Did about 6 Bright Lights chard seeds in a box, liberated the hostas into the hanging baskets (currently hanging S side of house outside master bath), direct-seeded some lavender into a 4″ pot. Dumped the columbine out behind/around the moonflower trellis. Need to thin the moonflowers; got a little crazy. Should remove the two that haven’t grabbed on yet.

Into the seed starter: 12 BL chard, 12 (6×2) nevada lettuce, 12 Sweet surprise cabbage. 6 Twinkle eggplants for giggles.

In the mail: two kinds of beets, mesclun mix, hot chocolate rose for bedroom garden. Possibly some other impulse buys.

Inventoried the seed box, should get rid of all the morning glory packets, just keep the ones mom gave me ages ago; some might take still. Have an embarrassment of tomato seeds, particularly the heirlooms that never made it down this year. Should toss the McMaters and go heirloom-only from now on. Have 1 packet penstemon, which is a digitalis: no go for the back yard. Give away.

Two containers of sad Home Depot tomatoes aren’t going to do anything unless I find more sun, but I think it’s going to cool off too much. Sad HD cucumber is going to need me to pollinate them if they’re going to do anything, but outlook is poor.

South side under bathroom wall is so wet and muddy from rain/hose that it’d be smart to build a raised bed there. Maybe sacrificial lettuce experiment.

I’m thinking about mounting a box all along the east side of the shed. I really want to pull out the boxwoods on the north side of the shed, one of the better sunny spots where the oak doesn’t cover, and build out a bed there – it’d look better as cottage garden, but it’s such a good tomato spot. Might hang tomatoes from the shed roof in the Spring; might mitigate squirrel issue.

West of the driveway is prime real estate, but is open to animals and assholes. If I build something there, it’s going to have to be raised, bricked in and under, and it’ll have to look fairly attractive. One assumes the house next door will sell eventually. Really ought to go get another trellis and do something outside the kitchen window for a little privacy, or put in hooks for something that can hang and trail.

The yaupon or whatever it was outside the front kitchen window is dead and spindly, needs to go. Whatever killed it is nailing the hedges along there too – let’s cut it all down and rootkill before winter and compost the crap out of it, maybe build out that bed into a circle that goes around the fakey wall to the side window.

Three tomatoes (Arkansas Traveler, Bigger Boy(?), and a patio tom), squash, and zucchini. The two big tomatoes are in a plastic bin, the patio tomato and squash are in a large terra cotta pot, and the zucchini is alone – for now – in another TC pot.

I need to drill holes in some new pots for the herbs I bought. And I might as well prep another bin or two for some cucumber seedlings and just see if they’ll make it.

Talked to Nita on the phone after planting everything, sitting on the patio watching the dogs. That was much needed.

I have been suffering from an overwhelming craving for fresh iced tea. That means I need to buy a pot of mint. Justification is everything.

Recently: my grandmother was put in a hospice facility on Saturday, but has been evicted for…not dying, I guess. She was on home hospice-ish care, with a nurse coming once a day, but I don’t think her medications were getting tweaked very well that way, which is why things were much better at the care center. She’s going to a nursing home today, which is kind of too bad because the hospice was a really nice place. It’s not going to be very long, it seems like moving to a nursing home is unnecessary stress, but I know they have limited resources there.