Weekly journal of a Midwest gardener, which includes mowing, watering, reading, killing some weeds, and more harvesting.
Hot like summertime, so I watered containers and picked tomatoes and a few cucumbers early. I also sprayed weeds in the cracks of the sidewalk with the organic “kills any plant” weed killer and lamented that I had used it on some dandelions in the lawn. Now I have dead spots dotting the lawn. Oh well. The grass should grow back in those spots over time.1 In other garden news, the resurrection lilies have started to bloom, a sure sign that summer is waning. But the really good news of the day was that a big thunderstorm rolled through around suppertime and dropped over an inch of rain on the garden.2 “We needed that,” said the old-timer in me.
Not too much to report from the garden. I watered what was under cover on the porch, but left the rest of the containers on the patio to luxuriate in the rain water from yesterday. I didn’t even go out to check to see if there was anything to pick from the Vegetable Garden Cathedral. My oldest sister stopped by to drop off a few more items for our family time capsule3 and showed me how to date old green Ball canning jars. I think I have at least one from the early 1900s. I use it as a vase for Lego flowers!
I watered per usual and did enough deadheading and weeding to fill one medium sized bag. I also sprayed more weeds in the cracks of the sidewalk where I had missed them on Monday. Out in the Vegetable Garden Cathedral, I almost walked right through a giant spiderweb with a big giant garden spider in it! Thank goodness I saw it and stopped just in time!4 Anyway, I picked some tomatoes and peppers, a cucumber or two, and a few more green beans before remembering to check the squash plants. I didn’t expect to find any squash, so of course I immediately found two big squashes that should have been picked yesterday, or even on Monday. Oops. Squash happens. Later, I helped my sister pick out a retirement gift for a co-worker at a local garden center.5
I was back in the mowing-saddle again this morning—metaphorically speaking because I use a push mower, not a riding mower—after not mowing last week. No, I didn’t just let the lawn get all tall and scraggly by skipping last week. As if I’d ever do that. It just didn’t need to be cut because it had been dry for several weeks before Monday’s much-needed rain.6 I could maybe even have waited a few more days to mow but decided to get back on schedule today, plus there was rain in the weekend forecast. But before mowing, I watered containers and checked on the Vegetable Garden Cathedral and watered all the houseplants. After mowing, I trimmed the edges and cleaned off the sidewalks. “Nicely done, Carol, nicely done.”7 Later in the afternoon, I also write a new blog post.8
It’s not everyday that you see a man wearing a kilt working at a retail store. But I saw one today, while shopping after lunch. But let me back up to morning. After watering everything, I ran a couple of errands, one of which took me to Costco for a quick return. Might as well look around a bit while I was there, even though I was just there a few days ago. Right? That’s how I found the new Lego Hanging Golden Pothos set, which I will soon be building. Did I miss it on Tuesday or did they just get it?9 No matter. I have it now. And yes, I also still need to try out the new PlayDoh Bloom kits I bought the week before last.
I woke up to a garden soaked from the very best kind of rain, a slow, steady rain that arrived in the early hours of the morning. Every gardener was doing a happy dance over it, or at least I was, though I was doing it in my mind, not literally. Because of the rain, it was mostly an indoor day, but it was going to be mostly an indoor day anyway. Dee and I recorded another podcast episode, which I edited later in the afternoon. In between I cleaned up a bit in the house. Then late afternoon, another storm rolled through and we got more rain, and a tornado warning!10 Now the garden was truly soaked, so I continued to stay out of it. Wet gardens need their alone time to soak it all up, then dry off!
I’m getting used to the new routine of going to church on Sunday mornings instead of Saturday evenings.11 After church, it was raining a bit, then cloudy, then by suppertime, the sun was shining. After a quick evening tour around the garden, I decided that I should definitely spend some time weeding and deadheading in the coming week before the next round of rain arrives, possibly late next week, if one believes the weather forecast. Regardless, I should have no trouble pulling out weeds in the softened-by-rain soil, and the garden will look much nicer after deadheading too. Oh, and I’ll bet there are some vegetables to pick in the Vegetable Garden Cathedral, which I ignored all weekend.
This was the week I was going to try to trap that ground hog who has been doing a bit of digging in my lawn and the neighbors’ lawns on each side of me. I bought a trap. I set it up. Then I looked at it. My goodness, it was a big trap. Then I came to my senses and realized that I had no idea what I would do with a ground hog if I actually caught one. Apparently, it’s against the law to just dump off wild animals wherever you’d like. And no way could I kill it. And I read they often have rabies. So, I disassembled the trap, put it all back in the box, and will return it to the store where I bought it. If I continue to see ground hog damage, I guess I’ll have to convince my neighbor to set a trap and deal with it or call in a professional. Yes, more and more, I’m inclined to call a professional to take care of stuff like trapping wild animals. After all, say it with me, that’s what one does when one is in her spinstercore era of gardening.
“August is ripening grain in the fields blowing hot and sunny, the scent of tree-ripened peaches, of hot buttered sweet corn on the cob. Vivid dahlias fling huge tousled blossoms through gardens and joe-pye-weed dusts the meadow purple.” ~ Jean Hersey
Until next week,
With a shared love of gardening and reading,12
Of course, I would have preferred not to get 1.22 inches of rain in less than an hour, but I’ll still take it and more please.
If you are new here or have forgotten, my sisters and I are putting together a family time capsule for the semiquincentennial, with instructions for my great-nieces and great-nephews to open it in 2076 for the tricentennial of the U.S. We still have a few more items to collect, plus I need to write up an inventory and a letter to put in it, and some instructions to put on the outside. And get some pictures of everyone off my phone and printed. It has been a fun project and we have collected some interesting 21st century and family artifacts.
I met my sister at a local garden center to help her and two of her co-workers select a retirement gift for another co-worker. She initially thought of buying a rose or small tree but then we all agreed we had no idea what their co-worker already had in her garden. So they opted for a stepping stone with a lovely quote (which I can’t remember), some good gardening gloves, and a gift card. Perfect!
While mowing, I finished The Botanist’s Assistant by Peggy Townsend (2025), a mystery which has loads of fun plant references. So many poisonous plants! Then I started Big Bad Wool by Leonie Swann, the second of two books with sheep detectives.
I went to trivia night on Thursday. You know, some nights just aren’t your night. We missed some easy questions and changed from the correct answer to a wrong answer at least twice. But even after all that, we had a chance to place as high as second with the last question, but we missed it, lost the points we wagered, and ended up in sixth place. Oh, well. A good time had by all!
The new blog post, And the Garden Fairies Laughed, was written by the garden fairies. “Views of the garden fairies are theirs alone.”
I think Costco just got the Hanging Golden Pothos kit on Friday, July 31. Per the Lego site, it was being introduced on August 1.
I measured .90 inches of rain in the morning on Saturday, then the weather station recorded another 1.48 inches of rain from the late afternoon storm. But there was more! Sunday morning, the outdoor rain gauge had an additional .12 inches of rain in it, so, adding it all up… from Saturday into Sunday morning, we got 2.50 inches of rain, plus a bit more from later on Sunday morning, which I have yet to measure. Thank you, August! You got the rain memo that July ignored.
At the beginning of July, my church was assigned a new priest, who has two churches to juggle, so we no longer have a Saturday evening mass, just a Sunday morning mass.
I finished reading Receipts from a Bookshop by Katie Clapham (2026), which I read mostly at night before going to sleep. I chose Letter from New York by Helene Hanff (1992) as the next physical book to read. I bought it from Blackwell’s because I couldn’t find it for sale on Bookshop.org and the used copies on Amazon were pricey. Here’s a description of it.) On my Kindle, I am continuing to read Dear Hugo by Molly Claverling (1955) and then the library served up a copy of The Feast and the Artist by Lucy Steeds. So now I’m going back and forth reading both books.
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