Not quite a full day but I'll be weeding after work every day this week! It's out of control already and the season's just started.....

Putting in a few new boxwoods and moving my chasmanthium seedlings around. Weeds - well, that goes without saying! :)

I have so many things to plant! Jeeze! I did get my lettuce and radish seeds planted over the past week or so and today I dug trenches for potatoes BUT between 36 hours of rain not but a handful of days after a sopping wet snow has made some awfully soaked mud 8" down, but its getting late and those puppies are going to need to get underground.

I'm nearly out of trees to plant, so my attention is turning to the veggie garden. I'm so grateful for the timing of the moisture we got as it was getting scary dry. Remember all those days of 11 - 13% humidity? I'm glad they're over.

I may have lost my mind, but I'm going to set up a couple of Walls of Water in the next day or two and put in a few tomatoes and peppers Sunday if the weather cooperates. I've been watching the night time temps creeping up and I think I may buy enough extra degrees with the WOW to pull it off. I'll keep plenty of plants back for when it proves to be a mistake!

And weeding. Lots and lots of weeding!

Barb

I have friends who've had great success with the WOWs, let us know how yours work out!

Today got in DD's pepper plants, a cherry tom, morning glory from seed, a couple new Salvia. Hardening off rest of peppers and toms for this weekend. Might put away row cover over lettuce, onions, shallots, carrots tomorrow. Might take out WOWs in case temps fall, not convinced will need them, but will play it safe.

I'm a dedicated WOWer. This year not best example for their use, last two were.

Well, looks like I will have to replant some lettuce that had just sprouted, all I had left this morning was a slime trail going straight down the middle of the row.

I've never used a Wall of Water but saw something on Pinterest that looked interesting, was wondering if it would work so I thought I'd throw it out there to see what you all think. The idea was to place a full container of water (milk jug) at the base of a tomato cage with a tomato plant, of course. Then the whole thing was wrapped in plastic with just a few relatively small air/water/ventilation holes on top and sides. Do you think that would work or would it get too hot here with our sunny spring days?

I need to finish pruning roses and feed them. Today I put out two of my cannas that have been in the garage over the winter. I have two more to repot and put out. I experimented with two different storage methods: In the pot and out of the pot.

I have to clean up some stuff in the front garden, leaves and the evil variegated vinca that tries to strangle everything else. I pull, it grows back. I pull, etc.

I got another sage at the High School plant sale last week that needs to find a home in my already-crowded garden.

I should give some of my other plants some yum-yum mix.

Always lots to do!

Dandelion apocalypse this weekend.

I have a few dozen perennials I propagated over the winter that need to get planted. My peppers are spending the night out.

lizbest1, sounds like the recipe for an oven. I guess you could leave the top open and cover in evening when cold temps are forecast...

Back with Dan Staley after a few years .. ヅ.

LizBest, I used to make my own tomato cages with livestock fencing. They were a little larger diameter than the commercial ones. Still, I never tried the gallon jug idea.

Instead, I wrapped as Dan suggests - open during the day, closed at night. I thought it worked exceptionally well! Protection from the wind thru the day without the possibility of cooking the plants - it worked well!

Steve

Hey Steve!

That reminds me of an article I read in the local paper back when I lived in Sacratomato, the tomato growing capital of the country. One year a local gardener gave his tips for growing the best tomatoes, and he had a set of cages like Steve described, only they were made out of the rebar mesh used in roadways. The growing season was so long in Sacto (and no hail) that the toms got that big...sigh...

I hardly know what that would be like. I moved my gardening from the heat-deprived California coast, just a few miles south of the Oregon border nearly 50 years ago. I thought I was really moving where there would be some growing season heat. In a way, there is! However, when all the "heat units" are accounted for, I may as well have stayed in Humboldt County!

Today, I'm feeling a little guilty ... no, not about the move! No, I had errands to run this morning. Beautiful warm sunshine but this afternoon the wind is supposed to kick up again. The big veggie garden needs plants set out but it ain't gonna be nice weather this afternoon. Shoulda gotten some of that transplanting done ...

I gotta run the sprinklers in the little veggie garden. It's sheltered enuf there that should work. Maybe I can scratch some spinach seed into the shady corner. That might make me feel like I'm accomplishing something ...

Steve

It was raining when I got home from work today so I am off the hook without feeling guilty about all of the weeds! Golden David, I'm with you on the dandelion apocalypse! I had good intentions about actually collecting and drying the blooms to try a dandelion rub recipe I found that was supposed to be good for joint inflammation but didn't get to it, now we'd have dandelion fluff blowing in the breeze if it weren't raining.....TONS in the field beside my house.

Tomorrow morning is supposed to be sunny before more rain comes....so I'm planning to plant some lettuce, dig some compose into the beds and pull off the winter mulch. I also s till have some glands and dhalia bulbs to get in. All before the rains come again...

Yesterday was a stormy day. With distant, "off-site" gardens, it is often difficult to know what is happening or will be happening there. It's always a problem if the weather turns bad ... sitting in the cab of the pickup isn't usually a very productive experience.

DW and I had a good morning despite a downpour going out and returning home and sprinkles while we were there. "There" doesn't have much empty space left to do anything with ت. (I had to inert that smiley rather than end the sentence with a preposition オ.)

Oh, there is plenty of space between tiny garden plants and it is becoming populated with even tinier weed seedlings! I have plenty of fertilizing to do soon and will grind most in with the rototiller - give those weeds just a few more days ...

The weather has been good on the newly transplanted with so little sunlight. That may be about to change so today will be a good day to get basil into the shady corner of the little veggie garden. Those plants can benefit from the shade. It may also be good day for weeding the Dahlia garden ... those tubers have been in the ground a few weeks and have mostly emerged hoping to see the sunlight. They are big competitors but I don't want them growing up through a blanket of weeds! I saw the first shepherd's purse bloom the other day. The nerve of that thing!

Steve

I should clean up after Monday's hailstorm. Then, I guess the next item on my agenda is planting tomatoes, which thankfully were not in the ground yet due to an ankle injury. I had already planted peppers and eggplant on Saturday, but now they're just 8-inch sticks, stripped of foliage. Perennials - pulverized. All of my potted amaryllis - decimated. Strawberries - bruised and pulpy. I had enough time to get my tomatoes, orange and lemon trees, bay laurel and some unplanted annuals to safety before the hail deluge was just too much to be in. It went on for 15 minutes and left three inches of raspberry-sized hail.

My onions and garlic weathered the hail okay - they're just hideous, now.

I moved to Englewood from downtown Denver three years ago, and three years in a row now I've had my garden decimated by hail. July 2013, June 2014 and May 2015. I'm feeling really defeated, and while I know from experience that most things will recover, I am not consoled by that knowledge. I garden for fun, for creativity, to make something beautiful - not just for yield. To have it all smashed by hail three years in a row is making me seriously consider moving to another state. I should add, all the 19 prior years I lived in Denver - Baker, Wash Park, Whittier, Capitol Hill, Congress Park - I never had a garden destroyed by hail. Maybe I was lucky during those Denver years, but right now I'd rather believe that Englewood is just cursed.

I'm hoping to get tomatoes in tonight after work. I don't really feel like cleaning up the hail damage. Actually, I feel like bulldozing my entire yard and starting over.

Uh, oh. We were both typing at the same time, Mathewgg! I hope your plants show some resilience and recovery goes better than you expect.

Turned out to be a good day to weed the carrots and potatoes.

Those things have been in longer and the weed seed sprouted weeks ago! Another week without some help and the carrots would have been petitioning the garden society for redress. Potatoes need to learn to share with the volunteer orach but there was some unnecessary pushing and shoving.

Got the basil (& parsley) set out. Maybe tomorrow will be a good day for more weeding. Actually threw around a little water hoping to keep the soil soft another 24hrs.

Steve

Thanks, Steve. I just got home, and am going to spend some time cleaning up before the afternoon chance of showers becomes reality. Thanks for the well-wishes!

Hi Mathewgg,

Just came to send you a little "Hail Sympathy," RMG style! We've all been there, and we really do understand! Hang in there! Warm weather coming up (finally!), and hopefully everything will recover and really take off for you!

Welcome to RMG,
Skybird

Thanks, Skybird!.

Tonight was great - I planted tomatoes and did some hail cleanup. There's a lot for the composter!

I'm in a boot and on pain meds, but will try to get out in the garden and take off the WOWs and pick some lettuce. Will figure a way to stay outside for the nice weather regardless!

Mathew, I'm really sorry. Hail is a B!@#$, no doubt about it. And it's REALLY disheartening to see so much hard work turned to crap in blink of an eye. I was right where you are a little bit ago. Back in April we had a small hail storm come through while I was at work. I didn't even know it happened until I got home and saw my veggie starts that had been turned into confetti. You can probably go back a page or two and see my post about it. I was so mad I could spit, and ready to just throw all my peppers and eggplants and tomatoes as far as I could AWAY from me. Like you, even though I KNEW they everything was going to bounce back and really just shrug off that damage, and come July be as big and beautiful as it ever is, it's absolutely NO consolation whatsoever. It really just feels like someone punched you in the gut and kneed you straight in the... Every one of us knows it, and has been there, but, hang in there buddy.

I know this gentleman who I was talking to about the hail damage to my plants not long after it happened. He told me when he first moved to Colorado he was living in the black forest area. On his way home from work he saw a huge black thundercloud hanging right over his house. By the time he got home, it had past, and left in it's wake several inches of hail. "I was so mad," he told me, "I was stomping and cussing, and literally crying. I even looked up and asked Dad what the hell I did that day to deserve that." Then he smiled "But you know what? That turned out to be the BEST garden I ever had."

My FIRST EVER Garden I built me a nice raised bed and filled it with dirt. I planted my seeds and waited...nothing. Waited.. nothing. WAITED... NOTHING!!! Not a single seed sprouted because I had no idea that I had to keep the soil wet beyond an initial watering! Then, a whole packet a bean seeds got spilled when I was replanting and and a big soaking rain came through. Well, gee dangit! They sprouted! I was SOOOOO happy to finally get something to grow! Then one morning I woke up and I honestly thought it had SNOWED there was so much hail. It took me a minute to really figure out that it was HAIL! Not a single leaf was left on those beans. I was devistated. But, it turns out, I got as good a crop of beans of them as ever.

In the end, just know, it will all be okay! Hang in there buddy!

Unfortunately, and I'm not meteorologist or anything, but in my experience, when we have hot sunny days, and the the afternoon/evening thunderstorms roll in, that's when we see the really strong cells and REALLY bad hail. The fact we had pretty stable (albeit cold) weather this month I think is what knocked the hail factor back, at least a little bit (course, anyone who lives in N. Colorado Springs is cussing me right now, after they had to get plows out for hail a couple weeks back.)

Anyways, I think were gonna see more hail in June now that the weather is starting to heat up than we saw in May.

What happened, Dan? I hope you're getting better!

I had to pull 2 of the 6 WOWs off the maters as something knocked them over. Thankfully they didn't smash the plants. I guess it is time to take off the rest. I really should get some comparison pics of the tomatoes I haven't planted yet and the ones in WOWs. The plants in WOWs look much better. It's raining so I'll have to try later/another day.

Speaking of hail, a couple of days ago I luged all my seedling trays out into the sun - 100 pepper plants, 50 tomatoes, couple dozen squash and cucumbers. Takes me about 10 minutes to shift them all. A dark cloud here and there, but nothing to worry about. So out of the blue sky comes pea-sized hail for 2-3 minutes. Hard enough that it really stung when I tried to get the plants in, hard enough to punch holes in the leaves. And then it stopped. I figure Ma Nature was letting me know: Don't get to cocky there, Eh?

I cut back to one big compost bin a couple of years back, and put it closer to the veggie garden. What with health issues, this morning it represented a 6 foot diameter, 3 foot deep, 26 months of accumulated organic matter that hasn't been disturbed. Sheech what a mess - the worms pretty much digested the lowest foot, thats all just black dirt, and above that is some anaerobic black stuff what with all the rain. I pulled off the sides to let it dry out a bit, and disturbed the equivalent of a greater Los Angeles ant hive. They were pretty happy in there. Dug out enough to add a bucket to each planting hole for the tomatoes and squash, and got the tomatoes planted, squash will have to wait until tomorrow, too tired.

I filled in the tomato patch Thursday, then we had 53mph wind gusts, Friday afternoon. The rain/hail out there is still an unknown.

The neighbors were in a distant town and didn't arrive home until after dark. I'm hoping for a good report later today.

The problem for garden plants is that they require more than one good day at a time.

Steve

Thanks for the pep talk, ZachS! Just what I needed.

I've started planting more, so the eye has other things to be drawn to. After a week of sett;ling in, the plants I'm most disappointed about are my lillies. The foliage looks really bad, lol, but they hadn't budded yet and the growing tips are intact so I'll still get blooms. Today it looks to be a great day for being in the garden; I'm thinking I'll get squash and melon sowed, and maybe corn, too. Pole beans were planted yesterday. A flat of hail-pounded marigolds are getting dispersed, too.

David52, I'd love a compost pile but don't have room for it. Or maybe I do but haven't figured out where yet. I did get one of those tumblers, but it's not the same.

Lots of work to do today!

Barb, turf toe exacerbated by a long bike ride with my daughter before she left for summer back east. I made it angry with the bike shoes and ride. Will be OK, thanks.

My garden plants' leaves for the third year in a row are riddled with holes and damage. I see scattered descriptions of gardens with hail covers and wonder if I should slowly make some out of bent conduit and shade cloth (which will help with heat)...I can see that the garden is set back at least three weeks with hail and temperature. Another rough year for production.

:o\

Sheesh. Had to put shade cloth over the lettuce today. Sigh....

And the heat is on, 88 degrees tomorrow. Got a bunch of stuff planted here yesterday and did 6 tomatoes in pots at Mom's. The garlic, onions and shallots are looking good, Radishes are getting away from me, will have to pull them soon!

Top priority for tomorrow is putting chicken wire around the multi-grafted pear tree to prevent the cat from scratching it. Lower on the list is burying food waste in the new compost area, checking and realigning the 2 drip lines and continue working on trellises.

I am beginning to wonder if we are EVER going to have a "next nice day in the garden" this spring.

It was gorgeous for the plant swap last Saturday, but I was at the swap, not gardening, lol. Didn't we end up with something like 28 out of 31 days when it rained, often very heavily, during the month of May? We had over 7 inches of rain here in Westminster for the month; considering that the average annual rainfall is a bit more than 15 inches, that is a heck of a lot of rain to get in one month. And our soils, streams and rivers can't handle all this water very well. I thought the rain was done with us after the May monsoon, but the rain came back with a vengeance last night and we are in for more throughout today and over the weekend.

And what you said, Steve, is very telling: "The problem for garden plants is that they require more than one good day at a time." True - and gardeners themselves have the same problem! Neither I nor my plants are going to make it with the ratio of one day of sun to 29-30 days of rain a month!

Holly

We did some raised beds for the MIL for her knee replacement surgery, some cattle watering troughs. We've had so much rain our ground is saturated and the beds won't drain. So we bailed by hand today.

Oh, wow, Dan, bailing by hand does not sound fun at all. At least my raised beds are still draining OK, probably simply because of their location. My veggie garden is about 5 feet above the rest of my back yard so it gets to look down on the lake that the rest of the yard has become.

It was actually a pretty nice weekend, considering. There were major downpours of rain each evening which wiped out all the inroads I had made by pumping the water out of my backyard during the days, but we had lots of sun and blue skies during the daytime. In between pumping water out of my yard, I moved my compost heap - the pile was over my head, time to do something with it - and made a new raised bed out of the nice compost and soil that was under it. I then planted my beans in this new bed - 3 varieties of bush beans and one of pole beans.

Should have done this in the fall, but didn't - wanted remove a bunch of grass and dig out a couple of new beds for more veggies, planned to do this in May. HA! I have no idea where I am going to plant my squash and cucumbers if the soil never dries out enough so that it can be worked. Need to get the seeds planted soon or there won't be enough time left in the growing season!

Holly

Mr Overengineer Everything never thought the ground would be saturated in June so the raised bed wouldn't drain.

Holly, cucumbers could probably be planted in early July. Winter squash you might be behind the curve on but depending on how warm our fall is you MIGHT be able to squeeze them in now. If its summer squash you're after, they are quick like cucumbers. While the rest of us are on the downswing of the harvest thanks to PM, you'll be right in the middle of yours.

My winter squash and melons are going in very late, tomorrow. Temps and hail and rain rain rain drove the schedule, and we are scaling back harvest expectations here too.

I was indeed hoping to grow summer squash and a couple of varieties of winter squash along with some cucumbers, but I may have to scale that back. I will probably plant the seeds somewhere in the slop and hope for the best - maybe being planted in hills will help with the drainage (I am carefully ignoring Dan's sad discovery that his raised beds aren't draining) so hopefully the seeds will germinate instead of rotting in the ground.

Nothing would have prepared me for all the rain in May, but if I had prepared the ground/beds last fall, as I should have done, instead of deciding to wait until spring to do it, at least I would have had a place to plant all of my vegetables! I will be planning ahead a bit better this coming fall and hope to put in a couple more raised beds in preparation for planting the following spring.

Holly

I think we're going to retrofit the new raised beds with French drains, in case we ever get saturated soil this late in the year again. I took some clear plastic out and we're covering the new beds to repel the rain. Water bill will be fantastic!

Just what you wanted, I am sure, Dan - another garden project...... Sigh. I wish I could figure out a way to improve the drainage in my backyard but too big of a project for me, certainly, and I can't afford to hire anyone to do the work.

Yes, I agree that the water bills are not going to be very painful for quite some time! Supposed to start raining at some point today - I am actually surprised that the sun was out for a while earlier this morning - and not quit until late Friday. I am not looking forward to it. Getting tired of the smell of rotting vegetation around here, too - never really expected to experience that here in Colorado. And the mosquitos.... Another big sigh.

Holly

I have the smell of a wildfire this afternoon. Record heat and wind gusts above 30mph ... is this what I can expect for summer, 2015?

My first experience with a French drain was digging one for the neighbor when I lived on the northern California coast. It didn't really go anywhere, just towards the bar pit along the road. I'd bet that even back in those prehistoric days, it would have been illegal for him to run the pipe into the bar pit.

It served a purpose, however. I felt kinda proud that Ditchdigger Steve accomplished something when it felt like I was just digging a ditch and filling it again ...

Steve

Holly, try pre-sprouting the seeds if you're worried about rotting. However, with the 80+ days, even with an afternoon cool down, the soil ought to be warm enough that even with being so soggy, I would say that's not going to be a huge issue, dirt that is wet and COLD is more of a concern. Planting in hills will definitely help with drying AND warming, and I'd say go for it this weekend. Really, what's the worst that could happen?

As far as prepping beds, I always do that during our winter thaws, lol. I'm so weary of gardening in October that I need a break until it's time to order seeds January, which we very luckily get a good warm week or so about the same time. Then we usually have several warm spells between February and March when I can really do some heavy lifting, and then it's time for another break until planting in May or June. Of course, this cycle would never work in a place like the upper Midwest or the Northeast where the soil is frozen solid from November to April. The climate here on the Front Range DOES have it's perks eh?

If you want to send me some pictures of your yard (preferably with the standing water so I can tell the lay of the land better) I may be able to come up with some ideas.

Steve, I've made a career out of digging ditches and at some points, I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few people who can say they were paid an hourly wage to "go pound sand." A good many times, the sand I was pounding was going right into the ditch I had just finished digging!

The clouds are coming in this morning and we will be getting some rain today, but it is still holding off for a bit and we actually had two nice days in the garden in a row so it was a very nice break! I hope everyone got a break from the rain and hail and so that you could actually spend some quality time out in garden instead of sadly looking out at the results of the latest storm.

I did have to spend some time both days this weekend pumping water out of my backyard - got the "lake" down to a few puddles that were too shallow for me to pump out - but I also managed to mow the lawn, except for parts of the way-too-wet backyard, get a bunch of my houseplants outside for the summer, hill up my potatoes (again,) and actually found places so that I could plant all 5 varieties of squash. Most of them were bush types as opposed to vining types so I found room in my raised gardens for all but one. I put that one - which is supposed to get 15' long vines - gulp - in my front yard where it can spread out. It's a winter squash called "Pink Banana;" I've never grown it before and admit that I am hoping it won't get quite that big! Only one hill of each type (3 summer, 2 winter,) but I am happy, and I imagine that will be plenty of squash! Next project will be to find places to tuck in some cucumbers - I am thinking that these may go into containers so I don't have to deal with the soggy soil.

All of the beans I planted last week have germinated, many even have their first true leaves on them, the peas are starting to form pods, and I might have a couple of (little)tomatoes that will be ripe enough to eat later this week. The tomatoes and peppers probably need to be fertilized again - the "good stuff" is pretty well washed out of the soil after 1 1/2 months of rain - but at least everything has survived. (A different story for some of my perennials... :-( )

All in all, a good weekend; I hope everyone got to enjoy it.

Holly

I used to take a pink banana squash out and bust it open with an ax. It was for Thanksgiving pumpkin pie. but, that was is southern Oregon and over a half century ago. I may have tried growing them here but having them mature would be problematic.

I was just thinking how my snap peas, shell peas and snow peas are just about shot this year.

Here, it's lack of rain, too dry with some record highs last week and too much wind.

Just to the south is the pea & lentil "capital" of the US. They also grow some garbanzo beans. I wonder how the lentils & garbanzos are doing. Peas, too! I hate being an independent embarrassment to the region ...

Steve

Uh, oh - from your comment, Steve, my starting the squash so late may mean no Pink Banana's for us this year. I wanted to get the seeds in the ground nearly a month ago, but Mama Nature and her need to inundate us with rain had other ideas and, of course, as she usually does, she won.

Sorry to hear about your peas, Steve. :-( Wish we could have shared some of this rain with you - we sure didn't need it all! I wish I could have stored some of the water I pumped out of my backyard, too. I imagine I have sent at least 10,000 gallons of rainwater into the storm drain, and by the time mid-July gets here, we will probably be begging for rain again and I will be thinking longingly of all that wasted water!

Holly

We were looking at ID for our week-long backpacking trip this year, but lack of precip has changed those plans. Not sure if we are going to do one now, because of the weather. My peas are making up for yours, Steve. Not sure how to ship them to ID and keep freshness tho....