My Wisconsin Garden

Aaaaaaack - Now is NOT the time to panic

2012-01-02T14:01:00.001-06:00

Looks horrible, doesn't it? Just doing some treadmill maintenance.

Timmmm-berrrrr!

2011-11-09T15:37:00.001-06:00

The rain has turned to snow....the tree fell almost in slow-motion, kind of freaky, actually.

It's a jungle in here!

2011-05-20T22:35:00.004-05:00

Some shameless bragging here... The tomato plants have gotten off to an excellent start, as clear from the photo. Not all varieties have sprouted, though - I think some of the 5- and 6-year old seeds have failed finally & I'll toss the rest if there are any left in those packets.

This year's new seeds from Seed Savers Exchange have had a 100% germination rate, resulting in lots of extra tomato plants. I may end up gifting plants away, not to mention the tomatoes I anticipate later this summer.

In the forefground are two pea plants, the dwarf variety that can be put into containers. I hope to pot those & harden them off this week - next year I need to start them earlier and the plan is to make spring gifts of the potted plants as a pretty centerpiece.

"Topsy-turvy" flower planter

2011-05-20T21:47:00.005-05:00

An impulse buy late last year, this 'Topsy-Turvy' planter came home for $2 or $3 from an end of season clearance. This one allegedly attracts hummingbirds, but is pretty much the same as any other upside-down planter. About 3 or 4 gallon capacity, which I have filled with a blend of compost, peat moss, and polyacrylamide granules (SoilMoist) for water retention. Then, I planted four Wave Petunias (three in the top, one in the bottom) and we shall see how well they grow. My biggest concern for now is the weight of this - at least 25 lbs, probably closer to 30.

The overall construction of the planter is pretty nice, with reinforcing straps inside the bag, and metal weight bearing structure.

I found (since we had a short-notice frost warning), that placing this over a bucket will support the weight while not crushing the flower growing from the bottom. Is it worth the retail price? I'm not sold on it yet, but for $3 at the local discount store, it was worth an experiment.

Tree Progress

2011-05-18T14:16:00.004-05:00

"What am I supposed to do with these sticks?" That is what I said 8 years ago as I surveyed the "DNR trees" we got. I regretted the cost, even though it was about $1 per tree. They looked hopeless - bare-root, about 12" tall, and caliper (trunk diameter) thinner than a pencil. Pitiful start for the grand forest I had envisioned on the back of the property.

Following the directions provided with the trees, we used a tree spud (a.k.a. planting bar) (rented for $5) to put them in fast. Then we put a slow-release fertilizer tablet about a foot from the roots, and about a foot deep (punched the hole with a crowbar). After a month or two of careful watering during droughts, they were left on their own, and they have grown well.

This photo was taken this week, with my extremely cooperative dog posing for a size comparison. The cedar in the photo is 7-8 feet tall, and is about average for the first planting of those little sticks 8 years ago. I wholeheartedly recommend the DNR programs if you have the patience to wait for the trees to grow in, or need to re-forest a large section of land.

A friend in the garden

2011-05-16T19:39:00.003-05:00

Just hanging out in the lawn clippings that I use as mulch.

Things I should have learned by now....

2011-05-16T19:04:00.003-05:00

It's been years and years since I started this gardening thing.....you would think some basic lessons would have sunk in...

If there isn't enough space to walk between planting beds while planting, it won't get any better for weeding. (The onion bed is 15-foot square this year...Gak!)

Don't let radishes go to seed.

Don't let volunteer radishes go to seed, again.

If you cut off a taproot weed at the soil surface, it's going to grow back.

Check the forecast for late spring frosts prior to spending hours planting annual flowers.

There will be critters in the compost pile, expect it. ( a little vole was in there today)

Genesis 7:11

2011-04-26T20:17:00.008-05:00

...on that day the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.

We had a pretty bad rain storm last night...winds in the 15 mph range, with gusts about 25mph. This was fine for the seed potatoes, the onion sets, and the other seeds in the garden. No so much for the pop-up netting.

Here's a photo of the garden from the weekend, the netting is staked down with 9 tent-like stakes that were included. This morning, I saw the netting had disappeared, so I ran out between raindrops and located it. A quick inspection shows it is still mostly intact (a more thorough review will happen in a day or two). Some of the stakes are missing, perhaps buried in the mud, or thrown off.

Thus far, I am not impressed with the stakes, but the netting seems to be OK. Had this been protecting tender transplants, I'd be awfully annoyed. Reviews on the Gardeners Supply Company website mention tears when the product gets wet - I'll withhold judgement for now, though.

Other comments on the early garden:
The boards you see in the photo are my feeble attempt at keeping the mud in the garden and off of our shoes this year. They are scraps of plywood that have been sitting out by the tree nursery beds for a few years now. I don't recall the original intention.

In the upper left, you will see my open-bottomed potato box. This year, that houses the blue fingerling potatoes, while the late crop hugs the fence, and the early crop is on the near side of that pathway.

The next bed coming towards us is the pea bed - a good crop of shell peas is already planted, with some sugar snap peas mixed in. The shell peas do not require stakes, and I am experimenting with allowing the climbing snap peas to use their cousins as support.

In front of that is the brassicas, with the previously mentioned pop up net, and lettuce & spinach sutside the net. I will plant more lettuce & spinach in another 2 weeks or so, to give a longer salad harvest. (Compost has been used to top dress the bed, you can see where the planting ended.)

An empty bed is next - this will be carrots and root crops, when get another nice day.

Teh foreground is the (very large) onion bed, with >300 sets, and about 30 cloves of garlic. No, I have no idea what will be done with all of them yet. Garlic braids would be nice in my pantry, though.

The peppers and tomatoes are a few inches high, still under lamps in my basement (I don't trust the weather here). The other half of the garden will be a large crop of corn and sunflowers, with beans and squash mixed in, if I can manage to get the "three sisters" growing nicely. Tomatoes will be a combination of upside-down plantings (another experiment), about 1/3 of the other part of the garden, and anywhere my compost pile sprouts up.

--Mickey

In the dirt

2011-04-23T22:31:00.003-05:00

An early spring warm-up two weeks ago (on a weekend) was the perfect opportunity to get the garden tilled - perhaps the earliest ever that this has occurred.

Shortly thereafter, 300 onion sets were planted (mostly because I had helpers, who really enjoyed planting). I may have to look into some older 'homesteading' books for long-term storage ideas for onions....braid & hang, I suppose.

Now, we also have approximately 12 pounds of seed potatoes in the ground - some blue fingerlings and general purpose potatoes (early and late).

Today, I put in a few rows of shelling peas, some sugar snap peas, three rows of lettuce, and moved the brassicas out under a net.

Hopefully this nifty pop-up net from Gardener's Supply Company will keep the cabbage moths out of my plants - I had given up on broccoli altogether because those green caterpillars are just a bit nauseating to find in your salad. I bought the short 3' by 3', for a trial. Let's hope it works and I can spend some more on the bigger options.

Initial impressions are decent workmanship - I expect it to last several seasons if I don't abuse it too much. I might need to do some sewing repairs, if the spring steel wears through the binding, though. My biggest complaint at first was the lack of directions to re-fold it - I spent nearly an hour looking like a fool trying to wrestle it back into the pouch. The mfr. does include 9 heavy-gauge wire stakes to hold it down. The mesh is thin and sparse enough to not shade the plants too drastically. I doubt it could be used to warm the plants during a frost, but you could get the row-cover material instead if that were the goal.

Installation was simple - pop open, stake down. The larger models seem to have a zippered entry door, which might make a better plan, but if I were so inclined, it should be straight foreward to stitch a zipper into the top.

The net is home to broccoli, cauliflower, napa cabbage, and brussles sprouts for now. I'll keep you posted on the performance of the net as the season continues.

Sprouting seeds

2011-04-17T11:24:00.003-05:00

I start the bulk of my indoor seeds around now. Usually, because we've had one or two nice days and it's getting my fingers itchy to start digging. What is the plan for this year, you might ask?

Tomatoes

Black Krim

Choerokee Purple

Roma

Early Girl

Oxheart

Mexico Midget

Jelly Bean

Early Girl (one lonely seed that was hanging around from last year)

Peppers

Wisconsin Lakes

California Wonder

Misc. Hot Peppers

Lettuces

Black Seeded Simpson

Tennis Ball

Buttercrunch

Spring spring spring!

2011-04-10T22:07:00.002-05:00

Well, a false spring at least. It was 80 degrees (F) today - far warmer than seasonal for April, but we got some good work accomplished in the garden. I believe this is the earliest ever for having the garden tilled completely. Spent several hours Friday and Saturday removing the worst weeds, raking up the leftover mulch, and discarding old plants. We even uncovered several dozen volunteer onion plants that were transplanted to the onion bed along with 300 new sets and a row of garlic (for the fun of it). Even a few forgotten carrots were found & quickly consumed. Since the tilling went well, I expect seed potatoes to go into the garden this week, after I have had a chance to cut them and let them dry. Still looking for some red or blue-fleshed potatoes, and will hit up a garden store or two tomorrow on this quest. Seeds have been started for peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, brussles sprouts, napa cabbage, and some lettuces. This week, tomatoes will be started, as well as more lettuces. I have 1.5 dozen impatiens started as well, for the heck of it. With any luck, this is the year we get rid of the rock pile and make a nice, liveable, fun, area there....we'll see what the coffers can supply.

Not a garden...and not Wisconsin either...

2011-01-13T17:24:00.005-06:00

A hammerhead shark, very fast and graceful, about 10-12 feet (3-4 meters). This has been cropped and color corrected, using Irfanview.

This little fellow is a whale shark, the largest living fish. The photo has been touched up for coloring and to remove the ghastly pale legs of midwestern divers. We estimate 20-25 feet in length (7-8 meters).

Filberts!

2010-09-06T13:01:00.002-05:00

Walking past the hazelnut bushes today, I noticed several husks on the ground, and some cracked open shells - evidence of small rodentian munching on the nuts. This means they're ripe and ready for picking. Giving the bush a test shake, a dozen or so more nuts fell to the ground. So I rounded up a helper and a basket, and we picked as many as we could before it began to rain. I'll put the husks into a paper sack to dry out for a few days, then pry the nuts from their leaves. After that, it's just a matter of cracking open a couple and snacking on them.

Peas!

2010-06-20T22:44:00.004-05:00

An updated view of the electrical box - the rhubarb is huge, but I didn't harvest any this year. I think I may hunt around for some red rhubarb - this green stuff isn't as tasty. You can see the day lilies are growing well, they're as tall as the electrical box, and hide the fading foliage from the irises very well. I need to add one more layer of perennials within here, something nice and tall behind the day lilies, to block off the rest of the box.

The front is really starting to look like the cottage garden it is supposed to be. After the daffodils bloom and fade, the daisies and black-eyed Susans take over.

Today's harvest was nearly 8 cups of peas! This is going to be a tasty week.

June Updates...

2010-06-14T20:41:00.013-05:00

A humid, dreary, tepid Flag Day today. The sky was overcast all day, but Mr. Golden Sun peeked out a few times. This is the third (fourth?) day in a row of incredibly humid weather, but not-quite-raining. I finally gave in yesterday and set the sprinklers on the garden, gave it a good, long, soak (2 inches of water? maybe a bit more) so that I could pull weeds in relative ease today.

She is a grand old flag.

Who better to guard the tomato plants - none other than Crazydog! Yes, folks, she'll guard those tomatoes, but carrots are fair game (payment for the security?).

If you look closely enough, you'll notice the glob of miscellaneous wild animal poo on her neck & collar. Sorry, I didn't notice until about an hour after this photo was taken, when Crazydog promptly became WetAndSoapyDog. Never fails - take a clean dog outside and she'll find animal poo to roll in within the first few minutes.

On a much sweeter smelling note, the peas are very nicely growing, although they are taller than my pea supports and threatening to tip the supports over - I think this is the first time that has ever happened. Going gangbusters, and we'll have great stir-fry vegetables soon.

Called crane technique.

Does it work?

If do right, no can defense.

For some random reason, this photo reminds me of the song "Edelweiss" from the Sound of Music....but they're really my volunteer radish crop gone to seed again... I don't really like radishes, so why I even bother with them is beyond me...soft and white, clean and bright, you look happy to greet me.

Onions go marching two by two hurrah....hurrah. The Onions go marching two by two hurrah....hurrah!

Today's harvest - a small salad in the making for lunch tomorrow - and a weird rock. I'll have to ask a geologist friend of mine what it is - it sort of looks like the rock has a 'rind' with purple inside and a white outside, probably quartz, given the area, but weird nonetheless.

--Mickey

The suspect....

2010-05-17T20:15:00.006-05:00

So, is this poison ivy?

I don't have a clue as to what I'm looking for, as I've never reacted to it (and thus, "why should I care?")

But if it is...I probably should kill it off. Any suggestions? This spot can get Roundup, given the location under our deck, but the other areas that are suspect have plants we want to keep as well as the suspect.

A Blustery Week...and a freeze

2010-05-09T21:58:00.004-05:00

There has been a lot of wind lately - enough to make me worried about a few saplings that might not handle the strain. This tree, however, seems to be doing just fine in spite of the wind. Normally, this is a vertical trunk, but I'm starting to wonder if the trees will take on a permanent list.

You can see the garden just past the tree, tilled, and some beds already planted for the year. I can't remember having the garden started this early. Makes me pine for some of those klotches or 'wallo water' mini-greenhouses so I could get my tomatoes in early.

The creeping phlox is blooming - I love how it tumbles across the stones in the rock wall. Normally, I'm not a pink person, but the pink colors on these are a nice contrast to the green and the granite.

The hostas along the foundation are coming in nicely as well as the lady's mantle and something whose name escapes me right now. Never mind, though, since we've had a frost this weekend, and I'm afraid many of these plants will be stunted or killed off outright. Our early summer was beautiful while it lasted, but that's about it.

The peach tree also has flowers, though I haven't had the nerve to go check it out and see the damage. The tent caterpillars were cut off a couple weeks ago, caught them somewhat early, as were some other scab-type bugs. The leaf-curl is still a battle so I'll be spraying the tree this week (if the wind cooperates).

Root view box update

2010-04-25T09:24:00.003-05:00

The radishes have been picked and eaten; they had a flat side where they grew against the window. You can see the carrots and beets in the photo, and a very thin parsnip starting to grow.

I have had a lot of positive feedback from visitors and some requests for the plans. They will be written up in a single page with illustrations, but it will take me a little bit, given all the other garden work right now.

Springtime work starting early

2010-04-18T20:28:00.008-05:00

I'm refreshing the area around the electrical box this year. Today, I pulled all the stones up, and am prepping the area for re-trenching the border. The grass from the lawn is invading the border and it's starting to look awful. This week, I plan to trench out that area, hit all the border with Roundup (and a lot of weeds inside the area, too. Maybe this way the local busybodies won't find fault with my weeds that seem to take over the bed too often. Wish me luck!

So, I found this the other day looking for that last Easter Egg that was not located during the hunt. Not quite what I was hoping to discover, but it sure looks promising from a few feet away.

For those of you unfamiliar, this 'egg' will burst open with Rhubarb leaves soon.

The front bed, where we planted over a hundred daffodil bulbs last fall, and two dozen iris rhizomes. You can see the iris fans growing along the wall, and daffodils in clumps throughout the photo. Other green patches are the wildflower seeds, Malteese Cross, Black-eyed Susan, Coneflower, and Daisy. This bed is looking better and better every year. Re-cutting the edge last year made a big difference. As much as I hate to add more work, I'm going to add that to my plans every few years to keep the lawn and planting bed from merging.

Leaves of three...oh wait. That's a strawberry blossom.

The bed that was planted about 7 or 8 years ago is starting to fill in. The bulbs multiply every couple years, and eventually I hope to have the bed entirely filled with daffodils. I need to find another plant that can fill in once the daffodils are done for the season, perhaps day lilies, since I could divide the Stella d'Oro lilies around the electrical box this year. I need to get something there to keep objects from rolling off the edge of the driveway and cover up the daffodil foliage once the flowers fade away. Initially, this was going to be creeping phlox, which is very nice looking, but just doesn't create the 'boundary' I'm looking for of about 12 to 18 inches tall on the edge of the drive. Another thought is to get some Ruby Stella re-bloomers to counter the yellow all over the rest of the gardens. My assignment in the next week is to get some sturdy markers to identify gaps in the bulbs so I don't dig up anything when I plant the lilies next fall.

First seeds in the ground

2010-04-03T21:35:00.003-05:00

I'm probably pushing my luck with frost, but I can't help myself - I'm a gambler at heart. I put in two rows of lettuce, a row of parsnips, one of carrots, and four of early snow peas. Crossing my fingers that any frosts do no serious harm, but I'd only be out a few cents in seeds and 45 minutes of time, right? Next succession planting for these should be in two weeks, which is right about the 'normal' time to start the seeds.

The indoor transplants are looking pretty healthy. Tomatoes and peppers have begun to sprout, and it appears all twelve petunias are sprouted (100% germination from last year's seed!). Now, to keep everything alive for the next two months.

I've noticed this year a few seed companies are selling something suspiciously similar to my first project on this blog. Yes, folks, they're selling ladder trellises for far more than it costs to build one. You might go out and DIY to save $50 or $75 (not to mention shipping and handling!) The three I constructed in 2006 are still doing very well, with minimal warping and splitting.

The Rocks.....

2010-03-29T22:31:00.003-05:00

By popular demand...photos of the rock pile

Seed Starting Setup...

2010-03-28T21:05:00.004-05:00

Since I've gotten a few questions about it, here are some new photos of the seed-starting setup in the corner of my basement. Nothing spectacular here, just some industrial shelving, a scratch-and-dent formica countertop, commercial heating mat with thermostat, fluorescent light fixtures, and seed flats. Out of the photo is a powerstrip with integral timer for the lights. I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: I don't buy the fancy grow lights, rather, I put one 'cool' bulb and one 'warm' bulb into the fixture, and the plants seem to like it well enough. Sure, fancy grow lights have more of the spectrum, but this is just a family garden, it isn't my source of income.

In the next photo, you can see the sprouting Petunia seeds - it looks like I'm 12 for 12 if you look closely. Hopefully, they will all survive! The fiber pots off to the side are my tomato and pepper plant starts - I've started 5 paste tomatoes, 3 jelly bean, 5 beefsteak and 5 bell peppers. I should start more peppers this week if I have the time.

Make way for mid-March

2010-03-14T20:56:00.004-05:00

Progress on the garden! It was a gorgeous early spring day today, 55°F and sunny, with a nice northeasterly wind to dry off the ground. Spent an hour in the garden, weeding out the tree nursery bed and turning over 6 feet of the planting beds by hand. The soil is damp but not wet (not quite dry enough to drive the tiller in there, but I can certainly turn over a few beds for the early spring vegetables. I hope to get more turned this week and some hard-raking in to prepare the beds for the first crops.

Those seed tapes I spent so much time on this winter? Yep, those will be going in quickly. I need to make more as I finally picked up carrot seeds.

I've started the petunia seeds - a dozen or so this year. Hopefully I'll have success again.

Tomorrow will bring new photos of my starting bench, this year's additions are a heat mat thermostat with digital temperature gauge and a small fan to help combat damping-off. Thus far, all the herb seeds are merrily germinating, with a few growing well.

Chives are well represented in the herbs this season, they will take the place of my border surrounding the vegetable garden, at least on the north side of the border. The thought is that chives are very useful and perennial. As an added bonus, they are not frequently eaten by rodents or deer, so they should survive where other plants have become some critter's lunch. The flowerbed next to the garden that never has really taken off will become a herb garden of sorts, a place for my perennial herbs in full sun and exposed to some reasonable amount of irrigation.

Root view box update - you can see the roots that I've cut the tops off for thinning. All the seedlings have true leaves now, and the radishes look nice and healthy. Even at this young age, the beets are bright red and the radishes are pink. Looking at this photo, I guess we need to water the box again - things are starting to look a bit dry in there. I'm guessing that the roots are going to have a flat side as they grow into the window, but otherwise will still be round

--

Coconut Coir - again

2010-03-08T18:32:00.002-06:00

I've had a few extra days now to investigate the coconut coir bricks - they expand much less graphically than the pellets. One brick and about 4 quarts of water fills half a six gallon pickle bucket. I let them expand overnight and used a hand cultivator to break up any remaining clumps of coir. Everything seems peachy.

As for the germination of seeds in the coir - no problems there, I have twenty-two of twenty-four garlic chives sprouted and happy. Basil sprouted fine, even one rosemary seed has germinated already (unless it was a basil seed that launched an invasion of the rosemary pots). Photos will follow, but thus far everything seems just fine with the coconut coir in place of my previous favorite peat moss.
--

Coconut Coir vs Peat Moss

2010-02-22T20:55:00.009-06:00

I've been reading up on the latest fads in gardening, and it seems that everyone is buzzing about coconut coir as a germination medium since it is more renewable than peat moss (which is renewable, but takes a long time to grow). So I thought I'd give it a whirl. All I have to lose is money, right?

I bought two types of coir - bricks, which should be soaked in a tub of water, and pellets, which are meant to replace the jiffy disks in germination trays. The bricks remain to be opened, as only one flat of seedlings was planted today, they were $2.50 for ~8 quarts.

For about $5, a box of 72 pellets were plunked into the tray, and warm water added to make them expand and get damp. Be sure to place them in the tray oriented vertically, with the circular sides of the cylinder on top & bottom. Horizontal pellets will expand into the sides of the cell, and remain rather dense (a small screwdriver helped break up the clumps), one cracked the cell wall of a recycled tray. Vertical pellets will expand upwards, looking a little too much like Canadian goose poop, but pouring water over the top helps them settle flat. They expanded quickly - within a few minutes, much faster than peat pellets.

I found the pellets to be a bit small for the cells (perhaps they'll expand more overnight), and didn't fill the cavities completely. But for ease of use and rapid expansion they get high marks. I'm not thrilled at the cost, especially compared to the bricks of coir. Perhaps I can find a different supplier that sells them bulk.

So what did I start you ask?

Garlic Chives

Regular Chives

Sage
Spicy Globe Basil

Dark Opal Basil

Marjoram

Creeping Thyme

Stevia

Lemon Balm

Sweet Basil

Flat Parsley

Curled Parsley

Radish Germination in the Root View Box

2010-02-20T13:20:00.006-06:00

Those radish seeds germinated in three days, roots are visible in the photo above. Today they have leaves, but I don't have a photo yet.

Photo of seed leaves - 2-21-2010:

Photo of root view box 3-22 or so...you can see the radishes and the beets are growing nicely!

Building a Root View Box

2010-02-13T14:44:00.014-06:00

Ever want to know just what is happening beneath the soil surface? What your seeds are actually doing in there?

A root-view box is simply a planter with a window to the dirt, so you can observe what is happening below the soil surface. By planting the seeds against an angled window, the roots will grow against it. However, roots avoid light, so the window needs a covering.

Like other projects that will be encountering water, this is built mostly of cedar, with some scraps of other wood as trim pieces (holding in the window). It was built to fit the planter drip trays I found at the local hardware store, so anyone building one will want to come up with their own dimensions.

Materials:
1x6 lumber
trim pieces (in this case 1/2" square stock and some triangles cut from scraps lying around)
1/8" clear polycarbonate for the window
plastic drip tray from a windowbox planter
1" galvanized hinges
2" latch (could use a hook & eye or many other things to secure the window, but these were on the clearance rack for a quarter each)
wood screws
nails
wood glue
sandpaper
drill
screw gun
hammer

Mount the window at an angle, so the roots have to encounter it while growing down (geotropism, if I recall primary school biology correctly)
Drill some drainage holes in the bottom.
Add a trim piece that covers the edge of the window across the top, this will block incoming light, since the roots will avoid any light.

If you are wanting to use acrylic to save money on the window, I understand that Lowe's will cut it to size for you - do this - acrylic is not easy to cut without shattering. If you must cut it yourself, use a metal straight-edge and a blade to score it, then repeat the same cut deeper and deeper until you can snap it over a straight corner. Polycarbonate (sold under the brand name Lexan) is a bit stronger and less likely to shatter. Polycarb. can be cut easily on a band saw, or with a fine-tooth jigsaw or circle saw.

Plant the root-view box as you would any other container. This is a mixture of potting soil with a slow-release fertilizer and worm castings, the same mix I'm using for starting seeds this year. I filled a 1.25 gallon ice cream bucket halfway with potting mix and added 5 or 6 cups of water, letting it sit for a few hours to soak in. Then, dump it into the planter box, plant the seeds, and add labels.

Seeds that would be good to try include carrots, beets, radishes, bunching onions, parsnips, and chard (it has multi-colored roots). Science project topics can include obstacle avoidance by the roots (put stones or sticks into the box), different light filters for the roots, different soil mixes (sandy, loam, clay).

I hope to add photos every few days as we watch the seeds germinate and grow. We should see something from the radishes within a few days.

Groupies?

2010-02-01T21:17:00.002-06:00

Since there was such great interest in the Garden Planner spreadsheet last year, I've decided to add a Google Group to facilitate downloads of the spreadsheet as it develops. You can find us at http://groups.google.com/group/wi-garden

The original garden planner spreadsheet is located there, you're welcome to join us and download a copy.

Improvements I'm currently working on include a list of herbs, some bug fixes, and a custom font for the calendar (icons instead of the current abbreviations)

Starting to think about seeds again

2010-01-25T19:24:00.002-06:00

Seed catalogs are filling up my mailbox again, it must be January!

I tend to get excited thinking about all the new varieties of plants I'll grow each summer, and make a list that is twice as long as possible and four times longer than practical. Then, after much agony, I pare down the list to a few dozen plants and order those seeds I still need.

In my efforts to make a more scientific approach to this garden stuff, I'm expanding the garden planner spreadsheet that I wrote about last winter and many of you have (and hopefully are using). I hope, before too long, to have the small spreadsheet available on a host site for public downloading.

What should we start first? I expect by mid-February to be starting some herbs, some flowers, and a select few vegetables. If all goes well, I'll have a few more projects completed prior to the big seed-starting months of March and April:

root-view grow box (for the kids - see what your carrots are doing under the soil surface)
improved design of the garden hod - I have learned a few things from this first attempt that I should change before I make them as gifts. I still have several to make and send out to gardeners this May, so the kinks need to be worked through
cold frame - I've wanted a cold frame for ages, and I think this may be the year to build it, a small one, 2 feet by 4 feet, but that should be large enough for experimenting
row cover frames - haven't quite figured out how these will look, but I want something that is collapsible but will hold row cover material over a 30" x 4 foot section, give or take. The first experiment will be for broccoli and cole crops, which are forever becoming a smorgasbord for the local cabbage butterfly population. Perhaps it would make a good cold blanket for tender plants during the late frosts (June! :|)
more seed tapes, with a very busy year planned, I want to have easy to seed carrots, lettuce, and the like. I hardly ever get succession planting correct, so this year I hope to improve my chances.

New tools this year?
I have some money to spend on my garden, so I'm going to buy a digital heat mat thermostat, since my basement room is hardly ever the right temperature.

Garden Harvest Basket / Garden Hod - completed

2010-01-18T20:00:00.010-06:00

I'd posted in September about a harvest basket / garden hod that I was planning to build. Now that the holidays have settled down and cedar lumber has been acquired, I have gotten down to building it.

Materials:
1x10 - (about 2 feet needed)
1x2 - (about 5 1/2 feet needed)
pvc-coated wire mesh (1/2 inch grid, 18" x 22" or thereabouts)
exterior screws 1 1/2" & 2 1/2" (bigger or smaller will work with adaptations)
staple gun and 1/2" or 5/8" staples

Cut three 18" lengths of 1x2 (handle and rails)
Cut two 7 1/2" lengths of 1x2 (feet)
Cut two 7 3/4" lengths of 1x10 (ends), taper upper corners, notch sides for rails, and trim points off lower corners.

When attaching wood, pre-drill the holes for the screws to combat splitting of the wood. I glued any place where wood met wood, but that is up to you. I used long screws (2 1/2") for the handle and foot attachment, as these will be load-bearing points in the basket. The rails are mostly for keeping everything square and holding the mesh in place.

Assemble in this order:
Attach handle to two end pieces
Find center of wire mesh and temporarily staple to the bottom of the basket, attach feet such that the screws hold the mesh in place.
Bend mesh up sides of the basket, trimming as necessary to fit. Wrap around the interior of the rails and staple in place. Use a hammer if the staples didn't seat all the way.
Attach rails to end pieces.

I'll be sanding the handle some, as I don't like the rough side of the cedar, and I want to soften the corners when I carry it around.

Custom Seed Packets

2009-12-29T20:44:00.005-06:00

Why not make your own seed packets?

Now that I'm saving seeds that (hopefully) will grow next year, I needed some way to box them up as nice little packets. So I created my own seed packet template. Feel free to use it, just paste or draw a photo of the plant on the back, and fill in the information on the front. Circle the water and sunlight requirements and record the height, depth, spacing, year and variety.

Click on the thumbnail to view full-sized image and print it out or copy it. Photos of the finished product finally here!

Pumpkin Petit Fours

2009-11-17T16:45:00.002-06:00

Why not?

This is a Pumpkin Spice cookie recipe, made into a sheet pan and cut into pumpkin shapes. They've been frosted with a basic powdered-sugar icing (some were given a spice glaze as well).

Seasonal Gifts?

2009-11-11T21:42:00.005-06:00

I have been trying to come up with some new ideas for gifts this year. Things that are consumable or reusable and not just "stuff".

A few years ago, gifts in a jar were all the rage, but it's not incredibly special to just layer the ingredients, right? Why not take this a step further and do some sand art? It isn't difficult if you have a little patience, some small measuring spoons, a bamboo skewer, and a sense of humor.

First, an online video showing how an artist in Petra, Jordan, creates images in sand.

Simple, right?!

My first attempt, making a pine tree from the Mexican Spice mix. I highly recommend you make a lot of practice attempts, perhaps while mixing up enough spices for your own consumption, because it isn't incredibly easy, and you'll need to play around with it. Also, I suggest you don't forget an ingredient (like I did with the corn starch - you can see it piled up on the top). Pick out a design that is simple, and hide the unneeded colors in the middle of the jar for 'filler' - the chili powder and red pepper are stuffed in the middle of this jar since the design didn't have any red in it.

Simple holiday designs could include:
Snowman, Tree, Christmas Tree Ornament, Star, Candle, Candy Cane - if you're ambitious try a scene or a decorated tree? Please let me know how yours turn out if you make these.

Recipes:
Mexican Spice Mix
3/4 cup dried minced onion OR 1/4 cup onion powder
1/4 cup chili powder
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
2 Tablespoons dried red pepper, crushed
1 Tablespoon oregano
2 Tablespoons dried minced garlic
2 Tablespoons ground cumin

add 2 Tablespoons mix and 1/2 cup water to 1 lb browned, drained, ground beef, heat through until water mostly boils off.

Spaghetti Spice Mix
1/2 Tablespoon celery seed
1 Tablespoon dried parsley
1 Tablespoon dried basil
1 Tablespoon dried minced garlic
1 Tablespoon ground black pepper
1 Tablespoon dried oregano
2 Tablespoons dried minced onions OR 2 teaspoons onion powder

Add 1 Tablespoon mix per 1 cup spaghetti sauce.

Maple-Pecan cookies

2009-11-09T10:52:00.004-06:00

A favorite fall cookie here, these are best when made with real maple syrup.

1 1/2 cups butter, soft
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed firm
2 eggs
1/4 cup maple syrup
4 cups flour
1 cup pecans, toasted and chopped

semi-sweet or dark melting chocolate (optional)

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and syrup until combined. Beat in flour and pecans (you may need to finish by hand, some mixers will bind with the stiff dough).

Chill dough 1-2 hours to ease handling.

Roll into 1/4 inch thick slab and cut out cookies. Bake at 375° F for 10-14 minutes, or until browned on edges. Cool on wire racks.

Dip cooled cookies into melted chocolate, if desired.

I prefer using a small oak leaf cutter and an acorn cutter (dipping the acorn tops in chocolate for a cap). The smaller cookies are addictive, though, since it's so tiny, it must have only a couple calories. Be sure to let them bake until you see bits of brown on the edges. The additional browning adds a wonderful toasty flavor, although they have a good shortbread-like flavor when just barely baked.

Clean up has begun

2009-10-24T21:17:00.002-05:00

The last of the carrots are still in the ground, and will be dug up as weather permits over the next couple months. (freezing temps seem to improve carrot flavor, I think) Everything else is long gone.

The tomato bed has been dismantled today, the rotting fruits are in the compost bin, along with vines, some grass clipping mulch, and a good portion of mud that was mixed in. If I leave the tomatoes in the garden, I'll be weeding tomato plants next year (they are tenacious buggers, too) . I should probably dig up the beans also, since a lot of those went to seed and I don't want volunteer beans next year either.

Still haven't found any onions that I planted from seed. I may probe into the bed and see if there's something in there. If there's nothing, I won't feel bad about tilling the bed, but I'd really hate to lose all those onions if they're hiding in the weeds.

Sometime this week, when the weather is good, the whole garden will be hit with round-up and weed-whacked. I'm sure there are a few million weed seeds in there - if I get ambitious, I might try burning the weeds. Or just deal with it like I do every year - pull weeds.

The bad news...
The vintner who picks our elderberries told us there's a poison ivy patch invading the corner of our property. This is an interesting dilemma for me - I have never reacted to poison ivy, and thus never learned what it looks like. So I have spent every available moment in the last week surfing the web for photographs and hiking back there to locate the poison ivy. No luck. Hopefully K will have some time to come back and show me where it is. Thanks for small blessings, if anyone should clear out poison ivy it should be the person who doesn't react to it, right?!

The consensus of my web search says that I should find the point where the plants roots are, cut it off at the root & mark the location this fall. Then, next spring hit the young sprouts with herbicide (round-up) every time it tries to leaf out. I'll be wearing a disposable coverall and gloves to gather up the vines, just because I haven't reacted doesn't mean I'm willing to gamble!

--

Caramel Apple Oatmeal Cookies

2009-10-19T18:00:00.004-05:00

What would you do with some extra baking apples? These cookies have been adapted from a standard oatmeal-raisin recipe, and turned out well. I've added comments on substitutions that I made.

1/2 cup butter (or margarine)
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1_1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon, ground
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
3 cups oats
1 cup apple pieces (or dried apple pieces, with sufficient water to moisten)
1 cup caramel bits

Heat oven to 350 F.
Cream butter, shortening, and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla, beat well. Combine flour, soda, salt, and cinnamon - add to wet ingredients and mix well. Stir in oats, apples, and caramel bits.

Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake 12 - 15 minutes or until golden. Allow to set on cookie sheet for 1 minute after removing from oven, then cool on wire rack.

Substitutions I have successfully made:
Applesauce for 1/2 the fat
Hot cider mix for granulated sugar

If you cannot find caramel bits, unwrap caramel squares and freeze, then crush with a mallet.

Harvest Basket / Garden Hod Project

2009-09-30T21:50:00.012-05:00

For several years, I've seen advertisements for the "Original Maine Garden Hod", which is a harvest basket with wooden ends and wire mesh bottom and sides. The ads state that this is a design adapted from clam hods, allowing to rinse the contents of the basket without removing them from the basket itself. In essence, this is a large-scale strainer for garden produce.

Searching various supply houses, the cheapest I could find these baskets is $30 (not including shipping), and many companies are selling them for $50. With all due respect to the sellers, these look like wonderful baskets, but I'm not able to part with $30-$50. Additionally, I know several gardeners who would rejoice in receiving a gift of a harvest basket, but again, my budget does not have room for the price.

I'd like to make my own version of the hod, so I started a little search online and came up with a fellow blogger's instructions. I like her dimensions, but her design doesn't fit my needs very well. For starters, I need to be able to carry it with one hand, so we need to add a handle. I also like the coated wire mesh of the original version, and I'd prefer to have cedar or redwood for the ends, since it's likely to be very wet.

The Farmchick blog has some clever features - using small feet on the bottom to keep the mesh off of other surfaces, 1x2 side rails for strength and attaching the mesh, and a good overall dimension.

Searching for other plans online, I came across a generic tool caddy project at Lowes online. I think the two plans will serve as a good starting point for my new garden hod.

Essentially, I need to take the ends and handle of the Lowes caddy, and round off the bottom corners. Then I'll add side rails, coated hardware cloth, and feet, as instructed by the Farmchick blog.
Rough dimensions I'm using are 5" high x 9" wide x 16" long for the 'basket' part, (the handle will be 8" high overall). Ends will be cut from cedar or redwood lumber, and sanded to round off edges. The mesh will be 5/8" hardware cloth coated with PVC or Vinyl and stapled in place (If you want to get fancy, you could route a nice channel in the end pieces for the wire to fit into.) The handle will be a 1x2, as will the side rails.

I made a mock-up in cardboard, to get a feel for the size... keep in mind the sides will be almost an inch thick and there will be a handle on top (1x2, not the 3/4" round as drawn on the cardboard.)

Since I'm all for "saving the earth" (and, I'm cheap), I'll be searching craigslist, for sale classifieds, and the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore to find scrap cedar, redwood, etc. Photos of the project will follow as I build them...
--
Update 1/21/2010...
The completed project can be found here.

Seed tapes

2009-09-30T14:22:00.020-05:00

Some people swear by seed tapes - biodegradable tape with specific (usually tiny or difficult to handle) seeds embedded at regular intervals to eliminate the need for thinning the sprouts. Commercial seed tapes can be expensive compared to loose seed, and are limited in varieties available - usually the most popular hybrids. Fortunately, seed tapes are easy to make.

Start by cutting strips of paper - we recycle grocery bags, food packaging, and other food-safe scraps. I like to keep the tapes narrow (1/2" to 1" wide), but you can make them any size you wish.

Mix a little flour and water to make a basic flour paste and dab the paste every so often along the tape. Set a ruler on your work surface for easy reference. Use the seed package "thin to xxx" measurement for the spacing of the seeds.

Place a seed on every spot of paste - if you keep the flour dots the same size as the seeds, you can save time by dusting the tape with seed and shaking off the excess for the next tape. Lightly press the seeds into the paste to ensure adhesion.

Allow the paste to dry, label, roll and store the seed tapes as you would other seed. At planting time, dig a furrow in the soil, unroll the tape (cutting to length if it is longer than your row) and cover with soil at the desired depth. Water well. The paper will rot away over time, and the seeds will sprout at the correct spacing.

What seeds are the best candidates for seed tapes?

row crops
small seeds
expensive seeds or those in limited quantity
direct-sow crops

How else can you use this technique?

Pre-set border plantings
Intersperse two types of lettuce or carrots for the same row to facilitate succession planting
Save time planting in spring - make tapes in the winter, then unroll, bury, and grow
Create a pattern or design of plants on a larger scale using the entire grocery bag or newspapers (avoid newsprint for food crops)
'Plant-able' tags and cards for gifts or party favors
Paper flower bouquets that will grow
Container planting disks for herb collections
Garden gifts for children with colorful paper cutouts of vegetables to identify the seed
Allow persons with limited dexterity to plant seeds that are otherwise unmanageably small

I'll post more photos of the alternate projects as I get them done.
--

Saving Tomato Seeds

2009-09-28T08:59:00.004-05:00

Tomato seeds from open-pollinated varieties can be saved from year to year. Pick some of the best fruit from the most productive vines, scoop out the seeds and slime from the cavities and put it into a jar. Let the jar sit outside for a few days until there is a layer of mold growing on top (it will stink!), then rinse the seeds off in a sieve, picking out all the mold and scum that is mixed in. Finally, let the seeds dry (use something non-porus, or you'll never get the seeds separated from the surface).

I use canning jars, and let the mold grow with a little scrap of paper towel tied over the top to keep bugs out of the jar.

When the seeds are drying, I mix in a couple drops of food color so I can identify one variety vs another next spring. The photo shows blue-dyed seeds from Oxheart tomatoes. After they air-dry, I'll put some silica gel into the container and let them dry out for a week that way (this will reduce the moisture content to ~5%-8% and prevent mold growth over time). Then, transfer the dry seeds to a sealed container without the silica gel, as I don't want them to dry out too much). The seeds should last many years, some sources say up to 10 years.

Filberts - in spite of the wildlife

2009-09-28T08:33:00.006-05:00

In spite of the critters who beat me to the nuts, I managed to harvest a handful of filberts (Hazelnuts, if you prefer). Not many, but the bushes are filling in nicely and we should have a thick hedge in a few years. (I couldn't find my nut cracker immediately, so I brought out the next best thing)

The crop would probably have been better harvested a week ago or even two weeks ago, but I had completely forgotten about them until mowing the lawn when I spied a few ripe nuts on the grass near the shrubs.

Hazelnuts are a favorite of lots of animals - deer will eat both the young branches and the nuts. Squirrels and ground squirrels will devour the nuts. I've seen some bluejays in the bushes, perhaps they like the nuts as well? The plant is native to this area, which helps with the low maintenance and hardiness. They'll grow to be about 10 feet tall, and fill in as wide as we let them (new suckers show up every year, even through landscape fabric).

We have two plantings of American hazelnut - one large group back in the thicket towards the far corner of the property (planted the DNR seedlings a couple years ago, many survived) and another group of three along the side of the property, eventually screening us from the neighbors. The hope is that the large planting will attract most of the critters and the small planting will be saved for the humans.

The finished cakes

2009-09-26T21:34:00.005-05:00

By popular request.... the finished cakes.

Someone had commented that the purple carrot cake looked like dirt, so I frosted it as a little 'grassy knoll' with chocolate flowers and bug birthday candles. As you can see, the orange batter displaced the purple, creating a center core of orange - weird, but tasty!

And, of course, the Lego minifig - I think the colors came out pretty accurate, actually. I can see this guy being dressed up for many occasions throughout the year.

Yes, this is all cream cheese icing, the glossy effect was achieved by dipping a butter knife in warm water and smoothing out the frosting.

What happens when you bake purple carrots?

2009-09-25T14:11:00.014-05:00

The pressing question on everyone's mind tonight is whether purple carrots revert to orange when cooked. purple beans turn green, so the color change is a valid hypothesis.

For the experiment, four Purple Rain carrots were shredded & added to 1/3 of the carrot cake batter (I was too lazy to pick enough for two full batches & needed a 'control' cake of orange carrots, anyways. The batter was divided prior to adding carrots, so as to eliminate cross-contamination.

One cake was made using the control batter (Lego Minifig, for fans of the building blocks). he purple batter was poured into a pyrex casserole, since the muffin pan was still in the dishwasher.

Remaining orange batter was layered onto the purple in the pyrex, creating a two-toned effect in the cake. The trimmed piece from the bottom of the round pyrex cake illustrates both orange and purple batter - the purple carrots leeched color into the surrounding batter and the end result is a muddy, deep blue color that looks rather awful in the photo.

The two-tone cake - this is the cutoff from the 'top' to level the cake. I hate to say it, but the purple carrots make it look moldy. After I finish the frosting tomorrow, I'll post a photo of a slice of the cake. Haven't decided upon a color for the frosting.

The Lego minifig turned out quite nicely - I'm getting to be a fan of these silicone cake molds, now that I've learned how to use them a little better & don't get the batter stuck in them as often. This guy will be frosted tomorrow and brought to a friend's party, because you can never have enough Lego, right?!

Pepper abuse

2009-09-22T09:43:00.002-05:00

Interesting note I found in the margins of Keeping the Harvest (p 143):

...
Give pepper plants a warm soil (they'll only sit and shiver in temperatures under 55F), a lot of moisture, a good compost base, and a mulch only when the soil is well warmed, but go light on the lime - and hold the nitrogen. Peppers thrive when they are crowded and placed in your poorest soil.

If this is true, then the neglect of this year is precisely why I have a good crop of peppers. I'll have to remember this in the future, and plant twice as many pepper plants in the same space.

--

Mid - September ... time to start saving seeds again

2009-09-16T20:56:00.004-05:00

This past March, I purchased 15 pelleted "Explorer Blue" Petunia seeds from Johnny's for $3.95. I started 15 seeds (even had a few bonus seeds in the packet), and with minimal effort, had 5 plants sprout. A germination rate of 30% are remarkably good for me, considering how poorly I treat my seedlings, letting them dry out half the time, and that Petunias are 'new-to-me' plants.
Now, the blooms are still going strong, but the older blooms have begun to fade and dry up. It is time to collect the swollen seed pods, harvest the seeds, and store them for next spring. The seed pods are teardrop-shaped buds that are left after the flowers fade and the petals fall off. Once the pods are dry, pinch them off. Some, like the pod on the right, below, will begin to crack open and release the seeds (the tiny black specks, below). At this point, the seeds should be ripe and ready to harvest.

'Explorer Blue' is a hybrid petunia, so the seeds may or may not germinate, and may or may not be blue, but it's worth the effort. I'll run a germination test on some of the seeds over the next few weeks to see if they're sterile (some hybrids do not produce viable seeds), and if something sprouts, we'll try it out next season. If not, no big loss. Mesh wedding favor bags from a craft store are perfect for saving seeds - they have drawstring closures that hold snugly around stems, a fine mesh that keeps even the tiniest of seeds contained, and synthetic material that won't soak and retain moisture, preventing rot. The bags are inexpensive (less than $1 each for 3"x4" size), and come in many colors if you wish to color code your seed collections.

If you want to be lazy, tie a large bag around a stem and just wait for the whole stem to ripen fully, then break it off and collect the seeds - remember any flowers that need insects to pollinate won't be accessible once the bag is tied shut. If you don't like the look of a bag tied around your flowers while you still have summer visitors in the garden, just collect several seed pods by hand, dropping them into the bag, or shaking the stems over the open bag to collect seeds that fall out.

Seeds collected today:

Explorer Blue Petunia
Bachelor Buttons
Purple Coneflower
Blackeyed Susan

Strawberries?

2009-08-30T12:47:00.003-05:00

I guess "everbearing" is the correct term. Just picked six strawberries from my rock-wall plants (not the Lipstick hybrid that was pulled and killed off, but the regular 'wild' strawberries) They're tiny, like all 'wild' strawberries are, but tasty. Yesterday's dreary weather must have kept the chipmunks from stealing these.

--

Peaches - part 2

2009-08-29T19:58:00.002-05:00

The remaining 22 edible peaches were harvested this week, providing enough fruit for freezer jam (18 peaches = 4 cups peeled/pitted/crushed fruit). Another two dozen bug-ridden fruits should have been picked sooner, but I'll learn better next time and they won't end up in the compost bin.

The plan next year is to take off work a day or two in August / September and actually can the peaches properly (jam, pie filling, fruit). This will depend upon the harvest, but I have great hopes for the little tree.

--

Late August Harvest

2009-08-29T19:41:00.004-05:00

Peppers. I've never had good luck with bell peppers, at most getting two or three anemic specimens off any plant, never more than 4 inches long or even approaching a poor farmer's market pepper. So what is going on this year? My plants are having a wonderfully productive year. This afternoon in the gloomy 60-degree, overcast, misty weather, ten bell peppers were harvested, and another 7 or 8 'sweet banana' peppers. The bell peppers rival supermarket, and are "Big Bertha" and another cultivar I forget, I think "California Wonder", since I recall best success with those in the past.

So what is different this year?

Cooler than normal summer temperatures
Hardly watered the garden at all - relied mostly upon rain
Fertilized with an organic dilution twice (June and July)
Let the weeds overrun the bell peppers until July, when I cleared them all out & mulched in with grass clippings.

None of this neglect should explain the better harvest. Perhaps the new fertilizer combined with my typical topdressing of compost had greater benefits than expected.
You can see part of the rest of today's harvest in the photo - a handful of beans, I'm starting to let some dry for seed storage next year. The carrots (orange and purple) are very good, (Navarino, Purple Rain, and Hercules). The tomatoes are Roma and Salad tomatoes (Oxheart, San Marzano), with a few Jelly Bean cherry tomatoes thrown in there. The plants are very thick with foliage, and I'll need to prune some leaves to make harvest easier - or just give up and let the fruit rot.

I expect to be extremely busy within the next two weeks, conveniently coinciding with the tomatoes finally ripening - not a single beefsteak (Early Girl or Ace 55) has ripened to edible yet. Perhaps I'll have a 'pick your own tomato' party for neighbors and friends. The quantity of green fruit is ridiculus, and I had been hoping it would ripen sooner allowing me to process sauce and can it for the winter. Backup plans might include just peeling and freezing whole tomatoes for processing later this year.
--

Peaches....

2009-08-12T20:58:00.004-05:00

Summer all wrapped up inside a nice fuzzy package. These are the juiciest peaches I've had in ages, sweet and tangy. Picked about a dozen off the tree this week and ate several already, trying to keep them away from the pests (yeah, one had a few bug bites, but we cut that part off). They're more "peachy" than store-bought fruit, but not quite as big (I suppose if I fertilized the tree & watered regularly they might grow bigger).

I fear next year I'll have so many I need to can/freeze the peaches, but there are plenty of peach-pie and cobbler recipes to keep me occupied. I may try some sort of peach salsa, and maybe a marinade for chicken or pork. Anyone have a favorite recipe they'd like to share?

--Mickey

Updates from 8-5-09

2009-08-05T20:42:00.014-05:00

Sylvesta butterhead lettuce - it really is as yummy as it looks.

The beans, well some of them. On the left are Jacob's Cattle Heirloom. On the right are Fortex.

The pepper plants, you can see some sweet 'banana' style peppers on the plant in front on the left. I'm not really all that optimistic about the peppers this year.

Tomatoes - Nearest are cherry, then paste/salad, and finally beefsteak. Closeups of the fruit were blurry, so they're not posted. Nothing is ripe yet.

The weed patch, with zinnias and, yes, here are a few sunflowers that survived the frost!

Mint on the rock wall, I thought the contrast made a nice composition.

Three hazelnut (filbert) bushes. They even have nuts this year, though not many. The bushes are filling out well, considering they started out as twigs in 8" pots. Each plant is about 4-5 feet in diameter, and 4 feet tall.

Something has been making dinners out of my apples this week... they're not really ripe yet, so I'm baffled by the lack of fruit suddenly. Perhaps a deer with a taste for sour?

My weird Black-Eyed Susans. These have always been green-ish petals, haven't a clue as to why, but I'll assume some weird recessive gene or a disease of some sort. I think they look pretty neat, so I keep them around.

Some wildflowers, grass, and a hosta... nothing very exciting, but a nice enough photo.

This is/was/may still be a lilac. "I'm not dead yet!"

Peaches! Lots and lots of peaches - at least three dozen still on the tree. The setting sun makes the blush on the fruit that much more appealing, but these fellas are still rock-hard. I'll be checking them every day or every other day at the latest - I have no desire to let them go to the wildlife.

Ok, I admit it...

2009-08-04T20:30:00.001-05:00

Those photos below are from a few weeks ago. I owe everyone new photos.

The beans are teeming with pods & will be picked some this week for consumption - anyone have good green bean recipes? (mushy beans shall not be served in this house!)

Tomatoes have begun to lighten - no ripe ones yet, though :-(

A few peppers are visible on the plants, not many.

And last, but not least, I found a few sunflowers tucked in amongst the weeds, so some have survived. Perhaps I'll try to weed out a patch of that side of the garden and take a photo - the zinnias and sunflowers make a nice pairing, but there are far too many weeds to justify much effort.

Some of you may know I'm busy....

2009-08-03T21:19:00.008-05:00

The rest of you can guess that I am. (long story that I won't publish)

Anyhow, the garden is still intact, mostly.

Lettuces are looking (and tasting) yummy. Here is the Romaine (Winter Density) that was planted. The Butterhead (Sylvesta) has mostly been consumed, and the only remaining specimens don't look all that good (slugs got to them). The Butterhead was great & I will definitely be planting it again.

The beans are growing, nearly ready to pick the first of them, but a bit small still. We should have tons of beans, which will be good for August - I need to look up green bean recipes that don't cook them into oblivion. These are Fortex pole beans, as you can see, they are climbing their trellis nicely.

Peaches are growing exceptionally well, considering all the trouble I had earlier this year with some leaf-curl type disease, and then a nest of tent caterpillars that required pruning of an entire branch :-( There were probably over a hundred fruits on the tree early in the season, but at least a few dozen have survived. I can't wait to try these, they're nearly full-size peaches like you'd buy in a store, and all that has been done to the tree is spray with an organic orchard treatment every few weeks to keep the disease down. That said, next year the spray gets applied earlier, perhaps prior to blooming, to keep the plant healthier.

The petunias and rhubarb (just for you RFM, photos of the rhubarb!) are surviving in their trial area by the electric meter. Rhubarb will live there permanently, petunias are there for an experiment - next year I'll plant them elsewhere, where they'll be showier and provide a bit of color to the rest of the landscaping. I was more concerned with how they'd take from seed - pretty well, it turns out. Over the next few weeks, I'll be putting little mesh bags (from a bridal supply aisle at the craft store) over spent bulbs, hoping to collect seeds from the petunias for starting next year. The petunias will be replaced by some light purple irises, and perhaps some daffodils. (Irises are freebies from a gardener who is digging up a bunch - Thank you, N!)

The Explorer Blue petunias are every bit as easy to grow as promised - this is a variant similar to the popular Wave series, but I can buy the seeds much cheaper than I can purchase the sprouted petunia plants. Since the seeds require light to germinate, and are extremely tiny, I guess the nurserys can charge a few dollars per plant. Not my taste to spend that much, and if the seed harvest goes well, I won't need to purchase anything besides peat pots next year.

Failures this year - Big Smile dwarf sunflower. They may have sprouted, but the late (JUNE!) frost probably killed all of them, more's the pity. I was looking forward to a dwarf sunflower bed. I haven't seen a single one in the bed that has now become weed-infested, with a few hardy Sunbow zinnias that survived the frost.

June...oops I missed a month!

2009-06-08T20:14:00.003-05:00

It's been a while. The garden has kept me busy. 9 tomato plants are in the ground, one has been saved for an experiment in hanging tomatoes (don't ask why, I'm not sure myself). The peas have sprouted, lettuce and spinach have true leaves, and there are rumors of carrots in the garden, next to the onions. The beans are doing very well also.

Half the garden has been seeded with dwarf sunflowers and zinnias, in hopes of a decent floral show for the summer.

The peach tree and apple trees have set fruit already, and miraculously survived the late frost we had last week. Petunias are a bit frost-bitten, but should make it. Tomatoes and flower sprouts were covered in a rush of panic the night before.

Rhubarb already has a zillion holes in the leaves from some slug or something - but you can't really kill rhubarb, can you? I'm starting to wonder what I'll do with the 5.5 plants worth of rhubarb that we won't use - it's not like we'll live on rhubarb for a year.

I don't think the food pantry really cares much about rhubarb, either, but I'm sure I can find some volunteer to take some of it.

--

Rhubarb

2009-04-29T21:02:00.002-05:00

We've been having a lot of rain lately, so much that I was starting to look for a clear day to take another rain-garden site photo. But it cleared up today and the standing water is gone, so I planted rhubarb.

The plants were an Easter gift from family - thanks! I have three put in the ring around the electrical box, which will be accompanied by the five petunias that are actually growing. The remaining four plants went along the side of the house, north side, unfortunately, but we'll see if they do poorly there and relocate if necessary.

Can't wait for next year's rhubarb pies!

Planning a rain garden

2009-04-11T20:46:00.007-05:00

The lawn has a low spot, near the garage, where water collects every year. The garage in the distance does not currently have gutters, but, in the future, downspouts could be routed to feed runoff to this area, providing sufficient water for a rain garden. This would also avoid the problem of getting the lawn tractor stuck in boggy soil when trying to mow the area.

Conveniently, one of my garden magazines (Garden Gate)came recently with an article on planting rain gardens. Given the amount of stone we have freely available, a dry streambed lined with pond liner and rocks would be quite easy from the corner of the garage, as discussed in the article. It would look a lot more natural in this case than burying drain tile, since the bed floods completely and the area to the downspout would be pretty soggy as well.

The article in the magazine lists several plants that are suitable for rain gardens, but a bit of internet searching turned up this site with an excel spreadsheet of hundreds of species to choose from. There are also many other sites that will sort by zone, foliage, etc.

The plan for this site, which may not be implemented until next year, is to dig a level pit about 8 inches deep, with a berm on the near side to contain the water (sloping gradually back into the lawn such that the lawn tractor can handle it). Then filling the garden with native Wisconsin grasses and flowers, taking care not to put in anything too invasive. The border of the garden will be something that can handle occasional lawnmower hits, probably a low clumping grass. A dry streambed will carry water from the garage downspout (when it is installed), and a bridge of some sort will allow for foot traffic across to the garden from the garage. Tractor traffic will have to go around. A wide space will be left to surround the garden, to accomodate the tractor.

Of course, the WI DNR has a very helpful page on rain gardens, and a list of native plants suitable for wetlands:

Scientific Name	Common Name	Height	Color	Blooming	Specialties
Zizia aurea	divided golden Alexander	1-2 ft	yellow	May-Jun	Butterflies
Solidago riddellii	Riddell's goldenrod	1-3 ft	yellow	Aug-Oct	Butterflies, Birds - Forbs
Iris shrevei	wild iris	1-3 ft	purple/yellow	May-Jul	Birds - Forbs, Hummingbirds
Chelone glabra	turtlehead	1-3 ft	white	Jul-Sep	Butterflies
Lobelia siphilitica	great blue lobelia	1-4 ft	blue	Apr-Sep	Butterflies
Verbena hastata	blue vervain	2-4 ft	purple	Jul-Oct	Butterflies
Lobelia cardinalis	cardinal flower	2-4 ft	scarlet	Jul-Sep	Butterflies, Hummingbirds
Helenium autumnale	sneezeweed	2-4 ft	yellow	Aug-Oct	Birds - Forbs
Spiraea alba	meadowsweet	2-5 ft	white	Jun-Sep	Butterflies
Eupatorium maculatum	spotted Joe Pye	2-6 ft	pink	Jul-Sep	Butterflies
Asclepias incarnata	red milkweed	2-8 ft	magenta	Jul-Aug	Butterflies
Vernonia fasciculata	ironweed	3-5 ft	royal purple	Jul-Sep	Butterflies
Cassia hebecarpa	wild senna	3-6 ft	yellow	Jul-Aug	Birds - Forbs
Epilobium angustifolium	fireweed	3-7 ft	pink/red	Jun-Sep	Birds - Forbs, Hummingbirds

Insight and comments needed...

2009-04-10T21:24:00.002-05:00

Going through my notes for future garden plans today, I've noticed that I no longer have a suitable landscape design program. (I had been using Broderbund's Landscape Designer Deluxe from many years ago) What should I do now? Being the geek I am, I've started investigating a few things:

Microsoft Visio
CAD software (Autodesk, Pro/Engineer, etc)
Custom Landscape designer packages - typically those sold in retail stores and don't seem to be easily imported/exported to other projects.

Does anyone out there use software? What kind? I imagine there has to be some sort of 'professional' package for landscape CAD, but I've never seen it. If you are using Visio or other CAD stuff, do you have custom stencils or can you purchase stencils / parts associated with common vegetables? (this may become a project for next winter, but I can see myself creating Visio stencils of proper dimensions for every plant in my property).

I want something robust enough that I can get upgrades in the future, import or export images if not the raw design files (CAD would be best for this, I know), and have some sort of storage for plant footprints so they don't need to be created for every individual project.

What do you have? What do you like or dislike?

--

9 April - Sprouting Petunias

2009-04-09T21:00:00.002-05:00

The seed packets say 6-10 days for germination. If we don't count day 1 (they were planted pretty late at night), today is day 7 under not-perfect conditions. I have two of the 15 sprouted with first leaves visible. The plan was to risk no-grow seeds and only plant one per pot, so I'll keep a close eye on the rest the next few days.

Once they have three true leaves, I'll start adding diluted fertilizer to the trays. Hopefully, they'll be ready to plant out sometime in late May or early June.

1 April - starting petunias

2009-04-01T19:45:00.002-05:00

Johnny's package came in the mail today (just like Christmas!). So I've gotten started on my petunia seeds.

Fifteen 3" peat pots with potting mix (sprayed down on top with a mister) and soaking in water from the bottom are ready to go on my shelf. I purchased pelleted petunia seeds, since the tiny seeds are so difficult to handle - the pelleted ones are not much better, but at least I can see them when pelleted. The starting instructions I'm using are a combination of what Johnny's provides with the seeds, and what I found online at the University of Minnesota Extension.

The tray has been put under the lights, and plastic wrap is covering it to keep the seeds moist. (petunias need light to germinate). I'm a glutton for punishment, so I put one seed per pot, we'll see how well they do gambling on germination rates, but Johnny's has had very good seeds every time I order from there, so I expect nearly 100%.

--

Sprouts! Already!

2009-03-31T20:04:00.003-05:00

I have sprouts - some of the tomato seeds are working overtime, I guess. Or, perhaps, (more likely) there are weeds in my potting mix. The leaves aren't unfurled enough to determine whether it's a tomato or not, but I'll guess not.

Since keeping sterile implements and not mixing soil with potting mix isn't my strength, I'll bet it's a weed.

--

Edit: April 1 - nope, definitely tomatoes, I have four sprouted today!

2009-03-30T21:55:00.001-05:00

ok. I give up trying to make the text look right on that last post.

Everyone will just have to squint or copy-paste into a text editor or something.

--

Seeds ordered (Finally!)

2009-03-30T21:13:00.008-05:00

Garden seeds have been ordered. I went with Johnny's Seeds again this year, since I've always had good germination from their products, even years later. A few prime choices were either sold out already, or had seed crop failures (Kinko carrots, I was really looking forward to trying greenhouse carrots, too bad)

I have ordered a bunch of dwarf sunflowers and zinnias for half the garden that will be non-vegetable this year, perhaps some sunflowers in the front as well, and the Petunia seeds are hopefully going to be started early enough for filling in around the electrical box in front - I hope the "Explorer Blue" mixed with the "Stella D'Oro" Daylilys work well together. If not, I'll have a clashing garden.

This is my first attempt at starting petunias, but I hear they're not that much trouble if cared for properly. Plus, the cost of a single "Wave Petunia" at retail is about $4 around here, so the $3.95 for 15 seeds gives me 14 to mess up with before I lose money!

LETTUCE
Sylvesta (Lactuca sativa) - Butterhead
Days to Maturity or Bloom: 52
Winter Density (Lactuca sativa) - Bibb/Romaine
Days to Maturity or Bloom: 28 baby, 54 full size

PEAS
Snow Sweet (Pisum sativum) - Snow Peas/Snap Peas
Days to Maturity or Bloom: 60

CARROTS
Navarino (Daucus carota var. sativus) - Early
Days to Maturity or Bloom: 57
Purple Rain (Daucus carota var. sativus) - Purple
Days to Maturity or Bloom: 73
Hercules (Daucus carota var. sativus) - Storage
Days to Maturity or Bloom: 65

BEANS
Fortex (Phaseolus vulgaris) - Pole Bean
Days to Maturity or Bloom: 60

SPINACH
Remington (Spinacia oleracea) - Semi-Savoyed
Days to Maturity or Bloom: 38

SUNFLOWER
Big Smile (Helianthus annuus) - Dwarf Sunflower 12-24"
Days to Maturity or Bloom: 50-60

PETUNIAS
Explorer Blue (Petunia X hybrida) - Similar to Blue Wave®.
Days to Maturity or Bloom: 60-70

ZINNIAS
Sunbow Mix (Zinnia elegans) - 24-30"
Days to Maturity or Bloom: 90

Starting seeds for 2009

2009-03-29T10:37:00.003-05:00

After a nice blanket of snow fell last night, I need some dirt to make me feel like spring.

Started 3" peat pots with generic potting mix (actually I think it's a combination of several brands of potting mix that were dumped into the same bucket, whatever works)

What's growing?

Strawberry - 3 started, I need about 9 more to cover the retaining wall that was stripped of "Lipstick" last fall
Tomatoes - 9 started, Early Girl, Ace 55, Roma, San Marzano, Oxheart, and Jelly Bean
Bell peppers - 6 started, Cali Wonder, something else unlabeled
Cayenne - 3 started
Basil - 3 started
Impatiens - 6 started

For now, that's it, I need more strawberries, but I'll start those later. I still need to order some more seeds this year - I'm out of carrots, lettuce, peas, beans, spinach, and I need lots of sunflowers. The plan, with other big events impeding my August and September, is to have half the garden covered in dwarf sunflowers (maybe with pumpkins growing under them). If I get ambitious, I'll put in some zinnias as well.

Eagerly awaiting the snowdrops and daffodils, but it will be a week or more before this snow (and that from the next two storms) melts.
--

Garden Planner Beta testers---

2008-12-29T16:41:00.003-06:00

I've sent out a beta to several testers.
Notes for those of you who came here to look for more information...

you need to install MS Excel Analysis Toolpak - (on office 2007, hit the round button, and "Excel Options" on the lower right, then choose "add-ins" and follow prompts to install)
I forgot to add a couple succession planting numbers, so it won't calculate multiple harvests for Peas, Pole Beans, and Peppers.

--Mickey

Garden Planner Spreadsheet

2008-12-27T20:17:00.007-06:00

I've been putting this spreadsheet together for several years now, and it's finally in a fairly useful stage. Since I haven't been convinced by anyone to make it into a 'real' application, it's currently in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, with heavy use of multi-worksheet formulas, form controls, and a couple macros.

The final output (at right) is a form with drop-down crop variety selections, room for cultivars, order info, source, and it automatically populates a weekly calendar with tasks for the garden. The succession planting column allows for scheduling multiple iterations of the crop without confusing the scheduler. Everything is based off the Last Frost date as entered in the spreadsheet, so the scheduler is portable to other zones.

Future improvements I'm still working on are a automatic bed plan, and some different output options for the schedule. The bed plan will order crops by family (Legumes, Brassicas, Roots, Curcurbits & Grains, Solanaceae, and Alliaceae); and keeps historical records from the last several years of crops to facilitate rotation for pest control and maintain soil nutrients. Schedule output options I'd like to add are a printable schedule based on popular binder-style planners, and outputs to Microsoft Outlook and/or Google Calendar appointment systems.

I've created a small version that I could email, if you want to try it out for yourself.

--Mickey

12-21-2008 A winter wonderland

2008-12-21T11:12:00.002-06:00

We're sitting here at -11 F, with a windchill of -30 F, and almost 2 feet of snow cover. It's safe to say winter has reached Wisconsin.

The garden is, of course, buried.

So, what did I accomplish this past season? Just about nothing. I did harvest almost a peck of carrots, some of them wormy, most not too bad. (Not sure if this is recommended, but I found that soaking in water encouraged the worms to come out). Two of the apple trees did well, the third was not so great. I only sprayed the organic pest deterrent once, so maybe next year I'll hit them more frequently. Between the two, almost 10 gallons of good (not pest-ridden) apples were picked, and the third had about a gallon or so of smaller, but still good apples. I've lost the slip of paper describing which tree is which, so I need to do some investigation.

The apples were made into homemade, unsweetened apple sauce - quartered, dumped in a stock pot with a quart of water, and boiled/steamed until soft. Then sent through a food mill to remove the seeds and peels. What was left was a beautiful rose-colored sauce (for the yellow color you get in stores, peel the apples before cooking). It froze well, and some was used for Christmas cookies this year that didn't survive until Christmas. For the cookies, take some commercial puff pastry dough, thaw it out, coat one side with cinnamon & sugar, spread applesauce on the other side, and roll it up like a jelly roll. Freeze it to give it some shape, and cut thin slices with a sharp knife. Bake according to package directions. You end up with cute little spirals that are so good I only got 2 myself.

Next year....
I should plan better. And not drown the melons.

If I can revive my other computer, there is data on it for creating custom 'day-planner' style calendar pages that remind me weekly which tasks need to be accomplished in the garden - for example in mid-February, it has a note to start pansies indoors, mid-March to start herbs, and mid-April to start tomatoes, with the corresponding dates to plant them outdoors. I find it much easier to follow a calendar with all the dates listed rather than try to remember each individual plant. Again, I need to revive a computer to get the data. ugh.

I'm going to kill off some of the strawberries this year. The lipstick hybrid has outgrown it's usefulness - beginning to spread too much, and not providing enough fruits. So I hit them with roundup once this fall and didn't mulch them in. Next spring I'll hit any stragglers with more roundup, and plant some of my seed-started non-spreading strawberries in their place.

I also hope to tackle the area outside the office next year - know anyone who can teach me to build a stone wall with my huge supply of round stone?

--Mickey

The weeds rule my garden

2008-07-12T22:03:00.002-05:00

I've been neglecting my garden. I have all my pepper plants in trays in my basement under lights (um, still). Most of the vegetable garden is weed-ridden right now, but I'm slowly making progress.

Carrots and lettuce are doing well, peas were planted way too late & have yet to produce. Beans are showing strong, however.

The recent flooding and rains left the garden under 4" of standing water for more than a week - that killed off all the melons - I never knew they were susceptible to drowning.

Perennials are doing well, I'll try to post some photos this week, but the front bed of black-eyed-susans and Maltese cross is amazing. The day lilies are filling in nicely, but I'm still fighting the thistle problem by the electrical box.

--Mickey

March 2008 - Seed Ball Project

2008-03-04T11:11:00.009-06:00

Easter comes early this year, and I thought a nice gift to my gardener friends would be some wildflower seed balls. These little balls of clay, compost, and seed can be placed on the soil surface to germinate, not requiring planting into the ground. The clay helps deter pests from stealing the seed and retains moisture.

Commercial sources of these include "Seedballz" which sell for about $6 for a package of 8 at Amazon. These commercial varieties are a bit larger than what I'm about to show, but I found the smaller version is easier to make by hand.

My original plans came from Path To Freedom. I've modified their recipe slightly.

You'll need:

dry terracotta clay powder or moist clay
dry composted manure or compost
seeds

The basic recipe I use is:
6 parts clay
4 parts compost
1 part seed

If you cannot find terracotta clay powder, you can use moist clay that has been air dried (not kiln fired!) and crushed. I found a cheese grater and mortar/pestle the best tools to dry and pulverize the clay in an efficient manner. Strain out any large chunks and crush again (a kitchen sieve works fine).

Using the directions from Path To Freedom: mix the seed and compost together, add the clay, mist water with a spray bottle while stirring to get it to clump together. Do not add too much water, it will be difficult to form balls with too much moisture in the mix. Pinch off a small portion of the mixture and roll into a ball. I find it easiest (and cleanest) to use plasticized gardening gloves for this step, keeping most of the clay off my hands. Let the seed balls dry for a couple days, protecting them from curious children and pets.

Plant about 1 seed ball per square foot.

For a spring garden gift, consider packaging a handful of seed balls in a small flowerpot, perhaps with a plant marker and twine bow. Include a card with instructions and descriptions of the seed varieties. I've chosen to make a shady blend and a sunny blend.

Be sure to check with your local university extension office for native plant species to use in your seed balls.

How much did it cost me?

compost: free
clay: $1 from potter friend (can purchase 50 lbs for about $23)
seed: 1/2 cup wildflower seed mix (no filler) $13 from local garden center. (makes 250 or 300 balls)
pots: $0.50 each
twine: $0.05 (on hand)
seed markers: $0.50 each at local garden center
instruction card: $0.05 (printed on index cards)

So each gift will cost about $3 total, plus my time. The seed balls alone will cost about $14 total (clay and seed), or about $0.05 each.

8-18-2007 Sunflowers

2007-08-18T12:57:00.001-05:00

The sunflowers have begun to bloom. As you can see, they've grown into quite the forest. I think in the future I'll plant a "sunflower fort" instead, leaving a doorway and open space in the middle. The dog should enjoy lying in the shade of sunflowers while keeping an eye on the garden.

--Mickey

30 June - too hot for outside work

2007-06-30T10:21:00.000-05:00

It's about 80°F outside, at 10am today, with nearly no wind. I gave up weeding around then, and turned on the sprinkler again to soften the ground for this afternoon's weeding session. A swarm of bees flew by shortly before I gave up, giving me extra incentive to seek shelter.

The sunflowers - doing very well despite the lack of any attention whatsoever. I'll probably skip weeding this bed entirely, since they seem to be holding their own against the weeds.

Perennials

A pretty surprise this year: the Maltese Cross came back beautifully, with striking red-orange blooms you can see from the road. Neighbors have asked what they were, noting how nice they look against the stone of the house. I'll have to start more this summer and expand them along the back of this planting bed.

Filberts

One of the first plantings we did when we moved in years ago was planting three filbert bushes. Each year they've gotten marginally bigger from the stick-like original plants, and now they're several feet tall with clusters of nuts. Perhaps the nuts will be enough for both the critters and the humans this year (since the critters always win the battle of first to pick). Filberts (or hazelnuts, if you prefer) are excellent for baking, adding to Thanksgiving stuffings, and eating raw.

Can you tell where I stopped weeding last night to take the photo?

So what will happen to the weed debris? Thankfully, a large area of brush not too far from the garden readily accepts a weed-compost heap. It's at the edge of the elderberries, giving the bushes plenty of good soil over the years, but keeping the weed seeds out of the garden proper. I move the weed pile over a few feet every year, since I never turn these piles and they take longer than normal to compost.

Here's the info on the sprinkler:

The base telescopes to about 3 feet, providing some loft for the water drops over tall plants. Especially good when I haven't cut the grass in a while and the access path of the garden is about 6" deep, and covers the impact sprinkler almost entirely. Additionally, this is plenty tall enough that the dog (or me) doesn't trip over it & cut a paw. It's made by a company called Melnor.

June 28 - what happens when you don't weed for 3 months?

2007-06-28T20:40:00.000-05:00

As the name implies...I haven't weeded my garden yet this year. This feels like some twelve step program "Hi, my name is Mickey, and I'm a lazy gardener".

Since I have a guests scheduled for next week, I suppose it would be a good time to start weeding (Before/after photos to come in a future post). What does the lazy gardener do to weed? Well, I let a sprinkler run for about 4 hours last night, getting the ground good and drenched. It had all day today for draining, and by tonight was pleasantly damp - good weed-pulling dirt. An hour's worth of work netted me 1/8th of the garden weed free, including pulling up all those nasty thistles and dragging a hoe across the surface to tear up sprouts that didn't belong there. I also took the opportunity to trim off the lowest tomato branches on that row; A feat I swear to do every year to keep the dampness off the base of the tomatoes, but never seem to accomplish.

The lettuce and spinach bed is partially cleared as well, although the spinach didn't grow as well as previous years - there are a lot of gaps in the row. (Perhaps I should let people think I've eaten lots of spinach this month?) I suspect the weeds overtook some of the baby spinach - lesson learned.

My late planted peas are finally blooming, I may or may not get any decent quantity - the hot weather seems to disagree with the peas. Radishes are finally ready to pick (just in time for said party).

I planted two entire beds, nearly 1/5 of the garden, in sunflowers, which have sprouted magnificently. The plants are nearly 3 feet tall already, so I declare this year a victory over the critters and birds stealing my sunflower seed. I've planted the seeds much deeper, almost 2 inches below the soil level, as a deterrent.

On a side note, we have acquired a new sprinkler for the garden. If I can find the brand, I'll post it, but it's one of those that sits up about 3 feet off the ground. It seems to be much more gentle of a rain pattern than my tried-and-trusty impact sprinkler, but falls about 4 feet shorter in spray diameter. Perhaps this is due to water pressure (another hose was running while I compared the spray pattern). In all, it covers nearly the entire garden, and does less 'damage' from the water jet. I think I'll stick with it for a while and see what the verdict is at the end of summer.

--Mickey

10 June - Fruit

2007-06-11T04:50:00.000-05:00

Strawberries!
These are a variety of 'wild' strawberry, those little tiny berries that have more taste than a quart bought in the store. The 'lipstick' strawberries also have a couple fruits, though that's pretty uncommon. I've only gotten to eat a couple, as the birds and chipmunks have beat me to most of them. I have another sunny slope that I'll be planting more berries on, an area that is somewhat difficult to mow right now.

After last year's single peach, we have about 30 this year. Unfortunately, we also have bugs. I'm going to have to look this pest up, but it appears I may need to spray something on the tree. Since I'd rather not eat insecticide, I may try some waxed-paper bags to wrap the fruit in -- I've heard rumors these work well, but have never tried it myself.

The area around the electrical box has come back somewhat this year. The Carnations are not perennial (wrong label - oops!), so they did not come back at all. I tore up the soapwort, as it was taking over the bed (a single plant had spread to a 5' circle). The Columbine are coming along nicely, however. Seven more plants have been started for filling in the gaps where it didn't take, or I planted too far apart. The delicate flowers really are turning out quite nice.

The front bed is starting to fill in. You can see some of the grasses and flowers growing already. The hydrangea is about a foot tall. As I feared, the Pampas grass is very dead. I'll replace it with some other ornamental grass, perhaps Millet.

May Flowers 5-23-2007

2007-06-10T13:34:00.000-05:00

To cut down on effort this year, I planted annual flowers bordering the garden, Salvia (Red Hot Sally), Petunias (White Madness), and Alyssum (Wonderland blue). perhaps they'll grow into stripes for the 4th of July?

The dog looking innocent of any mischief, along the annual plants...

Strawberries are starting to bloom along the rock wall. This is the "Lipstick" strawberry, a non-fruiting (most of the time) hybrid with pink flowers, and spreads readily. There are also some 'wild' strawberries planted along the rock wall.

Spring clean-up 4-26-2007

2007-06-10T13:27:00.000-05:00

Spent much of today mulching the front beds, pulling some weeds, and getting them ready. The daffodils are blooming nicely, and the front bed with the peach tree looks good, although I'm not sure about the Pampas grass - it might not return (supposedly it was hardy, oh well)

The daffodils:

The front peach tree bed:

A new year, time to start planning again

2007-01-21T16:27:00.000-06:00

Just starting to dig out of another snowstorm here. I have almost 10" of snow covering my garden right now. A far cry from 55°F that it was two weeks ago.

24 November - A glorious 'black Friday'

2006-11-24T13:53:00.000-06:00

Since I do not partake in the madness at retail locations today, we spent the morning preparing a new flowerbed for next year.

This is next to the garden, on the east side, and will be a perennial bed, mostly. (also a place to toss rocks that are found in the vegetable garden) The bed is about 8' wide at the center, and tapers off at each side, with about 6" of dirt in the front section and 10" in the rear section. If I run short of time to plan flowers, this will be a gourd or squash bed next year.

23 November - Happy Thanksgiving Pumpkin Bread

2006-11-24T13:41:00.000-06:00

Or maybe pumpkin muffins.... either way, the pumpkins were a success. One of the relatives actually baked and mashed the pumpkin for pies, I'm not so adventurous, and went with the canned variety. (also, I found myself beginning the Thanksgiving baking the morning of, and was told very late in the process that I'd need to make an emergency apple pie - nobody was bringing the apple pie!)

Pumpkin Bread

1 1/2 Cups Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Cinnamon, ground
1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg, ground
1/4 teaspoon Cloves, ground
1/4 teaspoon Ginger, ground

1/2 Cup Butter
1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Pumpkin, prepared
1 teaspoon Vanilla
2 Eggs

1 Cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Sift dry ingredients.
Cream butter & sugar. Add eggs, pumpkin, and vanilla, blend well. Add dry ingredients to mixture. Stir in Chocolate Chips.

Pour batter into greased loaf pan or muffin tin. Bake loaves at 350°F for 1 hour, muffins at 400°F for 20 minutes.

Bread is done when toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

I have omitted half the sugar with no ill effects.

Edit: G'ma liked the muffins, so they MUST be good!

11 November, A month off

2006-11-12T18:56:00.000-06:00

Well folks, I've been traveling a bit so I didn't get any posts in for a few weeks now. For that matter I didn't get any work done either.

But we did have a somewhat surprise "thunder-snow" Friday night, dumped about 4" of the stuff on us. The carrots and parsnips are buried. If the weather dries up a bit, or freezes the ground just a bit, I can go back out and pick some. But as it stands, there's way too much mud to be traipsing about in the garden.

--

14 October - Hard Frost

2006-10-21T15:24:00.000-05:00

Also known as "Killing Frost". We had snow on the 11th, and a very hard frost to go along with it. Some of these tomatoes are solid ice (I probably could have saved a couple by just throwing them into the freezer, but I didn't bother).

This is the labor-intensive time in the garden. Every dry day is another day to work on the general cleanup of debris from the season. As I've learned through making the wrong decisions - clean up all rotting tomatoes! The compost piles have been turned, and a new pile with this year's garden debris takes up an entire bin.

When we have several dry days in a row, I'll attempt to rake and shred leaves to use as winter mulch for carrots and parsnips. I should have enough carrots to last several months, and more than enough parsnips for the winter.

The pumpkins turned out a hit - I had 9 pumpkins of respectable size from the 2 vines. Most are ending up as halloween decorations, with some going to the relatives for jack-o-lanterns.

--

19 September - Light frost tonight?

2006-09-19T21:42:00.000-05:00

Weather says it's going to be 36°F tonight. That means, in my area with a strong west wind, my garden may or may not freeze. Not hard, but it might kill off the basil.

Tomatoes were neglected this weekend, and most are rotting off the vines, which have begun to shrivel. Such a shame to lose all that fruit.

The cucumbers have begun a second crop, and the carrots are wonderful. The photo below is the most perfect carrot I've ever grown. It's about 6" long and was very sweet (I had a carrot for lunch... well not just a carrot)

8 September - flowers

2006-09-08T19:57:00.000-05:00

The Dianthus are blooming nicely. I didn't expect muticolored flowers on the same plant, but I have whites, pinks and reds all blooming. If I kept the seeds properly labeled, these are perennial plants, and will be ready to divide in a few years. If I didn't keep the seeds labeled correctly, they'll die off, but hopefully re-seed themselves.

The marigolds are also in full bloom. This bee was happily inspecting the flowers & in no rush to fly off. Marigolds make a great filler plant, to border areas that aren't very well established, and to provide color and distraction from unkempt beds. I hope that front electrical box area takes off next year, and the marigolds will no longer be necessary.

7 September - Tomatoes

2006-09-07T20:30:00.000-05:00

Tomatoes are ripening rapidly!

I've been picking them every other day, and have already picked about 20-30 pounds of ripe paste tomatoes. I'm starting to get a few beefsteak ripening, and tons of cherry tomatoes (I'm letting most of the cherry tomatoes rot on the vine, I can't keep up and we don't eat them fast enough). Two Oxheart tomatoes ripened yesterday, I'm going to plant more next year, those were very tasty and a good size. Plus, they didn't have any of the blemishes the others had.

So far, I've made 4 pints of sauce, with another batch going right now. After running the tomatoes through a food mill to extract the pulp, they go into the crockpot to reduce. I typically let them reduce to half their original volume (a good number, I think) and then either freeze or can. This year, I'm hoping to can most of them. According to the Ball Blue Book, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice (bottled) and a pint of tomato sauce can be canned safely in a boiling water bath for 35 minutes. That's the plan!

Green beans are also ready. Here's about 2 pounds. I'm going to have to start abandoning them on neighbors' stoops to get rid of them. "Please take care of these beans."

--

3 September - Labor Day Weekend

2006-09-03T17:09:00.000-05:00

Tomatoes are ripening, I've picked 20-30 pounds already. I have 5 pints of diced tomatoes in the freezer. Another 8 pounds went to this batch of salsa (store-bought flavoring packet from Ball, tomatoes, cider vinegar). We had a taco-enchilada dinner tonight with the leftover salsa, it's pretty runny, but would make a wicked bloody-mary mixer.

This turned out pretty thin, I used the food mill to process half the tomatoes, and it made them into mush, the others were diced by hand. I think next time I'll have to use a food processor or chop them all by hand.

The mint has recovered from it's shearing and then some. I'm considering a new home for my mint plants, but have to wait until some other work is done. I'm thinking of taking each of my mints, and creating a mint-only garden, with the plants sunk into tubs into the ground, mulched around, and all within a raised bed, to create a little mint island in my back yard. Maybe that will keep them under control? Doubt it.

Pumpkins are ripening. I've found four now, all of pretty decent size. I have a recipe for pumpkin bread that I think I'll make into muffins, and another for pumpkin soup, which sounds interesting, but I'm not so sure about. When they're ready & ripe, I'll post the reviews of the recipes.

I also need to save one of the pumpkins for our jack-o-lantern this year!

These are the second crop of "Aunt Jean's Pole Bean", which make a great dried bean for chili in the winter. I'm letting this whole crop go dry, and I should get a few cups of beans after they're shelled. The other beans I have are still going strong, so I'm picking a handful daily to keep them from going to seed. In a couple weeks, I'll let those dry as well to provide my seeds for next year's crop.

Elderberries are quite ripe. When they ripen, the umbrella-shaped clusters hang down. I haven't picked any yet, I might pass on the jam this year, seeing as I have a freezer full of strawberry-blueberry jam from July.

The apples are nearly ripe. I found one this week that looks like a deer munched on it, but only half eaten - must not have liked it!

We don't spray our trees, so there's some leaf-miner sort of damage going on.

The fall crop of Oregon Sugar Pod peas is about 4" tall. We've had some goofy weather with rain for weeks, then dry for weeks, so I'm not sure if they'll produce peas before the frost, but we have about 4 weeks until the first hard frost, and a couple more if I get out the row covers.

I hope you're enjoying the harvest as I am.

--

28 August - Thief!

2006-08-28T21:18:00.000-05:00

Well, so much for starchy corn deterring the rodents. I believe my crop of "Painted Mountain" fell victim to the raccoon variety of criminal. You can see in the photo how the stalks are leaning a bit, each ear has been carefully peeled open, and stripped of kernels! I'd need to plant an acre of corn to get three measly ears for my fall decorations. At least the pumpkins are still intact (for now), I counted three of a respectable size, and two others.

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16 August - Harvest

2006-08-16T20:38:00.000-05:00

Onions!

I've picked most of the onions. Three went to seed before I could pick them (I'll harvest the seed and see what it does) A handful were soggy and rotting, those went into the compost bin. The remainder you see here on the deck, waiting to dry tomorrow in the sun. From the volume in the garden cart, I had about 4.5 bushels including greens. This is from 300 sets. Somewhere in there is a "White Lisbon Bunch Onion" grown from seed, but I mixed it in foolishly.

I may have to make a batch of French onion soup in the near future. Somewhere I have a freezer recipe for it.

Carnation
Dianthus
I've got a few flowers on my carnations, they're growing well for the first year from seed. In the background you can see some phlox.

Maltese Cross
Lychnis chalcedonica
An orange-red perennial flower for full sun. Attractive to bees and butterflies. This is the first blooms on mine started from seed this year. Supposedly one can save the seedheads and store seed to propagate, or divide a mature rootball. I really like the look of these delicate flowers amid my rudbeckia.

Two apples were picked for a trial of ripeness. They're still a bit underripe, but we're getting concerned about the branch being damaged from the weight.

The second apple tree didn't have any fruit. The third had tent caterpillars, and lost some branches.

The peach has been picked and eaten. The skin was rather thick, but the size was very near to a small-ish store peach. It was a little over-ripe (you can see the blemish at the blossom end, the little dark spot is an ant-made hole) It was sweet and juicy. I look forward to more next year, but I'll definitely keep an eye out sooner so they don't become bug food!

23 July

2006-07-27T18:03:00.000-05:00

C'mon carrots....FOCUS! grr... some photo trouble with this, but it's my carrot patch & I have no other photos of it, so you're stuck with a blurry carrot-shot. Just squint a bit and you can see them, and maybe one of the celebrity babies hiding in there somewhere, too.

There will be no shortage of onions this year. Many of the bulbs are breaking the surface of the soil, I'll have to plant them deeper next year. Not bad for $3 worth of onion sets back in spring.

Purple peppers are the only fruiting pepper plants. I'm not entirely sure why, but the rest of the peppers seem to have gotten some shock being planted in the garden (maybe the store hadn't put them in direct sunlight?) These peppers will turn green in cooking, but make a really neat color addition to stir-frys (stays purple if you cook lightly), and salads.

One of the cucumber plants is producing. The others seem to have died a slow and painful death. I don't see many flowers on this one, either, but it's still early. I should plant some dill in the open space beyond, for a nice cucumber-tomato salad next month.

Green tomatoes abound. Even after the massive cutting I gave the tomato plants last week. I guess it really is true that they grow better if kept pruned a bit. These are San Marzano paste tomatoes, they grow about 1.5" diameter, and 3-4" long, have a thick meat, and a hollow center with little water. The pulp makes a fine tomato paste. I split the skins in boiling water, then quarter the tomatoes (picking out bad ones), and send them through the food mill. The pulp and juice spend several hours in a crock-pot to reduce to a nice sauce. I then freeze the sauce for winter. This year, I'm going to attempt canning the sauce / paste. We'll see how it goes.

Beans are growing well, and starting to produce. I've picked a few dinners worth already, and they've only just begun to produce. The beans are very tender still, 3-4" long, and just barely formed within the shells. All the beans I have can be eaten green or dry, I try to save some each year as seed for the following year.

The pumpkins!
The vine is getting huge, taking over just about all the groundspace between the rows of corn. Someone told me growing squash, corn, and beans together was a Native American idea - called the "Three Sisters".

Wikipedia confirms the story, and adds the three are companion plants -the squash chokes out weeds, the beans fix nitrogen in the soil to fertilize, and thee corn provides structure for the beans.

I haven't added the beans to the mix, but pumpkins and corn seem to be symbiotic. It's worth a try next year.

Parsnips are growing well. I've only gotten a few rows this year, they didn't germinate well from the old seed, but I'll have enough for stews and soups occasionally this winter. Come fall, after a hard frost, I'll mulch in the parsnips with a blanket of chipped leaves. Then, I'll mark their location with some flags, so I can find them in the snow to dig. Why bother storing them in the house when the garden does the job just as well?

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4 July - Happy independence Day

2006-07-04T20:23:00.000-05:00

The front garden, with Black-Eyed Susans and Rudibeckia in full bloom. Also, the grasses and hydrangea aren't looking quite so sad anymore. By next year, the coneflower and daisies should fill-out some, and the whole area will look much better.

We have a Peach!

The tomatoes, first crop of peas, and onions can all be seen here. The mass of white flowers was the radish crop that went to seed (oops). I've since picked and composted the remaining radishes, let's hope I'm not picking them next year as well. In another week I should have the first snow peas (mine are a bit late this year), and turnips - to be boiled with a sour apple and served with brown sugar, very good!

The potatoes have filled their bin to the top, and are looking healthy. These are Yukon Gold potatoes from the store that sprouted before I could eat them. The hope is to get enough to eat some, and mash & freeze some. The Yukon Gold don't need as much butter as a Russet does, they tend to have more flavor initially.

And the corn is knee-high by the 4th of July. It should be a good crop this year. It is "Painted Mountain" an open-pollinated variety of flour corn that has multicolored ears for fall decoration. I might get ambitious and try to grind the corn flour, but I'd need to borrow a grain mill. This corn is starchier than most, so I'm not sure how it would bake.

"These are MY Elderberry bushes... "

The dog usually makes a nest in the shade beneath the Elderberries. All the white blooms you see are the bushes, and this is only about 1/8th of all the bushes on the lot. In another six weeks, the birds will be going crazy gorging themselves on the berries, while I try to fight them off to pick a few quarts for jam (and a friend picks bushels for wine).

The rock wall is filling in - you can see all the strawberries on the right side of this photo. The creeping thyme along the staircase is also covering well. I seem to have gotten two varieties, a pink flowered one and a white flowered. The white is slightly smaller and lower-growing, so I'll try to encourage that style, but the pink would do well as a grass substitute elsewhere, maybe in the garden path?

The herb garden side of the wall is also growing. The mint (center, top in the photo) is trying it's hardest to grow out of that container, I've given it a few good clippings to keep it cut back, but still it is going crazy. The sage, horehound, and oregano have all come back, and the chives never really left. I still need to get a pot of parsley well established and coming back each year.

18 June - ok I've been busy

2006-06-29T22:29:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I forgot to post this page.

The black-eyed susans are just starting to bloom, as seen to the right. Quite lovely, and I might have enough to pick a bouquet on the 4th of July.

As you can see, the garden is nearly all planted, and most of the trellises are up.

The strawberries are blooming, these brilliant pink flowers are "Lipstick" but they usually don't set fruit. I've also added some wild strawberries this year to the area, hopefully I'll get a handfull of those teeny berries.

29 May - Memorial Day weekend

2006-05-29T20:36:00.000-05:00

Onions (left) and root crops (right) are growing very well with all the rain we've had. The radishes are closest to the grassy path, should be ready to pick in another week or two. The turnips will be picked twice, a small crop at golfball size to give room for the rest, then the remainder of full-sized roots. The last couple days have been 90-degrees plus, so the sprinkler saved these guys from some wilt. Thankfully, the next week should stay below 80.

Beans have sprouted!
And Tomatoes have been planted (this is one of 18 plants!). If all goes well, a friend and I will attempt to can tomatoes this year. The home-made tomato sauce is well worth the trouble of making it, and doesn't taste anything close to that coming from a grocery store can.

The pole bean teepee. This is for short beans, 4 ft tall only, and is very simple to make.
Materials - misc. end of 2" x 4" or other board (I used a 2x6), and four 1"x2"x8'.
Cut the 1x2's in half, and drill a hole in the end of each, about 1" from the edge. Use nails to attach the 1x2's to the scrap of board, leaving enough room for them to rotate. The poles can pivot and collapse for storage. I sunk the teepee about 2" into the ground to help support it in the heavy winds we have here.

A close-up of the top of the teepee, showing how the posts are staggered around the board .

Here is the start of the new front bed, you can see the various grasses as well as daisies, coneflower, and black-eyed susan. Not much to look at now, but eventually the plants will grow into their bed and have a little more to show off. The hydrangea is front and center, and the peach tree is just out of the photo to the right.

Here's the electrical box bed that I've nearly completed planting. The daylilies are along the outer edge of the bed, as well as a pompom daisy (a gift), and some rock cress. Along the inner (left) edge are columbine of several varieties. I expect this bed to take a few years to have a real show. Now, if I can just kill off the rest of the weeds...

The eyesore - some thistles that have survived the first roundup treatment.

The herb garden in the rock wall is doing very well. Clockwise, from the top, center are Chives, Mint (in a pot set into the ground), creeping Thyme, Oregano, Horehound, and Sage. The Basil and misc. varieties of mints are still too small to be transplanted.

The whole wall is doing well, and I expect to put some of the creeping thyme in other spots, such as the weed patch above!

So these are the little twerps waking me up with the sunrise! A nest of robins just below my bedroom window.

21 May - what a month it's been!

2006-05-21T19:03:00.000-05:00

Two weeks of rain, followed by three gorgeous sunny days (Friday, Saturday, Today). Now that it's dried up a bit, I can resume prepping the garden beds. My garden is divided into halves with a strip of grass between the two for the garden tractor to drive upon. Each half is then divided into about 6 beds, each 4' wide, with a 1' walkway between. This arrangement seems to work well, with enough space for plants, but not so much that I cannot reach across for weeding or harvesting. When I plant corn, I tend to do a double-wide bed, or just plant two next to each other, to get the blocking effect.

The entire East half of the garden has been prepped (tilled, double-dug, beds & paths formed, and paths covered in grass clippings) The onions, roots, spinach and beans are planted. As is one section of peas (Oregon Sugar pod, they grow well, and I end up with peas all summer). The West half of the garden has been tilled and sprayed with a herbicide, to reduce the weeds before I dig. This week I'll be starting on the bed for the corn.

The potato bin (I'll post a photo if it sometime soon) is a box with one removable side, similar to a compost bin. I added 4 inches of soil, and planted the potato runts I've saved from the grocery store bag 'o taters, they're Yukon Gold variety. One of the books I read suggested adding more soil to the potatoes so they grow 'up' instead of down, making it easier to harvest. That, and the removable side to the potato bin, should help - I hope to not have to dig potatoes out of the hard clay!

The front area by the electrical box has been partially planted. Besides the lilies, I've added Columbine, Blazing Star, Soapwort, Rock Cress, and Carnations. My Coleus all perished in a cold snap when I left them out while I went away for the weekend. (bad gardener!)

The other front area, with the peach tree, has been started. I have three big rocks, a hydrangea, a couple hostas, and a flagpole. I recently planted daises, Black-eyed Susans, Echinacea, Maltese Cross, Pampas grass, Blue Fescue, and Woodrush. It's going to be a bit busy, but the idea was an unstructured garden with multi-season attraction.

The rock garden is recovering nicely, with several herbs well established. The strawberries are looking prolific, and I might have to add netting to keep the ground squirrels from them. We'll see what I can get. Amazingly, most of the plants are adapting well to the morning/evening sun, with deep shade during the heat of the day. I hadn't expected everything to be so hardy.

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29 April - What is this?

2006-04-29T13:52:00.000-05:00

I spent part of today weeding the rock wall, which seems to be breeding a healthy crop of dandelions this year, and came upon this. I haven't the slightest clue what it is supposed to be, the leaves are about 2-3 inches long, mottled brown and green, and glossy. It doesn't look like a
weed, but the last time I said that, I ended up with a vine of some variety overrunning my cucumbers in the garden. So Ill watch this very carefully, and try to look it up. If anyone can identify it, send an email.

23 April - getting the garden ready

2006-04-23T21:37:00.000-05:00

The garden is tilled, and most of the fencing is back up. (and some of the raised perennial bed is placed, the timbers in the front.) You can also see the row of markers where I planted 300 onion sets.

Yes, the flags are courtesy of digger's hotline (from the last round of work on our front yard), but no, they don't mark buried utilities.

Some dimensions for you, the garden is about 30' x 35', with a 5-foot pathway through the center (for driving the lawn tractor) To the rear of the photo, you can see the compost bins, and the seedling bed for the trees we get from the DNR program. The gates need to be upgroded (you can see the crack in the frame), but that can wait for a slow spell in summer.

The rock wall is starting to recover from winter, you can see the Daffodills are in bloom, and the green patches are strawberries, herbs, and creeping phlox.

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15 April - Easter Saturday

2006-04-15T13:08:00.000-05:00

Early warm spell here, it's been 80 degrees for two days now. After a few thunderstorms this week, the sunny weekend is allowing me to prep garden beds for planting.

The front electrical box bed is weeded, the mulch raked to the inside, and I'm adjusting the rocks for a smoother edge to mow around. The weeds had already sprouted, so I had some visual help where to dig up the roots. (after 20 years of this, I'm finally learning to weed the entire root system before I plant to reduce work later) Since the soil is still significantly clay, adding an inch of peat moss should help break up the clumps. Stella de Oro Daylilies were planted. They will bloom all summer and provide consistent color for years. I'll expect to dig and divide them in a few years, but that will just give me more lilies to plant elswhere.

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April 9 - Garden Chores

2006-04-09T20:06:00.000-05:00

As you can see, the sprouts are doing great - the strawberries and lettuce are pictured at the right. Most of the grasses have graduated to windowsill status, and made room for the nexd batch of seedlings. The Impatiens are not doing so well, however. I think the pelleted seed is not properly getting soaked by the bottom-watering (several have sprouted in the last week since I've been top-watering those trays.) We'll see how they do for a late May planting.

Peppers and Tomatoes are being started as space permits. They do take up quite a bit more room than the rest (I'm starting them in quart containers)

The garden is getting an overhaul this spring. We've squared up the corners and installed permanent fencing along two sides (the tiller needs to access the rest, so two sides have semi-permanent fencing). I'll post more photos as we get it set up. The side will have flower beds, the other side will have the compost bins and tree seedling beds. It's starting to look like a planned feature, rather than a haphazard one.

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12 March 2006 - Spring?

2006-03-12T15:29:00.000-06:00

Maybe this should be called 'fool's spring'. Middle 50's, a thunderstorm, and the snow is melted, save for those patches clinging to the north side of a rock or wall.

So, what does one do after a thaw like this? In the past, I'd rush out to the garden, start working up the soil, and getting stuff ready for planting. In the past I'd also create globs of clay, lumps that would never work themselves out throughout the season, and ruts in the lawn.

I like to think I'm older and wiser now, so I just rush out and dig up the rest of my parsnips! Well, parsnips and one pretty sad looking carrot. Both are biennial plants, flowering and seeding the second year, and show no harm for spending the winter in the ground. (the carrot looks like it became a midwinter snack for a mouse or vole). All of these had already sprouted some green leaves this year, and if they were in a better location, I'd have left one or two to go to seed - parsnip seeds are difficult to store (or so the books tell me, I've never harvested my own).

Now, for all those folks who didn't grow up with grandmothers used to feeding 9 mouths on pennies, I'll share with you what parsnips are. Parsnips (the things that look like white carrots in the photo) are root crops in the same family as carrots, parsley, celery, and Queen Anne's Lace (the weed). For those that play Trivial Pursuit, the family is known as umbelliferae, due to the umbrella-like flowers. Freezing parsnips converts some of the starches to sugars, giving them a better flavor. Use parsnips boiled, roasted, or stir-fried. They are a good source of vitamin C and Potassium.

I like to add them chopped to soups and stews like carrots. They tend to be more earthy.

Wisconsin Garden Spring Chicken

2 bnls skinless chicken breast halves - browned, cut into cubes
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped parsnips
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
28 oz chicken broth OR equivalent water and bullion OR tomato vegetable juice drink
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
Dash Hot pepper sauce
1/4 teaspoon peppercorns, smashed or not
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon garlic powder
(optional) cooked noodles

Add everything to the pot except the noodles. Simmer until the vegetables are tender. Serve over noodles. If you prefer a more watery soup, add more broth or water while simmering.

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Seed Saving

2006-03-05T16:45:00.000-06:00

After ordering an average of $20 in seeds each year, I'm loathe to waste them. Now, $20 may not seem to be much for garden plants, but why should I order the same seeds every year when I can get a few years off each packet, and even more years worth by allowing a few plants to go to seed every year?

I use a watchmaker's case to store the seeds. This one was purchased for about $5 at American Science and Surplus, but they can be ordered online. The set has one large aluminum box, with foam padding in the lid, and twenty small aluminum cases with glass windows and friction-fit lids. The cases come in a variety of sizes and can be ordered online from Lee Valley Tools. This small size is 33mm diameter, and holds about a tablespoon. Larger seeds such as beans or corn might do better in larger cases.

Since identifying seeds is not a strong suit of mine, I choose to label each container. White or colored 3/4" inkjet labels are perfect for this. I can print out a whole sheet of labels when the seed order comes in, and use only what I need to store. Using removable labels makes recycling containers easier.

Mark the seeds with the year they were intended to plant, or the year following harvest (if you collect your own). This will help predict germination rates when you use them the following year. I keep the entire box of seeds in an unheated corner of my basement, which stays around 50-60 degrees year round. If moisture is a problem, use a packet of desiccant to absorb the humidity (found in shoe boxes, packing materials, etc, and labeled "desiccant do not eat"). It can be purchased at craft and hobby stores under the names Silica Gel and Calcium Oxide.

Never saved seeds before?
It's only as difficult as you choose to make it. The easiest seeds to save are dry beans and corn, which can ripen on the plant naturally and be collected at will. Some plants, like parsley and dill, can be saved by tying a bit of row-cover around a nearly-ripe seedhead. Let the plant naturally ripen and dry the seeds, and collect them. Other plants, like tomatoes, require the seeds to ferment for a few days before drying. Books such as The Seed Saver's Handbook or Seed to Seed can be valuable resources. Online resources are also available, such as the International Seed Saving Institute, where you can find directions for many common vegetables.

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Sprouts

2006-02-25T10:23:00.000-06:00

After a week of neglect, I have sprouts. (missed a watering, and had lots of dry and wilty looking plants)

The sprouts to the right are lettuce. I'm growing them in a trough this year to keep the slugs out of my greens. 12 hours and 3 cups of water earlier, these were pretty sad little sprouts.

So far, two plants have died from damping off, and maybe one more has died from neglect (wilt). But a good record nonetheless. I'll have to start trimming the perennial grasses soon - they're nearly 4" tall, and I want them to stay shorn until they can be moved to a window.

The rose seeds (Rosa Rugosa) are nearly complete from the heat-treatment, and start cold treatment this coming week. After three months of cold, they'll be potted up and hopefully sprout this year. In another year or two they can be transplanted outdoors. With some luck, 8 or 10 will survive that long, and be planted as a flowering hedge along the road.

And the Strawberry sprouts (here's the healthiest):

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10-12 inches of snow... -15°F low

2006-02-18T13:04:00.000-06:00

Winter finally came! The blizzard has dumped about a foot of snow on us, the worst in the state. At least there is now an insulating blanket of snow over my perennials before this cold snap came.

Started: 9 'wild' strawberries, 3 rhubarb, and 6 coleus, 12 Columbine, and 3 sea oats. Also, one window planter filled with Lettuce. I'm sick of the critters and slugs eating my lettuce - this year I'll attempt to grow it on the patio or inside.

The plan for trouble spot #1 (electrical box) is shaping up nicely. This will be a tropical approximation, something to give a bit of color to the front yard and hide the boxes.

BEFORE:

PLAN:
You can see the site plan to the right, from an overhead view. The Cannas will block most of the view, with shorter plants layered in front - Columbine, Coleus, Daylilly, Cleome, and Stone Cress. As I said earlier, the goal here is to give a slightly tropical feel to this area, using showy plants with large flowers (Cannas), intricate details (Columbine, Cleome), and season-long blooming. The Coleus provide multi-colored leaves with patterning, and the Daylillies will make a nice low maintenance border for the bed. Given the plethora of fieldstone, the bed will be stacked one layer higher than the photos above, and filled in with mulch and soil. A 2-foot wide path will be maintained at the back of the bed for access to the boxes. This path will be lined with the flagstone or other flat stones, and planted with Irish moss, or creeping Thyme as a groundcover.

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Perennial Starting

2006-02-09T20:36:00.000-06:00

Considering how difficult it is to get some perennials established in one growing season, I like to start them as early as feasible. This usually means early February, spreading my work out before the vegetables need to be started.

I've started most of the grasses already, and expect to start a couple more items - Rhubarb and Strawberries within the next week.

What you see in the photo above is my seedling setup. A couple shop lights with one 'cold' and one 'warm' fluorescent light; the pots (with drainage) resting in flats; the flats on a heating mat. I generally bottom-feed my plants, filling the flats about 1/2" deep with water. This has proven to keep the plants well watered without damaging the seedlings by pouring from above.

I've also used capillary matting, disposable dish towels, and wicking rope to water the plants. Those methods did seem to have less mold and moss growth, but the plants were no more improved.

My potting soil is home-mixed from sand, peat, and compost. If there is something questionable in the mix, I'll sanitize it with boiling water, but generally just mix and plant. This year I needed to boil out the crab-grass roots from the sand.

A-Frame Trellis Construction

2006-01-29T14:47:00.000-06:00

Here in Zone 4, February is a perfect time to start the garden.

This week I'm cleaning up on some chores I've put off until winter.

A-Frame Trellis Construction

The tomatoes have grown well over the last several years, but have continuously brought down their trellis system constructed haphazardly of nylon netting, plastic stakes, and scrap lumber. August brings a marathon truss and tie-back session as the vines bring down the structure.

This year, I've planned for some much-needed stability. Three A-frame trellises will support the tomatoes.

Tool List:
saw
screwdriver
power drill, 1/8" and 5/16" drill bits
measuring tape or ruler
hex-socket driver
pliers or open-ended wrench

Parts List (one trellis):
2"x 2"x 6' non-arsenic treated qty 4
2"x 2"x 2' non-arsenic treated qty 11
3" strap hinge, galvanized qty 2
1/4" x 4" machine bolt, galvanized qty 2
1/4" locking nut, galvanized qty 1
1/4" wing nut, galvanized qty 1
1/4" flat washer, galvanized qty 6
1" wood screws (for attaching hinges)
3" or 3 1/2" wood screws (for assembly)

For those not familiar with purchasing lumber, 2"x 2" typically comes in 8-foot lengths. You'll want to buy 6 boards 2"x 2"x 8' each and cut them as follows:
Measure and cut 2 feet off four boards. The 6-foot section will be a leg, and the 2-foot section will be a cross-piece. Measure and cut the remaining boards into 2-foot sections for cross-pieces and 18" to 24" for the brace. Length of the brace depends upon your preferences.

Mark a line at every 'rung' point on the four legs, and drill a 1/8" pilot hole at the midpoint of the wood at every mark. This will help prevent the wood from splitting.

Make 'ladders' by attaching five 2' sections between two 6' sections, using the 3" wood screws. I chose to mount the sections 12" on center, starting 6" from the top end. This will allow 18" at the bottom to sink partially into the dirt, and give room around the base for weeding and plant access (most plants won't require trellising below 18" height anyhow). It might also remind me to trim off lower branches of the tomatoes, since I have a bad habit of neglecting this.

Once both ladders are created, join them using the strap hinges. Attach the hinges to collapse the ladder flat (as shown in the photo). Again, don't forget the pilot holes to prevent splitting.

Then add the brace to the side of the ladder. This should allow the ladder to fold flat or lock open. The brace will add support to prevent your frame from collapsing. First, drill two 5/16" holes in the side of the ladder, 3' from the end.

Also drill two 5/16" holes in the brace. These should be on each end, 3/4" from the edge of the brace. These will be slightly larger than the bolts, allowing free movement when you wish to collapse the trellis.

Assemble the pieces on to the ladder. Use a washer next to the wood at every point, including between the two pieces of wood.

I suggest putting the wing nut to the interior of the trellis, to prevent snags as you walk past it.
The finished brace:

Landscaping Plans

2006-01-29T12:55:00.000-06:00

Since I'm cheap, I'll be starting perennials again this year. The plan is to grow some of the more simple items that I would normally buy for $3 to $5 each. Since I already have a seed-starting bench, lights, and heating mat for the vegetable garden, the additional cost is negligible.

I mix my own potting soil from sand, peat, and compost. The peat is relatively inexpensive if purchased in bales. I'll use about 1 cubic foot for all the seed starting, and another for transplanting, re-potting, and improving beds. If weeds are a problem, I soak the offending mix in boiling water.

What I'll be starting from seed this year:

Woodrush
Pony Tails Grass
Pampas Grass
Hare's Tail grass
Fountain Grass, cream and black
Sea Oats
Rock Cress
Daisy
Black-eyed Susan
Coneflower
Phlox
Liatris
Dailia
Columbine
Cleome
Wild Strawberries

I have three areas I'd like to improve with perennials:

bed obscuring electrical box from view.

The biggest challenges here are a proliferation of weeds that sprout every year, and the property line a few inches from the box itself. I must also keep access available to the box for the electrical/phone/cable companies.

rock retaining wall
This is the ongoing project, along the left is the side of the house, at the top is the drive. The retaining wall from house to tree is about 20 feet long, and the height is about 9 feet. The rocks were placed a few years ago from those found in the pile (to the left of the tree). Each tier has a few feet of planting room. Herbs fill the left-most section of the wall, being the part with the most mid-day sunlight. The rest of the wall is a combination of creeping phlox, strawberries, creeping thyme, and spring-flowering bulbs.

I've had great success thus far with the 5 creeping phlox plants I purchased 3 years ago. They have completely filled one tier of the wall and cuttings have rooted well. The cuttings are in the second year (rooted last spring), and will be planted this year after the bulbs have faded.

bed along the wall of the house

This area is a new bed, not even planned completely yet. A flowering peach tree and flagpole are the primary anchors, with a few large boulders from the aforementioned rock pile. A hydrangea was added last year. The bench, walkway, and mulch finish out the plan. The rendering is from Broderbund Landscape Design software.

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The Herbs

2006-01-19T19:37:00.000-06:00

I gave a good list of the upcoming vegetables, now for the herbs.

BASIL - every type I can find. Basil seems to be a great addition to most summer salads.

CHIVES - A couple varieties (Garlic, Garden). I want to get a well-established clump in my retaining wall for future harvesting & dehydrating.

DILL - I've never properly grown dill to have it ready to harvest along with the cucumbers for pickles. Then again, I've never gotten cucumbers to grow well, either. The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing you've always done, but expecting different results.

MARJORAM - a good addition to the spice cupboard.

MINT - carefully grown in a bucket to prevent spreading. The last thing I need is invasive mint taking over!

OREGANO - several varieties. I prefer fresh oregano in spaghetti sauces.

SAGE - again, several varieties. Sage-wrapped, roasted chicken breast is wonderful.

THYME - Mostly the creeping variety. I use this as a ground-cover in my herb garden. As it is stepped upon, the fragrance is released and smells wonderful. Winter and Summer Thyme for cooking.

SAVORY - another cooking herb. Usually this ends up in a pot in my kitchen.

ROSEMARY - Another potted plant.

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