Early spring photos

Despite thoroughly plowing under the garden, the onions have returned. I am not sad about this - I didn't really want to lose them...


I found some organic strawberries at the grocery store...2 of them are thriving, but the third doesn't look very happy. :(


Our pear tree, blossoming.

Ready... Set... Spring!

Yesterday, instead of indulging in green beer, I rented a gas-powered tiller and  plowed up my garden, adding several bags of compost to the mix.  Yes, I’m lame, but man, I have spring fever and it was too good of a day to pass up.  Temps in the upper 60’s, light breeze, no bugs yet…I love spring.  The whole garden smells like onions, too, from all the leftovers that got mixed in by the tiller…mmm…

What I don’t love is the mine field that is my backyard after a winter of the dog’s “business” going unchecked.  I need to dig out the pooper-scooper and fast!  That dog…I’m really tired of his crap.  Literally! J

 

Let’s see what we have on the garden menu this year:

-          Tomato and peppers, of course – the transplants will arrive mid-May

-          Broccoli seeds that I didn’t get to last year

-          Lettuce mix – yea, salad!

-          Pickling cucumbers – gotta have the cukes

-          Edamame – my new favorite snack; I figured I might as well try to grow it too…

-          Sunberries – just something different

-          Bee balm – I have my doubts, since I didn’t notice before ordering that this was an inside starter.  I didn’t start it inside!  I’m going to toss it in the ground and hope for the best

-          Cilantro – from a co-op transplant, coming in May

-          Basil – also from the co-op

 

What I’m not growing this year:

-          Radishes – the hubby got sick of them pretty quickly

-          Eggplant – I just don’t like it and am not sure why I bothered last year

-          Cantaloupe – I didn’t have much luck the past two summers, so it’s out

-          Beans – I got a ton from our CSA share last year – assuming it will happen this year too!

 

I’m sure there’s more on both lists.  I love zucchini, so that will get added, but probably from a farmer’s market transplant.  Same with butternut squash – I’ll have to get it somehow!  My goal this year is to make things as easy as possible, as I will be recovering from my jaw surgery for most of May, and I’m just lazy in general and kind of neglected the garden last summer.  We also signed up for a full CSA share this year, so regardless of what  comes out of my dirt, I’ll be eating well.

Shootin' 'em down

I bought a bottle of insecticidal soap last night and sprayed the hell out of my stink bugs and other nasty garden critters.  Hopefully that does the trick on the tomatoes and squash plants.  If not, this means war…

 

In less depressing news, I pulled up the first onion of the year.  It was approximately the size of an orange, which is a vast improvement over the ping-pong ball sized onions I had last summer. J

Ack!

Stupid bugs.  I looked out my kitchen window to see a big beautiful pink tomato…only to walk out to the garden and discover it had big gaping holes in it.  Can anyone recommend a natural insecticide?  I really hate to spray, but I don’t have the time to hand-pick 5 bazillion bugs out of my plants this summer… 

First Green Zebra

Pulled the first (of hopefully many) Green Zebra tomato off the vine this week, and added it to my lunchtime salad today.  I shared a slice with the two tomato “experts” in my office, who both declared it quite tasty.  I must agree – although yellow and green on the outside, and very green on the inside, it is nonetheless very ripe indeed and has a wonderful flavor.  Yea for heirloom tomatoes! 

 

Also did some extensive weeding this weekend.  The sweet pea vines had yellowed and dried, so those came out, along with piles and piles of grass and weeds.  Eek.  I need to be more vigilant on my weed-watching, I guess…

 

Sad, sad, sad

I knew those plums were too good to be true.  The vast majority of the ones the DH picked are infected with plum curculio larvae.  Yucky.  I was going to bake a pie last night, so I started washing, peeling, and pitting.  After 4-5 little white wormy-thingies, I gave up.

 

plums? already?

The DH brought in a large bowl of plums this week from our 3-year-old tree.  They’re small, but definitely ripe.  Weird, huh?  I swear it’s not time for plums.  Oh, well.  I think our are going to become a nice plum pie… Mmmm…

 

My apologies, Sophia

I must apologize to “Sophia”, one of my fellow belly dancer/gardening friends.  She bestowed upon me a few free tomato and pepper plants…and I killed two of the tomato plants.  It wasn’t entirely my fault – they were pretty gangly when I got them planted, and two bad storms back-to-back last week got the best of them.  One was snapped in half and the other just lying limp on it’s side.  I pulled the snapped-off one, but left the other, propping it up against the trellis – maybe it’ll recover.  If not, I’m sure I’ll be OK, harvest-wise.  I mourned my lost plants by buying two more at the farmer’s market! J  I brought home a lovely Caspian Pink and a Garden Peach…and Lilac bell pepper.  The poor pepper had to go in the far end of the garden, as the pepper patch is at capacity.  Eh, oh well. J 

 

The heavy rains also displaced a good portion of my mulch…I bought another 4 bags to be on the safe side.  My only garden victory this weekend – walking out of the garden supply store without buying yet another plant! J

Lookie what I did!

I grew a salad! Me! I did it! Whoo-hoo!

OK, probably not that big of a deal, but seriously this is exciting for me. My attempt at lettuce failed miserably last year. This is beautiful, edible, heirloom lettuce mix (plus a little bit of the organic spinach and lettuce I bought at Menards). I grew lunch! I rock!

Yea for free! Free is good!

I just scored some free plants. A nice flowering pot of chives for the garden and a Bluebeard plant for my front flowerbed. We have a very nice man at work that brings in plants starting around this time of year, free to good homes. Over the last couple of years, I’ve adopted several of these plants, killed a few, but have mostly been very happy with my new acquisitions. Yea for free plants!

Harvested some more radishes this morning for the DH. It occurred to me the other day that I’ve never eaten a radish. I don’t really have any intention of starting now, either. J Tonight I’m going to clip some lettuce and tomorrow I’m going to have a nice homegrown salad. Mmm… J

How much is TOO much?

Ouch. I am so sore… a seemingly simple garden expansion yesterday morning turned into an all-day ordeal, ending with a very exhausted me flopped on the sofa, unable to move. What happened? Well, if you recall, I’ve filled my already-expanded plot and still have seeds and seedlings left to into the ground. So I needed more space. I didn’t get any zucchini seeds, so while I was at the farmers market buying salad and bread, I searched for a zucchini seedling… and ended up with the following:

• Pineapple tomato
• Holy mole pepper
• Anaheim peppers
• Zucchini
• Eggplant
• 2 Strawberries
• 2 Peppermints
• Catnip

And then one of my fellow belly dancers offered up some of her extra tomato and pepper seedlings for free. Surely I have enough willpower to say no. Nope, guess not. That adds to my pile of plants:

• Beefsteak tomato
• 2Roma tomatoes
• 2 Habanera peppers
• 2 Chile peppers

This is definitely more than I planned on putting into the ground – my intentions were just to make enough room for the several packets of squash seeds sitting on my counter. But I could handle it, right? I mean, the first expansion this summer took up most of an afternoon of digging up sod, but it came up easy enough… I got up early on Sunday and headed to the local hardware store/garden center for a new (supposedly better) shovel and some organic topsoil. I also picked up some more tomato stakes, a few stepping stones…and some lettuce and spinach seedlings. Eek! More plants! Oh, and some geraniums to help shield my tomatoes…

Back home, I started to dig. And dig and dig and dig. The sod did not want to budge! I’m not sure if it was too dry or if the season had advanced enough that our grass roots are really taking hold, but after 2 hours, I had barely made a dent. Finally I gave up so I could get to belly dance practice on time… Sigh… After practice, I got right back out there and dug until dinner time. And after dinner time until dark… About 20 minutes before the sun had sunk below the horizon, I decided I’d had enough and should put in as many plants as I could before the light disappeared completely. At this point, my dear husband came out and took up the shovel, offering to help IF I swore not to let the garden get any bigger! Not a problem, honey – this is big enough for me!

I still didn’t get my squash in the ground. Sigh… but the new tomatoes, pepper, lettuces, and flowers are all in. The catnip will be potted, as will the peppermint. A nice lady at the farmers market told me that she keeps squash bugs at bay by planting her gourds in her peppermint patch, but I think I’ll pot them and sink them in the ground that way first. I don’t need a yard full of mint! The strawberries will probably go in the current radish patch – tonight I’ll harvest radishes if I get a chance…

So, gardening season is in full swing in the Happy Little Garden…only it’s not so little anymore! I’ll throw up some photos next chance I get…

Early!

My heirloom tomato and pepper seedling sampler was due to be shipped the week of May 19th. So you can imagine my surprise when my husband called on May 7th to ask about "this box on the porch that says 'Live Plants'." Eek. I checked with some more-seasoned gardeners and determined that is was OK to put them in the ground, and so I did... along with some cilantro, anise, and wormwood.
Problem. If you look to the left, you'll notice this long list of things I have yet to plant. Well...I'm out of room! Despite the garden plot expansion, my desire to not overcrowd my tomatoes again this year has rendered me no space left for squash. Crap. Guess I'll be out there digging up sod again this week...
Oh, well. I won't be complaining when I'm eating all these fresh-from-the-ground goodies...

Another shot to rot

Well, I have officially failed as a composter.  Yeah, I pretty much stink at it… Last year’s attempt at letting my food waste rot in a box yielded some not-all-that-rotten food waste in a box.  Hmmm…I bet if I’d tried to prevent everything from rotting, it would have actually worked.  Go figure.

 

So, anyhoo, I’m moving on and starting a new with a beautiful overpriced compost tumbler, the Envirocycle.  It’s pretty.  It arrived on Saturday with blessedly little packaging – just sitting in its box with no padding. Not that it needed padding – it just seems that companies these days over-package EVERYTHING.  (Don’t even get me started on the gift card I ordered for my dad at Christmas that came in bubble wrap!)  I’m glad the Envirocycle folks figured out that a large flexible plastic can was not likely to break without the company of Styrofoam peanuts.  Good job, people!

 

So, as soon as I cover our back yard in Coop Poop this afternoon, I’ll roll out the new tumbler and we’ll let the rotting fun begin again… J

 

On a gardening note – I finally got my mile-long green beens in the ground.  I need to post some photos soon.  I definitley have dwarf sweet peas shooting up.  There are also sprouts in the lettuce and radish patches, but I have since forgetten which patch is which, so I’ll have to wait until they get a wee bit bigger to identify them. J  Happy spring, all!

Expanding

Phew...finally warm enough outside to dig in the dirt. This year I'm planting a lot more, so a little garden plot expansion was necessary. I started on Wednesday, clearing sod to make the plot roughly 3 times its current length. Then, of course, it rained for the entirety of the next two days. So, yesterday (Saturday), I was finally able to get back outside and finish up. I swung by Earl May and Menards for some Omagro compost and organic topsoil - my compost pile was not successful - I'm going to work on that this year, as well. Omagro will do - it's local at least, and heck, it it probably made from the sod I tossed last year!

This morning, I drug myself out of bed in order to spread the compost and topsoil. Ugh, 40 lb bags are not my friend! Then I sorted through my seed packets to determine what needed to go into the ground today. Lettuce mix, dill, radish, and sweet pea seeds are nestled safely in the soil, soon to sprout alongside the onions that are already growing. I'm not sure the origin of the onions for sure -they are either the ones that I didn't pull up last year, or the winter onions I planted in Oct/Nov (a gift from a friend's mom). Either way, at least something is growing!

Starting some onion seeds...outside!

I read about this in Mother Earth News a couple of months ago...you can start seeds in milk jugs as an alternative to using lights inside (for those of us without much interior room to spare). I decided to start my onions this way...hopefully it works!
I took several milk jugs (collecting from friends since I don't drink milk) and cut them in half, leaving one side intact to function as a hinge.

Using my organic potting soil, I filled each jug with about 3 inches of soil. The soil was generously moistened, and the onion seeds were spaced in the soil, about 1 inch apart.

I taped the jugs shut (all I could find was electrical tape, but I may replace it), leaving the caps off.

Each jug was paced inside a garbage bag, which was tied shut with a rubber band.

These jugs/bags will stay on a sunny spot on my deck for the spring, where the onion seeds will hopefully spout inside the insulated environment...we'll see... I'll check on them for water and heat needs as necessarily...those issues weren't included in the directions!

Planning for spring

I’m probably months behind schedule compared to “serious” gardeners who know what they are doing, but nevertheless, I have started!  The spring-like weather of the past two days has put me in the gardening mood, so with that comes a Garden Blog update. 

This years goals include: 

• an expanded plot
• more variety in veggies
• select herbs
• a new attempt at composting
• and a better effort at preserving

 

n addition to my veggie garden, the DH and I are joining a CSA (splitting a share with ML), so fresh local produce with be abundant come this summer.  I can’t wait!

Today, I put in an order for seeds and some transplants.  From Seedsavers, I order a variety pack of pepper and tomato transplants, to be delivered for mid-May planting.  I also order seeds for dill, anise, cilantro, wormwood, english lavender, purple basil (doesn’t that sound pretty?), dwarf gray sugar peas, cucumbers, lemon cucumbers, brown onions, plum purple radishes, a lettuce mix…  I’m really excited about the transplants!  The pepper sampler includes Alma Paprika, Buran, Jimmy Nardello’s, King of the North, Sheepnose Pimento, and Orange Bell peppers.  In the tomato sampler are Amish Paste, Brandywine, Gold Medal, Green Zebra, Mexico Midget and Stupice.

 

From Seeds of Change, I ordered seeds for Calabrese broccoli, Charentais cantalope, St. Valery carrots, butternut and spaghetti squash…

Hmmm…I don’t think I ordered any zucchini…but a friend at work offered to share, so maybe that’ll do.  I also have a packet of green bean seeds from him. 

This year I’m going to do my reseach!  Things will be planted more carefully, at the right time, and with the right soil conditions (as best as I can manage).  A lot of the herbs I ordered are said to repel bad bugs and/or attract good ones.  I’ll give the tomatoes enough room to spread out, and keep them caged as best I can…I’ll be the best home veggie farmer ever!  OK, maybe I’m jumping the gun a little…J  Hurry up Spring!

 

Seeing Red!

I mentioned before that I planned to try to ripen a bunch of green tomatoes indoors.  I took the best of the ones I pulled from the garden, wrapped them individually in newspaper and sat them on shelves in my basement, covered by a dark blanket.  Well, I checked them this morning – well, I checked one of them that is – it was red!  It worked!  Now the trick will be to keep them in decent shape until I have time to process them.  I wasn’t expecting this to happen so quickly! 

Scurries off to locate sauce recipes...

Tomatoes out the $%@

They’re everywhere! The green tomatoes that is…it’s like summer is taking another turn – everything is green and flowering again… Alas, I know it won’t last, so I’m trying to enjoy it while it does. My tomato routine until now has been to check the garden every day or two and pluck the red ‘maters from the vines. As the season went on there were fewer and fewer ripe red ones, but still TONS of green tomatoes. My dear sweet husband, being a practical boy, inquired “can’t we just pick the green ones and use them?” So I did a little research on the subject. My new plan is to gather the healthiest of the fruits, bring them inside and let them ripen on their own indoors. Then I’ll process them – can them, freeze them, eat them, or something. J My sources tell me that indoor-ripened tomatoes do not taste quite as good as vine-ripened, but will be infinitely better than store-bought. Since I do plan on canning most of them as sauce of some sort, I think it’ll be OK. I picked a large basket-full last night, but didn’t even get a quarter of the way through the garden. Eek!

I’d also like to try some green tomato cooking experiments – any recipe recommendations?

Resurrected onions

Bit of a gardening surprise yesterday (but, as I’m pretty new to this sport, what isn’t a surprise?).  I went out to pluck the few cantaloupes that hadn’t been attacked by bugs from my little plot, and eventually turned my attention to the onions.  I had read that onions can be harvested after their stalks dry up and flop over, which happen earlier this summer…I pulled a few of them for salads already.  I figured I’d pull up the rest…but then I noticed that they were no longer dried and shriveled (the stalks that is)…they were green and sturdy.  Did I miss my chance to harvest the onions?  Why did they suddenly spring back to life?  Comments welcome; in the meantime I’ll be doing some research…

The Case of the Mystery Melon - solved!

I did eventually manage to snap a few pics of my mystery melons (the ones I thought were cantaloupes, but were looking much more like watermelons), but alas, the camera didn't make it back into the house from our last car trip. I'm bad at bringing things back in...
However, the mystery is solved! I am in fact growing cantaloupes. Their "skin" (rind?) is starting to develop a very cantaloupe-like texture. Phew! I'm not sure how mature they will get, as we've already started to experience some low temps in the area. But maybe next week's predicted upper 80's-low 90's will give them a boost...

Update: here is a photo (I cleaned out the car...) of the melons before they were identified: