If you want to smell the rain, the closest I can recommend is Trapp Fragrances Water scent. It's not my favorite scent of theirs but still a nice one. The sprays and diffusers are oil based so last a long time.

Oh and I recommend you try and find a local source to smell these in person. My personal favorite is Veviter Seagrass. After that Hibiscus.

Pepper: thanks for the info. I'll have to look into it. How are your gardens?

Jeanne: are you floating there? Did you have all the rain that I did this morn? It poured and poured here. Finally letting up.

Thomas: what did you find at your nursery?

Hello all!

So I came to at 430 trying to figure out the noise, we had a rain deluge straight down and heavy! No thunder or lightning. I poked my nose out, it's also very humid. With the lows this weekend in the 40s this will be an interesting time.

Needless to say I'm not going out early this morn. I like the rain and I like staying dry as I crawl on the ground. Since I will not have both I will just wait and make my to do list a little bit later. I guess that's ok, as it is a clinic day again.

I have discovered that moving the tree yesterday I received about 5 bites. What the heck! Can I just say too early for those flying things?

I've got more poo coming for the compost heap. My friend has chickens and she's cleaning the coop this weekend she thought. Yeah! More poo for the betterment of my future beds and garden. I told DH hold off on the mowing until I hear a confirmation.

I did a tad bit of plant maintenance yesterday, I pinched the dahlias ready for that. I have a few that aren't interested in showing more growth then eyes a bit more colorful but not huge growth at all. Maybe I'll bring them back in and under the lights. I've got one that looks questionable. I watered the plants not yet in the ground and hope by the end of the weekend everyone is in the dirt. Now only if the rain holds off a bit.

Have a good day all!

Morning Scarlet. I had a down pour here a little while ago and now nothing. I think I got chased inside 3 times yesterday with tiny showers popping up. I got a little weeding done and some mulch put down and did a little round up spraying. I sure was pooped by the time 8:00 rolled around. I went to bed early.

I have an old rhubarb patch and do not know the name of it but the stalks are red and get pretty tall. I picked some and gave some to each of my sons last week but have not picked any for myself. I want to put some in the freezer to use next winter. I had better get some picked but it won't be until later today.

This is the first time I have done pickled asparagus. I will use it for Bloody Mary's although DH loved to eat my dill pickles and dilly beans right out of the jar. I have always just froze my asparagus but wanted to try canning some this year. I have canned green beans, carrots, salsa, pasta sauce, dill pickles, dilly beans, beet pickles, and tomatoes. I freeze my corn and beets. I really do get tired of canning and all the work involved and swore I was not going to can anything this year. But.........

I still need to plant carrots, beets, green onion from seed, cucumbers, and my squashes. DH said he was going to plant Acorn and Butternut in large tubs. I will have to give him a little push soon to get them in the dirt.

Better go. I have a long day ahead of me if we don't get more rain.

One of my NoIDs opened!

Love the color.

This is my very first TB Iris I got from a friend. It is a rebloomer and a NOID. I have a lot of them planted around the yard. Since I got this one, I started getting named TB Iris and putting name tags by them. Some I put in raised beds and the tags faded, so now I am trying to ID them when they bloom.

Scarlet - not sure if you were the orginal person who told me about Swan Island and I forgot, but I did hit their site yesterday after reading your post. Man! Mostly out of everything! Would be nice to have a filter for only things in stock. A lot of things I wanted were out of stock but I did manage to find a few to get. Here's the ones I purchased:

Brushstrokes
Cloudburst
Excentric
Lady Liberty
Blackberry Ice
Ahoy Mateyed
Andrew Charles
La Luna
Happy Day
Tapioca
I Do

I didn't make it out to a nursery yesterday. I decided to work some more in the mugginess. Didn't get much done, including planting any of the new beds with plants, but I did get some stuff cleaned up, moved to more permanent homes, mulched, and some carrot and radishes planted.

Must be a 4:30am day, though that's the time I normally wake. Woke up to a nice gentle rain, not enough to fill rain buckets, but enough maybe to give the garden some relief. Found a lot more cat litter buckets in the shed that I can set out when rain is expected to fill up the rain barrel.

Supposed to be a great weekend! 70s and sunny. Hopefully the asian radishes that I have planted will start bulbing before the heat will result in bolting. This cool weekend should help with that!

Thomas: Looks like a good bunch of color! I have lady liberty, she's been really slow to set leaves and she has long slender tubers. I tried wintering her over but she didn't do well but I like her bloom so I had bought another. You'll have a nice mix! I'll be interested to see your garden if you choose to share. I'm always looking for ideas for my own.

AM: Ok it's been down pouring on and off since I've been up. I got bills paid today and have cleaning to do and winter clothes to put away. I loathe that job but it needs to be done. I don't want to look at a wooly sweater for some time.

I can't go do yardwork right now. I posted to the dahlia forum about my possible leafy gall. Ugh! I really don't want to do my in house chores and am totally avoiding by being on here. In between the raindrops I should go survey what work I will need in my south side beds. I'm not even going to bother w the eyeing of the jungle on the lot perimeter. Good gravy I just see it will take days! I think I'll plant first, weed the jungle later.

Sorry for posting more the last few days. I'm going stir crazy w everyone home and not many want to discuss my plants. The good news SCHOOLS DONE. That will give me some breathing room to my days again. Sure I'll be working w the youngest but more here and there and not daily for hours.

Enjoy your days, I wonder if the creek in town breeched. Usually with this much rain she does. The good news is she usually goes down quickly. Will see!




Edited to add: yes the creek has breeched in different areas. We are a very sandy area and when the rivers/creeks go its wide and shallow and mostly farm land except when it's in town and then they close the road and open the dam flow a bit someplace along the line I guess. If we get much more rain tonight we'll all be traveling via canoe. We had such deluges last year too.

I'm off to go count my tomatoes vs cages vs dahlias. Sounds like quite the cage fight!

DH and I were traveling most of the day. So nothing really got done outside until we got home later afternoon. I saw that some of my TB Iris had bloomed so I hurried out to take pictures so I can ID them. Then we went out to pick up bbq ribs at our favorite restaurant. They were fantastic. I'm fine with staying my distance with the pandemic going on.

We unloaded the end of the mulch on the trailer tonight because we are going early in the morning to get in line for another load of mulch. They only sell mulch on Friday from 8 till noon.

That's all for now.

Jeanne: hope the mulch moving went well! This weekend we should both have lovely weather for being in the yard. I only hope my body agrees to keep up with my list and my mind. I've told my mom aging stinks for me!

Hello all!

AM: so I went to to figure out my own little cage match and discovered I'm now the proud owner of 16 tomato plants. I'm like a ait a minute, my enabler snuck some home with me while I was going to try and send her a few. I still will I think. We are doing a test plot as she lives in the country and has huge garden space - but one of my kids is in 4h and since both our houses have different soil types sand vs clay, we were going to grow some of the same items in both gardens and see how we do with the 4Her doing the work and care. With fairs canceling right and left we'll still do our project and see if we can indeed use for fair or not. And see how they do overall between the two houses.

I will be on the run today as I have the grocery run and I'll make a stop at menards. I need cages, a Father's Day gift, and of course one can check out the garden area. I should learn for some odd reason starting basil seed for me NEVER works. It's almost like it just stops growing and stays small. So I will look for a few plants of that. Last time I bought it there on their tumble table for 25¢ a plant. It was a tad leggy and beat up but in the end provided me w a ton of leaves for my pesto making. So I'll look again.

That's it from this world. I hope I'm successful. Now to find how I'm planting up all these tomatoes!

Basil plants... I have over 300 from seed this spring. Still have well over 200. When March and the world changed, didn't know how bad things were going to get, so I said plant everything. Mostly with the tomato seeds. I still started a TON of basil. Figured I'd give plants away to friends, family, neighbors and sell the rest for $1 a plant, not to make money just to recoop cost. Part of the solution. Someone else in the neighborhood was selling plants for $4! When she saw my price, she lowered hers to $2. ANyway, plant sales didn't go well for some reason, I likely got rid of 100 tomato plants and 2-30 basil. I've been planting basil all around the place. You're right about the plants taking forever to grow. Once they do though! I'm sure you know about snipping back basil to get it to bush out for more production.

I'm going to make trellises for tomato plants I think. Dunno. Might get some posts today. I have some fencing that I'd like to use to make trellises though. Not going to do anything with the determinant and ground cherries. Just let them be. Might need to stake the ground cherries though if they get to big.

Going to rain today so I"m going to take off and go to the nursery late afternoon. Going to be a great weekend and gonna get a lot planted and figure out how to relax and have some fun in this new world.

Well a yellow lupine hopped in my cart at menards. I got some more tomato cages. I use my old ones upside down and without their legs for my dahlias, so I got a few new ones for the tomatoes. I am not sure how many tomatoes I actually have to plant. I have an idea but I have to see how they are weathering and then get those 4H ones set aside for the test plot at my MIL and the rest in the ground here. I don't think we'll have our fair, but we'll follow through w said kids project and try again next year with our second bunch.

I need to change and go out and get planting I think. It's cool here today and I started the day in shorts and we'll it's only 60. Brrr to be out digging around does not sound fun.

Here's hoping it looks good!

Promise of rain today... every single storm cell missed us again so far. All the areas around us have gotten at least some rain. It rained once for literally 30 seconds while my son ran the recyclables outside to the collection can.

Headed out now for the nursery. It'll likely rain all the way there, while im in the nursery, all the way home, and I'll get home to find things dry. I am the no rain god.

Ok so I went out to view the tomato situation. I indeed have 18 plants, 2 of which will be in the 4H tests for kid1. We'll grow one of each of those at both houses. Part of my reasoning for said kid is to learn what different soil types do. I grew up with clay as a teen. I think as a youth it was a mix and now where I'm at it is all sand which is a huge help when weeding.

Except dumb me had everyone labeled but one. I have no clue who it will be but the plant looks good. So we'll see what happens. I'll be sure to label once they go in the garden. My selections this year:

Cherokee carbon
Cream sausage
Atomic grape
Purple russian
Great white
Martinis roma
Hungarian heart
Cour di beu
Jersey devil
Pineapple
Lemon boy
Pink chef

And what my favorite enabler gave me:
Mortgage lifter
Big boy
Sky reacher

If I venture a guess the unknown is another Cour. My MIL likes the heirloom types that are huge so that's what she passed on to me are some of her favs. I like them but the ones she has grown always seem to overripen so quickly. And I can only eat a huge tomato so fast or be able to do many in a day less I have to visit the dentist due to too much acid. When I was telling my mom my choices she's like why not focus on one or two varieties and I said mom - life's too short to have only one or two tomatoes you like - try what you can. Besides I love a variety when I make a caprese salata it's like a summer explosion on a plate with all the colors! Throw in the basil and fresh mozarella - oh I'm back in Italy

Ok I digress. But I so look forward to my tomatoes. Kid2 loves to sit out there and eat their way around the garden all summer long. Always has since they learned how to toddle; the cherry tomatoes never lasted long. My kids are veg fans so I have been doing something right. We all eat right out of the garden.

Thomas: well if you'd like the deluges that I had here you should be getting it soon unless it pushed way north in MI prior to hitting your area. But we had rain. Almost 2.5" just in 24hrs/May 27-28, that doesn't include earlier.

Hope shopping went well! You never know what will hop in the cart. We're you in luck w all you were looking for?

So you grew lots of basil and tomatoes - do you often sell starts? Around here the big push is for a Victory Garden so most garden items are slim, seeds included. Of course I ordered mine at Christmas and as soon as I saw at the stores I started buying and I have gotten into saving seeds (more the flowers) which some years I have better luck then this year. So I was ahead of the game before everyone began grabbing what they could. I need to remind myself to be wise w the basil. It's still so tiny!

Jeanne: I got to the goodwill today! I see you are a repurposer. I scored on two fairly new Cuisinart pans. I have le creuset ones I bought myself long ago but I'm having a heck of time lifting my fry pan easily of late. I saw all sorts of interesting things since it's been closed for so long - I had to be mindful of the old budget. I thought of you as I perused and some of the items I've seen in your photos.

Hello all! So I'm off to plant part of the garden. I'm going to have to make some changes to my original plans since I've got extra tomatoes and now will move my carrots back to the garden vs my large tub. I had extra flowers that needed a home so the carrots lost out. Besides it was full of wonderfully thick grass and few carrots courtesy of a mouse who opened a bag of grass seed on a small opening of my potting soil bag that had wintered in the garage. It's always something keeping me on my toes. I hope I'm successful this weekend!

Not a lot of luck at the stores. No sweet potato plants. I didn't even look for longevity spinach. I doubt they would have known what it is. I posted in another forum asking if anyone has a plant that I can get cuttings from. Everyone is out of stock. I did end up buying a lot of annual flowers. I've been ignoring the front yard all season so tomorrow is dedicated to that.

The rain missed us entirely, and I mean my part of central ohio. Happens all the time. While I was at the nursery, maybe all of 5 miles away, it poured. Not a drop at home. Supposedly there's a chance of rain this evening but the radar looks completely clear. I'd just like it to rain enough to wet all the garden and maybe get some rain water collected for the rain barrel.

This year is the only time that I've sold plants. Typically I'll give away extras as I always start more than I need, but I intentionally planted a lot of tomato plants with the intent of having enough to give away and sell for very cheap. I didn't charge most people. If they said Hi how are you... they got their plants for free.

My dahlias shipped. I forgot about them and bought annuals for the garden flower beds. Not sure where I'm going to put them now. Needs to be somewhere they are seen. Maybe the beds in the front yard, but then.. maybe I'll find someplace in the garden flower beds.

Well the sky got dark and tonight's temp is to go between 44-46F. I mean I like a cooler spring but this one has just been nuts. It was 84 and 98% humidity a few days ago. Talk about messing with mine and the plants minds.

I've got two types of my beans soaking for planting tomorrow because I forgot to do this last night. I'm trying two different ones from Baker Creek Seeds and I guess in my memory I don't ever remember soaking the night before planting. Always something new to learn.

Thomas: oh no! The dahlias will find a nice home. I run mine between my garage and house and they face the south west and I mix in both perennials and annuals with mine - on either end and the shorter ones tucked in front of the 3 footers. Sorry about the rain. It's been threatening all day here. It never amounted to much but the sky looks like the dark before a first snow.

That's nice of you to share the bounty from the garden with others. I usually take extra to my mom as she no longer gardens. Otherwise my extra goes into freezing, canning or dehydrating. I'm sure with this years crazy it will be well received. I think people are finally settling down on the bulk buying and that's a help I think for everyone (at least at my grocery). maybe we have collectively got a moment to catch our breath and think things through a bit more before acting. It's been rush rush since March.
I'll be totally welcome to what was once normal.

Good luck on the planting and finding that perfect dahlia spot. Mine are seen from the street via my drive. Dahlias are kind of hairy and messy looking I think before the blooms arrive, but then they more than makeup for all of the leaves once open, hence why I tuck the others around. My annuals: zinnias, nicotina, salvia Victoria falls, lantana, tassel flowers, dill weed. And my perennials: rudbeckia -green eye, delphinium, coneflowers. As I said, I like my colors.

Lots of ways to come up with something that is pleasing to your eye. You'll find the perfect combination I'm sure. Good luck to you with bringing it all to fruition!

Suns up, I'm dressed, armed with a coffee and determining which is my way to dive into planting today. I aim to finish the garden and tackle the beds. One bed is fairly well weeded but I need the hubs to open it up for me which will be about 6 feet long and about 18" wider. Got to make sure the dahlia bed is happy! I know he's not looking forward to pulling back more grass but he will help me out. I'd do it myself but my issue is carpal tunnel and when I use my hands heavily I can't do anything later as I can't grasp any longer. I've had one fixed and hope to do the remaining one later this year. The fixed one is doing pretty well thus far but I can't go down to just one hand as it slows me way down and a numbish hand is never fun. Any of you who have this issue I feel your pain!

I just looked at the beans I was soaking. They still look like dried beans and not super plump. One of the ones I will be planting are runner beans and the bean is almost a deep navy black bean. It's a pretty color! I'm not only planting to help feed the family, but the hummingbirds and pollinators. I hope it just crawls all over my arched trellis I made. I used PVC that we bent last summer. Fun project!

May you all have a wonderful day with family or your gardens or just a the sun on your nose. The winter was way too long and it's time to enjoy all that is around us. Shake off the lock down, find beauty in the dirt around you. I'm off!

Runner beans are something that I want to try at some point. Those are the ones that you harvest for the bean? not like a green bean? Can it be a second sowing for a fall crop?

Today I started inside and pricked out some mustard for inside and outside growing, watered all the inside greens (skipped harvesting) and watched too many gardening videos while eating breakfast. Headed out to harvest greens outside and maybe the rest of the radishes before the start to bolt... but I might leave one or two to seed. Need to move the squash that I found out are a bush type to a felt bag, plant the rest of the tomato plants, maybe plant some more carrots and radishes, a tone of annual flowers, clean up the garden, and figure out if I'm going to use straw or wood chips for pathways. OH and take some pictures too. A lot more to get done than that, but tldr if I keep going.

But first I need another cuppa tea. Gonna be a pleasant day!

Woot! Garden is all planted I just need to give a good soak here but the lawn mowing was being done by the hubs. I have 2/3 of my south bed weeded and planted and am taking a short break so I can be sure I can move up and down to get off the ground. You'd think I was 70! I am not but somedays I feel it. Also restarted the compost heap since I emptied it out from the winter. So I'm getting there!

I'm looking at my beds and I think once bloom is done on the irises they will be divided and moved about to a bit better placement. Part of the issue would be the perennials have finally grown up and now in their teen years of growth (ok they range in age from 2-10 summer seasons) and are shoving the irises around. The other reason I'll be splitting is due to all the same colors in one spot. See, when I split the last time I didn't label. Totally smart right?! And for some dumb reason though I thought I mixed them up well I did not. So all but one of them are noIDs w the exception of one I left the tag on that I know of. I plan to Label these before the blooms expire. Which means today. Hah. I am not sure how to do so but I'll figure something out.

Thomas: runner beans can be picked for the dry bean. The ones I have are to sport a red flower. Beans are similar to a Kidney they say Cooked down. I don't think I can post a link yet. The ones I got:

Baker Creek Website - black coat runner beans

I have never grown before but the last two years I aim to try at least 2 new items in the garden if I can, variety is good to try. Last year one was a lemon squash and Mexican gherkins. I'm trying the lemon squash again and will see if this year is better than last. The gherkins were an acquired taste.

Enjoy all your planting. I got two dahlias in the ground. Not in the best spot but they were two of my shorties. Gives me a bit more space in the other bed.

Jeanne: how goes your mulching?

Pepper: what are you up to?

I'm off again.

Switching clothes around for the season. Mostly done and will just call it good for a bit and go outside. We have my youngest nephew also today so my mom is keeping him busy. 3 days of him here but foot went down and we won't get him tomorrow. Too much to do before we all go back to work.

DH and I got another trailer load of mulch on Friday morning (only day of the week you can get it 8-noon). I haven't spread much lately. I decided to do a little grass pulling in the NOID white Iris beds along the fence yesterday and again today. Got that done. Then yesterday I planted some SDB Iris that I had overwintered in the garage. I added some garden soil to a couple raised beds where I filled in empty spaces with Iris. Then I started putting them in 2 other empty beds. Not done but decided to move some heavy pots of Canna, Dahlia, and Elephant Ears to their summer homes. Well, they were heavy and I hurt my back so I took a couple hour break. Then I potted up some Siberian Iris and Black Eyed-Susan that I had thinned from other beds. I will be heading to bed early with Tylenol and pain lotion to give my back some comfort. I just realized that I need to go out and clean up my mess in front of the garage.

Tomorrow is suppose to be a really nice day. Then mid to upper 80's for the next week.