Garden Update

The last couple of weeks of sun have done wonders for our garden.

click on photo to see what is growing

Last week I was able to go to the garden for some dinner inspiration.

I snipped some lettuce (mostly buttercrunch but also some romaine and black simpson), cilantro, a couple of collard leaves, and pulled out an onion. All of which made a pretty good salad! The collard green leaves are so sweet, it was a surprising flavor.

We had a couple of garden intruders this week. A big fat bunny chewed its way through our netting fence to reach the beans. Davey followed the rabbit into the garden, bending a fence post when he got caught up in the wires, but somehow he didn't trample a single plant (he's a lucky dog). The rabbit pretty much wiped out our bean crop, though.

Sad little bean plants with their heads snipped off by a hungry rabbit.

I'm not giving up on the beans, though. I planted 18 more green bean seeds and 12 more edamame seeds yesterday. Once they sprout I will put a chicken wire cage around the plants as a double barrier against rabbits. Time will tell if we get to eat any home grown beans this year.

What i have given up on is the spinach. It never really grew well and started bolting (flowering, which signals the end of it's growing life). The problem is that the spinach never got big enough for us to pick and eat. I discovered through some online research that spinach is pretty finicky and usually bolts in May when the weather gets warm. I think from now on we'll only plant a fall crop of spinach, that seems to be only time of year that we have any success with it.

Bolted spinach, about to be plucked.

The one thing I'm beginning to love about gardening is that the failure of one crop means you get to start new with with something else. Since I pulled out the 4 squares of spinach I had some extra space, so I bought some seedlings and planted one plant of Black Beauty Eggplant and one plant of icebox watermelon. I've never grown either plant so this should be a good (and hopefully delicious) learning experience.

Kris spotted the first signs of the tomatoes to come - a very welcome sight!

Can you see it? Our Roma tomato plant is the winner for producing the first green tomato. At this rate we'll be eating fresh tomatoes by the 4th of July.

As I was picking grass and weeds out of the mulched area around the rain barrel, I discovered another surprise visitor to the yard...

Cilantro! This is where we had planted it last year. Apparently it liked the spot so much it decided to come back again this year. This is one unexpected guest in our yard that is every welcome.

During a trip to Home Depot yesterday I spotted some plants on clearance and even though I had decided against buying plants this year, somehow 2 of the plants jumped into my cart and came home with me.



They have an unfortunate name - Tickseed. Ticks are nasty, but I love the tickseed. They give the backyard that little bit of pop it desperately needed.

Do you see that plant in the background above? I've declared that to be the world's largest bush of parsley. Or at least it's the biggest one I've ever seen. I wish I liked parsley more because we have an abundance of it. I snipped off some flowers last night and smelled like parsley for the rest of the day. We love that fact that it came back stronger than ever this year. Now we just need to eat it.

I finished all of the planting yesterday with the seeds I already have. I added one mound each of cantaloupe and honey dew, 2 hills of cucumbers, and I replanted the birdhouse gourds since they never sprouted.

After a long day of weeding and planting, it was nice sitting on the porch swing with Kris in the evening, enjoying the view of the garden and dreaming about the day when it will be overflowing with deliciousness.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - a weekly roundup

I'm feeling a little frustrated and grumpy today after spending some time in the garden and yard today. There hasn't been much activity this week, but here's the roundup (sans pictures).

The Good:

• We have sprouts! Zinnias, cucumbers, beans (soy and green), morning glories, and moon flowers are all popping out of the soil.
• The lettuce is just about ready to start harvesting. I may go pick a few leaves for a salad for dinner, I can't wait any longer.
• The grapette tomato and the cayenne pepper plants have little flowers on them. They were a little bright spot in my day.
  
• Strawberry season is upon us! I contacted the berry farm today and it's almost pickin' time. I'm having a hard time finding a local organic farm, but this farm minimizes the use of chemical applications and doesn't use any pesticides since they use bees to help their crops. I'm happy to support a friendly, local, and family-run farm. I plan to pick as many berries as possible. I can already taste them...
  

The Bad:

• The basil plants aren't thriving. I think I planted them too early and it hasn't been warm enough for these heat and sunshine loving plants. A couple of plants have yellow and brown on the leaves, and they don't look healthy. I'm worried that this will affect their growth for the rest of the season (I've read online that cool weather early on will stunt the growth of basil). Another basil plant seems to be getting attacked by bugs. We have a lot of pesto dreams riding on these basil plants and I gave them a stern warning today that they will be replaced if they don't get with the program!
  
• The sun was in hiding this week and as a result the garden has stalled out. The chard hasn't gotten much bigger and the leaves are getting munched on by some type of chard-munching pest. I think it's time to buy some ladybugs and hope they eat our predators. The spinach is also about status quo, which is not much. I'm still holding out hope for having fresh greens sometime before it gets too hot.
  
• Our rain barrels are empty. We haven't gotten much rain this week so I've had to use the hose to water the garden and flowers this week. Today I watered (with the hose) and now it looks like it might rain. Apparently watering the garden will make it rain just like washing your car will!
  

The Ugly

• The mulch. My feelings about the mulch can be summed up in one word - UGH! I really thought mulching was going to be the answer to our ugly yard. It looks OK still but the border I put around it is not sufficient to hold the mulch in place...it is spilling out into places we don't want it (mostly thanks to the dogs). And I need to spend some time spreading it out a bit more evenly because there are lots of bare spots.
  
• Luna decided to express her anger (or maybe boredom) today by digging up one of my pots that contained delicate zinnia sprouts. This better not become a habit!
• The weeds are back and they ain't pretty. One of the benefits of square foot gardening is supposed to be the lack of weeds. Yeah...not so much in our garden. I'm sure that I'll soon give in to the fact that I will be spending my time weeding this summer. I'm just not yet to that point.

I forgot how much patience gardening requires. You just can't force Mother Nature to speed things up.

I'm doing my best to enjoy the process of gardening just as much as I enjoy the outcome. Maybe next time there will be more of the good to report and less of the bad and ugly.

A productive day

The weather was perfectly sunny today. A great day for planting. The garden is nearly full and I can already taste the fresh tomato/basil/cucumber salad that is in our future. I love seeing so much green in the garden.

Other random thoughts and news for today:

This morning when I let the dogs out I saw through very tired eyes a blue jay enjoying himself in the bird bath. It made me happy. And then I went back to bed.

Once I started digging in the garden today I realized how loose the soil is. I think it will grow some great tasting veggies and fruit. It also made tilling up the weeds very easy. Now our garden is weed free again!

The most exciting news of the day is that the back of the house is painted! There are still a few touch-ups that need to be made but the house is (pretty much) done - and it only took us 6 months to paint! Kris worked hard today and I am grateful. We are going to celebrate tonight by watching the Project Runway Season 4 finale that was finally sent to us by Netflix. We sure know how to party!

The vegetables I planted in March are coming along somewhat slowly. I thought that I'd be picking spinach and lettuce by now, but it is not growing as quickly as I'd like. I am trying my hardest to be patient and am wondering if our soil isn't as fertile as we think it is. Perhaps I'll add some compost tomorrow to see if I can't help speed things along.

Today I planted:

• Birdhouse gourd (1 square/1 plant)
• Cantaloupe (1 square/2 plants)
• Honey Dew (1 square/2 plants)
• Butternut squash (6 squares/3 plants)
• Acorn squash (2 squares/1 plant)
• Edamame (1 square/9 plants)
• Bush beans (1 square/9 plants)
• Zucchini (8 squares/4 plants)
• Zinnias (6 squares/6 plants)
• Ornamental peppers (1 square/1 plant)
  
• Jalapeňos (8 squares/7 plants)
• Basil (7 squares/7 plants)
• Cayenne Peppers (1 square/1 plant)
• Bell peppers (3 squares/3 plants)
• Cucumbers (1 square/1 plant)
• Sugar pumpkins (2 squares/1 plant)
• Heirloom pumpkins (2 squares/1 plant)

In 2 weeks I will plant another 1 square each of cantaloupe, honey dew, edamame, and green beans. And I'll plant 2 more squares of cucumber. I'm praying that everything will grow, and I'm looking forward to fresh melons in 75-90 days.

Spring salvation

Earlier this year I had serious lawn envy. Our lawn paled in comparison to those of our neighbors. The front yard looked OK, but I couldn't even stand to be in the backyard because it was brown and muddy. We covered half of our yard in straw because the dogs were tracking in so much mud from the outside. That only made it worse.

It seemed as if it would never get better...and then came Spring.

Thank God for spring flowers - they gave me something to love in our yard again.

Bradford Pear

Red tulips in the front that were big and gorgeous, but didn't last nearly long enough.

Cherry blossoms

Planting - May 8, 2009

The garden is finally planned out and I'm looking forward to getting these babies in the ground!

Pepper and basil seedlings

I couldn't wait until after Mother's day to put in all of the plants...I got a head start yesterday.

Planting: May 8, 2009

• 1 square cilantro
• 3 squares lavender
• 1 square Italian oregano
• 1 square rosemary
  

• 6 tomato plants (Grapette, Yellow Pear, Roma, Arkansas Traveler, Brandywine, and one other that I can't remember the name of)
• 2 marigolds
  

My current favorite thing in our yard: Geraniums.

Why mow when you can mulch?

Late last fall we had a patio built below our deck. The process of building the patio, along with having 2 dogs with large paws, destroyed a good portion of our grass near the house. We tried our hardest to make grass grow, but it just wasn't working and we were tired of spending money on on a seemingly futile effort.

Yesterday I had a truckload of mulch delivered and I mulched about 750 sq feet of our yard close to the house and around the patio.

New rain barrel - installed by Kris

Half of this garden bed already existed in an attempt to hide the ugly utility boxes with ornamental grass.
We extended it to cover an adjacent area of our yard (under and around the big rocks) that seems to have drainage issues. Last summer it was always wet and became a mud pit for our dogs to play in. This year it is mulched.

New rain barrel, new plants.

A nice surprise: chives and parsley that seeded themselves last fall.

I am happy with the results. We still have some trouble spots where we need grass to grow, but the overall look of the yard is so much better. Next year I'm hoping to fill this area full of native plants. Until then, I have lots of time to research and plan.

A Post on Compost

I love the idea of having a compost bin in our yard.


Ours is made from 4 old pallets we were able to get for free from the dump. The premise seemed simple enough to us...throw in grass clippings, raked leaves, and all of our food scraps into this magical bin and in the spring we'll have homemade fertilizer for our garden. Right? Um...not really.

Kris opened up the bin this spring with the hopes of finding luscious compost to add to our garden. After digging through layers of rotting food scraps and leaves, he did find what looked like black gold at the bottom of the pile. He spread that all over our new garden bed. We were both excited to be able to contribute our own compost to the garden. What we didn't know, however, will haunt us for the rest of the summer.

Even though it looked like compost, nature apparently hadn't decomposed all of the seeds of everything we put into the bin (weeds, fruits, veggies). So instead of spreading what we thought was fertilizer over the soil, what we spread were hundreds (maybe thousands?) of seeds in the rich dirt...giving them the sunlight they needed in order to sprout again. So now our garden (which was supposed to be weedless) looks like this even before we've had a chance to plant our summer veggies...

(Those are supposed to be empty squares!)

Things I've learned about composting this year:

1. Don't put weeds in the compost bin!
   
2. You can't ignore the compost bin and expect to have fertilizer. It is apparently important to turn the compost over periodically to allow it to heat up and turn that stuff into compost.
   
3. One should sift their compost before applying it/ This might sort out some of the seeds and other chunks of non composted materials so that they don't go into your garden and sprout.
4. Don't use the compost until it is actually decomposed!

So my goal of having a weedless garden this summer is pretty much shot. I'm hopeful that once we pull all of these out, we'll be done with weeding. I can dream, can't I?

In the beginning...

I'm starting this journal a bit late in the spring...so let's go back to the beginning.

March 13: The making of a new garden bed

We decided this year to go for a raised bed garden. There were several factors motivating us to raise the garden a foot off the ground this year.

1. DOGS. While a 3ft chicken wire fence will keep most bunnies out, it will not keep out our two lovely dogs, Luna and Davey. Despite our best training efforts to teach them that the garden is off limits, they still ran through it daily, taking no effort to watch their step. One morning last summer I was devastated when I looked out the window to find that our zucchini and bean plants had been crushed under their paws. They had used the garden as a place to have their morning wrestling match. Thankfully we were able to save some of the plants, but we are hoping to avoid such an occurrence from happening this year by keeping the dogs (and other critters) out of our garden!
2. WEEDS. I've spent countless hours in the past weeding our garden. Weeds are ugly and time consuming, not to mention harmful to plants you do want in your garden. We are hopeful that raising the beds up will keep the weeds out!
3. AESTHETICS. We are looking forward to having a garden that looks nice during the winter months, too.
   

After weeks of thinking, planning, and budgeting, we decided to go with a u-shaped garden with pea gravel around it. We wanted to maximize our space while giving it some architectural interest. After convincing Kris to take a Friday off so we could get started, we were ready.

The day started with the delivery of lumber (untreated cedar), pea gravel, and soil. A lot of it.

Setting out the lumber (that dirt patch was last year's garden).

Laying down the weed block.

The form is finished...now let's add dirt.

The dogs...overseeing the effort.

I added a few concrete pavers for a walkway that will lead to our patio.

Kris is thrilled to be hauling soil on his day off...can you tell?

Finished!

We lined the garden with limestone rocks - some of which were dug up while our patio was put in, and others that we "harvested" from construction sites in the area. I am pleased with the results...now we need to get our spring veggies in!


March 18, 2009: The first planting

I stumbled upon the Square Foot Gardening method during one of my garden research sessions on the web. It seemed like a perfect fit for our garden. Since we had already built the garden and filled it with dirt, we couldn't use the "Mel's Mix" soil that the method calls for. We're hoping that our topsoil/compost/sand mix will work out just as well...only time will tell!

• 1 square of wheat grass (for juicing)
• 2 squares (1 plant each) of collard greens
• 2 squares (1 plant each) of rainbow swiss chard
• 2 squares (9 plants each) of spinach
• 4 squares (16 plants each) of beets
• 8 squares (9 plants each) of different lettuces
• 6 squares (16 plants each) of red, yellow, and green onions.

I am looking forward to salads straight from the garden!

Protecting the Garden

After finding big paw prints in the garden (thanks to our canine friends), we realized that the garden needed some type of fence to keep the dogs out. We really wanted to avoid using chicken wire - it looks awful and is difficult to work with. Kris devised a way to run wires around the garden, which thankfully kept the dogs from using the garden as a short cut through the yard. It looks nice, we will still be able to reach our hands through and get to the plants, but it will hopefully keep the unwanted critters out.

closeup of the fence

the whole garden
The bird bath was a gift from my grandmother.

We quickly discovered that the few inches of space on the lower portion of the "fence" around the garden was plenty of room for rabbits (even big ones) to enter our garden and munch on our onions and greens.

On a trip to the hardware store I found a roll of plastic chicken wire fencing. I attached it to the top wire with garden twist ties and then we drilled holes into the cedar boards to attach the netting to below. It's a little less clean looking than the wire-only fence, and it's a little bit more hassle to get our hands in the garden, but it is best solution we could come up with. And it's nice having the peace of mind knowing our garden is now well protected.