Gardening according to the Old Farmer's Almanac

Does anybody pay any attention to the Farmer's almanac anymore?

I remember my Granny and PawPaw did. They bought a 'fresh' copy each year, and would consult about all kinds of things in that little book. When to pull a tooth, when to cut hair, stop bad habits, but mostly, when to put seed into the ground.

This is the chart for July.

July 2008
1-2 Poor days for planting, seeds tend to rot in ground.
3-5 Most favorable for corn, okra, beans, peppers, eggplant and other aboveground crops. Plant seed beds and flower gardens.
6-10 A most barren period. Kill plant pests and do general farm work.
11-12 Favorable for planting peas, beans, and tomatoes and other fall crops bearing aboveground. Sow grains and forage crops. Plant flowers.
13-14 Extra good for fall cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, mustard greens and other leafy vegetables. Good for any above ground crop that can be planted now. Start seedbeds.
15-17 Seeds planted now will do poorly and yield little.
18-19 Good days for planting beets carrots, Irish potatoes and other root crops.
20-21 Good days for killing weeds, briar's and other plant pests, poor for planting.
22-23 Good days for planting beets, carrots, radishes, salsify, turnips, peanuts and other root crops. Also good for planting melons, cucumbers, pumpkins and other vine crops. Set strawberry plants.
24-25 A barren period.26-27 Root crops that can be planted now will yield well.
28-29 Poor days for planting, seeds tend to rot in ground.
30-31 Most fruitful days for planting root crops. Excellent for sowing seed beds and flower gardens.

I was about to plant a whole bunch of seeds this week, but this stopped me in my tracks. It just seems wrong to tempt failure.

I know, I know....but still.

Hit's Hott!...

I am not melting yet, but it is hot here.

Watering, watering. Everything dries out so fast, both from the heat, and from the incessant winds we have.

Weeding, always weeding. We weed a space big enough to make it worthwhile, then plant, plant, plant.

This evening we planted an Angel's Trumpet (pale yellow), a 'Flare' rose mallow, 2 pots of lilies, 1 Turk's cap, 5 pineapple sage, and moved many melampodium.

In the weeds, I found 3 verbena (red), LOTs of Society garlic, a nice pavonia rock rose, and 3 firebushes that look great with a little grooming,

There is still about a cazillion plants to put in the ground.

Tomorrow, we will set plumbago, esperanza, salvia, rosa 'Peggy Martin', RED porterweed, hardy begonia, Pride of Barbados, ginger, bulbine, ginger and ginger. And.....I have some additional melampodium, pepper 'Medusa', and pots of coreopsis to put in the orange and yellow garden.......... If I get that far!

While I am thinking about it.....

Bobby has been busy.

We found the 'legs' for this little bench at the dump. Our dump is fabulous for wonderful 'finds'. (I have a fantastic bird bath that came from there, but that is another story.)

Anyway, we found the supports, but the top was broken. The supports are very pretty, and solid, so we thought there might be something we could do with them. I actually had thought of some kind of monument, statuary thingie. Bobby was thinking to make it a bench again, all along.

So, a couple of weeks ago, he formed up the top and poured it, (along with another big alligator, but that is another story, too!) A few days of watering it to let it set up slow and cure good, and we have a bench for the front garden! He will have to smooth the edges with a rasp or a file to break the hard edges, but it is done! Another good project!

I love the oak leaves he impressed in the top. They came from the Bur Oak that he grew from an acorn.

That man is so clever.