Central Midwest Gardening: September-Preparing for Fall, 3 by brendak654

brendak654 wrote:
Patti - Thanks for sharing that you forgot to take Tucker to the airport. We all get side tracked once in a while. At least the rest of the round trip was uneventful of mishaps. You asked a while back something to the effect of "Why all the canning?". I can because I enjoy growing veggies and I know what is in the can when I can it, and I grew up this way - living in the country where we could easily be snowed in for a week. Plus, it is always fun to share. Hope your company is having a great time while there. Enjoy!

I, too billyporte,r am still finding enough green beans to can. Yesterday I put up 5 qts and a couple pints - lost my pressure part way when I went to fix lunch and had to start the pressure over. Bummer.

Speaking of fall - I cannot believe how many leaves are falling in the yard. First picture was taken from the front porch this morn, and the second pix taken from the back deck. Trees are old hard maples. Lots of leaves though the trees are only slightly changing.

I've been junking and found some odd containers to plant hen & chicks in. Went to a Junkin Jamborie (or something like that). I thought this monkey (#3 photo) was adorable and the two brass swans (#4 on the floor) made for good potting containers for the hen & chicks. Of course none of the containers had drain holes, so DH took care of that issue with a diamond bit. A few weeks back, we were at an Ace Hardware and they had this brown bird bath with planting pockets. They had it on sale, and I thought "what a buy". Got it - the bowl is separate from the base. I have another on (the green one in pix 5) and it was lots more expensive than the brown one. Geesh - I did not realize, when I bought it, the brown one is completely open at the bottom. Probably wasn't as good of a buy as I had anticipated, but I made it work. Later in my running around, I found a bowl to use for the bottom to keep the dirt in. When I planted it and filled the base with dirt - I first put the base in the bowl on the caster base so I can move it around if need be on the deck. Anyhow I think it is going to work if the guinea will quit picking out the hen and chicks.

Time to go plant some peony that I purchased a couple days ago at a garden club plant sale and I should get those in the ground today - just in case it rains (that would make them happy). Then I have a whole list of other thing I should do, but I'm thinking of throwing the list in the trash and just doing whatever I reallllly want to do. Best I get busy.

EVERYBODY - HAVE A GREAT DAY!