The Old Guy's Garden Record

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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 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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