I can’t help myself…

The milkweed plants are amazing!  The fragrance of the flowers fills my living room!  The first picture was taken at eye level and the second was with my camera being held up high.

The first person…

…who asks me what it is will get an invitation to help me move it!!  I can see it painted with plants, birdhouses, bells or whatever hanging from the hooks that are already there!!  ReStore $10.  It’s so heavy I can’t move it myself.

Beautiful!

Why do folks call these weeds??

Milkweed–up to 6 feet now…

More dirt…

…actually it’s only part of what I got but check out the sunset on the way back!!

        

Self-watering!!!

This is SO cool!  I’m going to work on it!

Black-eyed Susans!

Either they got too heavy or a dog trampled them but to the rescue is something I thought I would never use…  and, realistically..  may never again..  but it is keeping them together!!

I’m confident…

there will be tomatoes, peppers and lettuce and hopeful there will be squash, cucumbers, pumpkins, eggplants and watermelons!

                         

Lettuce

hhmm  …  So when do you harvest lettuce I wonder?  Looks fine to me… Maybe I’ll have a salad!

  

  

Totally is my plan!

After rabbit damage this past winter this is my plan~  I just saw this on Facebook…  thank you Chris Rice, whoever you are!

Your newly planted tree is a food source for rabbits. Rabbits can severely damage trees by girdling the trunks or major branches or by completely severing the growing points of terminal leaders on small trees.

To protect your newly planted trees from rabbits make a cylinder out of rabbit wire and attach it to a stake with wire. Place landscape fabric around your tree and then pound the stake into the ground to support the rabbit wire. push the rabbit wire 2 inches into the soil to give it more support and to prevent rabbits from going underneath. Put some wood chip mulch on the landscape cloth around the tree. Leave protection in place for several years.

You have to provide protection for newly planted trees because we are not just feeding rabbits!

Oh no!

A trip to the back 40 revealed that “something” (possum maybe) decided to eat/play with(?) one of the squash plants.  SO at 9:30 (yes it’s almost dark) I put a temporary fence up …  not that it would keep a critter out if it really wanted to get in but maybe a deterrent…  at least it would slow it down.  The first picture shows how far from the pot ground and the stake was…  and Jake is clearly following the scent.

   

Progress!

Ran out of dirt but did get the ones planted that I wanted to get planted.  Can’t have tomatoes in each one so I read because they will be too squished together!

 

AAKKK… What’s this??

On my blueberry bush?

Do over…

At first I though that the concrete blocks on the wire would be enough but now I realize that expensive 1/4” wire is useless if the blocks are 1/2”  apart..  Guess I’ll have to start cutting now…

Love my tractor!

Because the concrete blocks were a bit away from the new raised beds I was making I tried to put 2 blocks on the wagon..  that didn’t work..  it was uphill.  Then I got the wheelbarrow…  not even close to being able to do it.  Then I thought…  I have a TRACTOR!!   Ta DA!

Snow shovels aren’t just for winter!

This was great for pulling dirt from the fence to level it off!

All I was going to do…

was to plant some tomatoes in dirt…  of course that would be too easy.  So I put the weed barrier down and space the tomato cages (look carefully there are 6).  Then I thought…  concrete blocks!

   

Ready for dirt!

….and the variety pack of heirloom tomatoes that was a free add-on to my seed order! 

Plant markers

I love my plant markers…  they will, of course, be fancier next year but that darn cheap fence that’s been laying around the yard has provided me with an abundance of these….  no more begging the gal at Menards for just a few more paint stirrers!

   

The straw bale project…

…at least the plants are there now instead of in my driveway!!  Now to plant them in the straw…  and add a few more piles with the ones in the first photo for the melon plants (watermelon and muskmelon aka cantaloupe where I come from!).

…squash, eggplant and cucumbers are here:

  

Blackberries

Another plant I thought was a goner this year but it too has come back! 

Blackberries will go here… eventually…

A sea of milkweed!

Now where are those butterflies?  These pictures were taken facing different directions!

    

And the picture below was taken a few days before the ones above from the deck.

Click here for “Plant Milkweed: Monarch Butterfly Populations on the Brink” and a video “Great Migrations – Monarch Butterflies”