The Old Guy's Garden Record

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Friday, August 1, 2025

We finally have some decent weather returning. There is only a slight chance of rain. High temperatures for the next few days will stay around eighty degrees before going back up to the high eighties and low nineties.

I tried mowing around 11:30 am, but the grass was still too wet to mow. We also have standing water in some low spots of our property. I went back out to mow a little after noon. The grass was really high and still a bit wet. I had the mower's blade set way up and mowed half widths. I didn't get done until after four, a job that usually takes only a couple of hours.

I sprayed Roundup herbicide a day or so ago around our back porch and down our front sidewalk. Weeds had overgrown the back porch area. I still have some other areas to spray, but that will come after the mowing.

I took a look at the tomatoes I'd been watching ripen. While they looked good on one side, they'd both rotted on the shady side inside the plant.

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Thursday, August 7, 2025

There's just not much to write about here these days. Heavy rains and the return of really warm days have prevented cleaning up our gardening plots. But other than garlic or maybe some kale and a few short season carrots, there's not much that can be planted to good effect.

Our population of hummingbirds has begun to decrease. I’m not seeing the mobs of birds at our main feeder that were present earlier this week. That’s a good sign that some of the birds have begun their fall migration south.

To help the birds for their long flight, I increased the amount of sugar in their nectar last week. Our usual mix is a 4:1 ratio of water to sugar. The sweeter mix is to help the birds add some weight before they migrate.

Today's only gardening job was spraying Roundup on some weeds around our back porch and on our burn pile. The weeds around the pile had pretty much hidden the wood to be burned in the pile.

I did pick four almost ripe tomatoes today. One had some rot on it and the others had a bit of bug damage. But...we have some fresh tomatoes at last!

Saturday, August 9, 2025

I’m working my way through washing all the used trays (and pots and inserts) that have accumulated on and around our back porch. I scrubbed thirteen Perma-nest trays this morning that had soaked overnight. Then I put twenty or thirty 1020 trays to soak. The Perma-nest trays got dried on the grass and then stored in the basement for next season.

BTW: If you're looking for the tall humidity domes that fit Perma-nest trays, Park Seed sells them, but they don't currently have any of the trays in stock. True Leaf Market has the trays.

I knew I needed to mow today. But when I got home from shopping at two o'clock, there was still dew on the grass! And by then, the heat index was way over a hundred. Maybe tomorrow.

Sunday, August 10, 2025

Continuing with my clean-up efforts, I scrubbed and rinsed the black 1020 seed flats I'd soaked overnight. Then I put a bunch of four and four and a half inch pots in to soak. There are still lots more pots and hanging baskets to be washed and stored. Fortunately, we're into what may be a long, hot, dry spell that will allow drying the washed pots on the lawn. And yes, I'd definitely welcome some cooling weather, but I've got to work with what I've got.

We're beginning to get some tomatoes at last. Our first ripe tomato last year came on June 29. But everything gardening this season has been weird. These first tomatoes aren't very pretty, but they're a start. And yes, I've already feasted on a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.

I ran our riding lawn mower into our main raised garden bed today. I knocked down the weeds growing there. But the main purpose of the mowing was to allow picking tomatoes from the sunny side of our tomato planting without having to walk throught weeds to get to the tomatoes.

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Our youngest apple tree is losing lots of its lower leaves. Having some fruit tree spray still in the sprayer, the tree got sprayed yesterday morning. Then I added some Captain Jack's Deadbug Brew to the sprayer, intending to spray our butternut squash vines. Captain Jack’s seems quite effective in preventing squash bug eggs from hatching. But that spray had to wait until this morning, as the blooms were open and bees visiting them. And it was really hot out. As it turned out, there were a couple of early bees visiting blooms this morning that had opened in previous days. But I got the spray done.

The tree is a Stayman Winesap. It needs a bit of pruning. It and another Winesap and our Yellow Delicious tree appear to have shed all their apples. I see no signs of disease on the other two apple trees and am assuming the dropped apples are due to the crazy weather we've had so far this summer.

I rinsed a lot more pots and put a whole lot more to soak. Sadly, I found even more dirty pots in our plant room that need to be washed. By the time I'd finished other chores, the area where the pots are soaking was in the sun and very hot. The rinsing will have to wait a day.

Talk about waiting! Our lawn is a mess, but I refuse at my age to mow with a heat index well over a hundred.

Gloxinias

Our first pollinated gloxinia bloom was ready to shed seed today! I carefully pinched off its stem and squeezed the seed pod over a paper plate bowl, releasing hundreds of seeds. The stem and seed pod will dry down some more and should shed a bit more seed.

And, we have several clusters of gloxinia blooms now to enjoy. While our previous blooms were from older plants, these blooms are from first or second year plants.

Saturday, August 16, 2025

It's been a challenging week. The heat prevented me from doing much of anything outside other than washing pots when it was cooler in the mornings and the pots soaking in the shade. I'm just about done with that job.

Two of our family members had disasters this week. One was diagnosed with cancer, but a form apparently treatable with surgery. Another totaled their car and got some jail time for a DUI. But several of our daughters stepped up big time to help me in dealing with those things.

My wife, Annie, had been away helping clean out her late mother's house. Now home, she volunteered to mow in the ninety degree plus heat. I let her.

The heat is supposed to break a bit next week. I hope to get some serious weeding done then.

Sunday, August 17, 2025

We had a bit of rain overnight, but not much. I began mowing our back yard at around one, and the grass was dry! We still have the field next to us to mow, but that probably won't happen until tomorrow. I've gotta say that the John Deere X570 model is a dependable workhorse. Our first one lasted seven years before burnt valves took it out. The current one is also seven years old, but is doing really well. If you have to mow an acre or so, it might be a good choice. We mow around three acres with ours.

I finished up cleaning the last of our dirty pots today. Cleaning and storing the pots turned out to be a bigger job than I thought. But with the last of the pots cleaned, I was able to dump the wash water out of my garden cart, which I need for other garden chores.

I have a nice bunch of gloxinias in bloom, but haven't gotten them to shed pollen yet for hand pollination and seed saving. I've moved the plants into an area where they'll get more morning sun through our bay windows.

Sunday, August 31, 2025 - August Wrap-up

With the late start we got on our garden and then incredibly hot weather, I've just given up on gardening for this season. I still pick a few tomatoes each day and check our butternut vines for damage, but other than that, our garden is shot.

To regular readers of this site, my apologies. There has been a lot going on in my life this month. One of our daughters had what appears to be successful cancer surgery a week or so ago. My lovely wife totaled our 2014 Honda CR-V. And I had to bail a family member out of jail, something difficult because my truck was down. Two wonderful stepdaughters helped me out on that one.

My old 2014 Chevy Silverado is now working after five days in the shop for brakes, oil pan, air conditioning repair, and a bunch of other stuff. The repair bill was almost $4,000! But the old truck has only 64,000 miles on it.

And...I'm not aging as gracefully as I'd wish. I should be outside trimming our shrubbery and/or pulling T-posts and weeds out of our garden plots. Instead, I'm inside in air conditioned comfort writing this piece

The Moira tomatoes shown above right have just about finished fermenting in their juices and are ready to be cleaned and dried later on today. I did a small batch of Moira seed earlier.

We're getting enough good tomatoes to eat and to save seed from, but not enough to can.

I tell all about Saving Tomato Seed in a how-to. It's not hard to do, it just takes some time. And obviously, one saves seed only from open pollinated varieties.

We're also getting a fairly good harvest now of gloxinia seed. There's also a how-to on our site on Saving Gloxinia Seed.

When working on drying saved seed, I noticed something I may have missed in the past. Our paper plates are all Dixie brand because they're made in the U.S..

Along the edge of the larger plates, I was surprised to see the words "BPI Compostable - Compostable Except in CA."

Being rather cautious about what goes into our compost piles, I'm trying adding some of the plates to the compost. We'll see in a month or so how that works out.

One bright spot when I step out onto our back porch is seeing a salmon geranium in full bloom in a planter over our cistern cover.

And another bright spot in what has been a dismal month. Our youngest daughter, Julia and her husband and children, drove in for a family gathering from D.C.! We had dinner last night with three of our four daughters and five of our nine grandchildren.

A special thanks to readers who have recently clicked through one of our text or banner ads and bought something. We actually got a commission check from Amazon this month!

Contact Steve Wood, the at Senior Gardening