happy summer, time for planting
Summer is finally here! We went to the farmer's market this morning, early enough to beat the heat. It was so crowded! I didn't even go into the produce area but Georg said it was mobbed.
Soon it will be too hot for planting so we're doing as much as we can now. We bought lots this morning, almost all perennials. For the butterfly garden we got a pink gaura, a perennial verbena and a dwarf mexican petunia. I've heard Mexican petunia can be invasive, which scares people off, but for us it would be a good thing because we have so much planting space to fill. We also bought a bright red perennial lantana for the red and orange bed, a pretty coreopsis for down by the road, and four succulents called "ice plant" for the blue and purple bed. They look really good with the blue sedum my folks gave me last year. Also I was inspired to plant a stevia, after seeing it in Lisa's herb garden. I'm going to try steeping it in iced tea. And a cute little Mexican cigar plant, which we had last year and have been trying to find all spring. Now if I can only find a bat face I'll be totally happy. And the last thing we bought was a hardy amaryllis. I can't wait to see what the flowers look like! Probably not as impressive as the tender amayllis they sell as houseplants, but still, I bet it will be beautiful.
After we got home Georg went to the station to do the world music show, and I planted all our new purchases. All except the amaryllis, which needs more bed preparation work. The other plants all go in the sun where we have nice beds all ready, but the amaryllis needs shade, and we've hardly done anything in the shady areas yet. I've been saving those parts of the yard for when it gets too hot to work in the sun.
The garden is starting to look nice, if I do say so. The bank along the driveway has some nice flowers and things are just starting to bloom. It will be years before we get to the "solid mass of color" level of planting, but it's fun to pick out new perennials and figure out where they should go. The cutting garden doesn't have too many flowers in it yet, the zinnias and sunflowers are still too small, but they're healthy and growing, and the freesias just started blooming! They have an incredible scent. Not something I'd want in a perfume -- it would be really heavy -- but lovely in a flower. Most of them are yellow so far, with a couple of red ones and one white. They aren't as big as the ones at the florist, which is a good thing because these are just the right size for our bud vase. The bigger ones would have to go into a big vase, and then we'd need tons of stems to fill the vase.
Speaking of coming into bloom, the hydrangeas are blooming! We planted them two autumns ago, and they didn't bloom last year, so I'm very excited to see flowers on almost all of them. All except the one we had to replace last fall. The flowers are still clusters of buds, just starting to open up, so they're all still greenish white. Although one of them is starting to show tinges of red at the edges of the petals. I can hardly wait until they open up and show their colors!
The vegetable garden is looking good too. They seem to really like those raised beds. As Georg commented, the small plants like chard and beets are starting to look like tiny versions of themselves, not just seedlings. And the tomatos and zucchini are doing great. We have flowers on the Super Sweet 100, Arkansas Traveler and Early Girl, and this morning I even saw a tiny fruit on the Early Girl! Yay!
The only disappointment so far in the vegetable garden is the peppers. They haven't done a thing; the seedlings are the same size as when I planted them, what, a month ago? I don't understand it. Last year we planted peppers from seed and they did great. Whatever the reason, I bought some poblanos and sweet peppers from Home Depot to replace my stunted seedlings.
After planting, my next job was to repair the whole house fan. It really needed to be done now that we're having summery weather. For the past year or so the fan hasn't been drawing well. On high it works ok, but on low, the setting we normally use, the slats barely open.
The furnace repairman who came last winter looked at it and identified the problem as a damaged belt. It was torn halfway through, in fact. He said that the tear had made the belt longer so it was slipping, that's why the motor wasn't as effective anymore. If the belt had torn all the way, I wonder if it would have damaged the motor? Probably not; it wasn't inside any kind of casing so probably would have just come loose. Depending on how fast it was maving, I guess it might have hit the inside of the roof. It's a good thing that guy told us about it before that happened.
Anyway, Georg found a replacement belt online, but we never got around to installing it until today. It was easier to do than I had expected. It was really obvious where it went, and I figured out how to unscrew the clamp around the motor so I could shift the motor and get the belt around it. The only problem is, it didn't fix the problem! It works better on high, but on low the slats still barely open. So I guess the motor must have some other problem. Or maybe I didn't install the belt properly. It seemed like there was only one way to put it on, but what do I know. Anyway, the fan may not work perfectly, but at least it works. We prop the slats open with a rolled-up magazine and then we get decent airflow in the house.
By the time I was done with the planting and the fan, it was almost 2 pm and I was filthy and hungry. I took a quick shower and had nice leftovers for lunch (pork loin sauteed with vegetables, tomatillos and adobo seasoning, with some good queso fresco Georg got from that big Latino supermarket). Then I tried to take a nap, which attempt mostly failed because the phone kept ringing. Next time, earplugs. Since then I've been watching a "Whose Wedding Is It Anyway" marathon and working on the wedding dress. More on that in another post.