The Old Guy's Garden Record

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Thursday, June 25, 2026

I mowed the field next to our property two days ago. While my wife now does most of our mowing, I try to get the areas that have a steep slant that scares her (and me too, sometimes). After mowing the slope by the pond, I decided to just go for it and mow the whole acre plus field. Often, mowing our bumpy ground leaves my neck, shoulders, and back a mess for a day or two afterward. Yesterday, just my right knee is in total protest. Today, it's my whole body!

We have more hummingbirds this year than we've ever had. I can tell by how quickly they're emptying the feeders. I have a 32 ounce feeder we call "the jug," and a 16 ounce feeder. I'm having to fill the smaller feeder twice a day. Sometimes the contents of the jug will last all day.

I don't think the hummingbirds have hatched out their second clutch of eggs so far this season. When that happens, things will go absolutely nuts around the feeder. I'll probably have to buy another jug to lessen the mayhem. Fortunately, they're cheap at Walmart ($5.97), but a bitch to keep clean.

I had trouble producing any gloxinia seed last season. Things were about the same this year until recently. I've now put up enough seed to merit bagging and freezing it which keeps it good for years. If you're into gloxinias and want to start saving seed, I have a feature story/how-to on the subject: Saving Gloxinia Seed.

A Fall Garden?

For any number of reasons, our garden so far this season has been a disaster. It just didn't get started. But I hope to grow a nice fall garden. We still have well over a hundred growing days left in the season. I have tomato, paprika pepper, and onion plants hardened off and ready to go into the ground.

I'd also like to direct seed crops of carrots and beets.

And as a longshot because of their required long growing season, I hope to direct seed some butternut squash.

Wednesday, June 17, 2026

I transplanted eight tiny parsley plants and a geranium into our herb bed today. When I started digging planting holes with a trowel, I was surprised at how hard the soil was. Later, as I dug closer to the well cover, the soil was soft. When I watered those holes, the soil ran out...from mole tunnels. So I got out our bottle of castor oil and gave the holes a bit of it to drive off the moles.

I also brought trays of tomato and paprika pepper plants up from the basement. The tomato transplants looked a bit rough from life under our plant lights that needed to be raised. The pepper plants were gorgeous.

Finally getting in a good morning of work was gratifying. My last job was to wheel our garden cart full of plants pulled from the herb bed to our working compost pile. As I came in from that task, it began to sprinkle.

We had severe storms predicted for today (and tonight). We need rain, but could do without the predicted strong winds and possible hail. Most of the afternoon storms ran north and south of us, only producing about a tenth of an inch of rain. But tonight, more storms are predicted.

Monday, June 15, 2026

I haven't been able to do any outdoor gardening of late. Some aggravated injuries, bad weather, and a lack of desire have limited things. I began to wonder if we could have a garden at all this year. But I'm slowly getting better and hope to get some stuff done over the next week or so.

I did clear our herb bed of weeds today. That should allow me to transplant parsley into it tomorrow. I left a sunflower standing in the bed from a seed that germinated from bird seed!

We seem to have more hummingbirds early this year than in the past. We also have a couple of possums that visit our back porch each evening. Raccoons also come to the well cover and porch for a snack, along with seven squirrels.

The increased visitors are probably due to one less dog patrolling our yard. Our fifteen year old coon hound had an apparent stroke several weeks ago and has lost the ability to walk. My wife babies her, but the end for her is obviously near.

Monday, June 1, 2026

I didn't do any real gardening, but did get a shot of our milkweed in bloom. Unfortunately when I took the shot late this afternoon, no monarchs were present. Several bumblebees were visiting the blossoms.

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