppers for myself coming along nicely. Busy day but got a lot accomplished. Fell asleep watching TV actually.

Back to work. With the daylight extended in the evening now it is a good time to start the hardening off process, a little at a time.

 

 

Miss Ginny says hi! What a WOF. Enjoy the weather kids!

 



Greenhouse

Like I said last time we finally got the chance to visit one of the three greenhouses near us. From the road it doesn't appear to be too much. You have to drive in and then just drive around the whole place and get what you want. That's when it hits you. 300 acres of stuff, outside and inside.

 

 

The really bad part about all of this is 95% of the stuff isn't labeled. The good part about it is that we got 2 Camellia's for $14.00, but later that day we went to Lowes and saw one for sale at $19.00.  Good prices if you know what you want.

 

Oh by the way, some know of my 'love' of the Bermuda wiregrass we have here. well, in tilling up the yard yesterday I hit a rock and look what I found.

 

 

It grew through this rock. We have to redo the front flower beds this year because it grew through the landscape fabric. I told you this stuff sucks.

 

Of to work as I forgot about time moving forward this weekend. 



Wow, That Was Tiring

And it was. Got two 25' long beds tilled out and planted way too many onions I'm sure. I still have to plant the 75 white onions sets that I have on top of the reds and yellows I got in today. I also turned over a couple of the raised beds and got peas, carrots, radishes, lettuce, red cabbage, and the garlic planted. Tomorrow will be Turning the remaining beds, maybe do another till area and get all of the potatoes planted and plant the stuff we got at the mega greenhouse that we finally got to visit. I will have pictures for you tomorrow morning but let's just say 300 acres of plants. And they were cheap, really cheap. And Amy found here arch nemesis, the cat- pee bushes everywhere.

Before view of the garden.

 

I had to mix in some dirt into the soil to help things out some.

 

 



Not a cloud in the sky.

 

 

More tomorrow but now off to bed.



i aM a CouNtin

This weekend's weather sucks. Cold. Not too bad when the sun comes out but still cold. Next weekend though is looking very, very nice. 

It is going to be a busy week, I can definitely see that coming. Wait, let me go check the lottery ticket. Nope, not a winner. So after expelling all of my energy this week I hope I have some more for the weekend's events we sorta have planned. I am going to lay out probably three 4'-0" wide x 25'-0" long ground rows for the potatoes, onion, garlic, etc. As I said in an earlier post I'll have to get some dirt delivered as our really sandy soil doesn't contain much nutrients except for the bermuda wiregrass (darn stuff.)  Renting a tiller is also on the list but I did get a couple of gift cards for Lowes for my birthday so that could be a late present. I also will be turning everything over in the raised beds and adding a little compost to them. Going to extend the 8'-0" long beds together so that there will be three 4'-0" wide x 19'-0" long beds. Still have to do the pergola over them but that will hopefully be done on our April off time. And we'll also head up to the nurseries Saturday morning to look for a few plants, especially strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, etc. So, this weekend's planting list is..

• Potatoes, red and yellow
• Red, yellow, and white onions
• Garlic
• Asparagus
• Carrots, Danvers half long
• Cabbage, Copenhagen
• Lettuce, Mix loose leaf
• Strawberries
• Blackberries
• Blueberries

Amy has her flowers she has to figure out what to do with. The front beds needs a reworking after last year. 

Picked this up at Walmart this morning. Project for this year. Last year it was the $1.00 tomato. This year it is The Boy's tomatoes and cucumbers and this Impatiens kit. Starting it today and we'll wait and see. I was surprised with the $1.00 tomato last year so fingers crossed. 

Well, sitting here in the office typing this I can see that some watering needs to be done. This is my view. 

So let me get off of here and get that done and a few other small projects, maybe some work work. Check in later.