What have you done today in the Garden?

Early start 9.30 a.m.
Checked on my paint on the tea-house skirt. It was surprisingly quite dry, so it got another coat. It will need one more, it might even get that later today.

I did the watering that I should have done last night. Pruned multiple new shoots from the base of four wisterias, some over 6 inches long. I only did them three days ago.

Pruned the roses a bit, then gave them a spray of Sulphur Rose.

Too hot to be out there this afternoon, watching cricket, golf and tennis on TV.

 

@Doghouse Riley what does the sulpher rose have in it besides sulpher, if you don't mind my asking.?.

I worked on my east facing flower garden early this morning. Weeded, found some crab grass growing in there, amongst other things. Deadheaded my zinnias and roses. Then I found that my morning glories had, as always, started twining up some of the rose bushes, so trimmed those back. Trimmed my jasmine bushes that were growing wild and crazy.

I made piles of clippings and wIll pick all that up this afternoon when the garbage gets put out as the pile in the ditch sits next to where I put the garbage out for pick up. One trip rather than two.

 

I've actually no idea, it's just recommended to control blackspot.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235976120775

The second coat applied to the tea-house skirt this morning had dried by mid-afternoon, so it got a third.
I think it's "good enough."
The path down there needs a bit of re-pointing, but that can wait for another day.

 

I haven't done anything for a few days. My neighbor called Friday and he had kittens under his porch/ramp. I was in the middle of canning some strawberry/basil jam so I said I'd be over as soon as I was done. I woke my granddaughter up and we went over. He told us he hadn't seen the mama cat for quite a while. It was hot!!! I brought over a can of tuna. The little black one was over by the basement windowell. My granddaughter was on that side and I was on the other side. A little grey one had mad his way over to the tuna and I slowly slid it closer until I could get him. I sat up and said I got him and at the same time she said the same thing. She had the little black one, a girl. Two down one more.... We could not get the third one. MADACC (a no kill shelter) closed at 7 so after an all day thing we left so we could get the 2 we had over there before they closed. They're very young. I could tell, their eyes were still blue. The little black one had something on her neck, so I wanted her to see a vet or vet tech asap; whatever they had. We took them in and they said it was a botfly or flybot. I looked it up.... very disgusting! Saturday we were back over, by that time the ramp on one side was pretty much gone. He had planned on redoing it anyway for his wife. It took about an hour and we finally had the third baby. My birthday was the 1st and my DIL is the 8th. So we planned on getting together for lunch. My granddaughter always goes shopping with her uncle (and I have to make a list). They couldn't find anything on my list, that's why we decided to do both together. After we dropped the kitten off so she could be reunited with her brother and sister we met for lunch. It was so hot, even hotter than the day before. I can deal with hot but it was so muggy on top of that. It didn't cool down until the thunder started about 10. We both went to bed but then I got woke up with a flash flood warning, on my phone, at 1 or 2 in the morning and she slept through the thunder so loud and shaking the whole house. How do kids do that?!?! It's still raining off and on. But at least my garden is getting a good watering! And the drain in my basement is still working, so between that and the sump pump that was put in last year, I just have a little flood. Not even enough to use the little pump I bought for last year when the water main broke. I'm just glad we got the kittens! So that's been my last three days. Other people have it worse. My son called to see if they could borrow the pump, a friend of theirs had 6 or 8 inches in her basement. And her drain wasn't working!

Daniel, are those plums in with the bowl with the mulberries Italian prunes? I have a recipe for Italian prune cake. It's a spice cake. Everyone seems to have Italian prune trees in Washington State. between those and zucchini if anyone sees you coming with a bag, they lock their door and pretend no one's home!
All the fruit you guys are getting look very nice. I have been canning a lot!


This shelf from left to right is; what was supposed to be rhubarb conserve, bread and butter pickles, bay/garlic dill pickles.

More rhubarb, strawberry/basil jam, cranberry sauce, blackberry, raspberry, and strawberry rhubarb jam. And I didn't know why the strawberry rhubarb separated so I looked it up a I read that if you don't pour it into the jars immediately, if you wait just a minute or so, it starts to set up and it won't separate.



This last one is; garden vegetable pickles, pickled beets, rhubarb syrup, and rhubarb juice. They look different colors because the syrup is in blue and purple jars and the juice is in clear jars. I mix the juice with lemonade or tea.

 

Great canning and a lot of produce from the season. You have been buzy bee. Good Job

Also so kind of you to took such gentle care of the kittens. What an amazing recovery to help the kittens.

Happy Belated Birthday…

 

@Willowisp0801 love all the canning you've done and great job getting the kittens !!

If it were me I would've wanted to keep them all !!

 

They look similar, but are actually a hybrid between a native American Plum and a Japanese plum. Very flavorful and juicy, but kind of mushy.

Today it reached 99F so I just did some watering outside. Too hot for me.

 

Happy Birthday Willow!

 

Great work, Willow. You have been busy, haven’t you.
Happy Birthday. Time flies, doesn’t it.

 

Early morning I got all my clippings picked up and started on more deadheading and spent plant removal. I had to rescue some of my shrubs from the over zealous morning glory vines that were engulfing them and also had found their way up into my peach tree !! ( little buggers !!)

I didn't plant the morning glories, I hoed as many self seeded morning glories as I could find, yet, here we are !! I still have more late summer tidying and removal to go but early morning is the only time that it's cool enough to really get stuck in without having to stop and wring out your underwear.

 

Watered the green manure seedlings. More harvesting in preparation for the coming warm spell.

 

After clipping down the evergreen rhody’s, cryptomerias, azaleas, wiegelias and pieris I used my mulcher mower has 2 blades on my rider mower to mulch all the clippings into nothing.. mainly just fertilizer for the lawns.

By 9 am it was too hot to trim and moved on to the blower to clear the pine needles across the several areas in the back and side gardens.

 

@Willowisp0801 great work with the kittens and everything else and happy birthday.

 

Not much at the moment just watering, trying to deadhead the flowers, it's going to be too hot today.

 

Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes! Yes Sjeord, and it seems to go faster the older you get.
The kittens were very cute and if we didn't have two cats already I might have been tempted to keep them. We got them just in time. I don't know how bad the house was where they were at, but they may not have made it with the storm.



Wow! I lucked out, at about 5 something in this video the woman says this is Hampton Ave. I don't know where on Hampton, but it's very close to us. We are about halfway between Hampton Ave and the fair grounds.

The morning glories went wild this year. They're all wrapped around my raspberry and blackberry plants. I keep trying to keep them off, but it's never ending. This is the first year I've had them like this.