its very hot and humid. its after independence day, so shouldn't I expect this?
We got some work done though. I showed Aaron the stone washing process I created. We got a few wheelbarrows full done. It may take less than I estimated. I also got some stone down yesterday.

I tied up the tomatoes (time 4) and pruned a few plantsto the height of the stakes, and cut down some side branches. The tying is finished now except for the two stakes that are about 7 feet tall.

I also watered the strawberries and the herbs. Last night it rained about 1/2 an inch/

We talked about not getting butterfly bush for the center of the crescents because aaron doesn't like the way they look so much. That's fine with me, so we talked of alternatives. We could make them butterfly attractive plants, but since the whole rest of the garden is already that way it might not be imperative. Thus I suggested a few rose bushes, or else hardy hibiscus (that's the name I couldn't think of!). The latter being hummingbird attractive I think. Or perhaps one of each. In either case, we should watch for sales at the garden centers on perrenials, as the main planting season is winding down. That stuff usually goes on sale in august. I should also mention that dormant roses were on sale around mothers day, 75% off at Lowe's (making them about $4 a plant, which is a bargain for roses). But we'll keep our eyes out.

A couple more quick observations to add to Jim's:

The tallest sunset variety sunflower is now just over 6 feet tall. I suspected that was larger than the norm but didn't have the seed packet to verify. The stumpiness of some of the other plants leads me to believe that there is some serious soil issue in parts of the ground in that strip. Mainly because every year in the same area we have stunted growth, regardless of what we plant there or how we amend. Next year we should remember which areas showed poor growth and dig down at least 6 inches to correct whatever is causing the problem, be it rocks, clay pan, or lawn gnomes.

Also, apart from the beans and peas (which I honestly hadn't noticed), we have at least one zucchini that is well on its way. It's in the same spot where I noticed our first bloom about two weeks back, so if that's the time frame we should expect to have a crop's worth of squash growing in a couple of weeks.

I did water yesterday afternoon, again, for about two hours. I'll probably water on Saturday as well, and try to get to it in the morning.

The coreopsis are growing very well, and look like they may even start blooming soon.

i wnet up to the garden to check on my tomato experiment. apparent failure. the tomato cuttings showed a bit of root growth, but they showed way more rot. oh well. maybe it would succeed with a cleaner bucket to start and more frequent water change, but I unfortunately don't have the time to monitor them so frequently. It was supposed to work.

i noticed the ground had been watered. that was what i stopped up to do, and I was glad I didn't have to do it.

-some other observations-
i noticed we have many peas which are ready to pick and eat. I ate some and they were delicious. The deer apparently think the same thing.
The beans are starting to show some pods.
several of the valentine variety sunflower are starting to flower, though most of them are only about 3 feet tall.
We have one of the sunset that seems to be nearly six feet which is starting the flower as well (taller than it was supposed to be). Almost ready to bloom. Somehow they are less dense than i wanted them to be, and I hoped they'd be a little taller - perhaps closer to five feet. Well in anycase its a nice change from the mammoth ones we'd grown most years. In a couple of weeks, that sunflower patch should look really nice.
we have cucumber flowers now.
i'll need to tie up the tomatoes again and cut them to stake size this weekend. not sure if i'm going to get to much other gardening done though. maybe i'll do a couple of wheelbarrows fulll of stone cleaning.

clean stones
i got two wheelbarrows full on stones done in 90 minutes. I estimate it should take 12-14 wheelbarrows full to complete the path (the stone needs to be about a half inch higher than the ground to the sides, to allow for foot traffic pushing the stone down, and also so the 'walls' of the path are less likely to collapse.

basically i filled a wheelbarrow half full of our garden stone. I filled the wheelbarrow full of water, so it would "melt" the mud, as the particles would settle into the solution. the solution at this point was the color and opacity of chocolate milk. I scooped 2 shovels full of stone from the wheelbarrow and placed into the collander, siiting it on a chair. using the high pressure hose, i squirted off the stone thouroughly for about 60 seconds. (i put the collander on a metal chair that has perforations) i discovered it works best if you bury the nozzle in the stone. then i tranferred the stone to a smaller container filled with water. and i repeated until i had rinsed all the stone in the wheelbarow, and then I poured off the water from the smaller container that held the washed stones. at that point the water was lightly brown and mostly clear, like lake water. which i think is clean enough, having removed 99% of the mud. i would have used the small wheel barrow as the second container, but the tire was flat.
"

quick update-- saw the oscar shorts, they were really terrific.
while i was at the oscar shorts the garden got watered for a couple of hours.
i left the materials for sifting the mud from the stones at the garden-- two plastic baskets with tiny holes. cost me $2. hope it works.