Brandon Moeller

Week Three

Photos from the third week in the garden are up, spanning from March 28 to April 3, and have been tagged "Week Three" in my Gardening 2010 album in my Picasa Web Albums.

This week, I’ll offer four photos sampled from all of the ones I took.

On the right, is a purple coneflower that I planted last year in my flower bed. Its brothers and sisters all perished, I think because they were shaded too much by the red sun sunflowers. This one didn't grow that much last year, but this year, I removed a little more of the netting around its roots that was there when I transplanted its jiffy starter peat kit and it has really taken off. It's already about as big as the begonia I put on the edge of the bed.

We only had one patch of dianthus survive the freeze(s), but it’s a really strong patch in the front bed. I bought two packets of dianthus seed so it would have company this year.

A post-watering shot of the bright red-purple dianthus that Kim planted last season or the year before in the front bed.

I’m really looking forward to the two packets of coleus seed wizard mix that I planted. However, it was pretty slow to show some signs of germination life. It’s doing a lot better, now, about two weeks after I sowed them.

Baby coleus! Squint and you can see it ...

And now for the requisite full bed shot … at the end of week three.

A good week for the roses

Here are some shots I snapped today before the expected rain, which we may or may not get today.

The Marie Daly rose has had at least three blooms at a time every day this week.

The Carefree Beauty rose is about to open up for the first time this season.

The Caldwell Pink rose has been on the verge of opening for two weeks now.

Kim's yellow rose is full of blooms! I like how the older ones contrast with the newer ones.

I've saved the knockout roses Kim planted three years ago for last.

The return of the purple petunia

Out of nowhere, the purple petunia that Kim started off her flowerbed with last year returned, but this time, it was outside of the flowerbed. So I took it out of the ground and put it in a pot:

I searched high and low through last year’s gardening photos, and so far, I’ve only found one shot with the petunias from Kim’s bed. So I’ll include it here, from April 5 of last year:

Corina waters Kim's bed this time last year. See the purple petunias?

This is no April Fool’s joke, either. And if you think last year’s grass looks better than this year’s, then, I blame the grubs.

Obsess much?

I’m officially done planting seeds. I still have half a packet of mixed wildflowers and a whole package of orange poppy, but I don’t care. Enough is enough. I’ll just use those seeds to fill the cells where nothing germinates.

All the seeds. I was done planting on Tuesday, a week after I started.

Kim says the first step is admitting you have a problem.

Hopefully, my problem is too many flowers.

Week Two

Photos from the second week in the garden are up, spanning from March 21 to March 27, and have been tagged “Week Two” in my Gardening 2010 album in my Picasa Web Albums.

These grubs were found in the backyard while I was transplanting the grass I dug up in the flowerbed extension.

The first flower on one of our three tomato plants: The Beef Maestro!

Six

My daughter turned six today. We enjoyed a three-cheese pizza for dinner together tonight.

Stranded on a Friday afternoon

Oh, sure. I’ll put a little fixin’ on it. And put the CD wallet on my turn signal. That will hold. That will keep my shorted out fog light from staying on all day while I work, allowing me to meet my beautiful wife in Sugar Land for a Friday night out on the town.

But, uh, no. My genius fix backfired on me today and I found myself stranded in the work parking lot at quitting time on the eve of a nice weekend. Perfect! So Kim saved me … again.

I (reluctantly) got a new battery Friday night, and on Sunday we drove to the parking lot, and 25 minutes later – and a lot of grease on my hands – I fired up the car with my new battery installed.

Here’s what the mileage read:

What the odometer read when my car sprung back to life.

So, I drove it home and when I got there I unhooked the battery and fired up the laptop to try to figure out how to disable the fog light that just won’t turn off on its own.

Soon after, I stumbled across this page on PTdoityourself.net that made me curious about my #8 fuse. I removed it, and checked everything – and it worked! No more fog light! No more battery drain! Why didn’t I just do this earlier?