November 15, 2017
I've never had aphids up in the florets of cauliflower heads before, but this year one of the plants in the greenhouse did. They got up into the tiniest crevasses and sucked the plants juices until they got too fat to get them out. I kept breaking the head into smaller and smaller pieces and spraying them with the hose until I got down to quarter inch florets with aphid still stuck inside. Had to throw the whole head away. What a shame. The cauliflower leaves are making a great weed barrier though..
I keep layering them on top every time I harvest a head and underneath the Creeping Jenny is turning yellow. The leaves are not drying out like in the summer so they don't look like mulch. They look like something I forgot to pick up. Although mulching with garden waste is a sound gardening principal, it takes time to learn what is tollerable to your aesthetic discression. I've learned that I don't like green looking mulch..
November 16, 2017
I didn't even get into the garden today. Too much other stuff going on. If I had I probably would have just sat in the greenhouse with the door propped open because it was raining. Us old timers are chock full of memories and can spend enumerable hours recollecting the good times. At peace with our past and devoid of agenda we can relive all the precious moments. As a young gardener I would sometimes seek the solitude of the garden as refuge away from the hustle and bustle of a busy life..
Now I bring the peacefulness with me. Garden chores keep old bones limber so I need to get up from my recollections periodically and engage in physical activity. Then I get to sit again, content in the knowledge of being alive. We have but this heartbeat..
November 17, 2017
The Aster flowers had all turned to mush so I cut the plants back to the ground. I used the cuttings to mulch along a corn patch that had Creeping Jenny moving in on it. Every Spring I've had to weed it back a foot so maybe this will eliminate that chore. It looks like a short green hedge but maybe I'll get used to it. The 1'x12' plank that I laid along the pea trellis to keep the weeds back is working well..
It's on its third move away from the trellis and the ground is weed free. I've even used pulled up Creeping Jenny piled on top of Creeping Jenny to slow it's onward momentum down. It's too soon to tell if that's effective or not, but I'm pretty much willing to try anything to get out of having to turn a compost pile..
