August Garden Ramblings

Since I have made my last post about gardens and such, we have had rain and lots of it! It's actually been a good rain, unlike the never ending torrents that have plagued other parts of New England. For the most part, it's been raining every couple of days if not a little bit every day. It has been a complete relief not having to water constantly. I had to water the veggie garden this afternoon because it's been a couple of days since we have had some rain and they aren't used to it being a little bit drier.

The bounty of the veggie garden continues with tomatoes, herbs, summer squash, and cukes. I just made Zucchini-Basil bread tonight with a zucchini that had been left out there a little too long and achieved baseball bat status. It really smells delightful and I can't wait to try it! I also figured out what the heck to do with the Lemon Balm I planted for the heck of it this spring. I've been enjoying Lemon Balm Tea on a regular basis and man, is it good! I was over at Ocean State Job Lot this afternoon and picked up a ton of seed packets for this fall and this coming spring. I know that the packets are dated for this year but I have always had good yields from using last year's seeds. Speaking of seeds, I just started peas, lettuce, mesculin mix, and broccoli in the little greenhouse and will seed a bunch of white asian radishes in the garden once the carrots are harvested.

The pond is good and the batting is clearing the water pretty well in the bigger part closer to the house because that's where the skimmer and the pumps are. The back deeper section is clearer but not like the front pond. Once we could see the fish fairly well and took a head count, we did learn the heron took some fish, Petey (Eric's favorite) was one of them as well as a couple smaller flashy looking koi. That's a complete bummer. So, maybe later this fall or next spring we'll replace them. Those water lilies are still blooming their heads off and my singing frog is out there croaking away. So, life at Lake Larson is good.

Work wise things are good and busy...not stupidly busy, but good busy. I'm starting the design for 2009's flower show and I think it will be great. We're going to do an Italian/Tuscan theme this year because the overall show theme is "Gardens of the World. " I have the building and hardscape layouts figured out and have to wait on the plant material until I get the list from the garden center that forces a lot of our material. Jim, one of my longest term clients and the owner of the 2006 RINLA Excellence Award Design winner, sent me a photo of his "Back 40" garden this summer.

His yard is one of my favorite projects...and this year with all of this rain, it is nothing short of spectactular! I was over there yesterday to discuss some new trees for an undeveloped part (and there aren't many of them left) of his yard. There are parts of his garden that take my breath away! Jim's yard is soon to get some national exposure with Lawn and Landscape Magazine. They had contacted me through email earlier this summer regarding Intergrated Pest Management (IPM) asking me how I do IPM in my business. I guess they had found me on The Underground. Since I don't do pest control myself for my clients but give advice on how to control problems, I didn't think I was going to be very helpful. But the fact that I design with less pest prone plants and use native/sustainable plant material was extremely interesting to them. So, I talked with one of the editors for some length about how I design with lower maintenance plants and my information will be used in the article. He also asked me to send some photos of my work using sustainable plants. So, Jim's yard and the 2007 RINLA Excellence Design Award winner's yard were sent along. Just this week, they asked me to send more photos...so I sent a couple more of Jim's place and one photo of my yard. I guess the issue with my input will be coming out next month. I'll keep you all posted on that article.

Let's see...dog front - Sam continues to improve which is almost along the same lines as a miracle. He's gone back to his Wednesday afternoons at the assisted living home and I think he missed the residents as much as they did him. We went to the vet on this past Monday for tests and a weigh in - 74 pounds. Oh my...I think he looks much heavier now, I can only imagine what he did weigh at his worst. I would like to get him up around 100 pounds at some point. His blood work was good as were the other tests. So, he doesn't need any meds and we have to go back in 3 - 4 months for more tests just to monitor him. The monkey is now 8 months old and is working in a bunch of different things - pre-agility, rally, obedience, and breed ring handling. Needless to say, he keeps me busy. I'm so thrilled how well he's taken to the pre-agility class we've been doing this summer. I wanted to see if the drive to do agility was there and boy is it ever! He's a machine tackling the obstacles even at 8 months. If I can get my act together and he learns to watch and follow me, I think we may be pretty good at this. I'll close this entry with a photo I took earlier this week...tug of war complete with knocking over furniture!