The Last Day of “Summer”

96 days until Thanksgiving.

The Thanksgiving Garden is officially in full swing. This weekend, butter and romaine lettuce, rainbow carrots, bush beans, broccoli, butternut squash and spaghetti squash all got planted. Some of it should absolutely make it to the Thanksgiving table. Some of it may become an educational experience for me and a buffet for the rabbits. Gardening always keeps you humble and thankful.

The citrus trees got some attention, too. Though, that wasn’t exactly on the agenda. While checking on the citrus Friday morning, I discovered some of the leaves on the Key Lime bush had a black dusty powder all over them.

It was a little concerning for what is an otherwise thriving little bush. It has been crushing it all Summer.

So, I took a few photos and appealed to Master Gardener Google.

A few more photos later and a few questions answered and it turns out the little tree has a pretty good scale infestation.

What is scale?

Great question.

Scale (noun): A sap-sucking insect pest that attaches to plant stems and leaves, often appearing as small brown or tan bumps. Scale can weaken plants and produce sticky honeydew that encourages black sooty mold.

It’s that last bit, the “black sooty mold” I was seeing and the dead giveaway for the problem.

I will say, it was much less stressful to deal with a tree issue that wasn’t my fault, and deal with it I did.

The tree is scrubbed and trimmed and all the other citrus inspected. Tomorrow will arrive some organic horticulture oil which will treat anything I didn’t get brushed away and rinsed off.

Not a death sentence and glad it seemed to be caught pretty early.

I planted some wild flowers for Fall. I also gave all the bird feeders a serious deep cleaning and judging by the traffic at the Buttervale Bird Buffet, the customers have apparently decided the establishment may remain open. Even as I type this I am watching them come and go.

The blackberries continue getting trained onto their new trellis little by little. I should say, it is tough to play favorites, but Blackberry Row is in the running. I have done something right there in way of location or fertilizer or maybe I just got lucky, but I can see years of blackberries to come and nice addition of privacy since they are right next to the neighbor’s pool. It thrills me to look at them every morning.

And because gardening wasn’t enough, the Winni Experience rocking chair restoration moved forward with a major glue-up. The worst of the damaged joints is now back together, clamped tight and curing. There is something very satisfying about taking an old piece of furniture that has clearly lived a life and figuring out how to give it a little more. This is way out of my comfort zone. I have never been that “wood worker” guy, but I feel like I am on a path to owning a router and a table saw and eventually 9 fingers. Glue and clamps and a few dowels for now.

Then there are the worms.

Yep. I’m a worm rancher now. But you knew that already.

The new vermicomposting farm is up and running, stocked with red wigglers who have been given the important Buttervale task of turning kitchen scraps and shredded cardboard into some of the best stuff you can possibly add to a garden. If all goes according to plan, yesterday’s coffee grounds eventually become tomorrow’s tomatoes. That’s a pretty good system.

Worm poop. What’s not to like?

By late afternoon Sunday, I finally decided I’d done enough.

I climbed into the pool, put on my floaty belt and did absolutely nothing for a while. Just floated quietly, avoided the pool cleaning robots and watched the birds zip back and forth overhead on their way to the freshly cleaned feeders. Wrote a chunk of this blog post in my head as I tried to get some Sunlight on my belly. Susan remarked, that based on my tan I really am a farmer now. She’s not wrong.

Here in Virginia Beach, today is the last day of summer vacation for the public-school kids. Tomorrow it’s back to alarm clocks, backpacks, buses, homework and the grind.

I hope their summer was everything they wanted it to be.

Although I’m pretty sure most of the kids (and quite a few Teachers) are thinking the same thing tonight:

It went by way too fast.

Tomorrow, my dear first grandbaby starts Kindergarten. She has been doing pre-school classes for a couple of years, but this is the Big League. Full day Kindergarten in a room with 26 other kids. Yikes. I can’t type it without tearing up. Where does the time go? So quickly we watch helplessly as they take another huge step on their own.

My prayers are for her and for everyone starting a new adventure tomorrow.  

Around Buttervale, though, for the retired among us, the seasons just sort of roll into one another. Summer tomatoes give way to Thanksgiving broccoli. Flowers change. Birds come and go. Leaves will start falling. The worms keep pooping.

And tomorrow morning, we start counting down again.

Day 1 of School and 95 days until Thanksgiving.

There’s still plenty of growing left to do.

Tomorrow the Adventure continues.

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