Mutiny In the Garden

The year of extremes continues

2011-07-23T20:51:00.000-05:00

Extreme snowfall this winter.
Extreme rainfall this spring (almost every single day!)
Extreme heat last week and coming again this week.
Early this morning, extreme rain. The largest rainfall ever recorded in Illinois. We got 7.25 inches on my raingauge.

Know whats not fun? Digging in goo. Know what is less fun. Putting up a deck in 90 degrees with 90% humidity. It rained off an on today. Didn't matter. We were soaked when it was raining and soaked when it wasn't. Oh well still better than drought and locusts and dust storms and wild fires!

Landscaping the New Area Starts-Sort of

2011-07-17T09:50:00.001-05:00

If you had told me earlier in the year that the mid-point of the patio project would occur with the first tomato, I would have been OK with that. Now it is here. That patio midpoint and the first tomato.

Galinas cherry started giving up her goodness last week. Oh man these little cherries are delicious. Not sweet. Very old tomato flavor. Very rich and very prolific. The plant is huge, well over ten feet and very easy to keep in a reasonable shape.

I'm supposed to be talking about landscaping though so I'll conclude my tomato ramblings with the whine that tomato season is a full three weeks behind, thanks to the horrible spring. Oh well, at least it has started!

The fence is almost done, they are having trouble with one of that latches because they undersized the gate opening a full inch. (Le sigh) . This would normally start me on a contractor rant but its already 85 degrees out there and I have a deck to build.

Focus on the pictures Stacy.. Right

Well this bed is done. It was an interesting bed to do because it is deep shade on the far left and full sun on the far right. The goal was to have four season interest, very low maintenance and some color.

The solution I came up with was was Stained Glass hosta on the far left in chartreuse and dark green, some really glowy double knock out roses in the center and a chartreuse and dark green dwarf cypress with interesting texture in the right. I completed it with some shiny black ajuga, which should be easy to contain in this area near the hosta and then some dark purple salvia for the front. The salvia are just filler. I wanted the stars of the bed to be the glowers. It looks underdeveloped right now, but I think once the hosta gets a bit bigger it is going to be nice. I like the balance the different glowy greens is giving it.

Today the goal is to finish the balcony. It is predicted to be a rather miserable job. It is tropical out there right now and we have learned that while beautiful, Timbertek decking is hot! We spent a good chunk of yesterday putting in the decking boards. Today is the railings which are complex enough that they provide a video to supplement their written instructions.

The next landscaping project at the deck is to landscape this area. I call it the balcony bed. This area is challenging for a whole lot of reasons. The deep shade under the deck, the dog loving this area, the need for a four season view since the foyer looks right on it, the horribly compacted clay that has been tramped down in it, and most puzzling of all, the question of what to do on the end.

The end currently has grass in it. The grass has to go because there is now way to reach it with the mower now that the fence is in. What I want to do is tie this new bed in with the existing back bed. However I don't want to completely re-do the back bed. I also am struggling with the big bulbous blog at the end of a narrow bed that is going to occur if I don't.

I've decided to start on the easy (Ha!) edge of the bed and then work back. Meanwhile every evening I sit out on the new patio with my tea and plot what the plan is going to be for this area.

I'll save the challenges for this area for another day. They are not only aesthetic and functional issues but also mechanical and technical. It's requiring a whole lot of research.

That's it for now, the deck calls.

FINALLY! Project Starts

2011-07-02T09:50:00.000-05:00

As predicted, the whole permit thing took a month. Really though even without permits it would probably have taken that long to get started due to the bleeping rain every single day since the snow went away!

Finally last week, we got a break. We got back from vacation and the permits were ready, the weather was cooperating and the contractors were ready to go. Time to purge the ugly!

It took about five minutes of ugly purging to figure out that things were going to get a whole lot more ugly before the pretty started.

Excavation went really fast, but those giant piles of clay that got dumped all over my nice soft, lovely black soil, well that smarted. We agonized over cutting some tree roots from the sugar maple, coaxed the dog that different grass was still OK and mostly tolerated a whole lot of mud and dust. Yeah dust. Who knew brick pavers were so dusty?

The bad pain was pretty darn short though. OK the wallet still stings but the ugly fence is out, most of the pavers are in, the seatwall is in and we are starting to get some glimses of what is to come. Yeah yeah, the deck is still rotten, the beds are still filled with giant clay mounts and the dog still is freaking out, but we are definitely making some progress!

I might even go to a nursery today!

I'm rather freaking out about the new giant bed that has been created and what to put in it. The back berm bed is infested with weeds. I'm having trouble keeping up with the existing beds and now there are two new ones and more to come! Hopefully when I no longer have to relocate clay piles, that will free up more time for weed control. In the meantime, the plan is lots of landscaping fabric and mulch!

Two Steps Forward...

2011-05-27T19:54:00.000-05:00

The season of no progress continues!

Last weekend I spent a fair amount of time getting most of the tomatoes and peppers in the ground and getting mulch down in the foundation planting bed. While doing this, I occasionally heard a strange sound...almost like two sticks being rubbed together.

It turns out, that is exactly what it was. The maples in the yard, no doubt peeved that I have started planting hosta's in their root zones were plotting against me. It couldn't have been two hours after the time I got the last bag down when a gentle breeze picked up, and the maples took their revenge.

The picture below was taken before the subsequent storm hit, which not only dropped 29834729 more maple seeds, but also planted and watered them nicely.

What this means is that this weekend, I get to spend more time on this same bed, getting up the propellars before they sprout and make their evil maple roots.

Unfortunately, this is not the only bed that has been attacked. They all got nailed, along with the gutter covers. You know those things that are supposed to keep stuff out of the drainpipes by embedding them in mesh? yeah

The original plans for the weekend were supposed to surrounded recovering the balcony in the patio with some lovely Timbertech composite decking. We wanted to get that done before the patio project started. It was supposed to be a fast job. Take off boards, put on new boards, put on rail, done.

That would have been way to easy. I should have known that their would be complications, it is the norm for our home. The complications were pretty bad. The boards coming out of the house are rotted, badly. So badly that they pretty much disintergrated when we started pulling off the tin cover some put over the to make sure they never dried out.

What this now means is that we have to get another permit because now we have to cut these off, dig 42" holes in the ground to fill with concrete so that we have something to place the posts on that will now be required to support the deck. The materials for this project were delivered 30 minutes after we discovered this mess and now are in the garage. One of the cars will have to be in the driveway for the next month or so. :P

The patio? Well we dropped chunk o change for a deposit on the project. Then found out that the permit process here requires sign off by the health department, possibly our bank, and a pre-inspection from the county. The turn around time of that is a couple of weeks, which mean the goal of starting that is pushed back to the end of the month. The contractor laughed at me when I asked if we could have our money back for awhile. :) The frustrating thing about this whole permit thing is that this isn't a crazy project. Expand an existing patio a bit, put in some edging of existing plantar beds, re-fence the area that is nowhere near any property line. Why the heck they need the health department to make sure the water supply is A-OK boggles.

Oh well, I hold out hope that we have something done by July 4. That still leaves a good chunk o summer left for enjoyment.

Photo Theft is so Sketchy. I'm talking to YOU!

2011-05-18T06:34:00.004-05:00

This morning I remembered that I had this thing on my blog called statcounter. I put it on there when I first started the blog and promptly forgot about it. I found a link to it this morning when digging around my email.

Statcounter, logs the traffic on your site. It also tells what images have been downloaded. I noticed that my chocolate stripes tomato image was rather popular so I got curious and went to google to see what I could see. What I found is that my photo, taken on my kitchen counter, has been poorly reproduced at an heirloom gardening site What this tells me is this: 1) This company is sketchy. 2. This company apparently is unable to grow its own decent chocolate stripes tomatoes. Every tomato on that plant is a work of art. Thus I must deduce that since they have had to resort to stealing an image, they are incapable of growing their own fruit and must be getting seeds from who know's where.

I've heard about this sort of thing happening from other tomato growers. Never thought I would see one of my pictures stolen though. Shame on you . If I could get your email link to open I'd tell you directly. For now I'll have to just call you out on multiple tomato and gardening forums and hope someone gets the message and corrects their mistake.

Here is the link to my post about MY tomato.

Update: Found an email for them and sent a request to remove the image. Also posted my complaint at tomatoville where it looks like they may read.

Update #2 Wow, that was fast. They did not respond to my email, however the photo has now been taken down. Good.

Update #3 Got a nice email from the site owner. I'm removing the links to the name. I'm terrible at holding a grudge. :)

Another Wet Weekend

2011-05-15T21:23:00.001-05:00

The entire weekend can only be described as gross, weather wise. Very cold, very wet. I had really hoped to get the rest of the tomatoes and all of the peppers in this weekend, but they would have been ticked at getting put in that cold goo that is currently my yard. So I spared them that, though they'll still have to deal with their current cramped quarters another few days.

Plan B was to get the old plum tree down for the fence expansion. Plan B went out the window with the rain.

Plan C was to get more patio planning done. That went well. Our guy we were hoping on came thru and his schedule is looking OK for getting this done soon. The permit process it turning into a huge headache, but that wasn't unexpected. I won't be posting any more about THAT in case they read blogs. Hey they fly their planes over houses to see if you added decks so it isn't that far of a stretch. :)

We did make a trip out to to a landscape supply place or two. Good thing we made that trip. Pavers look different in person than in the catalog. We changed our minds in what we wanted and this change will likely save us a bit of dough!. Next stop was to check out decking materials. I'm interested in the third generation composite stuff that is out there for decks now. I particularly like the Ipe inspired deck from Fiberon. Unfortunately I HATE all the deck makers composite posts and railings. The shiny plastic thing-yuck. Right now we are leaning towards composite decking and cedar posts with aluminum balusters.

I spent a few hours working on the plumbing research for the pond. This is WAY more complicated then I originally thought. We are not going with an Aquascape kit or their typical layout. I want low maintenance which means skimmer and sieve and UV and bottom drain and about a thousand different valves. Hubs is going to freak when he see's all this. I wonder if stealth pond plumbers can be hired. I got a promotion on Friday. Seems like that could be a good way to spend the pay raise!

Bid Update:

2011-05-10T06:31:00.000-05:00

Another bid on the patio project came in last night. Its frustrating this contractor thing. How is it that you can give someone a list, a picture of what you want, spend forty five minutes giving details and you still end up with a missing path, two extra columns and the wrong stone?

Sigh.

Foundation Planting-Backyard

2011-05-08T08:20:00.002-05:00

This spring has been a struggle. I have been unable to get outside to do anything due to almost the entire month of April being rainy. The other issue is completely unrelated to rain. It is the issue of the patio project. I don't want to plant in areas that are going to be ripped out or improved. That limitation has messed up my whole flow!

Last weekend I finally got a break in the weather and was able to get outside and get something done. The back beds were still too wet. The ground was still to cold for bringing out the tomatoes but the foundation area at the back of the house was ready for some action!

This area had three large yews removed last year from the area in front of the meters. They were getting old and ratty looking so we took them out. For this year, I wanted to put in a mixture of edibles and perennials in this bed. The plum tree that currently partially shades it is coming out (fall hazard) so I'll have more light soon.

A trip to my favorite nursery started off the project. I only went for some grasses to cover the meter. Like most trips to the nursery, that didn't go exactly as planned. The $82 bill added up fast. I had a really nice variety to choose from and I leaned towards the newer and cooler which made for higher prices. Since my plan was to divide each plant to get more for the money, I actually ended up with almost three times as many plants as shown here. The impulse buy was the Valentine blueberry. A pink blueberry? How could I resist. The most expensive? The fern leaf peony at $40. Hey at least I put back the big bird peony that was $117!

Weeding this bed was a quick job thanks to the fall clean-up we did on it last year. Planting took a little longer thanks to the residual evil lava rocks that are still found in our foundation beds. I also found a huge crack in the rain barrel that needed to be dealt with. In that same area, I had to again deal with the ugliest bush in the world. It is trying to make a come back. I removed the rocks, dug it up again, covered the area with four layers of landscape fabric and then the rocks again. Take that Ugly!

I took a break from the foundation plantings mid-day to get one of the self watering containers set-up. I wanted to get the soil and water in it, so that it can start warming up this next week. Then the tomatoes will be less shocked when I put them in. The color scheme for this bed was accidental but might end up being kind of cool looking. I ended up with a lot of red leaved plants. Pennstemem, red chard, Red cabbage, molten lava amaranth, rhubarb. Then I also have multiple bright green perennials. I added a potato leaf tomato just to try and push things a bit (Galinas cherry) and then topped the area with a non-dyed mulch (I'll save the mulch rant for another day).

The end result doesn't currently look like much. Dividing perennials doesn't tend to give you instant wow factor but I'm pleased with the potential here. I post pictures in a month to show you were it went.

Rain and Contractors-Blah to Both

2011-04-26T07:59:00.002-05:00

This spring has been marked by a distinct lack of gardening posts. Why? Because I cannot get into the yard. The entire month of April has been about gloom and cold and rain. What a contrast to last year! On those rare days where it actually hasn't rained, the yard has been too gooey to do more than pick up sticks. I am far far behind and the forecast for the next seven days? More rain. Blah

We have made some progress on the patio project in that we have had three companies out to give us a bid. So far we have received one bid back, It was from the guy that I didn't like too much. The bid was reasonable. Except that he forgot a few things. Sigh.

I also got a bid on the pond. It was an internet bid. I emailed them pictures of the site and a basic description of what we wanted. They emailed me back a price of 20K+, without any description of what their most awesome pond plan was whatsoever. Oh they did say that they know that they are higher but it is because they are better. Needless to say, they can go soak their heads in one of their most awesome ponds. I'll pass.

We have another guy coming to look at the site on Friday and hold out hope that the first guy that told us two weeks will come thru for us. We liked him the best. The more we consider this project the more I think that I may just do the pond myself. I'll pay to have it excavated and do the rest. All of the guys I've talked to so far clearly know the Aquascape variety of pond installation and that's not what I want. I want low maintenance so I can spend days reading and gazing at fish instead of vacuuming up their poop.

Edit to say: Huh, within hours of this post, I got an email that gave more information about the pond design. So I've decided to remove the pond company name. Their price however, is still inflated so I'll still be taking a pass.

I Put the Patio Plan on You-tube

2011-04-15T21:16:00.000-05:00

The bits and pieces that are the current horror of my patio area have started to creep into my blog entries. We were going to re-do this area last summer but just lost track of time. I did nothing to keep it up other than a bit of weeding, because we were going to rip it all out. It is extraordinary (and mortifying) how much deterioration has occurred in one year. It is hopefully very temporary.

We've decided to get this area done, rather than do it ourselves. Mainly because it is a heck of a lot of work and we want to enjoy our summer. The first contractor came today. Here's hoping that he saw such a trashy mess that his bid will come in low because he thinks that we can't afford big inflated projects, lol!

Anyway, I figured out how to get what I have been working on in my landscape program, on to you-tube. It rough. I can't figure out the camera angles or how to fix the floating mulch yet. Oh and the program has no boulders so I can't finish the pond and waterfall either. Nevertheless, I am still pretty proud that I figured out enough to get this done! Even if the part that shows the pond did get chopped off. LOL Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfWNUO0lmXU

Saved: One Coldframe/Watermelon grower

2011-04-10T18:57:00.001-05:00

The cold frame I built from scrap lumber last spring saw a lot of use. I used it as a cold frame all spring. Then in the summer, I moved it to the watermelon bed and planted melons in it. This was the first year I ever got edible melons! In the fall I moved it on top of the lettuce bed to allow me to harvest lettuce well into winter. Chicago winters are hard though, and when I tried to move the frame to the patio last week I ran into some.....issues. It fell apart and stabbed me in anger with a rusty staple. Frames don't apparently like to be dropped over fences. Luckily I'm not easily diverted from a mission. {*BTW: Please ignore the horrible rotting fence. This year we are going to fix it...OK I know I said that last year, but this year I mean it!}

After raiding the workshop for a few screws and a staple gun, I was off to the races. Screwing it back into something resembling a structure only took a few moments. Primarily because I was lazy and did not pre-drill. I used a lot of the old nail holes. It seemed to work OK. Definitely wobbles a bit more than last year though. Heh.

The next step took me about 40 minutes. I cut slabs of plastic from the ice rink remnants and stapled them to the frame. The reason this took so long was that the wind was gusting pretty good and stapling large slabs of plastic in 30 knots of breeze is a bit of work. If I didn't staple fast enough, a gust would catch the plastic and rip it thru the staples. Still, it was very easy a garden projects go. Instead of plastic for the front of it, I used some old row cover. I did this because I wanted the frame to breathe more than last year. That side came out so well I may just do the whole thing in row cover next year. {The giant blob of dirty plastic is thankfully now gone. My yard was starting to look like it was calling out to junkyard dogs for awhile there.}

Here is the end product. Stunning patio art it is not, but what it is, is free and an extremely useful place to put plants to harden them off and get them out of the master bedroom. I put a light bulb in there to deal with the 30 degree nights. I also have a thermostat in there so that I can closely monitor temperatures on sunny days. It heats up very fast, easily hitting sixty degrees on a cold sunny day. {Yes, that is a big patch of mud right off the patio. I'm not going to seed it because this patio, along with the fence is history this year! OK I know I said that last year too, this year is the year!

The celery, amaranth, leeks and a few potted up chard have been in there all of last week and have really greened up. Its amazing how much greener plants get in frames like this when compared to growth lights.

I had the tomato babies in there yesterday and today for a field trip. It was unseasonably warm and breezy so I thought I'd give their stems a little exercise. Big storms are getting ready to roll through now, so I'll be bringing them back in for the night. I don't want to risk any broken stems or hail. Now when they are looking so good!

Do Backyard Ice Rinks Kill the Grass? Nope

2011-03-27T09:54:00.000-05:00

This year's backyard ice rink project was proceeded by what I call marital moments. These moments are sometimes precipitated by one spouse starting a discussion with the words, "I have the coolest idea ever!" If the other spousal unit has concerns about the scope and/or side effects of said idea, you can end up having a marital moment. or moments. Heh.

The marital moment surrounding the ice rink issue, was primarily related to the lawn. My spouse had concerns that putting a 6mm of black plastic on the lawn, filling it with water and then allowing it to freeze into three to ten inches of ice to skate on, might be detrimental to the lawn. If I'm being honest, I'll admit that I had a twinge of worry about that as well. However I also had internet research! My internet research told me the lawn would be fine and in the end, that research allowed me to convince my spouse to give it a shot. It was such a success that he wants to triple the size of it next year. He decided that before we even knew the status of the lawn.

I really want to have a rink again next year, so I really should have been more aggressive about getting the two layers of plastic drained and off the lawn. Afterall, it was mostly melted five weeks ago and the snow has been gone for a good three weeks. We've had some sun. No doubt it was heating up the black plastic giving the final blows of death to the poor little blades underneath it, right? Nope.

I got my lazy behind out there finally yesterday. I finished draining it all and pulled the black plastic back to finish drying so that I can fold it up for next year. Here's the yard. It is not lovely since its still mostly dormant and the soil is still ice cold. What is also is not is dead! There is a bit of yellowing in the one area. This was the wettest, deepest area. I'm not worried about it. There are still tons of green shoots in there. I fully expect it all to be looking lush within the next three weeks.

So there you have it. You lovers of skating should feel free to use my images as evidence, should you experience your own marital moments surround the issue of ice rinks and lawns. My example shows that even with a far amount of laziness, the lawn can still be just fine!

Now we're talking!

2011-03-12T17:28:00.001-06:00

Whether it was the white tea soak, or the addition of heat, I've had some progress this week. Now all the tomatoes are up with the exception of Pineapple, Galinas, Aunt Ginny's Purple, Cosmonaut Volkov and Sylvan Gaume. I'm soaking up another batch of each of those and planting some more today.

Its so funny how each year can be completely different. Persimmon was very problematic for me to germinate when I first tried it. I'm using the exact same batch of seed this year and it was the second tomato up and currently the second largest. Indication I guess of just how many variables are associated with this whole thing!

I've started another tray of seeds. This time its broccoli, several annuals, lemon, purple and cinnamon basil, fennel, cilantro, leeks, parsley, lettuce, tarragon, one king of the north pepper (needed to refresh seed stock) and the impulse buy for last week, Katya tomato from Adaptive Seeds.

I was drawn to Katja because there is some indication it produces in a bit of shade. It is also described as quite delicious for an early tomato. We'll see! I only planted one cell of it.

Off to a Rocky Start!

2011-03-09T08:28:00.000-06:00

As is typical for me, I started my tomatoes, peppers, chard, basil and eggplant earlier than is typically recommended for my zone this year. They all went into seed flats on February 19th. This early start is part of my annual plan that generally succeeds in netting me produce weeks earlier than my neighbors. Unfortunately this year I hit a bump in the road.

There were two major changes to my process this year. I switched seedling starting soil and I switched the place I bought my seeds at. Last year, reviewing my notes I had 100% tomato germination at ten days for all varieties. This year it was zero percent. I decided to do a few things I normally don't. I replanted everything after first giving each seed a two hour soak in white tea and I applied bottom heat with a heating pad on medium.

As of today about half my seeds are now up. It is clearly the soaked seeds that are germinating as I can tell where I planted them. I suspect that my issues this year are two-fold. I am unhappy with the soil mix I used (Epsoma Organic seed starting mix). It is chunky, holds too much moisture and really seems to compact down hard. It also has developed a fine teal moss-like growth on its surface. Something I've never had an issue with before. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the seeds I purchased may be older. The packets were not dated and they were very bleached and dry looking. They are sprouting now, so I'm happy about that but this morning I'm glad that I started everything early. Had I waited until the "right" time, I would already be behind the eight ball.

This Year's Tomato Selection

2011-02-14T18:54:00.000-06:00

I've finalized my selections for this year's tomatoes. Last year I leaned heavily towards unusual colorations. This year my primary focus is excellent taste and decent productivity. I also want to make sure that I am not selecting too many late season varieties. I like to start my salsa consumption in June! With sunny spots being at a premium, I have to keep my selections limited. Here is this year's winners:

Striped Roman: Pictured above. Highly productive, delicious and very meaty. Superior to paste type tomatoes as far as I am concerned. It is returning this year after being found to be excellent in 2010.

German Red Strawberry: New for me this year. This variety is well known for its excellent production of big hearty shaped, excellent flavored tomatoes. On the sweet side.

Pineapple: New for me this year. Its a bicolor, on the sweet side with big fruits.

Matina: Returning. I've now tried both Stupice and Matina for an early. I think Matina slightly edges out Stupice both for taste and productivity. I grow this one to assure I have tomatoes before July first.

JD's Special C-Tex New for me this year. Described as a purple-black slicer with excellent productivity and outstanding flavor. Midseason.

Black Cherry: I tried to grow this last year but Bakers Creek sent me mislabeled seed so I'm trying seed from Mariseeds.com this year. This is the only cherry I'll be growing this year. Its described as a black with excellent flavor.

NevesxBrandywine: New for me this year. A midseason red purported to be in the OMG arena for flavor.

Chocolate Stripes: A regular in my garden every year. Delicious, beautiful, productive and healthy. This year I'll be growing from seeds I saved from a particularly luscious fruit last year.

Aunt Ginny's Purple: Described as a vigorous, pink potato leave of outstanding flavor. On the sweet side. This one is new for me this year too.

Anna Russian: Heart shaped pink with good flavor. New for me.

Teton de Venus: New for me. Really meaty red heart. Very sweet, Very delicious.

Earl's Faux: New for me. Mid-season potato leafed pink with good production and excellent taste.

Brave General: Returning. Among my most productive last year with 84 pounds yield on a single container plant. Its a rich tasting mid-season pink.

Dawson's Russian Oxheart: A big meaty bi-colored heart with good productivity and excellent flavor. New for me.

Brad's Black Oxheart: Elongated black hearts with very good flavor and mixed productivity. Early for this size tomato. New for me.

Sylvan Gaume: Huge red heart of excellent flavor. New for me.

Shuntukski Velikan: Big Russian red with traditional tomato taste. New for me.

Midnite In Moscow: Prolific, early black Russian of excellent flavor. New for me.

Galinas Cherry: I forgot I ordered this one! Potato leaf, yellow cherry with huge yields and excellent flavor. Said to do good in cool weather.

Heart Shaped Brandywine: Received this as a gift from Mariseeds.com. I know nothing about it other than it is a mutation of Brandywine. Should be fun!

Well that's the list. If I end up with more room I'll be adding Vorlon and C. Yugoslavian which were excellent for me last year. Thanks to Tatiana's Tomato base for helping me remember why I ordered these. Her site is the best on the web for zonal descriptions of heirloom tomato performance.

Backyard Ice Rink

2011-02-05T11:06:00.000-06:00

Its bitter cold outside, the yard is covered with snow. What's there to do outside? How about ice skate! I've always wanted to attempt an ice rink in the backyard. The fear of dead grass and a ton of work is what has held me back. This year I decided to do some actual research on making one of these and learned that they can be as simple or as complex as you like. I favored really simple, and it turned out to be just that.

This picture shows the gist of the process. Find the flattest area of your yard. This is really really important. Small slopes make a huge difference in how much water you use. Our rink is about nine inches deep in the back right corner and three inches in the foreground. Once you find an area, use a snow shovel to scrape a rectangle out. Leave about an inch of snow down to protect the grass. The snow around the edges help provide support for the tarp. We used a single giant sheet of 6mm plastic that we got from Home Depot. get white if you can. Black heats up fast and melts the edges. Some websites say that you can use only snow to hold up the tarp. We found that with the depth that we needed, that we needed some boards too. We just stuck scrap boards in the snow around the perimeter and draped the plastic over it.

The next step is to add water. This should be an easy step. It won't be if you didn't put away your hoses in the fall and they are filled with ice. We thawed them out in the laundry room sink. We did not use an outside spigot to fill the rink, we were worried about pipe breakage. Instead we connected to the spigot just before our water softener and ran the hose out a window stuffed with towels around it to keep the draft out. It works well, not only for the initial filling but also the homeboni process.

It didn't take that long to fill the rink but you'll want it to freeze for a few days before going on it. Aim for at least three inches of depth minimum.

Maintenance is simple. After skating or after snow, shovel the surface. Then resurface it with another coat of water. For the smoothest surface, do this in the evening when snow is not blowing around. Make sure that the water you are using doesn't combine with snow on the surface or you get rough spots. You can either prevent them by using hot water or just making sure your surface is clear enough. That's it! It took us a couple of hours to set up and takes about five minutes of time to resurface after each time we skate. So worth it and its creating lasting memories of our winter garden.

Pretty Tomatoes!

2010-08-16T09:49:00.000-05:00

I've taken a few vacations this summer and 30 days away from the garden has led to neglect of both plants and blog. All has not been lost however. I have peppers, cukes, and tomatoes coming out of my ears. Here are a few of this year's prettiest:

Copia is both beautiful and delicious. This big juicy slicer has averaged about nine ounces for me, grown in the self watering container. I've found it to be moderately productive.

Big Rainbow could also be called Big Yum. It's absolutely delicious. Unfortunately for me, productivity has been low. I think this was a combination of factors. I think it may be too large for the self watering container. I also think the early heat of the season took out a ton of buds on this one. Still, the few fruits I've gotten have made for some memorable salads. I'll be growing it again.

Chocolate Stripes: I'm losing last years picture here because this years came out blurry and I'm too lazy to retake it. Chocolate Stripes has been a star for me this year. I think it likes heat. Last year productivity was OK but this year it has been very high, though grown in the exact same spot. Its a tasty tomato that holds up really well on the kitchen counter. The stripes almost glow on this one. Way cool.


Striped Roman

Striped Roman: This variety is proof that an annoying youngster can still grow up and shine. SR was a fragile, delicate, constantly looked like it was suffering seedling. It wasn't much better as a young adult. There were times I didn't think it would make it. It was best described as wispy. I noticed in mid-June it seemed to be getting stronger, and now it is as big and strong as anything else out there. I've found it to be highly productive. The fruits are meaty, just as pretty in the inside as the outside. Skin is a little thick but its a minor thing. Taste is good!

It's Grow Time!

2010-06-03T09:13:00.001-05:00

Looking back at last years blog, I am about ten days ahead of schedule in the plantings when compared to last year. Blogs are so useful for this sort of thing. I was getting a little anxious about where things were at, then I looked back and saw that I'm in great shape! Its grow time in the garden. All the productive stuff with strict timelines is in, that means I could sit back and just watch the growing. (If I didn't have so many other non-producing areas to clean up that is. :P

Here are some pictures from Memorial Day weekend. Click them to see more details. I have a few days left of the peonies before they get chopped back to give the tomatoes more room.

Broccoli is starting to gets heads on it now. Lettuce is huge but still tastes great. Spinach is about ready for one last harvest before I plant the summer crop of it.

This is the same bed looking back the other way. Sagae is the big hosta in the foreground. This is a young plant and is showing every indication that it will be a monster! This is probably this area at its prettiest. Once the alliums and peonies fade and get chopped back, the colors go to white and yellow for summer. I'm thinking about sticking some red in there for a change this year, but we'll see what the schedule allows. There is a house to be painted and a fence to be built!

The circle garden is my source for angst this week. See the big tomato in the center? It has blossom drop. I suspect the cause might be that it doesn't like tomato tone on top of the rich soil it is already in. The other possibility is that since it is from the Ukraine, it didn't like being on the black during our heat last week. I'm going to pick up more cocoa bean mulch this week and cover the weed barrier now that the soil is warm. Hopefully between that and the rains, it's blossoms will start sticking again.

I love the way peonies look right before they drop their petals. The lightening around the edges is so pretty! We had some storms that knocked down the light pinks the other night, so they are done. These guys are holding their own for a few more days though. yay!

Storms also cracked one of the balcony tomatoes in half but otherwise, no other carnage with that one. I cannot believe it is the first week of June and I already have quarter size tomatoes on some plants. Mystery one and two look like they'll have something for snacking maybe as soon as next week! Weird season, but good so far!

2010-05-25T18:43:00.000-05:00

Very hot, but very productive weekend. I have completed transplanting it all! That's 277 plants that have been moved from their seedling containers to the garden and does not count anything that was direct seeded at all. Getting the rest of the stuff out took more time (as usual) than expected because those bazillions of propellers are still needing to be yanked and I had a few areas of soil that needed cleaning up, weeding and compostifying.

Tonight I though I would put up some starter pictures. I like to refer back to them as the season goes on. First, here are this year's balcony tomatoes. I wasn't going to do this, this year because we are replacing this balcony railing this summer, but I needed good space for tomatoes and they grew so well here last year that I did it again. This year I used about half the volume of soil in the containers. It will be interesting to see how that impacts yield and watering. In the containers from left to right are Galo De Melon, Black Cherry and returning this year, Dr. Carolyn. No blooms on any of these yet, though BC is close.

This is the rose bed. It is another bed slated for improvement this year as part of the patio project. The roses in this bed are 20+ years old. They are hardy. I ignore them always and they still live. They are very fragrant and are different colors depending on the weather. I should enjoy them more but since they frequently impale me with their giganormous thorns, I tend to resent them. OK I wish death on them from time to time too.

The brick wall and nearby concrete patio get a lot of heat, so this bed always gets some of my heat lovers. In addition to the roses and perennials in this bed, I have four eggplants, two tomatoes, some cilantro and some chard. The tomatoes are Striped Roman (left pole) and Chocolate Stripes. Both of these are blooming but man is SR one wimpy plant. It constantly looks limp and pathetic. It's a healthy green but it has the demeanor of a frail, overbred lady in a heatwave. It always appears as though ready to keel over in a dead faint.

This next bed is currently breaking my rule for productive AND attractive. This is the hot bed and is my hope for actually producing melons this year. The last couple of years I had no luck. This year I made two more changes. 1) Direct seeding to avoid stunting and 2) increasing bed and plant temps by using the cold frame to do it. The seeds I planted in here sprouted after two days. My fingers are crossed that I'm on the right track.

Planted in front of the frame is amarynth and cukes and cilantro. To the right of it you can see Mystery 1 and Mystery 2, the volunteer tomatoes from the worm poop. Both of these already have little tomatoes on them. Mystery 2 is starting to look like a relative of Sungold. I'll know soon!

In the back of this bed you can just see three tomatoes in their self watering container peaking out. These were my shrimpiest seedlings, White and Pink Stripes, Illini Star and Black from Tula. These varieties have their twins planted in the garden. Their twins are currently bigger. My shrimps might be needing a pep talk, or perhaps a bit of organic fertilizer. This is the one container where I reused about half of the potting mix. They might be potting about that.

This is getting long. I'll post pictures of the other beds tomorrow. For now, I'm going to start enjoying phase II which is water occasionally, watch for pests and sit back and watch the growing!

Pictures After a Weekend of Work!

2010-05-17T19:45:00.000-05:00

Transplanted out this weekend: Chinese red noodle beans, all the rest of the tomatoes except for two, all the peppers, all of the eggplants but three.

Removed this weekend: 2839723429 sprouting &^%$^&$ propellers!

Seeds started this weekend: Cukes and melons.

Bags of cocoa bean mulch spread: Only three! It goes far.

Motrin required after 17 hours of digging: 4

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Stacy

Ramping Up for the Big Weekend

2010-05-14T20:32:00.000-05:00

I heard on the radio this afternoon that the Farmer's Almanac says this is the weekend to plant. I didn't catch what it was I'm supposed to be planting but it doesn't matter. I plan to try and plant it ALL! If I am to have any hope of getting the patio project done this summer, I need to get this stuff in and growing. The ten day forecast looks good. May 15th is the last frost date. It's time.

I got a jump on things tonight after work. I hit the nursery for some mushroom compost so that I don't have to waste time tomorrow running out and then I came home and started planting. Three more tomatoes went into the tub in the hot bed. These are currently my puniest seedlings. It will be interesting to see how Black From Tula, Illini Star and Big White and Pink Stripes do now that they are in the hot zone.

Once those were in I planted all fourteen Molten Lava Amarynth. In hindsight, my placement of these was a bit off. I forgot they get to be four feet tall and planted them in the front of the beds. Oh well, maybe it will still look cool.

I stayed out until about 8pm since it was such a nice night. The whole rest of the time was spent on propeller removal. I filled one huge pop up bag already and have barely made a dent. Nevertheless, it was a good start for what I hope will be a very productive weekend!

Propellers

2010-05-12T19:02:00.000-05:00

This is horse chestnut Fort McNair. Its a good tree. A bit susceptible to mildew in the fall but otherwise not remotely needy. To be fair I suppose the eight maples in the backyard are not particularly needy either. They are better described as annoying in the springtime. Annoying due to the propeller factor.

Propellers are what I call the seeds of maples. They fall from the trees like thousands of little helicopters. The kids have a rip roaring good time throwing them up in air and watching them spin downwards. Unfortunately when weekends are spent taking apart all of the gutters to remove the propellars, our joy at throwing them off the roof is much more limited. We have grates on all the gutters to prevent this sort of maintenance need of course. The problem is, propellers laugh at these grates.

Beyond, the hint of not planting maples within 500 feet of your roof, my only advice with respect to propellars is about mulch timing. Try to avoid mulching before propellar season. If you don't, you get this.
Once it rains, all these propellers sprout. They then become weeds with very sturdy roots. Better to take a leaf blower at them to blast them into the yard then to let them sprout.

I've considered spending the upcoming weekend on propeller clean-up but the ten day forecast is looking just too good. Instead, if the forecast holds, I'll be giving Mystery 1 and Mystery 2 tomatoes some company and will be emptying out the cold frame and planting it all out. I already have baby tomatoes starting on Mystery 1, in the foreground as well as several other varieties that I put out a couple of weeks ago. It's time to get their brothers out there and producing. Times a wasting, propellers have to wait.

Landscape Design Software

2010-05-11T15:47:00.002-05:00

I have spent the last few nights working on the design for the reclaiming the patio project. We generally refer to this area as the dog's area. That's because currently it is a glorified dog run. Our yard is not fenced, so when Spazzy McDrool goes out, he heads to this area. In the picture from the balcony above, you can see the path he is most fond of taking in this area. We are planning a complete overhaul here. The balcony rails and treads are getting replaced, the fence-line is getting replaced and moved outwards, the patio is getting expanded and beds are getting dressed up. The new area will hopefully also include a pond provided we don't have issues with underground utilities in the area. There will not be much grass. This is because grass is not all that eco-friendly, we hate mowing it and the weirdo pooch hates walking on it.

I've been doing it using a software called PUNCH Landscape, Deck and Patio Designer. This product does lots of cool stuff but the learning curve is not small. If you are familiar with CAD you'll have no problem with it. If not, while the 490 page instruction manual pretty much tells you how to do everything. It does not tell it in any sort of rational order.

It does also not tell you what NOT to do. A component that contributed to significant colorful language on more than one occasion. Several days later I still have not figured out how to draw a decent curve, as evidenced by the weird shape of the pond. I also am finding roofs impossible, after many hours trying to do them. Posts are easy. Spacing them not so much. Can you tell?

This program was really designed for house building. Many of its features are related to building a house. It has a robust landscape component though, so they repackaged it and called it a landscape design program. For gardeners, it does a ton of cool things. The plant and tree library is huge and if by some weird chance you need something that isn't there, you can import it easily. You can sort thru the library by gardening zones, sunlight, or whatever parameter you are challenged with.

There is a plant aging function which allows you to see what your design will look like in 5, 10, up to 20 years! Even cooler you can plug in your GPS location and your property's position related to the sun and the program will accurately project shadows depending on what season you look at. That's huge! Want to know how much mulch you need for that bed you just drew? Press the calculate materials button and it will tell you, once you plug in how many inches deep you want it. Plug in some prices and it will total up all your material costs related to your project.

My favorite thing I have discovered so far about this program is that you do not have to view your design birds eye. If you click the person icon, you can walk thru it as if you are doing it in real life. It allows you to feel what the space will feel like. It was this feature that clued me into the fact that the design above needs a bigger area. The patio pad feels too small for what we'll be using it for. Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to correct that without redrawing the whole entire thing.   Sigh.

The software was $39 at Best Buy. It's a memory hog and will require a reasonable decent system to run it without wanting to heave it out the window. If you want to mess with design and have a bit of skill related to figuring out software though, you might find this fun for rainy evenings.

My Garden Made Fifty Cents!

2010-04-28T17:02:00.002-05:00

This year I am going to once again keep track of my garden's yield. Last year I slacked off when the tool I was using wasn't working efficently for me. This winter I spent some time tweaking my excel file with formula's and conditional formatting to make it much easier to keep track of yields. I also bought a better scale. One that I can take with me into the yard to weigh stuff right there without trying to keep it all separate.

This is a snapshot of just a portion of my Garden 2010 excel file. (Click on it to see the far columns). Lower down I have a section for costs. The formula's hidden in the cells are such that it will automatically calculate gains and losses based on what I put into the pounds or number yielded columns. Once foods are no longer in the red, the last column will turn green. I already have one row that is green. It is the herb row. Since the chives, thyme, and sage all had zero cost this year, my harvests from them have made it a green column. Yield to date is fifty cents! LOL

There was a chance of frost last night and it looks like the neighbors took a hit but my tomatoes were under row cover along with the lettuce so no harm done. I'm looking at significant plant out this weekend if the rain holds off.

Two weeks later, SALAD!

2010-04-26T20:18:00.000-05:00

On April 11th, I took this picture right after I planted lots of tiny lettuce seedlings into the ground. In that blog entry I mentioned that we would have salad in a couple of weeks. I wasn't kidding. I made the first clippings for salad tonight just two weeks later!

The lettuce isn't the only thing making progress. In the foreground you can see the beets have sprouted and to the right of them the spinach is ready to surrender baby leaves too. The onions are a bit of an experiment. They were planted last year and never got any size to their bulbs. I think they are just going to go to seed this year which will be pretty. If not, I'm hoping they will get bigger bulbs.

Not much accomplished in the garden after work today. Its meatless Monday and there was Veggie Lasagna to be made. I planted the Chinese Red Noodle Beans in a big pot and that's about it. Beans are normally direct seeded into the ground here but this variety is tropical and needs heat to avoid the pouts. I figured I would get it off to a headstart while I wait for the ground temperatures to hit 65. I'd like to harvest before Labor Day and last years beans were such a disaster I'm stacking the odds in my favor as much as I can.

Yesterday was pretty drippy out. I got the strawberry popcorn in the ground along with the peas (again!) and the rest of the carrots. The soil prep for the carrots took a bit of time. I got a tip that they like soil very fine with no twigs or chunks of any kind in it. The dechunkification of the carrot area took about an hour. Then the rain came and I squeezed in planting cilantro and marigold seeds between the storms. Pretty lazy day. It was a treat!

Goodbye Ugliest Bush in the World

2010-04-24T19:33:00.000-05:00

I can completely understand how it happened. It had to have been the lure of the amazing catalog picture. Looking at this flower up close, I really can't blame the old owners of our house for planting this bush. I imagine they had visions of orange spring loveliness when they saw its close up. It had to have been that. No sighted person would ever buy this thing once they saw a long shot of it.

My mission today was to purge the yard of this Japanese Beetle attracting, blob of sticks topped with orange. It would be a dicey mission. Rain was forecast for the entire day. It came only once, for about twenty minutes. Just enough to make lots of slippery clay and gunky soil. Otherwise the air was just thick with humidity, like a rain forest only way cooler. About sixty degrees.

It took an hour to reduce the Ugly to this. During removal, I discovered that Ugly had yet another charming aspect to its personality, very sharp thorns. These thorns easily pierced my gloves and made chopping Ugly down difficult, since the thorns of each cut branch would grab the other leaves and branches and dare you to yank hard, lest you whack yourself in the face with the branch. Ugly gifted me with small flesh wound.

It took an additional two hours to remove the base of the Ugly. The former brilliant owners that bought this hideous beast made real sure that it would be hard to get rid of. They mulched around it with lava rock. Lava rock gradually sinks into the soil over time. Clay soil studded with lava rock cannot be dug in at all. You have to scrape it, bit by horrid bit.

At this point I took a break from the patch above. There was so much work to do in it and I was so far behind what I had hoped to get done today that I walked away from it. I was secretly hoping for another downpour so that I could go inside and snuggle up with a book to purge my brain of the Ugly adventure. No such luck though. Instead, in my wanderings around the yard, my eyes fell on the tomatoes in the frame. I decided today was the day for the first five to hit go into the ground. I put in Gajo De Melon, Chocolate Stripes, Crnkovic Yugoslavian, Amerikansky Sladkiy and San Marzano (Pagano seed). They went in without incident. Recharged I decided to get in another rain barrel near the Ugly spot and to start cleaning up the bed.

I quit around 5pm. I did not finish, not even close. Work got broken up when I had to run to Home Depot to get parts for the overflow thing for the rain barrel. It took forever. The guy that was helping me pick parts will probably drink tonight. I don't think he appreciated me repeatedly telling him that what he suggest was unacceptable because it would look cheesy. Heh.

I like the way this rain barrel came out though. The little hosta that I planted in front of it was rescued from under the rubarb to the left. The tiny green spikes in front of the boulder are leeks. The mulch is grayish because it was molded in the bag. I will look OK once the sun hits it and as yuck as it is, its still way better than the Ugly bush. : )

Big Babies: Hold, Pot Up, or Plant

2010-04-23T19:00:00.000-05:00

On April 9th, stuff in the cold frame looked like this. Two weeks later, growth has been pretty significant.

Now we are at the tricky part of the year where you have to decide what track to take. Once plants get this big, you have three choices, hold, pot up, or plant.

Holding: Holding means keeping them in the same pot for now. The benefits are that they are less likely to outgrow your cold-frame before you get them in the ground. The negatives are that plants outgrowing their pots are needy. Really needy. They need more water (often daily) and are more vulnerable to vitamin deficiencies. Notice how the plants in the lower right hand corner are very light green? They are hating on their cramped toes and want a bigger pot or a bit of nitrogen. The biggest negative to holding too long is that you can stunt the plants and sometimes they won't recover from it.

Potting Up: Potting up means transplanting to an bigger container. It need not be a pot. Big Gulps with holes cut in the bottom work great and are Earth Friendly! The benefits of potting up are that the plant continues its rapid growth and you get a bigger plant going in the garden. The negatives are that it's work to pot up, bigger pots take up way more space and each time you transplant a plant it may get shocky. Shocked plants stall their growth for a period of time. For tomatoes that period is short for me so I pot them up several times. For peppers, they will pout for a couple of weeks, so I only do it once to them.

Planting Out: Planting out refers to getting the plant into its final location in the elements. Whether it be a container or garden soil, a planted out plant is more vulnerable to the elements and hungry varmints. Planting out early means you may get an earlier and possibly more productive harvest or it may get you a cold shocked pouty plant that starts recovering in late June. Planting late delays the harvest and may decrease the overall amount your plant produces that season.

There are all kinds of rules that exist as to when you should do any of these things. You can follow moon phases, farmer's almanac's, relatives rules or Tommy Skilling the weatherman. Me? I never put all the eggs in one basket. Thus, this weekend will involve a bit of holding, a bit of potting up and if the rain allows, a bit of planting out too.

Pea War. Its On.

2010-04-21T19:36:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture of some Illumination Vinca in bloom around an old Hyacinth bulb. I post this because I have no picture of pea sprouts to post. Something keeps stealing the peas! They are being dug up within a few nights of me planting them, before they even sprout. Based on the footprint in the bed, it may be a raccoon. I had hoped to take a photo of the print for confirmation but my assistant detective and his friend wiped out the evidence during their investigation. Sloppy detective work aside, Pea war is on. Tomorrow replanting number three will occur and this time I'll be topping the area with row cover and topping that and surround it with rose bush trimmings. My nastiest trimmings from my prickliest roses. Fingers crossed that raccoons, or whatever this thief is, hate prickers.

Jack Frost Brunnera

2010-04-20T18:33:00.000-05:00

I bought Jack Frost Brunnera the very first year it became available commercially. I paid $35 for a teeny tiny plant in a 4" pot. It was worth it. This plant is a pleasure. It is one of the first to bloom in the spring and its little true blue flowers are so pretty. Jack Frost holds its variegation unlike other Brunneras.

This plant is called Hadspen Cream Brunnera. Its leaves are supposed to look like this. It did the first year. After that it was solid green.Still pretty mind, but definitely not worth the extra dollars I paid for the pretty variegation.

Jack Frost on the other hand has never lost its variegation and I have had it for years. It thrives in shade and one plant easily becomes multiple plants since it responds so readily to dividing. The blooms are only around for a few weeks in the spring, but the leaves hold their own the rest of the summer and if you pair it with something like red impatiens, the effect can be dramatic!

In the garden the last couple of days I've gotten the chard planted and about half of the leeks. I also put in a new rhododendron in the new shade bed along with a Strawberries and Cream Hydrangea. This particular hydrangea is a zone 7 plant and probably has no prayer of making it through the winter in my garden. It is so gorgeous though, I bought it as an annual and will try and baby it this fall to see what happens.

Otherwise, the beets and zinnia have sprouted. The pea patch looks like it was dug up by a critter. I'll need to do some investigative digging in that area in a couple of days. I really really need to get the carrots in in the next few days as well. The soil prep for carrots is such a pain, but I want them in and and happy well before the heat arrives. With this whacko weather, that could happen any time now.

Corner Shade Bed Before--->After

2010-04-17T22:19:00.005-05:00

Check out the ugly! Click on the picture to fully appreciate it's scope. This homely little corner of the yard reads like a checklist of last year's abandoned projects. Last year the center of this bed held a huge silver maple that was developing a house crushing angle to it. After one particularly creepy windstorm, we decided to take it down. The wood from it went to the woodpile, except for those for remaining logs which were so heavy and wet that I left them where they were. They became ant condo's sometime over the winter.

The lava rock boulders in front of the stumps is part of my husband's remove all hateful lava rock mulch from all beds project. It's a cruddy project. I'm glad he's taken it on. The stuff cuts your hands up, makes digging impossible and makes every bed into the equivalent of a pizza oven. He's been chipping away at its removal for two years now but often takes breaks from it. Its that bad.

The plastic container hidden behind the stump is missing tubberware from the kitchen that the kiddos apparently swiped last year for something. The grass in the bed? That's from me getting bored with grass removal last year and moving on to other things. The fire circle is my temporary set-up that I move all over. If there is a place that needs grass removal, it often sprouts a fire circle!

There was a lot that needed attacking in the yard today but this little area is among the worst and since there is a chance of frost tonight, additional planting is on hold so the improvement was on!
I started at about 10am after the usual coldframe fussing and stick pick up. It took me until about 4pm to complete which included a trip to Sids for some Cotton Burr compost. I think it came out pretty good! Aside from the obvious weeding, grass removal and raking, I added a gravel dust base underneath the bricks. I found this stuff under a bunch of leaves in the back of the bed (hubby's work) and had to do something with it. I also thinned the Norway maple that is nearest this bed which only took a couple of minutes and added a ton of light to the spot. When I moved the stumps over to make a new compost areas, I got a shirtfull of black ants and their eggs. GAH ROSE! That inspired the first garden shriek of the season. I wonder if the neighbors take bets on that? Finally I removed a ton of creeping charlie from between the hedges that I would never have to do if the neighbor would make some attempt at erradicating it from his yard. Its been years. You would think he would have taken the hint from my muttered swears by now.

Unfortunately the whole of this bed is far from done. While most of it still looks OK thanks to piles of leaf mulch piled in it last year, there is still a ton of work, not to mention planting that is needed in this space. In order not to go completely broke, I'll be dividing a lot of my shade perennials and adding them to this bed gradually. The area of the bed I finished today will get some vegetables. While it is high filtered shade, it successfully produced both corn and leeks last year so I'm going to ask it to contribute to food production again this year as well. Maybe some flowers too. Oh and a hosta! An area with soil that looks this great definitely needs a hosta. Or two!

Afterschool Chores

2010-04-16T18:46:00.000-05:00

Mmmm, its spicy viburnum season!

During the week, it's tough to get a lot done in the garden. Between homework assistance, kid limo service and dinner prep, there is usually only an hour or so in the evening to get stuff done. Since the first half hour or so of that hour is coldframe inspection and watering, progress on muchelse during the week is slow. Thankfully, the extraordinarily good weather has continued so I've had lots of outdoor time.

This week I finally got the peas in the ground. I tried a new location for them this year with more sun so we'll see what happens. Last year they were really late to emerge and ended up cramping the space plans badly. I spent most of the early part of the week potting up the peppers and eggplants. A part of me toyed with the idea of just sticking them in the ground now. We haven't seen frost for weeks and there is none in the forecast. Since I am only a couple of weeks away from the last frost date for this area it is really really tempting to get a few in the ground now to save a bit of work later. If this weather continues for one more week I'm going to go for it.

Tonight, in addition to potting up a couple more tomatoes, I finally got four broccoli "Early Dividend" and four Ruby Perfection cabbage in the ground. I left them out and not covered by the row cover tonight. Hopefully the varmits leave them be. Also planted was fennel, and a rosemary.

Now that we have hit the third week of April, I've started my annual spring freak out. Everywhere I look there is so much to get done and while mother nature has gifted me with multiple weeks of gorgeous weather, in a sense its made things worse. Its been so balmy the magnolia only held onto its blossoms for a few days. Now that mess already needs a clean up and the lawn is already getting crazy long thanks to all the warmth. Normally regular lawn mowing doesn't start until May!

In addition to all the usual spring chores, we are seriously toying with the idea of both residing the house and finally reclaiming the patio area which means new fencing, concrete work etc etc. If we do the siding we have to replace all the railings on all three balconies too. This project will involve significant research and planning. The electrical mainline will have to be shut off the the back of the house, fence posts will have to be dug. I have to research a different siding product we want to switch too (concrete fiber) and figure out if I can get decent styled fencing that will match it. If we are doing the patio I have to research a pond installation and get all that coordinated in such a way that we are not dealing with massive dirt piles all summer. ARGH! LOL. Oh well at least its not blizzard season anymore right?

Manure Musings

2010-04-11T19:15:00.007-05:00

A few days ago, I was explaining to my mom why I was a bit behind in the garden. Mainly manure and the lack of time and weather conducive to retrieving it. My mom rolled her eyes and told me to got to a box store like everyone else and get some. I won't I explained, because its not the same. The lovely pile of goodness in this picture is local. No trucks hauled it across country. Its not hidden away in a bag. I can sniff it up front an appreciate its earthy but not rotten smell. Most importantly, I know where it comes from. I drove past the horses that produced it to get back to the pasture where it stands. I know it is made of poop and straw and thats it. There is no human sludge in it, there is no toxins from flood waters, no fill from Katrina dumps. Its just poop and straw. Beautiful in its simplicity and really really heavy to load when it is still this damp!

It took me about an hour of shoveling to load this up before the back started to go. While composted manure doesn't really have any nasty smells associated with it, in appreciation for hubby letting me use his brand new truck for this chore, I bagged it up in trash bags to keep the truck clean. Then it was back home, er with just a teeny little stop at The Growing Place first. I forgot what the excuse was for visiting there. Once there the shade plants beckoned to me and the resulting damage to the wallet originated in that area. I need to start working on the new long shade bed. Its newest inhabitants as of yesterday are Hosta Earth Angel, Hosta Green Velveteen, Heuchera Georgia Peach which is a peachy maroon that really glows in the shade.

The extravagant purchase of the day was Hosta Hanky Panky. I've lusted after this one for awhile now. The switched leaf color is so unusual and so pretty. I also love the name of this variety. I had to have it. $24.99 later, the tiny little pot that held about three eyes of this treasure was loaded into the car with the other new items.

Once home I started on the first garden project of the day, the greens bed. It was looking a little rough, but not all that terrible. I did a bit of weeding, gently dug in a bit of compost and planted 52 lettuce transplants, 18 spinach and three kinds of beets. My daughter was outside and enjoying the weather too. She wanted to help out and did a bunch. She removed the dead stuff from the perennials and did a lot of work on the hedge. It took a couple of hours but the time went fast.

We ended up with this, which doesn't look like much now, but just wait. In a couple of weeks its going to look like a salad. I'll keep row cover on it at night and until it gets a bit bigger. I've found that certain birds really like to rip out the lettuce seedlings and the bambis definitely love them at this stage. Once things are bigger, I don't mind sharing but for now its all under wraps.

This Year's Problem Tomatoes

2010-04-08T07:16:00.000-05:00

When I first got into gardening, I used to think that people that referred to their tomatoes as anything other than tomato, were a little bit pretentious. Who were they trying to impress with the "Tomato-Black Krim" stuff? How different could one tomato be from another? The answer? Very different.

The first sign of difference can occur as early as the very first green you see. Most tomatoes emerge as dicots, which means two cotyledons. This year I got my first tricot. Three cotyledons emerged in one of my Striped Roman tomatoes. This trait can occur via spontaneous mutation but also may be inheritable. It doesn't occur that often so it pretty cool to see. Supposedly, tricots may be potentially superior plants. In theory their larger surface area should make for faster establishment. To this I say HA.

My tricot Striped Roman is best described as frail and needy. Sure its bigger than its dicot brother but it is extremely sensitive to over watering. If its feet get a bit too wet, it turns yellow and drops leaves. Since some of these stems are fused together, these losses can be substantial. I lost all of the branches in this photo. I then dug it up, replanted it deeper and gave it a drier potting mix to help fend of the wet feet.

I can't blame all this plant's issues on genetic oddity though. The tricot's brother also has a leaf structure that is odd. Sort of wispy and prone to getting tangled on itself. I fear for this plant once I get it in the garden and the wind. I'm holding out hope that once in the ground it will get some sturdiness to it. Other gardeners report it does better once in the ground. My fingers are crossed. Otherwise, I won't be seeing any of the gorgeous tomatoes this plant produces.

Striped Roman is not the only tomato that has me scratching my head this year. I have a few varieties that have been grown in the exact same conditions as the rest of the group, yet they are only 1/3 of the size of the others. Odder still is that these varieties are supposedly known to have some size to them. The worst of the bunch are Big Rainbow, Big White and Pink Stripes and Kelloggs Breakfast. Also currently sorta shrimpy are Black From Tula and Japanese Black Triefele which incidentally is from Russia! They are all healthy, just really really short.

I did a bit of reading on these varieties to try and see if it was me or them that was the problem. It may be me. So far I haven't found anyone that has said that any of these particular varieties were slower than typical though there were a few mentions of difficulties growing JBT. So for now, I continue to scratch my head, clearly they need more of something. What that particular something might be remains a mystery for now.

Baby Pictures!

2010-04-07T07:11:00.001-05:00

The blog neglect is a reflection of a bit of garden neglect. No worries, the babies in the coldframe are still getting their daily inspections. The weather, and life have me behind with bed prep though. I'm behind on getting peas and beets and lettuce in the ground. I have some lettuce starts in the coldframe though, so I'm not yet in terrible shape.

The plants in the frame are thriving. The tomatoes have been in there since the first week of March. They are still getting a light bulb for heat at night. The lowest temperatures they saw was 44 degrees. They were fine with it. Last year, they got purple leaves when exposed to cold. This year nothing. This year the challenge has been making sure they get enough nitrogen. I used Fertilome when I potted them and was a little worried about it because of the would chips in it. The worry was warranted. This years crop has needed fertilization every two weeks. Last year I did it only once using different potting soil. I fertilize with Neptune's Organic Fish and Seaweed 2-3-1. I dilute it to half its recommended strength to be safe and bottom feed only. Its a fertilizer that isn't so great for indoors. It reeks!

The size variation in the tomatoes is pretty interesting. I'll post on that tomorrow. So far disease wise, things are good. I noticed a bit of leaf spot on one of the eggplant leaves and nipped that off. Otherwise, so far so good. Here's a picture of most of the plants in the frame. The back wall is so high, I've found that some of the plants have benefited by raising them up off the ground to get them higher in the frame.

Here's a closer look at some of the peppers and the eggplants (left). Both are ready for potting up. I'm going to get the lettuce and spinach in first so I have more room in the frame. Are these happy looking plants or what?!

Coldframe Update

2010-03-24T17:03:00.001-05:00

Well I ended up making one small change to the cold frame. Last year I used 6mm plastic for the top and it worked fine. I couldn't find a wide enough sheet of that for the top this year so I tried 4mm. It didn't work. It was too stretchy. The result was that no matter how taunt I pulled it, when it rained, puddles developed. If it rained alot, giganormous lakes developed that sunk to the bottom of the frame and would have squished any baby plants below them.

My change to the frame used $4.24 panels of plastic. The kind you put in ceiling lights. I attached them together with a duct tape hinge for easy opening and closing and its working a lot better. Nights are still running in the thirties here, but my interior frame temps never go below 48 degrees.

Currently in the frame I have chard, lettuce, spinach, a few herbs, leeks and six cells of unsprouted amarynth. I hope that doesn't need heat. I have no room for it inside. I also have one Fat and Sassy pepper in there which is much smaller than the peppers inside, showing that peppers like warmer temps, lol.

I thinned the lettuce out today and had a little micro green salad with the thinnings. The first harvest of the year! I also transplanted four tomato seedlings into bigger containers and put them in the cold frame. They each have one or two lower leaves that are looking a bit off. I think it may be because I got some neptune's harvest on the leaves but I want to separate them from the other plants just in case it is disease. I'll re-revaluate them in a couple of days.

I Made A Different Sort of Cold Frame

2010-02-28T17:51:00.000-06:00

Last year my cold frame was constructed out of bricks, with the cover made out of a plastic tarp. It worked very well, though once outdoor temperatures reached sixty degrees, I had to be very careful with ventilating it. A rectangle of unventilated bricks can quickly become a seedling oven.

This year my brick pile is still frozen solid and the thought of trying to maneuver a wheelbarrow through a foot and a half of snow a few dozen times to transport the bricks to the patio was just not appealing. So I decided to build a coldframe. I tweaked the traditional coldframe design to give it a bit of my mutinous and somewhat risky style. My husband calls it the tsunami frame. More on that in a minute.

The cost to build this was cheap. I spent about $20 on wood and $8 on a 50 foot, 4mm plastic tarp. The staples and screws came from the husband's stash. Building it was pretty easy. I basically just built a frame and mitered a 25 degree angle to the uprights to make a slope to the roof. Now that it is done, I wish I had made the slope a bit more to help shed water. I can still tweak it later to make the slope more extreme, but I'm going to try it this way first to see how it goes.

Once the frame was done, I wrapped each side with the tarp. The plastic is stapled at the top, wrapped under the bottom board to help protect if from moisture and then stapled again to the top. The two thicknesses of plastic with a 3" airspace in between them helps to insulate the frame. I debated about filling that space with bubble wrap but wanted to keep costs down so left it like this. All except for the back wall...

The back wall I added two thicknesses of black garbage bags between the plastic tarp walls to help the back wall collect heat. Then I filled the garbage bags with water. Yep, the back of my coldframe is a wall of water. The water doesn't quite go to the top, because I got nervous about the staples ripping through the plastic due to the weight. It goes pretty high though and my hope is that it will collect heat during the day and help keep temperatures moderate at night. It will definitely assure that this thing doesn't blow over. Now chance of that. It's heavy. I've stapled the plastic in such a way that if the staples give, it should be the outer wall that fails. Thus any potential tsunami's are more likely to dampen the dog than the plants. I hope it doesn't give though. I'm quite proud of it!

Seedling Set-up Phase 2

2010-02-21T15:20:00.003-06:00

A few days ago, my planting trays were under a sheet of plastic wrap to help keep temps and humidity up. That's phase one and it's a very short phase. It stops as soon as the seedlings emerge. As soon as the first seedling emerges, the plastic wrap comes off. Failure to remove high humidity domes or plastic wrap once a seedling up, is the perfect way to invite damping off. Damping off is any number of fungal diseases that cause your seedlings to essentially rot at, or near the soil line. It's heartbreaking when it happens and there is no cure for it. The way to prevent it is to keep your humidity down and keep air flowing around your plants. I have my ceiling fan on high to help with air flow.

My phase two set up focuses on maximizing light exposure. I use high output, low temperature grow lights. The low temperature allows me to place them within a few inches of my seedlings. This helps prevent stretch. Stretch is when seedlings grow too tall too fast and are weak as a result. Short stocky seedlings are better than tall gangly ones. They are much less likely to be damaged on transplant. Since my seedlings are in a southern exposure in February in zone 5, they won't get enough light from the big window to prevent stretch. They need about 16 hours of good light. The grow lights make a big difference. I enhance the light they receive by covering cardboard squares and angling them around the seedling trays to help bounce light around. Once temps rise, though, the foil goes away in order to prevent the crispies.

My seed germination is going very well. Every tomato type has already germinated with the exception of Amerikansky Sladsky. Among the peppers there is at least one plant up of each type with the exception of Sweet Chocolate (older seed) and Fat and Sassy (the hybrid). It's interesting that the so called very early pepper hybrid is lagging behind the heirlooms so much. It is the farthest from the heating vent, so perhaps that degree or two makes the difference. One would think an early variety would have less heat needs though.

Notes on the seedlings this week: San Marzano seedlings from both BI and Pagano nurseries all required rescue from their seed casings. (Annoying!). Brave General is a very small seedling and doesn't match its name. One of the Striped Roman seedlings has three leaves. Black Cherry is this week's leader with respect to growth and health. No sign of a single leek so far. I need to read up on that. I can't remember what they need for germination.

I was going to start assembling the cold frame this week but in reviewing last year's notes, it was the first two weeks of March that gave me the biggest headaches with respect to big storms and temperature extremes. I think I'll hold off a bit more. Meanwhile, I need to plot how to make assembly an easier task than hauling all those bricks to the patio.

Big Zac

2010-02-20T20:28:00.000-06:00

Big Zac<----(Say this with a deep terminator voice.) This was today's impulse buy on my trip to get a new lightbulb for the seedlings. It was either that or a king size Snickers bar. Since we are apparently getting ANOTHER huge dump of snow tomorrow, my spirits needed lifting and (terminator voice) Big Zac was it!

I don't typically attempt huge tomatoes. I lean more towards big flavors than big slices. However, one of my forums plans on having a who grew the biggest tomato contest this summer and I expressed interest. I'm only going to put one plant of Big Zac in the garden and I'll be only letting a couple of fruit mature to see if I can get a big. Big Zac is a hybrid tomato that was the result of combining two beefsteak varieties. Yes, this would be the second hybrid this year. Its not a trend. I'm just competitive. It will be fun to see what I can get out of it.

And They're Off! ...Or Are They?

2010-02-16T16:37:00.000-06:00

For the first few days after my seed order came in, I spent a bit of time admiring the packets, reading the packets, organizing the packets, fondling the packets, and then reorganizing them again. That did not satisfy the itch for long. I spent the next couple of days stalking nurseries for seed packets that I had to have. I was strong in this respect, the damage to the pocket book was under $5. Unfortunately, that was where the will power ended.

I have posted more than once that I wanted to start my seeds a little later this year. That last year I had such large plants in April that they became difficult to manage. I have not forgotten last April. However, I did start reading old blog entries. In particular the ones where I rejoiced about having such an early tomato harvest and such a long tomato season. Sigh. No more excuses. I caved. I swear I was just going to start with a few leeks, but then I had this big bag of potting soil that either needed to be put in pots or the dog would kick it over. From there I rationalized that my eggplants always take 2-3 weeks to sprout since I don't use heaters, so I might as well get them started, and hey eggplants are just like peppers right? Might as well start them too!

On February 6th I started 9 cells of leeks, 22 cells of peppers and 9 cells of eggplants, two seeds to every cell. I placed the giant tubberware container containing the eggplants, peppers and leeks near the sliding glass doors in the bedroom with the end of the container half covering the heating grate on the floor. Apparently, bottom heat makes a difference because two days later I had eggplants sprouting all over the place. Wait a minute, what's this? How come the cells that had two seeds carefully placed in them were now sprouting four to five seedlings in them? I stewed on this a bit and then remembered. I had placed about a teaspoon of vermicompost near the bottom of each cell as gentle fertilizer. Unscreened vermicompost. Unscreened vermicompost collected from worms that consumed a huge amount of tomatoes last year. GAH. The first boo boo of the season and spring is still a month away.

This unfortunate mistake has led to an interesting problem. Each day now when I scope the cells for new sprouts I must make a decision. Pluck or leave? I've easily ripped out 25 or so seedlings to date but as we get closer to the date when I expect the seeds that match my labels to start spouting, it's become more of a gamble. Today I resorted to digging in the areas where I planted the seeds to try and locate the seeds I planted. Thankfully, they were often a nice light color and easy to identify. Once I confirmed their location, I plucked the aliens in the pot. The dig up the seeds method allowed me to definitely confirm today that the first eggplant has sprouted. Applegreen is up, ten days from planting. It was in the cell closest to being on top of the heating vent. My plan moving forward is to pluck sprouts on the outside of the container. Let live sprouts that I am not sure about and if there is no sprouts from any cell in the next 14 days to replant, assuming that I plucked wrong.

All of this drama should have kept me busy enough, but since it refuses to stop snowing, and I'm trapped inside, it didn't. Since the initial prompt for all this planting was the desire to once again have an early yield of tomatoes, planting the above did not satisfy me for long. On February 10th I planted 44 cells of tomatoes. I did not make the vermicompost error with this planting. Therefore I think the plant that is already up in the Stupice cell, really is Stupice. I'll be watching it closely though. Those seedlings are tricky.

Time to Start Seed Obsessing!

2010-02-03T19:06:00.000-06:00

It's cold, its snowy, but it's time. After a solid two months of drooling over Baker's Creek seed catalog, it's time to place an order. This is my second year ordering from Bakers. It's owned by a young guy that started his own seed business when he was 17. Now he's probably in his mid to late twenties and he has two seed stores and his own litttle town, lol. I like their seeds for a number of reasons. They are heirloom varieties, he avoids GMO seeds and purchases seed from a small group of proven farmers. He also grows a fair amount of it at his own place, has a huge selection and shipping is cheap! $3, that's it! His website has a few planting forums that have a lot of very smart growers on them and it that makes deciding between varieties a lot easier.

This year, when choosing seed, I was drawn once again to the odd, ornamental and unusual. I tried to do a little better in balancing the stuff that probably doesn't have a prayer of doing well(asian melons), with varieties where my climate should be perfect. My tomato choices numbered 20 with a heavy emphasis on black varieties. I'll be regrowing three varieties from last year as well. Chocolate Stripes, San Marzano and Dr. Carolyn.

Here's the 2010 list. They are all heirlooms with the exception of Fat and Sassy Pepper. A 61 day pepper was just too hard to resist for this zone 5 girl. I'll probably begin planting some items as soon as my order comes in, but this year I want to avoid starting too much too soon. My plants were bigger than they needed to be last April and it made for a lot of extra work.

Molten Fire	BC 2010	Amarynth
Cream of Saskatchewan	BC 2010	Watermelon

Stupice	BC 2010	Tomato (early)
Illini Star	BC 2010	Tomato
Gajo De Melon	BC 2010	Tomato(Cherry)
Vorlon	BC 2010	Tomato (PL)
Black from Tula	BC 2010	Tomato
Black Cherry	BC 2010	Tomato(Cherry)
Ingegnoli Gigante Liscio	BC 2010	Tomato
Chocolate Stripes	BC 2009	Tomato
Kellogg's Breakfast	BC 2010	Tomato
Violet Jasper or Tzi Bi U	BC 2010	Tomato
Dr. Carolyn	BC 2009	Tomato(Cherry)
San Marzano	BI 2009	Tomato(Paste)
Brave General	BC 2010	Tomato
Amerikanskiy Sladkiy	BC 2010	Tomato
Japanese Black Trifele	BC 2010	Tomato
Crnkovic Yugoslavian	BC 2010	Tomato
Striped Roman	BC 2010	Tomato(Paste)
Copia	BC 2010	Tomato
Big White Pink Stripes	BC 2010	Tomato
Big Rainbow	BC 2010	Tomato

Five Color Silverbeet	BC 2010	Chard
Red Cheese	BC 2010	Sweet pepper
Odessa Market	BC 2010	Sweet pepper
Corbaci	BC 2010	Sweet pepper
Sweet Chocolate	BC 2009	Sweet pepper
Red Belgian	BC 2009	Sweet pepper
King of the North	BC 2009	Sweet pepper
Fat and Sassy Hybrid	Totally Tomatoes	Sweet pepper

Early Silver Line	BC 2010	Asian Melon
Far North	BC 2010	American Melon
Red Wing	BC 2010	Lettuce mix
Rocky Top	BC 2010	Lettuce mix
Giant Musselburgh	BC 2010	Leek
Violette Longue Hativ	BC 2010	Eggplant
Thai Round Purple	BC 2010	Eggplant
Applegreen	BC 2010	Eggplant
Japanese Long	BC 2010	Cucumber
Lemon Cuke	BC 2009	Cucumber
Strawberry Popcorn	BC 2010	Popcorn
Lunar White Carrot	BC 2010	Carrot
Cosmic Purple Carrot	BC 2010	Carrot
Chioggia	BC 2010	Beet
Cylindra or Formanova	BC 2010	Beet
Chinese Red Noodle	BC 2010	Bean
Purple Podded Pole	BC 2010	Bean

Tribute to Fall

2009-11-13T15:48:00.001-06:00

I took these pictures a few weeks ago when the colors were at their peak. One shot from the backyard and the rest are from the Morton Arboreteum in Lisle, Il. I try and hike there a few times a week.

Leaves

2009-11-10T17:49:00.003-06:00

Leaves. Beginning mid-October and until mid-November, leaves occupy every weekend. If I am not at the arboreteum, hitting the trails, I'm in the yard, dealing with the endless leaves.

Once upon a time we used to bag them whole and put them by the curb and pay to have someone take them away. That got pricey. We have 35+ trees on our lot and we were spending big bucks having them hauled away. That practice morphed into leaf chopping. We would spend the entire weekend blowing all the leaves into the driveway into a huge mound and then spend a couple of hours going over them with a lawn mower to chop them into fine particles. This created a new problem, ridiculously heavy bags. The picker upper people refused to pick them up. The light bulb moment came when a woman at my husband's work offered to take them all off our hands every year forever...for her garden.

Before this time, my relationship with leave clean-up was not positive. Once we blew it off, got a week straight of rain and went out to find an completely dead and rotting lawn. I resented having to spend the last great weather weekends with this chore. That was before I knew the magic of leaf mold.

Now things are very different. I have kids that are old enough to really help and young enough to still respond to bribes. Judicious pruning has reduced the overall amount of leaves we have to deal with, but most importantly, I have tasted the magic that leaf mold does for the soil. We are probably 3/4 done with it for this year. This was the easiest year yet. Instead of blowing 100% of them into the driveway, I blew a bunch of them into the beds and just chopped them to smithereens there. From the driveway I still have 14 full bags of very fine mulch to spread around but I'm not giving any away. This stuff is gold!

San Marzano's Last Hurrah

2009-10-02T21:18:00.003-05:00

I have been harvesting San Marzano tomato's all summer. They are a highly productive sauce tomato. Some say they make the best sauce in the world. My experience with them has been that they make great sauce! They grow in clusters of fruit that ranges in size from three to six inches long. They are definitely a sun loving tomato. While they seemed to be equally productive in different areas of the garden, those that got the most sun, got the most size.

Many of my tomatoes are done now. I had another huge harvest of 30+# of tomatoes a couple of days ago, before the storm and have continued to average 5-10 fruit a day. Really remarkable year. I definitely am putting down the composted horse poop again. I'm not sure if it is what has made such a huge difference for me with the peppers and tomatoes this year or if was just a better choice of heirloms but I'm not taking chances. Poop hauling is not fun, but it's so worth it.

Disease has come with the cool rains that started this week and Sungold, Dr. Carolyn, Cherokee Purple, and Amish Paste are all toast. It happened overnight but it's OK, they were declining anyway. Cosmonaut Volkov is still healthy but production is waning. San Marzano and Carbon are still blooming their little hearts out. They were all knocked down to half their height in a major storm we had this week though. They bent and didn't break, so I've propped them up in the hope the remaining fruits will ripen. I probably have another 30 tomatoes still out there. If not, that's OK. It's been a great year. I don't wanna be greed.

No Fall Changes Yet

2009-09-07T15:53:00.003-05:00

The summer of weirdness continues. I'm sorry I've been slacking on the blog. We got busy with school starting and oddly, there was not that much to report. Typically by this time of year I've started to see some decline in the plants by now. Not this year, things are looking as green and lush as they did a month ago. The tomatoes are even still throwing more blooms which his weird. I'm starting to get a little antsy for some change here. While I love all the produce, I really need to start prepping some of the beds soon. Once the manure pile at the stables freeze, I can't do anything and we can go from balmy to badness overnight here.

I've been reading it has not been a good year for tomatoes all over forum land. I'm a bit bewildered why I am having such a different year. I had all the same ridiculous rain, cool temps and cloudy skies as other areas are reporting, yet I seem to have dodged not only the majority of the diseases that people have seen but also the low productivity.

This is one day's tomato harvest. I've been averaging 20-25 of these a day plus about a pint of cherries. I have tomatoes coming out of my ears and they are healthy. August has been fairly dry so the flavor of these guys is really becoming something special. I'm still eating a cereal size bowl of salsa every couple of days too. I'm not tired of them yet!

The one item in the garden that is starting to wane is the cukes. Here is today's harvest but lemon cuke as well as the other novelty cukes is fading fast. I'll be growing lemon again. It was a really productive plant and once you rub off the scratchys you can eat it skin and all. Very tasty and pretty in a salad.

The pears are starting to ripen now. Mine are never great beauties because I don't spray. It's often an adventure trying to get a few in the house too. The black wasps really like these things and once a couple are on the ground, good luck getting any for yourself. These five cost me one sting in the neck. : (

This is the best year I have ever had for peppers. Not only did mine finally get some size to them but the chocolates are starting to ripen up nicely. Belgium red has been a bit more productive than chocolate but so far not red beauties from any of those plants. I think the key to my success with these this year has been two-fold. Much richer, better quality soil and staking. While we didn't get the massive wind storms this summer that we usually do, I lost nothing to breakage, which makes a difference.

This weekend in the garden, I finally got around to planting some stuff for fall. The broccoli, cabbage and lettuce are in. I'm tossing around the idea with experimenting with the bin containers to put in even more but first I need stuff to die! LOL

I hope everyone is enjoying this gorgeous weather. I'm off for a walk to the arboreteum.

The Prettiest Tomato of Them All

2009-08-17T14:01:00.004-05:00

In my garden, there is no contest as to the most attractive tomato. Sure Sungold looks like little orange jewels, the push-up orange color or persimmon is an attention getter and Black Krim is pretty in a dark sort of way. The queen of the garden, however is Chocolate Stripes.

Chocolate Stripes has mannerisms consistent with royalty. She makes you wait, being the latest to ripen of my varieties. She is strong and has resisted all of the bits of illness that have touched other varieties this year. Her taste is something special, sweet rich and complex. She was not a sure thing, she needed some coddling to get her off and running. She, like Persimmon are definitely fans of warmth. The cool, wet weather we had for the most of the summer made her sulk. I'm saving the seeds from this big girl in the photo as well as regrowing some of my seeds from this year, next year. This late in the year when I'm hauling in 15-20 slicers a day, pretty little girls like this are wonderful for keeping my interest up.

Verdict on the Sack'o Potatoes

2009-08-14T21:20:00.003-05:00

Earlier this year, I read about the ability to grow potatoes in relatively smallish containers. There were special ones that could be bought for this in Britain, but I decided to try and make one of my own. I made it out of landscape fabic in about 15 minutes via sewing machine.

This was my first attempt at growing potatoes. I selected a variety that went with this year's garden theme of weird veggies. The purple potato. Planting was nothing fancy. Four little purple potatoes seedlings planted in potting soil and a bit of straw. As summer progressed, and the potato vines grew I added more dirt to the container and slowly unrolled the sides to their full height. The container after that was essentially maintenance free. No water demands to speak of other than the rain. (Though we did have a very wet spring/summer).

My initial plan was to cut slits in the side of the sack and plant annuals in it to make the whole thing more attractive. I never got around to it, but it wasn't needed. The plant for this variety of potato was quite pretty and lush enough to cover the bag almost completely until last week. Last week, half the plant died without ever blooming.

I decided to empty it all out today to see what I got. Potatoes! Not a ton of them but considering what a small space they grew in, I'd say not too bad. They look kind of weird here because I just washed them and they are still half wet. We're going to grill them tomorrow.

My verdict on this experiment? A success! Pretty plant, small space, no cost, no maintenance and a meal of potatoes once foliage dies. Yep, I'll take it. Plus there was not one bit of bug damage to a single spud despite a big family of little ants that moved in.

The live portion of the plant still had a bunch of baby spuds on them so I replanted it to see if I can get a few more out of it. I'll do this again next year. I'm tempted to see what happens with one of the highly productive varieties, but the kids love the purple ones so much, we'll see.

The Heat Is On

2009-08-12T22:26:00.006-05:00

My plant/garden sitter when I vacation is a brilliant 83 year old gentleman that knows nothing about gardening and isn't particularly interested in learning. He likes to water, his way, period. That means there will be no discussion about keeping leaves dry or being consistent with tomato moisture or avoiding flooding the melon patch. You take it as it is delivered or you don't. I took it, and it worked out just fine.

I'm back from vacation and things are in pretty decent shape. I picked every single remotely blushed tomato before I left and took it with me up north. Fresh salsa every day, now that's a vacation!

When I got back it was time to harvest again and the harvest was a decent size. The only tomato that hasn't ripened so far is Chocolate stripes, but that is a later tomato and it's getting close. The flavor of all of the harvest was good, not too watery and the only cracking I had was in a few sungolds, which is expected. My plant sitter did good!

One small blip with the self-watering apparatus thing I set up for the balcony tomatoes. It was working fine for a week before I left but failed while I was gone. Two of the Dr. Carolyns are pretty fried but they were so healthy to begin with, they're going to make it and are still blooming.

There were a couple of nice surprises when I returned. For one thing, the rain finally slowed down so we didn't immediately have to start the task of mowing a foot of lawn. It can wait until the weekend! Another surprise was in the cuke/melon bed. Lemon cuke exploded in both growth of vines and number of cukes. I harvested one for a picture and can go out any time and pick about four more, there are easily two dozen cukes on this plant right now. I'll definitely grow this again.

The next surprise had the kids excited. The Dragon's Egg cucumber gave us our first cuke. It's cute! This plant is much less healthy than Lemon cuke but it has the kiddo's chomping veggies with enthusiasm so it will be back next year.

In the same area I have my first ever baby watermelon! It is about the size of a half dollar and doesn't have much chance of reaching maturity but I'm going to try. I put black plastic under it today to help with heat.

The remaining surprises were completely unexpected. I was not happy when I saw the state of the purple potatoes in their sack because they were half dead and had not yet bloomed. I did a quick search in the first couple of inches of soil under the dead section and pulled out a very satisfactory purple spud! That means there should be more where that came from! The final surprise was with persimmon the prima donna. She had nine pretty orange tomatoes ready for me to pick and a boat load more to come.

Other than the damage to the balcony tomatoes, the only other loss was most of the leaves from the stupid beans that had finally at long last started to climb the teepee. It looks to be the work of bambis. The plants are still alive and climbing but the vision of a lush hideout for munchkins has gone bye bye. Oh well, you win some you lose some and if that's the only irritation I have to trade for ten days of awesome quiet sunsets, I'll take it!

Update on Vines That Hate Cold Climes

2009-07-29T20:57:00.014-05:00

Yeah yeah I know. Poetry is not a strength of mine. Neither is growing vining vegetables (Please refer to multiple past references to "stupid beans") They say it has been a record cold summer here. That sounds horrid, but the reality is that it has been quite pleasant. Record cold here means, not hot. We've had upper seventies, low eighties and no nineties. Really perfect weather for all things but growing stuff that likes it hot, aka watermelon. Nevertheless, I'm going to put my watermelon in the positive column this year because I've done better with it this year. Last year it spent the entire summer the size of my shoe before eventually becoming an ant appetizer. This year I have actually seen a couple of male blossoms on my two little plants. This late there isn't much hope for any edible fruit, but who knows, if the freakish weather continues, anything could happen!

Lemon yellow cucumber is doing a little bit better. It's in the same bed, my hottest bed, and it is loaded with blossoms. I think I may even see the beginnings of some baby cukes, but I'm not sure yet.

Dragon's Egg cucumber is a smaller plant than Lemon Yellow which is possibly related to being in less sun. Regardless, it is a bit farther along. Definite baby dragon's eggs on this one. It had some help in the pollination department. It's looking a little pale here. Looks like it's getting some worm tea for dinner tomorrow.

Chinese Yellow is my other cuke I am growing this year. It is struggling which is not surprising as it is growing in the wilds. The wilds is an area of my garden that is typically neglected, partially because the hose doesn't reach there and partially because of the skunk that lives in the woodpile.

The wilds used to be mostly shade as well. Then last week, Com Ed came in and lopped a massive limb off the apple tree for no apparent reason. It was nowhere near the vicinity of their power lines. Anyway, the end result was less apples and more light, enough now to allow several of varieties of vegetables to either show their stuff or suffer a slow, neglected death. Chinese yellow cuke is losing the battle. I think it's potato bugs chomping on it. They are completely ignoring the lemon cuke next to it which is interesting. Something to note for next year.

White squash is also growing in the wilds. It seems to be doing OK, despite being in shade a lot of the day. It has had a couple of male blossoms this week which were big and healthy looking. I'll try some hand fertilization if a girl blossom shows up.

I've never tried honeydew melons before but my daughter really wanted to try them this year. I forgot which variety this is, but after doing nothing for weeks, it seems to have figured out, the heat isn't coming. It has finally started to grow and blossom. It has fencing around it to keep the dog out of it. The toads like to hang out around it and the dog likes to harass the toads.

I had extra melon seed so I stuck one in the hanging tomato planters. It grew and has also blossomed. There are several problems with this arrangement which I'm sure you don't need me to explain. I'll just let you gaze in awe at the silly mistakes that can occur in the garden when one is bored.

Finally, the thread wouldn't be complete without a picture of a zuke. I am not fond of zucchini. I think I can trace it back to the zucchini pancakes my evil sister used to request of my grandma. It could also be the propensity for this plant to be one day from perfect on Monday and on Tuesday to be bloated past all hope of tastiness.

This is the only zuke in my garden. I planted it in the farthest corner of the wilds directly in front of the skunk's woodpile. It already has zucchini on it. Figures.

Tuesday Treats! Salsa!

2009-07-28T19:30:00.007-05:00

Short on time and big on tomatoes? The obvious treat is salsa! I've made it the last two days to have with chips and taco's and chicken. I forgot to take a picture of the ingredients before I snarfed them all down today so you get a picture of the remaining tomatoes. I've been using Carbon, Matina, Dr. Carolyn, Cherokee Purple, Cosmonaut Volkov and Amish paste tomatoes. For a variety of flavors.

My first recipe comes from Jen, a forum friend. It's simple! Chop a bowl of tomatoes, sprinkle with a decent amount of kosher salt and let it sit for 5-10 minutes. Drain the bowl most of the way and add chopped cilantro, lime juice, a seeded chopped jalapeno, and chopped red onion. It's fantastically fresh tasting and

can be whipped together in minutes.

This afternoon I roasted the tomatoes under the broiler, a jalapeno, a vidalia onion, a sweet red pepper and a couple of gloves of garlic. Then I chopped it all up, drained the excess juice and seasoned it with bit of cumin, kosher salt, pepper, a handful of cilantro and the juice of a whole lime. Also delicious. I may have some again for breakfast!

The Beans Moved! And Other Updates!

2009-07-24T20:21:00.008-05:00

It has been a good week. Loads of luscious tomatoes, a bit of warmth and sun, Japanese beetles that visited only briefly and alleluia the beans moved!

My pole beans which have been in the ground three+ months now have done something. Now there is nothing robust or rambunctious about the tiny little tendril they sent up to wind around the poles. It is quite pathetic actually. Perhaps I should be calling them petite haricot vertsto be more accurate with the way they are behaving. Nevertheless a bit of wimpy growth is better than stagnation, so I at this point I will take it and rejoice!

Progress in the circle garden has been more substantial. I had Spazzy McDrool do a bit of posing here for scale. This mass of green stuff is as follows: Basil , chives, and annuals in the foreground, peppers behind that, zinnia and perennials behind that, tomatoes next and then behind that eggplant, more basil and annuals again. At this point any symmetry has been lost by the not so attractive staking and clotheslines between the trees hold up the tomato plants. Not caring at this point, just eating. A lot!
The back corner is still looking pretty good. A Bambi flattened all the onions and beheaded a few chard but so far no depressing damage from varmints or pests. This bed has required next to zero attention the last couple of weeks other than tomato picking and yanking a rare weed. I'm kicking myself that I never used cocoa bean mulch back here before. What a huge difference in weeding. It's great!
Here's a closer look at the same bed. The geraniums are looking kind of tired and I should have squished the dead allium stems down a bit better in the back before taking a picture, but all in all things aren't looking too bad for this time of year!

Finally an update on this years problem child. On June 13, I granted the refusing to grow Persimmon tomato a stay of execution and gave it one more chance in a container on that patio. Here's a pic. Persimmon responds well to threats. It's growing all over the place and is now loaded with tomatoes that are sizing up very quickly. The peppers in this container are doing well too. Their peppers are twice the size of those in the circle garden on half the size plants. This container averages temperatures of about 90 degrees on most days and it seems that was just what the doctor ordered for Ms. Persimmon.
Have a good weekend everyone. Wishing you good gardening, pleasant hammock swinging or at least no hail!

Don't Let Them See Red

2009-07-23T19:48:00.005-05:00

It's used to get the attention of bulls, We use it to draw in hummingbirds. It's designed into the most important signs so we notice them.
RED. Whether two legged, four legged or six legged, red gets attention. That's why this time of year, I take measures to minimize how much of it is visible. My tomatoes are ripening by the droves now. However, I don't allow them to become fully red on the vine.

It's been my experience that the fruits on my vines tend to remain untouched while they are green, peachy, or orange. The day they turn red though, you can expect chunks out of them from squirrels, holes in them from bugs and total disappearance of them from the neighbor's landscapers who spot them and respond to the call of their juicy goodness.

It is said that the best tasting tomato is one that is allowed to become fully ripe on the vine. Thankfully, my palate is not refined enough to notice any difference in the slicers from one that is allowed to ripen on the vine and one that ripens on the safety of the kitchen counter. Cherries are different for me. I do let them get fully ripe on the vine because I notice a difference in those that don't . I am also less sad if I loose one of them to a bug or a chipmunk.

When I pick the slicers is dependent on a few variables. Typically, I like to pick them when they are starting to orange up. If it is a treasured variety that is not that productive and I only have a few of, I might pick it a bit sooner to assure at least a one makes it in my belly. Something like Matina that is loaded and being picked at the rate of six or seven a day is allowed to go longer. I pick a bit earlier if I will be out of town for a week and not able to keep on top of it. I pick a bit later if they seem to be ripening up slower on the counter. It varies.

Avoiding big balls of red in the garden this time of year allows me to have tomatoes without worm holes and I avoid the feeling of dismay that comes from arriving home and seeing a six inch cherokee purple laying on the ground half eaten with flies on it. The slight flavor trade-off isn't for some, but it sure works great for me!

Tuesday Treats! Shrimp with Garden Vegetables

2009-07-21T21:32:00.004-05:00

This week's treat is shrimp and garden veggies over linguine. The ingredients coming from the garden are a couple kinds of basil, cilantro, onion, celery, tomatoes, green sweet and poblano peppers. I purchased the red and orange peppers as well as a can of organic diced tomatoes to make sure I had enough to double the recipe. This one has a lot of chopping so I wanted to make enough for two days. You can make most of it on the grill if you like or all of it on the stove top.

The first thing I did was oil the poblano and throw it on the grill which had some hickory chips smoking to develop it's flavor. Then I started rough chopping the veggies and started the water for the noodles.

The shrimp came next. I got them started on the grill to develop some smokiness to them. I didn't cook them all the way though, because I didn't want them tough. Once the shrimp were about 3/4 done, I took them off to cool and peel and started sauting the celery, pepper, and onion until soft. The last minute a good amount of garlic got added as well. Once they were soft, they got moved to the stovetop into a deep pan with the shrimp, and tomatoes. Seasoning next, salt, pepper and worchester sauce to taste. I let all this cook for just a couple of minutes, I wanted to retain the bright colors and tastes. The last minute of cooking I added some cilantro, basil and parsley. I used linguine from the refrigerator section and even though its whole wheat it only takes 2-3 minutes to cook so you have to be ready for it.

I served the whole thing with fresh pineapple, honey sunflower bread and s'mores for dessert. This concoction takes a bit of time to chop and clean and shell the shrimp but it tastes even better on day two so it works for weekday meals well.

Family Rating: 8.5 on average. Range 7-9.

I Don't Bait Beetles

2009-07-20T18:51:00.003-05:00

Visiting gardening forums and blogs can be so helpful, particularly this time of year when my most dreaded garden pest is due to hatch. I was alerted on Friday to start watching for Japanese beetles when my forum friends in Missouri and Indiana started posting about them. Sure enough, two days later, they hatched.

There are as many suggestions for dealing with this pest as there are weeds in the garden. One that is particularly popular is baiting. Homemade or store bought baits are placed in the garden to catch and kill the beetles. Photos show some pretty impressive (and disgusting) numbers of beetles in these traps. I have no doubt, they are an effective means to catch beetles. Still, I don't bait.

My theory is that beetle traps can actually make the situation much worse by luring even more beetles onto your property. Instead, my method is simple. Catch em. The kiddos can be enlisted for this task. Current going price on a beetle head is a dime. They were a nickle on the first day they hatched due to large quantity. When we catch them, we stick them in a bug hotel with stuff to munch on, because we are dorks and feel bad squishing them. OK sometimes we also feed them to the toads. Most of them go in the bug hotel though.

Japanese beetles don't bite, but they feel creepy when you catch them. They have claws on their feet that don't hurt at all, but you definitely know you have a beetle in your hand. There are a couple of tricks to catching them. Early morning or late evening are the easiest, because when they are cold, they are less likely to fly. These beetles have a trick where they roll on their side and off whatever they are hanging onto. If they are on a huge tomato, good luck finding them once they roll off. That's why when I go to nab on, I place one hand under the leaf and then go to grab it. Most of the time they roll right into my hands. It's handy to have your container right there because once they unfurl their legs from the rolling, it feels ICK!

This seems like a lot of work, but am/pm beetle scanning after the first day only takes a few minutes. They seem to pick a few favorite plants and you'll find 90% of them hanging out there. There year for me, they have been on the peppers, the fugly bush and one tomato plant on the patio (Persimmon-of course). They only seem to be eating the peppers and whoo boy a few missed beetles can do a LOT of damage!

Catching them early is the key. We made a huge dent in the numbers the first day they appeared. Tonight I only plucked three. There have been less and less everyday. Beetle feet are creepy but I'll take them over a stinky beetle trap any day, especially if I only have to deal with the feet for a few days.

Time to Order Garlic! Yes you can grow it in the North

2009-07-17T17:58:00.003-05:00

When you read about what is needed to grow garlic, it doesn't sound like something that would do well in Illinois. Winters here are wild variations of freezes, thaws and dumps of large quantities of snow. Garlic they say likes sandy loam and warm conditions. Pfffft. Garlic does just fine in compost amended Illinois clay. It's just more work to harvest!

Anyone can grow garlic and if you want to try it now is the time to order it. You plant it around October for a harvest next year. If you live in the north like me, I recommend ordering your bulbettes from a northern company. Your yield next year will be bigger than if you get your starter bulbs from the south. I don't really know why. I guess those that have been raised in our conditions are less likely to freak out when they see them again. I recommend this small, family company: http://www.wegrowgarlic.com/ They have 100+ varieties of garlic ranging from the sweet and mild to the hot and spicey. Their prices are reasonable and they grow without chemicals. Their website is a fun read. They firmly declare themselves to not be farmers or green thumbs and their misadventures related to learning how to grow garlic are documented on their site. Their step by step instructions are all you need to have great garlic success. I just placed my order and was bummed to see that a few varieties are already sold out. Give garlic a shot, and Good luck!

Heirlom Tomato Progress: Fruit Size

2009-07-15T18:54:00.008-05:00

Today I am documenting the size of the different heirlom tomatoes so far this year.

First Persimmon: Got a late start, loaded with fat healthy buds in the container, just beginning to fruit.

Matina: Beginning to ripen. Has an open habit. Has some blossom end rot off and on, likely related to high temperatures on the patio. Loaded with fruit, non-buggy and very symetrical.

Chocolate Stripes: Big healthy plants but not a ton of buds or fruit so far. What's there is without blemish.
Cosmonaut Volkov: Plant is on the shorter side, about four feet, but it is really loaded down with fruit, several appear to be close to pinking up.

Dr. Carolyn: Not as much fruit or height as Sungold, but still has lots of clusters. Individual tomatoes are larger than Sungold, no ripening yet. Loaded with blossoms now. Had some BER when it dried out during vacation.

Cherokee Purple : Big healthy fruit both in the container and in the ground. Had BER the worst of all the plants. Recovering now but there will likely be a couple of weeks when there is no harvest from this plant.
Carbon: Not a ton of fruit or blossoms. Has a bit of bacterial leafspot in the leaves. This is my only fruit so far that appears to have something nipping at it.
Amish Paste: Multiple plants at various stages of growth. These are the largest fruit so far. Lots of buds, growth has been massive the last week of foliage.
San Marzano: Each plant is loaded with these clusters of fruit. Still lots of blossoms. I should be harvesting this for weeks to come. Plants are huge.
Sungold: Ripening and still making buds. Stint of BER was only a couple of days. These tomatoes taste way better if allowed to get very ripe on the vine. The plant is loaded with clusters of fruit. I counted one cluster with 15 tomatoes on it! None of these tomatoes have made it into the house yet. They are getting eaten like candy by us in the garden.

Tuesday Treats! Chard with Apricot and Almonds

2009-07-14T18:44:00.005-05:00

I've decided to try something new with the blog. Treats from the garden recipes every Tuesday and maybe sometimes on Thursday. These will not be gourmet major productions. I am neither a chef nor a food photographer. I'm a mom of two kids that have adventurous spirits that can only be stretched so far. I also work most weekdays, so this has to be fast. I'm just going to show how I've been using what I've been getting out of the garden.

Today from the garden I'll be using rainbow swiss chard and a bit of parsley. The recipe is Chard with Fresh Apricots and Toasted Almonds. Hard core measuring is not required. Use more or less as you desire.

For this recipe, do your prep ahead of time, but don't do the final saute of the chard until you are ready to serve. It's better right off the stove.

The ingredients: 1 large bunch chard, 1TBS olive oil, 1 purple onion chopped, chopped garlic (about 4 cloves), five ripe apricots, 1/3 cup almonds.

1. Throw the almonds in a frying pan without oil and toast them lightly. Remove and set aside.

2. Chop the onion, stems of the chard and thicker veins of the chard. Saute it in the olive oil for 3-4 minutes until tender. Turn off heat.

3. Chop your apricots (skin on is fine) and your garlic.

4. When you are ready to serve, reheat the onion mixture. Add the chard greens and saute for three minutes. Add the apricots, and garlic and saute for a 2-3 minutes more until hot and greens are bright. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with toasted almonds.

We had it with hickory grilled wild caught, sockeye salmon and grilled corn.

Family rating of chard with apricots 1-10 scale

Me: 8.5 (its not a brownie, but it's good!)

Lara age 11 (will try anything once) 7

"moooooom it's a vegetable!

Richie (want's to try nothing unless it's a corndog) 4-he said it tasted good but the texture of the greens was too much for him.

Hubby (if it's weird, I'm scared) "Good" I like it! 7.5

Of note all cleared their plates of it completely, even before they knew about the cherry pie in the oven. I'll make this again. I have a ton of chard in the garden, and this took less then ten minutes to throw together.

Persimmon and the Peppers, One month later

2009-07-13T16:23:00.005-05:00

Followers of this blog (hi you two! ) probably recall that I have had one or two or six rants about one of my heirlom tomato varieties, called Persimmon. Persimmon was started from seed at the same time as all my other heirloms but has lagged behind to such a ridiculous degree that a month ago I declared it hopelessly stunted and gave it one last chance. I planted it in a self watering container and gave it a couple of weeks. I planted some peppers in there too, fully assuming that the peppers would take over and persnickety persimmon would remain stubby. Here is Persimmon on month ago, the day I planted it in this container.

As I said, I didn't expect it to grow. Therefore it didn't get staked. This was unfortunate because it did grow. It grew while I was on vacation and is now sprawling sideways across the container. The peppers are also growing sideways. There must have been on heck of a wind storm while we were gone.

One month later Persimmon has not only grown, it's budded and starting to have tiny tomatoes on it. Prima donna Persimmon apparently either likes heat or likes a constant water source. Either way, I'm glad it's finally taken off. This one was grown by Thomas Jefferson and I really wanted to share it with the kids.

Now I need to figure out what Matina in the brown pot's issue is. Either it doesn't like sharing it's root space with a bay tree and a blob of oregano or it has too many tomatoes on it to have the energy put out higher growth. This Matina is one quarter of the size of the other Matina's. Meh, I guess I'll let it be. As per my previous thread, I've run out of big stakes. I'm don't think I'm even going to try and stake up Persimmon either. I'll let it sprawl on the ground and harbor toads for awhile. It seems to thrive when it's left alone anyway.

Balcony Tomatoes

2009-07-12T19:08:00.004-05:00

My balcony tomatoes were an experiment. I was interested in a topsey turvy upside down set-up to grow off the balcony. Being too cheap for a topsey turvey, I instead planted in fabric strawberry bags. There was no resulting turvey. My tomatoes wanted to grow up, not down.

They've grown up at an astonishing rate. They get a lot of heat in this location and they have done well with it, well at least until vacation. They dried out a bit while I was gone and it weakened them. Sungold in the middle now has bacterial leaf spot. It's had a few haircuts and it still producing like crazy so I think it will hold me until the slicers start ripening. If it doesn't I havea few other plants in the ground that should carry me thru.

Dr. Carolyn on the left and right is a later season white cherry. It has fruits on it, but so far not as many as Sungold. It's foliage is lovely though. If it has tasty fruit, I'll be growing it

again. The plant on the left has the beginnings of leaf spot, but nothing horrid at this point.

Size is so hard to capture in pictures. Here is a picture of the same tomatoes from the balcony. If you click on it, you can see all the tomatoes.

I have mixed feelings about this experiment. I'm thrilled with the rapid growth and early productivity with this method, but the amount of water these need is a definite downside. I don't like being a slave to my plants and these need water every day it doesn't rain. This year has had rain almost every day, so it hasn't been a big deal. In a more typical July, however, I could see this being a major PIA. Something to consider for next year.

Warning: Outbreak Late Blight

2009-07-01T14:42:00.003-05:00

There is an emerging outbreak of late blight affecting tomatoes, potatoes and possibly eggplants that has started in the Northeast, no doubt related to all the cool, wet weather we have been having. This form of blight will kill your plants within about two weeks and cannot be cured. It is highly contagious and unfortunately, has already been found in plants in multiple box stores from Ohio to Maine. This means there is a clear opportunity for this to rapidly spread further.

To help keep your plants safe:

Avoid further purchases of these plants from box stores etc for the rest of this season.
Avoid watering in the evening or at night.
Avoid watering with a method that gets plant leaves wet.
Watch closely for the first sign of late blight and if detected remove the plant to prevent it from infecting other plants. The spores that cause this illness are very easily spread to other plants.
If you remove a suspect blight plant, do not compost it or put it in an area where it might infect other plants. Bag it in plastic and dispose of it.

Here's more information and the opportunity to hear more in a webinar. http://www.njfarmfresh.rutgers.edu/documents/Lateblightalertforgardeners_001.pdf

Back From Vacation.

2009-06-29T19:51:00.005-05:00

I'm back from vacation. I didn't say anything before leaving because things were crazy right before we left and announcing to the internet that your house will be vacant isn't wise!

There was not a heck of a lot of prep that was accomplished before I left. I topped off the reservoirs on the containers, watered the rest and tied up as much as I could. I was hoping that the every other day pattern of rain would hold while I was gone and for the most part it did. My vacation casualties are few. I lost all the sweet pea vines in the balcony containers and a good chunk of the lower leaves of the middle tomato. The 16oz of water I left these guys with wasn't enough when the heat and wind arrived. They recovered with a lot of watering yesterday but it looks like quite a few buds are toast.

No losses in the circle garden, just a lot of work to do. One of the smaller untied tomatoes went nuts while I was gone and it has begun to sprawl and make the whole bed look messy. The peas are almost ready to come out as well. No real weed issues in this bed though, the cocoa bean mulch did its job. {man do I need to edge or what?!}

No casualties in the corner bed or weed issues either. I did yank a couple bok choi, some spinach and some lettuce though. It got bitter and big in the heat. This bed will need some work this week. The tomatoes in the back (unseen) have grown out of the top of their cages already and will need some stronger support. The only thing that did not have a lot of growth in this bed while we were gone was the beans. Still nothing much happening there. Dumb beans.

Harvest wise, there were a few treats. The first tomato of the season! It was Sungold. I met my goal of a tomato before the fourth of July and it was delicious! The cherries successfully avoided the birds. I harvested seven and ate six. I shared one with hubby. Heh.

I was pretty sure I would miss the peas while we were gone but was pleasantly surprised. Even the bigger, slightly wrinkled shells of sugar snap still tasted sweet. We had a big old meal of these and there are still more coming!

Other losses/concerns. One of the lemon cukes has gone poof. It's completely gone. I'm not sure if what ripped it out was of the two legged or four legged variety. The potatoes suffered a bit while I was gone. They are looking a bit wind beaten and chewed on but should survive. Something continues to eat the heck out of the peppers. They are suffering for it with still no buds.

Nice surprises: Huge growth on all the tomato plants and their fruits. The watermelons, cukes, squash and cantaloupe also made some nice growth. Heat arrived here while we were gone and it helped. I still have tons of greens coming. Only one variety has bolted and gone bitter. I think having that bed in the shade makes all the difference. Remember Persimmon (aka prima donna)? It grew! A lot! It unbelievably has buds on it now. Unfortunately, I didn't remotely expect that kind of growth from pokey in only a week so I delayed staking it. Now I have three plants in that container that are shaped like giant L's. Make that six, since the three pepper plants also fell down in a storm and are now crooked. Oh well, if Persimmon gives me fruits before Halloween, I'll live with lop-sided plants.

Vacation was great and I didn't think once about the garden while I was gone, but now that I am home, I'm anxious to dig back in and figure out how to make those dumb beans grow!

No More Hand Pollination

2009-06-17T20:29:00.004-05:00

I've decided to stop the hand pollination of the tomatoes. The goal was to get some fruit before July fourth. There is a chance that might happen, especially with sungold. It has fruits that are nearly full size. If it matures quickly after that, mission accomplished!

There are so many baby tomatoes on these plants now, they don't need my help. I'm hoping that if I take a break for a bit, maybe there will be a lull in the yield and I won't be swamped with a zillion fruit all at once. Of course there is still plenty of time for things to go belly up. For one thing, I need more time to tie them up. Tomorrow I have to go get some ten foot stakes. The eight footers are not going to cut it for some of these. Matina will reach the top of that by the end of the week and has also started growing over the top of the yuck bush. Even the leftover plants I put in the wilds (area most likely to be ignored) are taking off. I wish I could get the same thing going on with my peppers and beans. Bean aren't growing hardly at all and the peppers are being eaten by some pest.

Shown here, the balcony tomatoes. Progress since June 3 has been significant.

Updates About Stuff I (Mostly) Never Blog About

2009-06-15T18:51:00.007-05:00

I have noticed that lately my Monday updates have been a little tomato obsessed. Today, I'll break from that trend, lest it start leaning towards a sickness. Instead I'll update on some of the other pleasures and frustrations currently in my garden.

My roses have started. I don't know what this is named. I call it weather rose because it's color varies greatly depending on the weather the buds develop in. Last year my roses were dessimated by Japanese beetles, so I thought I get at least one picture of a before they begin to feast. I know they're coming soon.

The astible are at their peak too. I finally figured out how to grow the brightest varieties. Plant them under the drippy hose connection. That's the only sure way to guarantee they won't dry out! I have no trouble growing the more tolerant varieties elsewhere, but a beauty like Rhineland needs it moist all the time or it's frizzle city.

The peas have gotten way taller than I remember peas getting and they are now covered with buds. My staking of these is pretty much of a joke. Thankfully they are doing a good job supporting each other. It's amazing to me how fast this plant goes from bloom to decent sized pod. After all those weeks complaining about zero pea progress all of a sudden they are bed bursting and covered with pods!

The leeks also seem to have finally decided to wake up. I am reasonably confident that they are now safe from my helpful family members ripping them out and calling them grass. I have leeks planted in five different locations in the yard because I wasn't sure what they liked best. These are my largest which apparently means leeks like growing on the edge of a sawdust pile under a norway maple. My plants are weird.

I'm still harvesting broccoli. I know most people pull these plants when all they keep putting out are these little heads. I really like they way these little guys taste though. To me they are even better than the big heads, so for now, they stay!

Broccoflower was one of my few purchased plants. It was an impulse buy. It's very healthy looking but is very slow. It probably needs more light than it gets in the green bed. I've never grown this before so when to harvest will be a bit of a gamble. For now, I'm putting row cover on it. I don't like the paint job the birds are giving it.

In the fruit department we are where the peas were a month ago. Nothing much happening. Here is a honeydew melon. Underwhelmed? Just wait until you see the watermelon!

But first, what's this? One of my seven cherries has a tint of red on it! Whoo hoo, it's almost ice cream time. I know I really should cover these now to protect them from the birds, but I won't. Covered trees look sad to me, and well covering them is a lot of work! I'll take my chances and hope the blueberries divert the birds long enough that they leave me a few cherries.

Finally here it is, the new Persimmon. Blacktail watermelon. That white thing is the tip of my shoe for a size reference. I am not a giant. Blacktail is pathetic. At least it has two leaves which is one more than my watermelon attempt had on it last year. Hopefully the arrival of something resembling heat will get this guy to grow. I'm not holding my breath though. I have a ways to go before I figure out watermelons.
I'll end with a pretty flower. Delphinium. I finally figured out how to keep these alive too! What you do is buy new plants every year until you find one that will tolerate your neglect. That plant is a keeper!

Oh, wait speaking of Persimmon. (You didn't really think I wouldn't mention a single tomato did you?) On my entry on the third I threatened it with one more chance and put it in a container. It is wisely responding. Several inches of growth since then. Not bad for about a week's growth!

Front Bed Rehab-Before and After

2009-06-14T19:07:00.004-05:00

At last, sun and warmth! The morning started with a bath for the dog and a meal for the plants. We have had so much rain that I've been worried about my trace nutrients washing away. Today everything got a dousing with Neptunes Harvest, Organic Fish and Seaweed fertilizer. It's a gentle 2-3-1 natural fertilizer that smells horrible! It reeked bad enough to convinve me it was time to attack the front bed and leave the back beds to air out!

The bed in front of the garage is designed to be low maintenace with four seasons interest.
I've been spending so much time out back that low maintenance became no maintenance and the curb appeal has started to suffer. The issues:
1. Dogwood needs pruning.
2. Deal with winterkill on boxwood.
3. Pauls Glory eating the Rhododenrum.
4. Barberry needs some shaping.
5. Mulch looks uck.

6. Lots and lots of weeds.
7. Juniper needs trimming.
8. Water feature, needs redesign (its the pile of pebbles.
9. Lots and lots of bindweed needs to be removed from the juniper.
10. Tulip remains need to come out.
11. Silver mound artemesia needs relocation.
12. Need some color.

It took me from 11am-5pm to get it done. The biggest hang-up was the water feature. It was basically a water pump in a buried bucket covered with a grate and pebbles and waterproof membrane.

The design flaw was that the bucket was too low, so with every rainstorm, soil, mulch and leaves washed into the reservoir, fouling the water. I had to dig the whole thing out and start over. I moved it forward and then left the bucket roughly six inches above grade. Then I added a colorful pot to help keep the toads and squeeters out. Stone hides the bucket. It works much better now but still needs a bit of tweeking. I don't like the way the inside of the pot looks. I need to either fill it with some stones or paint it. There is also a bit of silocone work that needs to be done with the pump. It's cracked. For now though, this is a big improvement!
On examination, I found that the hedge was not completely dead in the center. There are a ton of green branches low and in the interior of it. I cleaned it up with some trimming and hacked out a bunch of dead so the light can get in. It will get some Neptunes Harvest this evening as well. I also lopped up the bottom limbs of the dogwood to get it more light. Hopefully, it will recover soon.

There was a lot of green debris that came out of this bed. Every plant needed some big trims and the amount of weeds was not small. I always hate trimming the barberry, it chops off the bright red that works so well in this bed. The new foliage will change over soon, but for now, still lots of green in the bed.

Things are in good shape now, but there is a bit more to do. There are two little landscape roses in front of the dogwood that need to come out. They have not performed well enough to get to stay. I'm yanking them out. Also, I planted a persian sheild for a bit of low maintenance color in front of the rhodies today but will probably add some additional color in front of the hedge. I don't like annuals in this bed. I like it kept neat and low maintenance. Wnen I stand back and look at it though, my eye is going to the dead parts of the hedge. I may need something bright to keep them focused elsewhere! I'll wait until the barberry reds up and reassess.

I'm glad to have this out of the way for the most part. Next task, the bed in front of the front door. You thought this one was in bad shape to start. Ugh. that will be a project!

Self Watering Container Tomatoes One Month Later

2009-06-11T14:39:00.004-05:00

I built and planted my first self-watering container on May 10th. It was planted with three tomato plants, Carbon on the left and Matina in the middle and right.

Tomato growing conditions have not been ideal, rain nearly every day and little heat. Average temp in the last month has been about 68 degrees.

Those conditions have not held back my plants at all. All three plants already have fruit on them, and as you can see, growth has been exhuberant! I've never had baby tomatoes this early in the season before. I am thrilled with how well these containers are working. To the right of them, the purple potatoes seem equally pleased with the container I made them.

Now if I could only get that dumb watermelon to grow!

Climbing Hydrangea: What You Should Know

2009-06-09T20:46:00.009-05:00

My climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea petiolaris ) was purchased for primarily one reason. I wanted a non-invasive flowering vine that could self support without a trellis. It is a nice plant, but I wish I had studied more than the nursery description before selecting it. If I had, I would have gone with something else.

If you are considering the purchase of this lovely species, let me help translate nursery speak for you.

"a bit slow to establish"
By this they mean that it will take six, yes six years to flower. Oh it will have lots of pretty glossy leaves before then, but don't expect flowers anytime before your newborn enters kindergarten.

"vigorous growth once established"
Translated? 60-80 feet, but not just up. It also grows OUT. It grows fast and furious even if you never fertilize, water or otherwise care for it. It will do this even in shade. In other words, once it does establish, stand back for the plant explosion.

"carefree"
See above, this also means good luck trying to kill it.

"striking exfoliating bark"
In winter your friends that are inexplicably examining the hydrangnea's bark even though it is 20 degrees outside will say, "what's wrong with that plant's bark?" I'm underwhelmed with the bark. To my eye it looks gnawed on. It's not a reason to purchase the plant. A tangled web of gnawed on bark is not my idea of seasonal interest.

"plant needs no support to grow upward -- so you don't have to worry about tying the vine! "
Don't attempt to remove it from the side of your house unless you are planning on repainting and possibly replacing the siding entirely. Those little feet attach themselves firmly. I ripped a branch off the side of the balcony and took wood chunks with it. This plant laughs at strong winds.

Climbing hydrangea is a magnificent plant, but it is one of those where placement is key. It will attach itself to anything near it and if that item is not able to withstand significant support, it is toast. It is also a plant that you need to be willing to wait sometime for. If you have the perfect spot, and some time, it is a plant you may well grow to treasure. I currently have a love hate relationship going with mine. I love it in bloom and I hate having to chop it to smithereens twice a year to keep it from eating my house. One day, it will have to go, but for now it is a reminder for me to study a bit before purchasing anything described as "vigorous".

Monday Status Report

2009-06-08T19:43:00.007-05:00

Color: Some of my garden beds are designed so that they have different color themes going on at different times. In the corner bed, the spring cool colors, blues, purples and pinks are starting to peak. It's my favorite time for that bed. Soon it will change over to hotter colors which are nice, but the blues are my favorite.

Bean Update: Sigh. In desperation today, I tied one of these poor little seedlings to the teepee. I'm hoping it will be inspired to grow. Currently, the bush beans are twice as tall as the pole beans and the nasturiums are giving them a run for their money too. My beans are frustrating me.

Bee Update: I started seeing honeybee's today! Still not nearly as many as it typical, but at this point I'm glad to see them at all. They are loving the nepeta and the lupines too!

I continue to hand pollinate for now. The weather is absolutely perfect for it and I want to get as much going as possible before the heat arrives. Tomatoes don't pollinate well when temperatures get above 90 degrees, especially if it is humid. In this area, you never know when that will happen so you take advantage of the good stuff as much as possible.

Pest Update: This is a new one for me, toads! We have a ton of them this year. They are all over. This little guy has been pooping in my garden boot! I'm loving what the toads have done to my slugs and earwigs. They're gone! Toads are not the perfect garden friend though. They like to dig. Toads particularly like to dig in the soft squishy soil that surrounds freshly planted plants. I've had to do quite a bit of replanting thanks to these guys. At least they don't rip them out and eat them though right?

Greens etc: Here's the weekly shot of the greens bed. I think this may be the peak pretty week. The chard was getting ahead of me this week. I don't like to let the leaves get huge. Today in a flash of brilliance I picked all the big leaves and chopped them up and added them to the peppers and onions in the bbq beef. It sounds weird but it was good and it passed the munchkin test too!
Hot bed: In the hot bed, fast growth has been the name of the game. These tomatoes gained another six plus inches of height this week and the purple potates have maxed out their bag. All three tomatoes in the container have fruits on them and many many blossoms. They sure are sucking up the water though. The reservoir in this container is huge and I have to fill it once a week.

Watermelon: I still have the watermelon in the wall-o-water to try to keep the heat on it. It has made no real progress to date. Maybe on little leave, lol.

Circle Bed: In the circle bed, the chives are about ready to have their heads lopped off. I don't let them go to seed. I did sprinkle a few of the blossoms on the grilled potatoes tonight. The kids got a kick out of it. The peppers in this bed are getting chewed on a bit. I think it may be ants but so far, I can't find the culprit.

The peas are finally blossoming out and the tomatoes had to have some emergency short stakes stuck in today because of high winds. I haven't been able to get to the store for the tall stakes and the wind was crazy today. Black Krim has a big fat fruit on it and I didn't want to risk damage, so some trim pieces got pounded into the ground for temporary support.

I'll finish with a pretty color combo. The forecast this week is more of the same, essentially perfection! Moderate warmth with intermittent big rains. A bit more heat would speed up the melons and peppers but that would be at the expense of all the greens we are enjoying so for now, I'm not complaining about what we are getting. This has been the best spring gardening weather I have remembered in a long time! It's been really wet, but not flooding and that's good. I hope I don't jinx myself with this! LOL

Staking Tomatoes and Bed Rehab

2009-06-06T20:03:00.005-05:00

I'm not a fan of tomato cages. Yes, they are important, but they are so darn ugly! That's why in places where tomatoes are in full view, I stake them instead.

I finished up my staking chores for the most part, today. I found these thick metal rods that are covered in a ribbed green plastic that work perfectly. The green helps them blend in with their surroundings and the ribbing helps keep the ties from sliding down them. Here's a view of the corner bed with lots of the stakes in place. To the left of the pink peonies there is an area where eight tomatoes are caged, but I have things planted so you can't see them from the yard. Cool huh?

Here's another look at the same bed. Even up close, the stakes aren't too obnoxious and as the plants grow, they will become even less noticeable.

In the lower right corner is a circle staking thing. If you see it in the store, avoid it. It's flimsy and already rusting! It has attachments that make it taller and there is a net that is supposed to go with it. The whole thing is so homely and tippy when assembled, I'm not using it for anything more than the lower circle and the stake.

In the containers, there was a different staking problem to be dealt with. The poles in the containers were starting to cave in towards the center of the container from the weight of the plants. The eventual plan for these containers is to pound some stakes into the ground next to the container. For now, I rigged a temporary solution that is working really well. I drilled a large hole through the lid and hand section and tied the stake low and high thru it. It feels very sturdy now. This should work fine until I start having some serious weight from fruit.
This afternoon I started work on a bed I call the balcony bed. This is a tough area. It only get's afternoon sun, but not tons of it. The dog likes to walk on the brick edging and occassionally chase chipmunks under the hydragnea and it's a dry spot since the whole back two thirds of it is has a balcony overhanging it.

The basic weeding of this area was quick. It's an area where I typically toss some annuals and it hasn't seen a lot of soil improvement so there isn't a lot of rampant growth in it from weeds or anything else.

How much there is to do is more apparent from the other angle. This fence is getting replaced this summer. It's a half fence for privacy in the patio area and it's seen better days-abot 25 years ago by my estimate. The brick edging needs to be raised here. It has settled below the grass line over the years and because of this, maintaining it has become a tedious chore.

The bed itself needs soil amendments, and some evergreens and other perennials. It's in full view of the foyer thru a sliding door and right now there isn't much to see, well unless you are into worn grass and drying pots! I'm going for year round appeal here, with pooch friendly, not water nedy plantings. I'll be breaking out the plant encyclopedias for this project. LOL

Stay tuned! This one will take a bit of work and since my dumb pager keeps going off and the forecast is for more storms, it is unlikely to happen in the next 24 hours. : )

Done! {insert mini-dance}

2009-06-04T19:44:00.005-05:00

Whoo hoo! I did it! All 120+ cold frame plants are in the ground. I got out of work early today and got the last twenty plants finally planted. I had to get brutal with the last ten tomato plants because of space issues. I placed them in less than ideal spots and way too close together but none of them are in such bad locations that they don't have a chance.

Forty six tomato plants, as anticipated was too many for my yard, but not by as much as I originally thought. The containers really helped. I may have tomatoes coming out of my ears in August but lots of disasters can happen between now and then so for now, I'm enjoying my back-up plants having back-ups.

Next year though, I'm going to save myself a lot of work and start things three weeks later. Growth in the frame was not that fast when the temps were really cold and continually moving plants in and out of the house was a bunch of work. Of course if I do get maters before July 4, I may start just a few early...

Some of the peonies have started to open. I love these flowers. They look great at a distance and amazing up close. I can't remember the name of this hot pink one but I love that it only needs a stretchy tie around it's belly to keep it up. This plant is only three years old. It got big fast! I wasn't sure how it would do being placed so close to the arborvittae, but I'm glad I took the chance. They really compliment each other nicely.
This goofy peony is quite old. I ordered it from a cruddy mail order nursery before I knew better. It was supposed to be a brilliant red tree peony for $1.29. They sent me a half dead stick but I planted it and this is what I got, a bashful peony. Every flower on this plant looks like this and they never open all the way. I threaten to rip it out a least once a year but then I take pity on it's goofiness and let it stay.

This mess on the ground is my fault. This plant does this every single year I don't take some serious measures to prop it up. This year I took the lazy way out and it didn't stand a chance against the inch of rain we had two nights ago. All is not lost however. This plant is highly scented. It looked bad outside but wonderful in a vase. Most of these blossoms are now in vases all over the house!

Today's moment of adventure occurred a couple of hours ago. I took a walk at the arboreteum and came across a baptista that was in full bloom. I was fondling the blossoms (because I couldn't help myself) and ended up grabbing a big fat bumblebee. It didn't sting me but startled me enough that I fell off the path and into a bush. Sometimes I can be such a dork!

Making Tomato Babies and Getting Them to Grow

2009-06-03T19:46:00.005-05:00

Most of my tomatoes have taken off. The one exception is Persimmon, aka prima donna. I last blogged about this plant in April. It has seen about one inch of growth since then.

Today I decided that I would give it one more chance, some hard core babying to see if I could get it to, er grow! I started by constructing another self-watering container. I have the construction of this container down to 35 minutes now! Learning how to work the new drill makes a big difference!

I'm hoping that the additional warmth the persimmons get in this container will help them catch up to the other tomatoes that were planted at the same time. Today, I helped them further by giving them a dose of worm tea, and some Neptune's fish and seaweed fertilizer.

The small plant in the rear container was started several weeks after the two big guys planted at the sime time as persimmon. It's growing, the three persimmons in the new front container are not. To help them further, and since the weather has cooled, I put a jug of warm water in with them tonight and covered them up. Heat will be the name of the game for awhile.

On the left of this container I crammed three red belgium pepper plants that got stunted during a cold spell weeks ago. I'm hoping the container perks them up too!

Also on the agenda tonight was making babies, tomato babies that is. Sixty degrees and dry is perfect weather for tomato pollination. Since our bees remain few and far between, I spent some time in the garden today helping with pollination.

For tomatoes, this is done, in this by giving plants with blooms a few good shakes. This is fun to do to tunes, just make sure no one is watching or ack, taping!

Kids can be enlisted to help with this task if you have a lot of plants, or they are making you nuts asking what is for dinner. For kids it's better to give them something soft, like a fly swatter and tell them to wiggle the blossoms a bit. If you tell them to shake the plant, you risk broken plant! The tempation to out shake each other is just too much. It's also prudent to threaten your hockey loving son a bit that before you give him the swatter. Lest he be inspired to practice slap shots.

Check out this picture. I'm in zone 5 and I have baby tomatoes on June 3! I'm pretty good at making the tomato babies if I do say so myself. ;)

Last item on the agenda tonight was trying to further secure the balcony tomatoes. The handles that are currently holding them up are ripping.

I secured two of them with chains and heavy gauge electrical wire. This was not easy. The options were doing it from below while standing on a tippy lawn chair or doing it from above hanging over the balcony. It took me an hour to finally get it right!

The bag on the right hasn't started tearing yet, but I need to get to it soon. These plants are growing fast! Pretty soon I need to figure out how I will support the plants once they start stretching above the balcony rail. I have no idea how I'm going to do that.

Also of note, the sweet pea's that were supposed to grow down and help cover these containers? They like to grow up just as much as the tomatoes. I'm close to giving up with trying to disguise the ugly that is these containers. I guess if they eventually allow me to roll out of bed, step out on the balcony and grab a tomato, I can deal with a bit of green plastic for a season.

Dirty Little Secrets

2009-05-31T18:51:00.007-05:00

Recently, I've shared some pictures of some nice clean beds. Today, you get the dirty little secrets. Behold, the berm bed. I've done nothing to improve it this spring, mostly because there is so much to do, I'm overwhelmed. What you are viewing in this picture are multiple landscape roses drowning under ornamental oregano. You might also identify Jack Frost going to seed and getting lost under all the seedheads, and weeds, lots and lots weeds, Those white specks on the dull and not fresh looking mulch? Gazillion , gabillion maple propellars. That pot stuck around the clematis? A failed idea for a plant support.

On closer examination, the far end of the berm shows just how bad it is. After a bit of weed removal to find a place to plant some cukes, there are still weeds everywhere. They are so big and bad that I had to plant big poofy marigolds next to the cucumber seedlings so that I would be able to find the cukes again.

Sadly, the berm bed isn't the only dirty little secret that I haven't dealt with yet. There are the ant mounds. These are not small. Of course the fact that they are surrounded by grass infested with creeping charlie and various tree seedlings makes it that much worse.

I avoid spraying in my yard. That means this blob of creeping charlie (aka devil weed) gets hand removed. Ant's hate it when you pluck their landscaping. Angry ants hurt. I haven't yet decided how to deal with this mound organically. Meanwhile the creeping charilie keeps expanding.

Pretty lupines no? Look closer. Can you see the dandelion that is two feet high and easily 18 inches across. I wish I could say it was a freakish anonomoly in this bed. It's not. It has friends. How exactly does one kill dandelions with roots like Flakey carrots, organically anyway? Hey is that Endless Summer hydragnea gasping for light next to the lupines? I thought it was dead!

Ah the shade bed. At least I got the pavers down right? Alas, I can't take credit for them. My son put them down. He's eight. I paid him. My husband says I robbed him. I have no shame.

That's the backyard. The sins continue into the side yards and the front yard but I won't overload you type A's with too much ugly in one day.

I wish I could tell you I spent the weekend in the yard fixing some of this, but I didn't. The last DLS I'm sharing is the fact that I spent the weekend, stalking nurseries for cool plants, playing baseball in the yard with the kiddoes, digging up and amending a patch of soil to make it more toad friendly and hanging on the patio with mint mojito tea and a fine Gardening magazine. I did no real work in the garden whatsoever. I'm not mortified to share this. I'm relaxed. Sometimes it's good to be bad. :)

Rain Magic

2009-05-28T20:47:00.006-05:00

It's not just H2O. It's better than water from the well, better than water from the faucet and better than water from the rain barrel. Rain. It has a magical effect on the garden. You can have perfect weather and the appropriate amount of hose watering and you still won't see the growth that you do after a couple of days of thunderstorms. It has been a rainy week, and the garden is loving it. Here we've an explosion of purple near the teepee, but at the base of the teepee, still not much excitement in beanland.
Plenty of excitement in greenland. Despite a big bowel of cuttings being taken just about every night, the greens are very happy. The peonies in the back are happy too, they haven't opened just yet. I've tied them up this year to try and prevent flop but they are so big, I'm not sure how much that will do. Oops, i just realized I forgot to recover greenland. It's 9pm and the bambis will be around soon. I need to hurry up, get this posted and get them protected!

In containerland, there has been an explosion of growth. These three tomatoes all have buds that I am letting them keep now. I've even been shaking them a bit to promote fertilization. They clearly like something in this location. We've seen 6 bricks of growth since these tomatoes were planted on May 10.

Cherokee Purple is in the same kind of container on the patio, and this plant has started throwing double blossoms. They are cool but supposedly make really ugly tomatoes so I hope that particular novelty stops soon. I've been checking this plant every few days and it is like a different plant every time I see it. I think the only thing that seems to be growing faster right now is the bellflowers. They are going to need some thinning. What used to be about a foot wide exploded in the last week into a four foot wide, two foot high thing that threatens to eat an eggplant!

I have most of the maple propellers cleaned out of the circle bed and we enjoyed a bunch of chive blossoms in our salads today. The peas have finally started to grow and the peppers are very dark and healthy looking. In the wall-o water, Chocolate Stripe has tripled in size and has started to blossom. I'm very excited about this. It was a tiny plant when it went out and not a high scorer on my health scale. It's definitely turned around. Rain magic!

Long work day today. I only puttered for about thirty minutes when I got home. I planted out six corn seedlings and eight sunflower seedlings from an experiment. The roots on the corn grew crazy fast. Something to keep in mind if I try corn again. Then there was a bit of weeding and inspection before more rain started. They say this is the wettest spring we've had on record. As long as the rain stays away for at least part of the weekend, I welcome it. It's magical.

Hosta Fabulous Hosta

2009-05-27T19:38:00.007-05:00

Over the years, I've learned not to share my latest exciting hosta news with my mom. Mostly because she thinks I'm nuts. She does not understand why I drool over hosta websites and fret over quirky new hybrids when there is a whole slew of perfectly fine, you can't kill'em hosta's under her trees.

She's seen my plants and can't tell the difference. I don't mind one bit. Her lack of hosta appreciation means there is no guilt in not offering to split a special plant that took me years to grow up! One of these plants is Whirlwind. Slugs ignore it, it's always glossy and the curve of the leaves is unique and pretty.

White Christmas is another such variety. This plant has so much white that it's picky about where it lives. It's a slow grower but worth it. It lights up deep shade and looks fantastic paired with red begonia's or impatiens.

I learned my lesson about splitting special hosta's years ago with Great Expectations. This plant used to get me compliments from people walking their dogs on the street. Then I split it. It has taken years to recover and it's still not there. I think it is one of the prettiest hosta's out there but it's picky. Very.

I've read that Hosta Thunderbolt is another variety that people have trouble with as it gets older. So far, for me it's been carefree, and starting to get really big. I love big hosta's in my shady areas because they keep the weeds way down and are great looking, even from a distance.

Slugs and deer both leave Thunderbolt alone.

Liberty is a plant that the bambi's chew on every spring without fail. It doesn't hurt an established plant like this, it just looks bad. In a couple of weeks I will cut off the damaged leaves and it will look like new.

Tokudama Aureonebulosa is a full lush lovely plant that the bambi's love to snack on in the early spring. These shades of blue/green look great with every color that is placed next to it.

Paul's Glory is a massive hosta. A specimen that is super easy to grow and one that grows fast. I've never fed, trimmed weeded or otherwise pampered this big boy. It is easily 3.5 feet tall and even wider that that. You have to plan for a big plant when you plant PG. It killed one of the bushes next to it with ease. Hosta shade is dense, lol.

I hope you've enjoyed the tour of part of my hosta collection. I wish I had a camera and skills that did these plants justice. If you haven't tried hosta, give them a shot, but treat yourself to one of the fantastic hybrids that are out there. They easily beat the ten foot rule and are virtually carefree once established!

Camera Cleaning Day!

2009-05-25T17:31:00.010-05:00

Time to get rid of miscellaneous pictures with no topic!

Bok Choi, Broccoflowerm Chard and tiny broccoli.

Allium (Gladiator). Their flower heads are smaller than is typical because these are about a decade old.

Red Coumbine. It's thriving in deep shade.

Sack o Purple Potatoes, doing well!

Foreground: hosta, to the right onions and carrots, lettuce, bok choi and geraniums. Near the back, double rows of tomatoes, allium and peonies, to the left kale, phlox and asiatic lilies.

Garden Beds: From a Distance

2009-05-24T19:31:00.008-05:00

I love garden close-ups but today I'm doing something different. I'm posting pictures of the garden beds I blog about, from a distance. When I read other people's blogs I like to see how their gardens relate to the rest of their landscape. Today's gardening activities were mundane so instead I'm sharing pictures that show just how much grass I have to cross to get to my gardens! LOL. This is the corner bed, aka the cherry tree bed. The bean teepee is on the right and the greens are dead center. There are lots of peppers and tomatoes growing in this bed too, even with the big trees there.

This is the circle bed. For perspective, it is nine feet wide. in the foreground is a plum tree and on the other side of it is Stanley the ornamental pear tree. The new shade bed will extend along all the trees in the very back of the picture.

This is the far right end of the berm bed. Cukes will be going right behind the massive clump of hostas on the right. There is about ten feet of soil right behind them that gets near full sun, believe it or not. To the right of the swing set is an apple tree that still does great even though it's under a maple.

This is another look at the berm bed from another angle. This far away it looks tiny but it is more than ten feet wide at it's skinniest end (far left). If you check out the grass, you can see that there is not very many bright sunny places in the yard. Those places that have lots of sun have been claimed for plant beds!
These are the balcony tomatoes. They aren't hanging even. They are heavy and getting them even was hard! In fact they are so heavy the handles on the bags are starting to tear. An intervention is indicated in the next couple of days or the maters will go tumbling. To the right of the balcony is the climbing hydragnea that the baby birds have a nest in. Below the balcony is hubby's workshop window which currently has about a gazillion white t-shirts line drying in it. I was going to crop them out but decided to keep it real. Heh.

I hope you've enjoyed the backyard tour. I forgot to take pictures of the hot bed, the herb bed and the dog's igloo. You're not missing much there. I'll take a picture of it if I am successful growing melon vines over it this summer!

Where are the Bees?

2009-05-23T21:21:00.006-05:00

I'm getting a wee bit concerned about the lack of honey bees in my garden. They should be here by now. The allium have opened and usually they are swarming with bees. Where the heck are they? I've seen bumble bees, wasps, and hummingbirds but so far no honeybees. I'm worried, particularly since on one of the gardening forums I hang out on, people are saying they have noticed the same thing, no or few honeybees. : (

I took a stab at hand pollinating some of the tomatoes today, but if this continues yields are not going to be great this year.

Bees aside, it was a fabulous day to garden today. I focused on getting the coldframe off the patio and the plants that remained in it planted. It's nice to have most of the patio back. I still have about twenty plants that need to go in the ground, but I made some nice progress today.

Planted in the garden today were lemon and dragon's egg cucumbers. They went in the hot bed, along with the watermelons katanya and blacktail mountain, and honey melon (first time growing these). My watermelon were dismal failures last year. This year I spent a lot more time prepping their bed/mound. They went in a very heavily amended, rich soil and katanya also got a wall o water put around it to try and keep the heat on it, until it gets big. My trouble with the melons last year were that they did not grow. At all. I even resorted to some of the blue crap, and that also did nothing. Fingers crossed for this year! The cukes got a little square of row cover anchored over them to try and keep the beetles off them until they get big. I'm also experimenting with a honeydew melon in a planter to see what happens.

A bunch more tomatoes went into the back garden today. My planting spaces are limited by my sun which means I don't have a lot of options for crop rotation. I tried to fight the virus issue a bit by planting the tomatoes thru row cover to keep the soil off their leaves. This should also help keep down the watering. Tomorrow, I'll mulch over it. I have my first baby tomato, it's on sungold. Lots of plants have blooms on them now and good grief the plants in the self watering containers are growing fast! I still have another dozen or so tomatoes to find a space for. They are going to go in the berm bed. Luckily, most of them are still pretty small since that soil needs a lot of work before it gets tomatoes.

Other stuff planted today included the cilantro, ANOTHER toad relocation. This little guy was hanging out under a corner of a plastic garbage bag in what was left of the coldframe. From the looks of things, he slept in the amarynth last night.

The french marigolds all went in as did the rest of the salvia, zinnia, and borage and a bunch more peppers. I won't be growing marigolds from seed again. They grew really slow for me and are still tiny. I need french marigolds to help protect the cukes, melon and peppers from beetles and nemotodes but for them to do their thing, they need to be bigger. I'll probably end up supplementing with store purchased plants. The day rounded out with some edging, replanting the chinese yellow cuke seeds, a bit of weeding, a water fight with the munchkins, helping the hub work on the fireplace and hanging in a cushy chair relaxing. A perfect day!

Baby Robins

2009-05-21T19:30:00.004-05:00

I'm the aunt to some baby robins. I get to claim kinship because I have been feeding their mother grubs for the last week. The scenario goes like this. I dig up a grub and place it on the fence post near the climbing hydragnea that the nest is in. The mother bird gives me a bunch of mad tweets and then hops down and eats the grubs. We repeat this a few times an evening. The baby bird are very quiet so far, which is good since their nest is six feet from the master bedroom sliders.

I like looking back at old blog pictures at least

once a week. If I think progress is slow, all I have to do is to look back at the last picture to prove myself wrong. The circle bed is 95% planted now. I filled the remaining spots with peppers and tomatoes tonight and then finished mulching. I have one tomato in the wall o water. It is Chocolate Stripes and it finally seems to be growing in it's little sauna so I'll leave it in there for awhile longer.

The hot box (formerly cold frame) hit 119 degrees today. Everything did OK but it inspired me to get a move on it, an move things out. Also planted in the garden tonight were celery, more zinnia, borage, and melon. It looks like I need to do a germination test on the squash, there is no sign of life on those seeds. The sunflowers, are however already coming up. Still waiting on the corn but it's only been a few days.

PS: The gazillion white spots in the grass are thousands of maple helicopters. Next year I really really need to try and wait for these things to come down before I mulch!

Naked Coldframe and Monday Updates

2009-05-19T19:33:00.011-05:00

Two days ago I was blogging about impending frost. Tonight, it's heat. Tonight is the first night the coldframe gets to stay uncovered and without lightbulbs. The temperature was 75 today but the coldframe (ha) hit 106 degrees and it was completely uncovered. Since the forecast is for similar if not higher temps for the next five days, the next task is to get stuff out of there and get it planted a.s.a.p.

Updates:

The frost was extremely light and everything came out unscathed. I've permanently removed the row cover on the circle bed, but the green bed still gets covered every night for two reasons. 1) The bambi's haven't touched a single thing in this bed since I put it down and 2) It seems to be keeping pests down. My greens have no holes in them at all! *knocks wood*

Harvesting: I'm harvesting greens and herbs from the garden and window boxes regularly now. The kids have me shocked at the way they are snarfing down these salads. The chard, bok choi and even the really weird spotted lettuce are a getting eaten, with compliments even. They say it tastes different. In kid speak, this is good.

Visitors: Toad number three has been removed from the coldframe. In this terrible picture you can sorta see the little guy peeping out of a hole that used to hold a baby celery. I named him BP (Bad Peeper) and relocated him in the back bed.

Fruits: In more thrilling news, I think I may have at least quadrupled my cherry harvest this year, or at least the potential for it. I counted at least four green cherries today. Yahoo, that's a sundae for every member of the family!

Planted: In the garden today went 1 borage, six more tomatoes, eight peppers, three eggplant, three dahlias, five salvia, four basil, and four zinnia, Seeds were started for two kinds of sunflowers and about nine stalks of sweetcorn.

Sprouting: 2 kinds of watermelon and two kinds of cucumbers are up. I also have two pathetic cilantro that went straight to stretched even though it was in sunlight it's whole life. Cilantro hates me.

Suffering: Three tomatoes that are still in containers look like they have blight and have been moved away from the other plants. Something chewed up two pepper plants. They all got aluminum collars this afternoon. All the peas look healthy but they are growing pathetically slow. The bean's around the teepee seem to be pouting too. I think I'll give them some worm tea tomorrow and see if it helps.

Doing well: All the perennials seem to have survived the winter and are starting to take off. The potatoes seem to really love their bag. I added three more inches of dirt to them again today. The leaks are still tiny but you can tell they have "took". They just sat there for two weeks but are now definitely growing. The onions are big. I need to find out if I should trim their tops. The planter carrots could be harvested if I wanted baby carrots. I'll let them go a bit more.

Multiple tomatoes already have buds. It looks like a couple of peppers are starting to throw some too, but those will get picked off. The plants are too small to be allowed to bud yet.