Gardening report from the Aerie

Terry and I woke up this morning to the sound of thunder and rain at 4 AM. It continued on through 8 AM and then the clouds in the sky opened into puffy cumulus with the sun shining between. By then the rain gauge held 0.35 inches and you could hear the zucchini sucking up the moisture and growing larger by the second.

We had planned on going over the hill to a commercial blueberry enterprise where you can pick your own for $1.40 a quart. A couple of hours with the two of us picking should get us plenty of berries for some blueberry jam. The rain forced us to change our mind. We'll go on Monday morning instead. (They are not open on Sunday.)

Terry went out with a knife in hand around 9 AM and I thought she meant those zucchini plants harm but she only cut off three of the largest zukes and brought them inside. We now have eight or nine, six to seven inchers on the counter. Terry declared today a zucchini free day and we hate none at all.

I spent some time walking about the yard picking up small stones and plotting where I want to built some more raised beds. Terry has declared our first two beds successes based solely upon the production of the zucchini and the herbs. I have to agree with her. Although we had very high mortality from the strawberry plants I put in, the ones that survived are suddenly putting out runners and there may be many, many more plants come next spring. The only real failures have been the bulbs and corms I put in the ground. neither the ones along the driveway nor the ones back by the bird feeders sprouted. I blame the quality of the bulbs and corms more than the way they were planted or handled. We need to get some daffodil bulbs for this fall.

Back to the future raised beds. I picked out two large beds and one smaller one positioned so none of them will interfere with a work crew from the power company if they have to bring a truck in to deal with the transformer on the pole outside. And I've already started to think about the vegetables and perennial flowers that will go in them. Some will be ordered as seed and others as plants--most likely from Burpee's catalogs.

Before I can start building the raised beds however, I will need more flatties. So, if there's no rain I'll be prowling the woods tomorrow morning picking up some more one to one-and-a-half foot square rocks. They shouldn't be hard to find. It's the hauling out that will be a treat!