Cleaning out

I just spent forty-five minutes doing early work for my The Holiday That Must Not Be Named cards. I have an image, I have a vision, I need to find a card design I can live with. And a price, it has to be the right price.

Research is important part of the process. I can now say I have crossed last years discounted designs at Zazzle and this years  new designs at Tiny Prints off my list. Whew! That was so hard clicking! It did help me decide what image I want to use though, I had two I really liked and now I have one I really like. It wasn't a waste of time, it was more like home work.

Now its going to be 1) Do I buy individual photo cards, that can get expensive when you have a healthy list  and the the choices are very limited or 2) go online and find another company to make the cards for me, it is about the same price and the choices are better.

I also took a minute to clean out my email a bit. I had the opportunity tell E! how much I really loath Rich Kids.

While I was doing projects, I also  blanched and put up more tomatoes and peppers. I totally did not forget that they were waiting on me, no Sir. Now, the tomatoes are in the freezer and the peppers are in the refrigerator waiting to dry out a little before I freeze them. The potatoes are going to be put up next - as much as I recognize this is a good thing, I dread having to peel them, but it has to be done, peeled, cubed and blanched.  Good and good for me.

I wish the green beans had turned out. I did get one meal of them and they were really good, but  harvest for  the project was not a win. I would have all ready torn the vines down but it makes me sad to think about it and I am not used to garden fail on that level. It happens to everyone but greenbeans? How hard is it to grow greenbeans?! Who messes them up? Apparently, I do. Next year I buy the seeds from somewhere that is not Walmart.

Garden Update 10 2014

I'm sure you have been very curious about Garden 2014. Its been a while since I've had an update and I am sorry.  The garden, over all, is doing well. Not as well as I would like, looking at you. under performing green beans!, but  its been a good year.

The corn has finished its run

It used to look a lot more lush and green but that was before it died. Now its waiting around for the fall when I am hoping, it is going to be transformed into Guy Fawkes and burned at Alphagal and Broskeys annual do'. Clearly, the morning glories are doing well. The corn produced well, not as well as it would have had I bothered to continue to fertilize it, as I should have, but I still got five or six ears and they were sweet and lovely. I will be planting corn again.

The green beans. I think I got a bad bag of beans. They aren't producing anywhere near what I have harvested in the past and it took me so long to get enough to bother blanching them that the ones I had, went bad waiting. I had to compost the whole lot of them. I am disappointed with the green beans and in the future I will not being buying my seeds from Walmart. I may not plant them at all next year and there is a chance I'll just plant some sort of flowering vine instead. Hurmph.

The tomatoes on the other hand, are at near record yields. They love he wet and humidity and have had a great year. I have given a lot a way and frozen a lot and feel really good about the rest of the season.

They don't look really impressive in this shot, but trust me, the peppers are doing well. They aren't as big and blocky and sturdy as I would like, but they are making lots of peppers so I can't complain. I think they may be suffering from too much rain and humidity. The ground just isn't able to hold on to nutrients and the plants are suffering. Again, I need to fertilize and I'm not. Its harder to do with the weed barrier in place but I need to get something I can spray on them through out the season. It may also be time to re-fill the garden with entirely new dirt and start anew. I would love to move the whole thing to the other side of the yard where it is much sunnier and a better home for the garden over all but I don't see that happening, I can dream.

Over all, a good year but not a great year, its been too wet and too many over cast days for proper garden health. Well worth it though and there is always next year.

Garden Update 9 2014

Today I started an experiment : Can you transplant very young corn plants?

I looked online and it seems like "yes" , but these had been in the ground for a while, not growing in a plant nursery situation and the plants are not babies anymore. I planted them in a neat grids as suggested for optimum growth , however not all the seeds sprouted and it left a lot of empty spots and empty spots are not conductive to a good harvest.

So I moved them around. I'm pretty sure that in theory the plants should be agreeable to this but I have my doubts. I just want to give them the best chance for producing a good harvest and if I had left them in the state they were, they most certainly would not have.

This weekend was potato harvest time and I got them all out of the ground, this was because it was time and the potato plants were throwing shade on my baby corn plants and the more shade they though the more I started to think it was time. They had been in the ground since March, when there was still snow on the ground!

I had wanted to get them in the ground in February but the soil was still frozen  and so  I had to wait until the first week in March to get them in the ground .They also survived a very late freeze right after they had started to sprout.

Its not a bad harvest and I only had two plans that failed to produce. It does not look like a lot there but they filled two hanging basket baskets to the brim. I can't eat this many so I'm going to have to find some good homes for a a few of them.

Still in the ground : Peppers, tomatoes, green beans, onions and corn.

Garden Update 8 2014

Time is marching on.

I'm pretty sure that the larger pots have, I think, the Yukon gold spuds, they aren't near ready yet. The foilage is still lush and everything is still perky and strong. If they do hold the smaller red spuds, these plants are way behind the other pots. I would bet it is because they get less direct sunlight.

These guys get a lot of direct sunlight and have all ready gifted me with some early spuds. The plants are thinning out and falling over. I should stop watering these and let the plants die back naturally and then harvest.

The garden plants are behind their potted brothers. Way behind, they haven't even flowered yet! The plants are still full and happy but they have begun to fall over a bit. I don't think that this unusal for them as the plants get very full and they do fall over. They plants are healthy and in good shape.

A baby corn plant. I didn't get as many as I wanted, but I got some and I should be happy with that. I'm a little afraid they aren't close enough together for me to get actual corn to grow. We'll see. On the upside, they plants are big enough now that I can rake up the bed and get rid of the nutrient sucking weeds.

The green beans are starting to grow up and really establish themselves.

I have baby tomatos! Lots and lots! The plants are really working hard.

They tomato plants are growing by leaps and bounds!  They are so tall now! I was a little scared for these after it froze after I planted them but they all pulled through.

The peppers went last and take the longest to get where they are going. They look good.

The onions look, onion-y?

 And we move to the front yard!

The blueberry bushes are actually making blueberry's! A new thing! Last year they made white berries that didn't strike me as edible.

I'm not happy with the honeysuckle, I worked hard to get these plants and I really was hoping for the flowers and scent and I have neither! These plants days may be numbered.

Everyone is perking along, I miss my flowers but it just wasn't going to work out before vacation. I'll get flowers in the ground after I get back, late but it'll be okay.

Outdoor Life

The a/c is on. The dog is celebrating by leaving his water dish and taking a nap. I also finally brought the last hose up from the basement and watered everything before it died. prior to this weekend I had been using my rain collection barrel as my sole source of water for everything not in the ground and then it suddenly stopped raining and all my potted everything became very sad - the potatoes damn near went into mourning, so I had to suck it up and go back to city water.

Staying on the topic of water : I am question my irrigation timer. It works fine for setting 1 but not for setting 2, in fact, I don't think that setting 2 is being worked at all. I know its hooked up right because I can manually over-ride the timer and it works just fine it just won't do it without being ordered to do so.

My old timer when it turned on there was this tremendous "thunk" that you could feel all over the house - I liked this because I knew it was working. New timer doesn't do this and I never really know that its working. I can see the plants growing and developing, so I can see that  the plants are managing to get water from some source, but I'm not sure its the irrigation system. I'm also a little spooked that  the mechanism kept working even after I took the batteries out hoping to cause to have to re-set it self. It didn't re-set.

Worst case scenario is that I change it to a single setting and use the sprinkler as the main source of irrigation. It can be set to have a very wide spray and it can water the whole yard if necessary - it just isn't a  very efficient use of the water and not everything needs or wants its leaves to be wet as it draws insects and fungal infections.

I have some work to do.

Speaking of work, one of my neighbors helped me hack at the hipsters' hateful tree! It had taken to trying to peel the roof off my car every time I pulled out of my driveway and so I finally hauled out my trimmer and cut everything I could reach. I am shorter than I thought, but I think I might have taken care of the problem. A very kind neighbor came along and helped to hold branches so I could cut them off, he was beyond helpful to my cause.

The nice neighbor said that years and years ago they tried to talk a past owner of the tree to  cut the offensive thing down. because its ugly, and messy and useless . The then owner claimed it shaded the house and refused. It did not shade the house forty years ago and it does not now. I rake up its leaves and  suffer its limbs, and slip in the hateful berries it drops in my driveway and even the homeless population hates the tree for its mess. When the neighbors offer to take up a collection to get rid of your tree because its an ugly, messy nuisance? The tree is a bad tree! The hipsters don't as much as look at their tree and have never raked its leaves or slipped in its berries. I wonder of they would be open to a neighborhood collection to get the ugly thing gone?

Garden 2014 Update 7

With the newly planted corn so young it shard to tell the corn sprouts from the weed sprouts. I knew I was going to kick myself for not using weed barrier.  Now I am going to have to weed and I do not like weeding - hence, by historical use of weed barrier.

I would go through the plot with at least a little hand rake but its too early to know what I was really raking up. I'll have to wait for everything to age a little and then rake the hell out of it.

Another plot I failed to use weed barrier is unused strip of garden that I abandoned after it became clear it doesn't get enough sun to make tomatoes or peppers work. I let it sit out last year but this year I added onions and suddenly the little strip began to look a lot better as a planting location ( since I had planted everywhere else)

Fortunately, none of my weeds look like onions. Onions look like onions.

My tomatoes are looking great! I was afraid after they got hit by the late frost but they pulled though and they're just perking right along. I even have a few flowers.

The peppers have settled in nicely and seem to be doing well.

Some of the container spuds are flowers all ready but the plants in the ground aren't there yet, I think they are at least two weeks behind due to the cold and the ground taking longer to warm up.

I would like to see my pole beans starting to climb a little, I got burned by a mixed bag of beans last year and ended up with some uninvited bush beans. I'm hoping my baggy marked "pole beans" are actually Pole Beans.

I did most of my work this weekend with the plants in the front of the house. I also ran my cistern dry and this made me unhappy. I'm going to have to haul up the hose from the basement and get it set up. Hopefully it will rain soon and refil my cistern.

After my grass plant died I decided I wanted  a change. I had decided that I wanted and elephant ear because I like the shape and I don't have anything else like it. It was harder to find one than I thought. But I found one and it is lovely! And at the end of the season I can dig up the bulb, bag it, and let it live in my basement for the winter.

I also repoted my new fern and my Nepenthes (pitcher plant) because I looked at its pot and it seemed very small! It is now in a larger, roomier pot and I hope it does well there.

I still haven't given up hope for Room Mate Fern, but its not looking good and I don't know what you do with an older fern plant. I stripped off the dead parts and gave it some fertilizer and told it to feel better. I got New Fern because it was clearly not on deaths door and it was on sale. I put it in a larger pot because it seemed like the right thing to do.

I haven't given up on flowers for the front deck but I do need to do this quickly before all the good bedding plants are gone.

Garden 2014 Update 6

And time marches on!

The potaotes are doing really well! I am so relived/happy to see the ground potaotes finally all up and getting about business. I was very concerern leeping in mind I planted them in February and if the weather had cooperated, these would be ready to be harvest on May 8. It was not to be, I think the new harvest date will likely be in June.

The green beans are making an appearence, so far two have broken the surface. I went to the Farmers market to get my peppers and I was surprised to find trays of beans for sale, I think this is kind of nutty. They are so easy to grow I really can't see buying all ready sprouted bean plants.

However, I have no problem buying very young tomatoes and peppers. I have a double standard. I'm sure that they are also easy to grow too but I just can't see myself starting from seed with them. It takes a long time for them to reach mturity even if you buy them as young plants that starting from seed would about kill me. I bought two different varietyes: California Wonder and Black Beauty. I had really good luck with both of these and this year I bought more then in years prior.I am really hopeing to fill my freezer from the garden this year.

My next goal is going to be getting the corn in the ground. I want to wait a bit until its really, truely summer because I don't think they like cool weather. I am however, shooting for next weekend to get them into the ground. I have all whole bunch of compost that is looking for something to do. I've been saving it for the corn because they are "big feeders" and I want them to be happy.

What I am not completely happy about:

 New Timer! So many places to put hoses, two different timers to set! and still a free space to put a hose for  random use! So happy with this!

Sloppy! Sloppy! Sloppy! Too many hoses! A tangled mess! My sense of irrigation aesthetics is horrified by this mass of hoses. On the other hand : No Leaks! and the new timer is all kinds of awesome

Garden Update 2014 5

If the cat doesn't want to be used as a pillow the cat should not 1) takes napes where he is conveniently located for face plantage and 2) not arrange himself as to be confused with a pillow. If he doesn't want to  end up as a pillow he should take his naps under the coffee table and not on top of the dining room table. Just saying.

Also not have such a luxurious furry coat or be as soft and pillowy as he is.

When I wasn't stalking the cat, I finally got my onions in the round. They have been sitting around for a really long time waiting to be planted and I finally decided to do it and do it now - before they rotted. I planted them in two locations, the first group is in a large planter on the front deck and the other is planted in a rejected strip of ground in the main garden in the back yard. I stopped planting in that section because it doesn't get enough sun and there are some very pushy vines growing on the fence and I think they bully the plants that end up there into being short and sad.

Enter onions, they are born short and sad.  I just did some reading, after the fact and I didn't do anything they suggest for successful onion growing.  I should have read How To Grow Onions before I got them in the ground. Oh well.

They were really cheap and if any of them actually live to see harvest it will be a good return on my investment. This tutorial comes with pictures and according to it, some of my sets might be okay. Some, but not all the sets I planted in the front might be okay if I can move the  decrepet wooden barrell into the sun. Onions like the sun.

A quick survey of where they are planted tells me that pretty sure my onions aren't going to make it this year, but now I know more and maybe next year I can have a actual harvest.

Garden Update 5 - The freezinging

I want a gold star for gardening. I just spent twenty five minutes in the cold and rain in shorts and sandles running around trying to find cover for my plants so they don't die on me when the temps drop over night.

Also, I will never plant early again. The old wives tale is to not plant before Good Friday and I see that as sound advice. Planting "late" is not going to negatively affect the harvest or the health of the plants. I jumped the gun so I ended up wading through puddles and getting soaked and cold to the bone. I could have just as easily planted in two weeks - but I got sucked in by on sale plants at Home Depot and now here I am. In their favor they are nicer and few weeks older than the infant plants I have worked with in years past, and so I think they should be okay... and if they aren't, its still early enough in the season that if I have to replace one here or there its not going to be too traumatic.

The potatoes have come along nicely, and I can't just replace them if they freeze so I made sure that they were fully covered and I hope its enough to offer the protection they need. It was reveled to me why I have so many flower pots around - they make excellent shelters for young plants! They are exactly the right size and I can just pop them back into the basement when it warms up again. They are a hearty plant though so I think even if they really froze they would maybe be okay. All the plants are going to be annoyed because I'm not going to be able to uncover them before at least lunch time.  I'm  choosing to see the time spent as "quality time in a terrarium" and not so much like "stuffed in the dark under a  plastic pot".

.I also used some old sheets and those are going to be harder to deal with post-cold snap. I came up with the pot idea after I covered the tomato cages with the sheets and my that time they were all ready sodden and the idea of taking them off and getting even more wet and cold and gross was not attractive or in the cards. I think it will be okay and I can just throw the whole mess in the laundry after work.

I would have taken pictures of all this but I didn't want to take the camera out in the rain. Not  because I thought I should protect myself from further cold and wet and gross but because I  wanted to protect the camera  from the cold and wet and gross. #priorities

Garden 2014 Update 4

What I didn't get done this weekend:

1. Mow either lawn, needed to, planned to, but didn't get to it. Will do this week.
2. Do my light load of laundry, I got the dark stuff done but ran out of time for the other. Will do this week.
3. I shopped for meatloaf fixings but didn't make get around to doing it. Will do this week.
4.  Added mileage on the exerbike, decided the toting and lifting and general labor counted as cross training. Will do better this week.

It sounds like I am going to be busy this week.

What I did get done this weekend.

1. Attended the Democratic County Convention. Clay Akin was there.
2. Went to the city and dug, lifted, carted and distributed (the hardest way possibly) six  heavy bins of dirt. This was two trips out there and way more manual labor than I am comfortable with. I discovered that mulch is lighter than compost.
3. Tilled everything.
4. got the irrigation hoses layed.
5. got the weed barrier down.
6. brought the bean trelisi up from the basement.
7. planted tomaotos.
8. bought a wheel barrow, one day too late.
9. Walked to Church.
10. Walked the dog.

Post soil amending and tilling

before

during

yes, they are planted too close together but I don't have room for them to planted the proper distance. Every year I plant them too close together and yet every year I manage a good harvest. I am going to plant peppers in the front with my Burpee sauce variety and more toms in the back.

I intentionally left the far sides open as they get too much shade and nothing grows there. I decided to cut my loses this year and not irrigate or plant those areas.

before

after

I want to point out the progress the potaotes have made.

It took a while but they came through.In the center area I am going to plant corn.

Out of nowhere I have real plants!

I have also bought onion sets (very cheap) but I don't know where they are going to go yet, possibly in bins.

Garden 2014 Update 4

Another weekend another weekend spent doing absolutely nothing, well not "nothing", I got out of bed. I did successfully walk the dog a number of times, I did laundry, I went to Church, I mowed both yards for the first time this season, I got the dog new dog food and I put gas in the car.

In only forty-eight hours. Actually, I did a lot.

The potato plants continue to fight the good fight and are trying like hell to get to the surface. Next weekend I am going to go to the city and get more dirt for the big garden and probably try to get the hoses down ( buy new ones, because who am I kidding? I always have to buy new ones) and if I am very lucky, get the weed barrier in place and try to figure out how I am going to water the corn on a daily bases. I am thinking drip hoses like the big garden but if so, I will need to use the other spigot. Or, better idea,  I can use the fab sprinkler I bought at the end of last season and I can just plug and unplug that as needed.

Shopping list for coming week:

1. New dirt from city
2. Garden staples
3. drip hoses

To Do List for next weekend

1. Spread dirt in main garden
2. add dirt to small garden and bean location
3. Till everything
4. get drip hoses placed
5. put down weed fabric

The staples and he hoses I can get during the week, the dirt is a Saturday job.  I bought one set of tomatoes from Burpee this year, but they are really good, strong plants that I first tried out last year. I'm going to get the rest of the veggies from the farmers market. I haven't even started to plan the front flowers yet! I do know I am going to use the shoe hangers slash flower planters again, and I will have to replace the big grass plant and most likely the ferns. I am sad about the room mate ferns but I think they may of just came to end of their life cycle. I had the big fern for four years and the little fern for two, it also was just so cold this winter that even living inside the entry way, it was too much.  Sad ferns.

Garden 2014 Update 3

I planted the spuds it feels like months ago ( in reality, 2/16), and now, after what seems like a very long time, I have sprouts! I had  thought that the seed potatoes I planted in the ground would do substantially better then the spuds I planted in the bins.

I thought that nicer soil, more space and the presences of earth worms and general being in the Earth would give them an advantage. The bins are doing better than the ones I planted in the earth. I credit this to the bins being above ground and in substantially warmer store bought potting soil. It started out warmer, was no subjected to freezing ground and the location of the bins gets better light in the late winter. The garden area gets nice light but not as much I am learning. It does however get better light in the early spring and summer, so I  am hoping this will bode well for the corn, if not my potatoes.

The bins hold early red potatoes. They are noticeably ahead of their Yukon gold cousins in the ground. Please not the two yellow "circles" around the other sprouts. I am crossing my fingers that as it gets warmer more of the seed spuds will sprout. I went back and checked and on the day I planted them looks like I planted them there was snow on the ground , and while it didn't snow again, it was bitter cold and nasty and I don't think that can help with sprouting.  These were all supposed to be harvest around May 8, but I don't see that as being attainable at this point, I'm looking now at the last week of May possibly first week of June.

In the top picture there are three sprouts, the bottom shot is of one along the other side of the garden, where it gets less sun. None of these were visible even last weekend. I thought the cold might have killed them and I gote a little sad about 1) not having potatoes and 2) wasting the time and energy  it took to get the ground ready and then planting them; but I remembered that potatoes are hardy and they reward hope.