Sun, 01 Jun 2008
Busy
I've been trying to find all the needed parts to put together my rain barrel. I have the barrel, thanks to Garden Maven Colleen and her brother, Brion. I've purchased a downspout diverter thingy and a spigout. I need something for the overflow. This has been a bit frustrating. I bought some PVC pipe and elbows at the local home center but got the wrong size. I need 2" and bought 1/2" so I returned the 1/2" items. I asked at the home center for a 2" flexible hose. No such animal available. They have 1/2", 3/4", 1", 1-1/2" and 4". No 2". O'kay, so I needed to go to the local garden center to pick up a few more plants to complete my flower planting. They actually have a rain barrell on display. A smallish size plastic barrel with a mesh top where the water pours in, a spigot at the bottom and a collapsing overflow tube. So, I thought they must sell the parts. Nope! The man who helped me was very nice. He suggested I drive around and pull some old hose out of someone's garbage. Pretty funny. I'm not above doing that and have found some very interesting things in the process, but I doubt I'll find any 2" flexible hose on a tree lawn waiting for me or the garbage collectors to scoop it up. So, I suppose I'll need to resort to 2" PVC pipe which I really don't want to use because it is somewhat ugly. Then I asked the garden center guy for some weed killer for my lawn. I told him I have ivy and a lot of weeds to get rid of. He initially thought I wanted to kill all my ivy. I tried to explain that I have ivy growing where I want it to grow, but that it has encroached into an area where only grass should grow. He told me to pull it out by hand. He said there isn't a weed killer that will kill it. I became frustrated and left without any week killer, even for the weeds I want to get rid of. Oy! I did get the flowers I needed. Today, aside from the store trip, I cut the grass, edged the ivy in the backyard with the weed whip, planted some flowers and planted some seeds in the garden. I put in dill weed, basil and Swiss chard. Next week, after the soil has really warmed up and certain bugs have finished their laying eggs cycle, I will plant cucumbers for pickle making along with green and wax beans. My radishes, carrots and lettuce have germinated and are doing well except for where someone stepped on them. I don't know who was in my backyard, but they stepped in one of my garden squares and sank down several inches since my soil is extremely friable and soft - just the way it should be. Oh, by the way, the photo shows some of my sweet woodruff. A lovely little plant that puts out a zillion dainty little white flowers each spring. It spreads well, too.
posted at: 21:42 | path: /peggy2008 | link for this entry