Stormy Weather

Thunder and lightning and sirens - oh my! Last night things got a bit wild weatherwise. Since I purchased a digital converter box for my ancient TV, I can view local weather from NOAA while listening to that weird voice mispronounce names of local towns. My dog Betsy hates storms, trembles and pants and tries to plaster herself against me. She already gets anxious when it rains. Now she will probably associate those warning tones with incoming storms. (BTW, 0.75" of rain fell.)

I tried to get some photos this morning, but the cloud cover and the wind made it difficult. The climbing rose is peaking. One lonely scabiosa poked its head above the weeds in the front of the house. 'Jethro Tull' is recovering nicely from its transplant operation. And the 'Health Kick' tomato has blossoms.

A co-worker told me her neighbor advised her to pick off the first tomato blossoms. I have never heard of this. I think the only time I would do this is if the tomatoes were blossoming before nighttime temperatures stayed above 50 degrees, but I usually don't put out my tomatoes until then anyway. Besides, you can never have a too-early tomato from the garden.

A book I am perusing is Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza. It's another no-work gardening book, but I am going to give this method a try. The basic premise is, instead of tilling and digging and throwing out your back, you create garden beds by layering compostable materials, starting with newspaper to kill the sod. I have plenty of newspaper, but coming up with the rest of the ingredients will be difficult, especially now that I have no trees in the backyard. In the fall, I can invite my neighbors to just toss their leaves over the fence, but in the meantime, I guess I will purchase some of what I need, like sphagnum moss.

Today the estimator from a local construction company is supposed to come to, well, give me an estimate on my room addition. He was supposed to come Thursday but rescheduled, then was supposed to come Friday but had car trouble. We'll see if he shows up today. Not a good first impression. I ordered "Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite 8.0" from Amazon because I am anxious about anyone understanding what it is that I want. Also, this remodeling is giving me more ideas about making my house more livable. The software package includes a landscaping module. Woo-hoo!