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Watering the Garden

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I’m sitting here writing and trying to water my raised flower beds at the same time. It’s not easy doing both at once.

I’ve purchased several sprinklers over the last few years and I haven’t been happy with any of them. Not a one. They either throw the water out too far for my tiny yard, or barely water two or three feet of garden space.

When my parents passed away a couple of years ago, I decided that I wanted some of their sprinklers. So, right now I’m trying out the two I brought back from my parents house.

One is a little round head. It shoots the water upward like a fountain. It only covers at the most about three feet of space. At least with my poor water pressure any way. I used it to water the raspberries. I put it under a few of them and let the water shoot up between the raspberry plants. It seemed to work well enough, but to do all of my raised beds that way will take forever.

So I decided to try out the other sprinkler that I inherited. It has a curved bar that is horizontal. Their are water holes on either end and a couple of water holes in the middle of the bar. The water pressure is supposed to make this thing spin around. Unfortunately when I hooked it up to my hose it spluttered and gurgled and didn’t spin. So I got closer and moved it around myself and then ran away as the water started to pour out the ends.

Spin, spin, splutter, gurgle, spin, spin. Well, that ones covering about three feet of space too, but it’s flooding the flower bed.

I think that if I’m going to continue trying to write and water at the same time it’s going to take all night. Why is it so much faster to water by hand with the hose? Weren’t sprinklers invented so that we could water and do other activities at the same time? Why can’t I find a decent sprinkler?

Do anyone else have trouble with sprinklers?

Have you found one that works for you that you’d care to tell me about?

Ok, well, I’d better go out and move that darn thing over three feet or so.

Update 11:45 p.m. : I gave up with the sprinklers after trying a third one shaped something like the last one … it didn’t spin, it just shot water out the sides. So I ended up hand watering after all that wasted time. Really folks if you know of a good sprinkler that can be used in a small garden let me know!






Creatures of the dark

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RaccoonMeet my little friend – isn’t he cute?

Right, uh huh …

It seems that this little creature – or one just like him, and I are destined to meet.

I tend to water in the evenings. Yes I know that isn’t always the best thing for garden plants but I really have had few problems develop by doing so. I water in the evening because I live next to two older ladies, uh, elderly ladies and they each come outside and water twice a day.

One in particular tends to follow me around, or worse she waits until I’m as far away from her as I can possibly be, and then she asks me a question or comments on the weather or some such thing.

“Huh, what? I can’t hear you?”

So I stop what I’m doing and walk over to where she is – usually on her porch – and get her to repeat whatever she had said. After a short conversation I try to get back to work, only to be interrupted several times. What should be a half hour job turns into a two hour job because of these ladies and other adjoining neighbors.

Having explained the background, hopefully you can see why I’ve taken to watering in the late evening, and even after dark?

My garden is small, but it’s full of plants, and as a result it can take more than two hours to water it adequately if I only water every second or third day. Most of the plants are in the backyard, therefore most of my time is spent in the back, in the semi-dark, and with the possibility of meeting up with Mr. and or Mrs. Raccoon. Oh and their kids too!

And that is what has been happening lately!

We have a raccoon that seems to think that the backyard is his or hers. It hangs out on the fence between our house and our other neighbors and watches me in the yard. I’m not all that happy with this situation. It’s not always there … sometimes it shows up after I’ve been watering for a while, like last night.

tea-party7 I heard scritch scritch scritch and looked over, and there on top of my neighbors covered patio was the raccoon. He or she was just about to climb onto my fence, and from there who knows where it would have gone. I turned quickly, hose in hand and dialed the nozzle to Jet and sent a stream flying at him! You should have seen him run!

Victory was mine! I felt like one of Charlies Angels with that move. My trusty water hose and nozzle saved the day.

Naturally after that adrenaline rush I was nervous. So much for my victory. It might come back!

So what did I do? No I didn’t stop watering. My garden was thirsty, but I do have to say, it probably didn’t get as much as it would have had the raccoon not made my heart pitter patter. I stood in my yard near the patio, not too far from the porch and safety inside the enclosed back room, and watered from there. I put the hose on a strong but wide stream and hit all the plants in the back corners and back borders. The plants closer to me got a little more accurate watering.

So how do I get the raccoons to stop hanging out in my yard? It’s not like there’s any garbage that they can get into in the back. They dig in a few of my plants now and then but otherwise don’t really cause any damage. Not so bad really … it’s just that I like being outdoors around the same time that they seem to come out and I don’t like meeting them face to face.

They’ve never been around this much. Before they used to just walk through our yard and move onto one of our neighbors yards – used ours like a freeway I guess. But I’ve been sick this year and haven’t been out as much – especially after dark, so I think this has given them a chance to stop and look around and say “Hey, this is a nice place to hang out”.

What’s your thoughts on raccoons hanging out in the backyard? Should I just stop going out there after dark and let them win? Unfortunately, that would mean braving my neighbors attention and everything taking two or three times longer than it should take to get done. Nope … I gotta figure out a way to scare the pesky raccoons away, because my neighbors are worse! Help!

Neglect

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I’ve been off work since the beginning of December due to a Crohn’s flare. I thought that since I was home I’d be able to putter in the garden and that it would look just lovely this year. However, I’m still not feeling all that well and I’m sorry to say that I haven’t been in my garden anywhere near as much as I’d like to be.

I purchased a number of annual flowers to plant in the garden at oh, the beginning of May. These plants are to fill some baskets – hanging and otherwise, containers and a few are to fill some empty spaces in my flower bed boarders. I purchased well over 300 plants! Just little ones, you know the ones that come in containers of four? Yep …. 300+ in total.

I managed to plant 9 hanging baskets, and put some marigolds around the border of our boulevard garden bed but that’s it. I still have many containers of plants to be planted.

My garden also needs some tidying. The roses are going wild since they are so much bigger this year due to our mild winter. I have to get out there and put some stakes in the ground and tie those unruly plants so they look tidier and straighter. I also have some red cedar mulch that I want to put down on the beds.

I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me and I hope to get most of it done this week before it starts to get too hot.

Wish me luck!

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