summer

Been busy fishing for a house this summer, and finally caught one. I just got the inspection done, so I think I get to relax a little bit until I close on August 31, and then I get to panic about moving in and fixing stuff. But--house! And a big sunny 50x140 lot for a garden.

This year's container garden continues to chug along, although it needs some real fertilizer. (I needed more potting soil when I was planting stuff this spring, and could not easily carry the 30 pound bags of organic soil home on the bus and did not feel like mooching a ride, so instead I bought Miracle Gro soil, because it came in smaller bags. Stuff looked okay at first, but now some of the leaves are yellowing.) Still, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers all have either baby fruit or flowers on them, my fuchsia is blooming and my dahlias are just starting to. Dill got a case of the aphids, but has somewhat recovered, and parsley, basil and rosemary are all doing well. No swallowtails on the parsley this year... I think the seeds took too long to germinate and the butterflies passed me over.

I'm itching to get in my house, and it seems like a month and a half is an incredibly long time to wait (but I wanted to give the little old lady who lives there now time to pack up the 60+ years of stuff she has packed in there). I'm not in any huge rush to see how much it's going to cost to replace the boiler and put in insulation, but I really, really want to start working in the yard and prepping it for next year's garden--blot out some of the turfgrass, plant some perrenials, make friends with the neighbors who have apple and plum trees planted in their yard. Taking possession in September will still give me time to do all that before winter, but I want to do it now.