Random thoughts

Things I learned this morning,

Corn has very shallow roots ( i am sure a google search would have yielded that tidbit) and we live in a windy burb.  An since I do not have a square mile of corn planted, this makes difference.  My corn was leaning so we shored it up with composted material.

As tenacious as the squash plants are they are really rather fragile.. that is interesting...

My watermelon plants are flowering.

What I had hoped would be a crap load of cukes, ARE....JOY

That big bulbish (Bushism) thing I yanked out of my lettuce bed was a fennel bulb... and we are gonna eat it!

There are more beans in those bushes than i gave them credit for (again...dinner)

Husbands are great and you should save them for the truly yucky work, like turning the compost.

I am gonna be harvesting a TON of squash.

I have raspberries and I ate one!

One should not be too overzealous when weeding the strawberries, b/c those little runners are hiding in there.

Something other than a mosquito is feasting on my calves when I am pulling weeds.

I am a little wigged by the stinkbugs or more so the lack thereof.. where are you hiding, where are you laying your hideous little marmorated eggs?   I keep looking for you, the news says you are here in biblical droves...where?  Please tell me they are just not gonna show up in a cloud one day and mow my garden down....Yes I lose sleep over this.

I need another compost bin i.e., I Need some more pallets so I can build my own.

AND I can think of no better use for a liberal rag like the Washington Post than to line my beds as mulch, upon which to compost..totally worth the .50 cents!

To Pluck a Thistle and Plant a Flower

"Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow."  Abraham Lincoln

      I think it can be said that I have plucked many thistles this week.  It just sounded far more eloquent the way Lincoln said it and  in the case of the esteemed historic president, he certainly was conjuring a proverbial thistle, whereas I am being quite literal. 

There have been many developments in my little back yard obsession not the least of which is the sheer amazing rate of growth    that has occurred over the last week. 

  For instance, not five days ago I thought bed four could have done with three more hills of corn, so i planted them, now that is impossible as there simply is no more room nor daylight to be had in that bed.  The squash is monumental and the corn trucking along skyward. I have squash blooms and judging by the size of the plants I expect to be harvesting squash very soon which is good because we have no money and it is the promise of food. To the left is a nice picture of the 3 sisters method I used for growing corn, squash and beans:

My tomato plants are just prolific with the little green promises of red yummy sustaining goodness.   I am very happy so far with the tomato fence, it is fairly simple to get the new growth on the the fence and they are mighty tidy compared to last year's tomato jungle.  This picture is probably the first tomato I will pick,  it is "catfaced" which I learned this week is due to a cold spell when it blossomed. 

Here is of the tomato fence (bean fence left, tom fence right) and some of the 'maters. Sorry for lousy pics, I was swatting bugs the whole time.

The bean plants are progressing, the dragon tongues are producing and the poles are flowering which means fruit soon.

Yay for watermelon (or the promise thereof)

Peas are finished for the season, I will plant another crop ion September to see if we can get a second crop going.  I have tomatillos and peppers that are doing fine, I plucked a nice banana pepper, the official first of the season;)




 The peppers on my front porch are catching up too.   This week I planted 3 types of carrots and some more radish, leek and fennel in bed one.  I am eager to see if anything comes of it.

My main goal in the coming week is to get the containers finally planted for a mid summer lettuce and spinach crop on my shady front porch.  I am still confounded by the cabbage, it just does not seem to progress. I feel like we have been here for weeks. Soooo I will try again in the cool shade of my porch.

I have seen quite a few good size onions peeking out of the dirt.   I have seed already from my cilantro and will collect it later this week and my dill just flowered so the seed will soon follow. 

Dill:cilantro

My ugly herb drying contraption. I have some yummy savory, dill and some  seed drying on it right now, ugly but functional.

And for my flowers:)  This is what really makes me happy!

On Bended Knee

It has occurred to me that one has truly surrendered to the garden, the earth and all of the things that spring forth from it and wriggle about within it: the colorful, the tasty, the spiny, the buggy and the slimy, yes, it has occurred to me that this journey has been nothing more basic than a measured act of supplication, humbly and earnestly beseeching the dirt beneath my toes, to sustain, to give forth, to provide.  It has occurred to me that when one has truly surrendered they no longer worry about dirt on their clothes and they give themselves over to lowering upon bended knee, to work, only mere inches from earth to nose in that awe inspiring medium from whence God Himself molded our physical form, knit together with His spirit. On my knees, hard fought and yet, it seemed so simple to me. Yes, it has taken a lifetime for me to give myself over to the garden, today I knelt down and felt that it was right, and thus I planted the seed.

I reap what I sow.

Well there has never been a truer statement than,  I reap what I sow.  In this case, it is seed.  I am really quite good at raising healthy plants that bolt and go to seed.  I must now learn to time it right so I can actually eat some of the fruits of my labor.  This week I was steady in my comfort zone of when I noticed my bolted mustard was in fact sporting some seed,  most unexpectedly (to me, because I am in a constant state of awe and discovery), I had found what I surmised to be seeds, in little pods that I had thought were the stems of the plant.  Brilliant!  I was giddy about it, I called out to my boys to share the glory of it.  I pulled my shears out and with loving enthusiasm I finally mowed down the mustard and took each stalk gently inside for dissection and  further inspection.  I also noticed that my spinach had finally shot up some female seed stalks,  that lesson learned from last year when I pulled most of the plants thinking they were defective with no seed pods.  One lone plant missed the cleansing and weeks later shot up the female bolt with seeds. So flowers first then come the seed...this is my rule number 1.   Yes an old dog can learn new tricks.

I collected a lot of good spinach seed, and I will have a ton of mustard seed.  I also pulled an unidentified stalk bearing seed pods that looked like miniature pea pods and it had beautiful delicate purple flowers on them.  I had no clue what it could have been.  So, inspector Google went to works and as I suspected on an outside chance, it was indeed identified as a radish bolt.  Exciting, because I thought I had pulled all of my radishes...and ate them, a small victory. Here is a rendering I found online, I did not get a good picture of the real deal.

I looked around for more seed treasure, my lettuce is bolting but no flowers as of yet.  The onions that bolted I will let lie till next year and see what comes of it.  I made a closer inspection of the pieces I harvested today, sorted and tied them and hung them along side my herbs.  I'm in definite need of  system to hang my herbs more efficiently than on the hanging baskets over my sink, there are only so  many times a girl can be hit it the nose with drying dill before she loses her composure. At the moment it is dill, cilantro and now mustard and spinach seed.   It is getting little crowded. The picture to the left is my onion flowering, it will make lots of seed but no bulb.

I am absolutely floored by the success and beauty of my butterfly garden. It is actually a perennial/cutting flower/companion planting/butterfly/hummingbird garden/barrier between my 2 primary beds.  I will definitely expand this notion to other areas of my yard next year.  I dare a weed to get through this thick mass of whimsical random gorgeousness.  I think it really has lifted my heart to a place it has long missed.  I look every day and another big burst of color, splashes the palette. Oh the Poppies!  What a joy.

Yesterday I noticed that the stems of  these Poppies have a bright yellow ooze coming form them them as I was doing a little deadheading. It is latex, and there apparently is some medicinal value, hopefully none that would cause you to faila drug test.

My beans are headed for fee fi fo fum Giantville and I am left wondering if there is a need for horizontal trellising at the top of  my bean trellis, I am half tempted to see where they go unfettered with.  Tomatoes are blooming and bursting with little green tomatoes.  I have a broccoli head about the size of a baseball right now, I can actually see it and don't have to search for it and my cabbages look happy and healthy forming their heads.  I really think the neem oil is working although the cabbage moths are defiantly in the area doing the deed tho damage seems quite minimal.

                                                                Innocent looking huh >>>

I believe I've confirmed that I have found two baby stink bugs in my mustard seed harvest. Alas I squished them before I took a picture. I know I found some yellowish eggs, (most of which has already hatched) on of the stalks. Incidentally on a side note, my very good friend has some guinea hens that are 2 -3 weeks old and DEVOUR the marmorated stink bugs at their house. 

I have corn about 1 foot tall, potatoes are still going, squash and cucumbers are thriving, watermelon making an appearance and pumpkins under the sunflowers as well..we will see how much the stink bugs allow me to harvest..

I found one of these yesterday pollinating in my garden, a Blue Orchard Mason Bee.  He was too beautiful to pass up a good Google search, this is not my picture as I did not have my camera.  I will be on the lookout though for another chance....

The heat has been unbearable but I am doing a good job of maintaining vigil on the garden, not so much with weeding, I am sure that there is a lesson to learn about waiting to weed and at some point this week I am certain I will learn it.  If I don't answer my phone, I am quite certain to be buried alive in weeds, send help.  Good news, both kid have garden gloves now, Bad news, I doubt they will pick any damn weeds.  I plan to experiment with using grass clippings as mulch so we will see how well that goes although I highly suspect that 90% of the green stuff we cut is merely what I delusionally call grass.  I suspect most of it is not grass but instead a  fine carpeting of weeds that I call my back yard.

While we are on the subject, there is a guy in Brunswick who has such gloriously perfect grass.  Seriously, it looks as if Adam plucked up a piece of sod from Eden and saved it up for some guy in Brunswick to manicure, and I do mean manicure, for there is not even one errant blade out of place and if there were I bet he would be out there with a pair of scissors, sculpting it back to perfection.  Yes, I often wish this guy would skip a watering, miss a mowing.  Good grief you're  making the rest of the middle," work the slaving job to make our pay" class look bad.  My eye twitches when we have to mow twice in 2 weeks.  I am so not worthy.  Here is my answer for keeping up with mister lawn obsession man:

So the surface of the Sun or that little place I like to call anything outside my cranked up air conditioner, seems to not be hitting the garden too hard, of course I was watering some 4 and 5 year old boys this morning at a balmy 98 degrees, so I guess that was a welcome drink of water for the garden.  The peas, brave peas are hanging in, though I am still disappointed in the wando's.  The snaps are doing well.  I am pulling peas daily and can not even begin to fathom how many plants a girl needs to plant to yield a pound of peas...mind boggling.  Tomorrow I will pick a plant to take seed from.

Finally, I missed two strawberry flowers it seems and they fruited 2 beautiful berries, I ate them.  I am no longer pulling flowers so I am hopeful of a fall harvest.  My raspberry bush  has berries forming and the blueberries are not looking much different than when I planted them.  Something else to google.

Tomorrow I am pretty busy but overall I would like to get out front to weed the berries.  The perhaps turn my attention to weeding the big garden.  Praying for a cool breeze.


gift today from the boys:)


Happy growing:)

If at first you don't succeed....

 If at first you don't succeed, chances are you will have great success the next time, or you may fail again,and again, and again.You may have significant heart wrenching failure where you once succeeded or you may not realize that it was entirely a FLUKE that you succeeded in the first place. Perhaps it was merely incredibly IMPOSSIBLE to fail and once you think you might have figured it all out to within some unknown margin of error, for some bizarre confounding reason  mother nature just chucks a wrench in the works mucking it all up just for fun....That is kind of where I am this week. Truth be told, I have some amazing successes in my garden right now, some disappointing performers and some sad little peas who would like to lodge a complaint about the impromptu heat wave.

I started this Memorial Day Morning perusing the kitchen garden and flower bed. I harvested more dill and cilantro to hang and what I believe to be sage and thyme. I will have to use the University of Google to confirm and  there will remain the distinct possibility that I could be seasoning some future errant meal with a happily cultivated weed. You win some, you lose some.

I noticed my nasturtium are about to flower,they have been doing "something: for so long now it will be nice to see a flower;) Sad disappointments in the oregano, marjoram, black eyed susans and lavendar department. The level of frustration is maddening, I REALLY want the flowers. I will have to buy them as small plants if I can not get something started in my future greenhouse. Meanwhile, the cosmos....oh the cosmos, are trucking along just fine on the journey to wild treedom. I am not entirely sure that pruning is doing the trick they are just tall now instead of tall and bushy. I am holding fast to the promise of the late summer pink beauties that will bloom on the godforsaken thing. I will learn to love the cosmos, I will learn to love the cosmos.

Which brings me to the garden. I started my daily assessment with the lasagna experiment and there were three distinct area with corn seedlings at least two on each hill. The dragon tongue (DT) beans likewise had sprouted and the squash as well. Let us see if they make it! The beans are getting hard hit so I will have to spray the neem again tonight and perhaps consider slug baits in that area. I suspect the slugs are the culprit though not cabbage worms. But I am addressing that later in this blog. I noticed right off the bat the the 'maters grew A LOT over night. My husband and I had taken some time yesterday evening to tie the first of the plants to the fence and now I see they all could reach the lower wire today. AND (drum roll please) One of my Mortgage Lifter's has a flower....that means TOMATOES!

The beans are just hopping along however the Taylor's are getting munched on pretty hard and they have yet to send up strong shoots, the Kentucky poles are looking really healthy and have strong shoots winding along the poles and the dragon tongue (planted about 3 weeks after the other two) are not far behind the Taylor's. Lesson here is, wait a little longer on the beans and maybe we can miss some of the pesties. I also want to note I planted savory along the bean trellis but it only took on the DT end and the DT beans are really pest free. It could be the savory or something else, I don't know. Aren't you glad it took three sentences to tell you "I don't know?" It did help the layout a bit so smile.

                                       

Aren't Perennials peaceful?

        

Cute fencing at Lowe's .69 a section this cost me about 15 bucks but it helps the boys remember where the path is and keeps a border between weed and beans;)  If I go missing I am probably  under a mound of weeds.

Pea...oh dear peas... I really had no idea August would hit in May. Suffice it to say that I am very good at growing pea plants but not very handy at growing peas. I started them early they grew big and tall they started to flower and bam...they are dying wholesale. Hence maybe I should embrace the second "try" in "try try again?" I am hoping to get at least a little bit of a real harvest from them. It is just sad to have 16 pea plants and about 10 peas. The Wando peas, a shelling pea grew the largest and succumbed the quickest. I will check again tomorrow for some hope of a harvest, If I keep pulling a few maybe that will prompt some more peas to grow.

I did harvest a few radishes today which means, I need to plant some more. I have some "brassica" seedling in the turnip area that I thinned this morning, I honestly can't remember what I planted but probably kale or more turnips. Yesterday I harvested turnips the size of baseballs. I took down one mustard bolt because the peas were trying to climb it, I have a few more to gather seed from. I inspected my cabbage and broccoli and found another joyous discovery! When you have bad news, "they" say the proper way to break it is to wrap it in good news before and after. Well Hotdam I.have.cabbage.heads.... AND BROCCOLI... (I immediately felt better about the pea-ageddon) So let's be clear, I have heads! not just leaves but actual healthy looking plants forming heads! Was it the neem oil? Was it the vigilant care and spacing of the happy plants. Was it planting all the companions, the radishes? The perennials the beneficial bugs. PRAYING, talking to my dear plants, shaking my fist at the cabbage moths, laughing hysterically at the slugs while put out the bait? I don't know and yes I suckered you again. Now look at the pretty pictures.

I had total, complete, utter and confidence shaking failure with both broccoli and cabbage last year. This year has been an unending battle of worry and internet browsing, I plucked one worm, I sprayed the neem. I pondered buying floating row covers. My plants are a tad gnawed on BUT we made it this far on faith, companion planting, neem oil and slug bait. It remains to be seen if those heads actually become something that makes it to my table. Mostly I have to get them before bolt or something else eats them, either of which I am not very good at. I am a pro and letting things go to bolt which is not so good for eating but good for gathering seeds. Perhaps learning to grow a farm in your yard is about learning what not to do! This I am all over, the self esteem digs it too.

I noticed some of my onions were blooming and no not Aussie style.  This is not ideal, it means I will not get bulbs..now I must resist the urge to pluck them. On the bright side I can collect some seed.  Every dern onion last year bloomed, at themoment I see about 5. I suspect I did not plant deep enough.  Here is an actual bulb forming to the left so there is hope..

Lettuce is still trucking (let's see what I say about that tomorrow), I have a large mesclun plant that looks like it is making a head,i have no idea if that is what it is supposed to do so I will google it this afternoon. Onward, I have quite a few squash plants and some pumpkin seedlings peeking out. The sunflowers are rockin' (see the very  paragraph about being "impossible to screw up"), my potatoes are overdue for another bag raising AND my peppers are straggling along but the heat will be their best friend.

A lily among the thorns? Or a a cuke among the peas is that  ironic?

                                            

WHEW!

All that said, it is about a hundred degrees out, I am quite certain my lettuce will bolt and  I'm praying for my cabbages which have some shade under the mustard plants. It was a marginally productive walk today and I currently have some herbs for drying, some radishes and a few peas.

I did see quite a few cabbage moths today, so I will spray the neem again. Slugs seem to be the number one enemy at the moment so I need to lay some more bait near the newer plants that did not get baited before, mainly the lasagna bed. I did see a lot of ladybugs and a potter's wasp...here he is:) Welcome my little beneficial buddies!

I have not done much blogging about the "orchard" area (my front yard) but we have many strong healthy strawberrry plants although a few have shown indications of a rust. I removed those leaves immediately and neemed them (I am finding that neem is the answer for just about everything most of the time) The raspberry is rocking and the blueberries are poking along. I think I will need to stake them soon. I am still pinching the flowers until June 15 then it is on little strawberries, you are mine!

                                                                                                                                                                  A wise old bird said, "If you water the weeds they will grow."  Note the shirt, it reads "AWESOME"  He truly is.

On a final note, we have been blessed with a 120 gallon pond that will go in the orchard area and hopefully we can farm some fish for the table and in the fall we plan to plant two dwarf apples trees. This is the area that will be home to my top bar hive next spring so, here I am already planning for next year...WOW.

That is it for now, happy farming!

Pictures;)

My first real harvest two weeks ago. That radish i think made it all worthwhile! Clearly the largest most beautiful thing I have ever grown.










This is the salad I made with it. Yum.....










My mother's day gift, three cute little sentries for my garden.






Note the yellow cluster of eggs on the spinach leaf in the middle, those are some sort of beetle whose heathen offspring will not be chomping in my garden... if only it were so easy to stop the rest. Now, I search under each leaf with a sort of trepidation that I will actually find something there, which ironically is the point. Double click on the pic for a closer view.





There is a reason why momma can never find her gloves.....we will call this left glove...










Potato bags continue to progress, and the round bed is growing sunflowers with dragon tongue beans and pumpkins planted yesterday.









The main garden Bed 2 and 3 in the foreground Bed 1 and 4 (the lasagna bed) are in the back by the sidewalk.








Brazen hussy, I am over you, I have learned to garden one handed so HA...go ahead and mock me left glove.