the good with the bad

although i took a brief break for some house project reveals, what i really need to tend to (both electronically and physically) is the garden.

the good:

- was able to plant two types of spinach, four types of lettuce, strawberries, two types of potatoes, two types of carrots, and two types of onions a week or so ago.  already seeing a few sprouts. hooray

- had the Big Event kids back for another round of mulching/yardwork.  the garden pathways are now thick with mulch.  i did some weeding beforehand so hopefully this keeps the weeds to a minimum again this year.

- the seedlings i’m growing under lights are still struggling along, some looking better than others.  but i still have about 2-3 weeks until it’s safe to plant them outside, so here’s hoping that they’ll put a little more weight on before then.

the not so good:

- the soil in our boxes settles over the course of the season and needs to be topped off each year.  ideally, this will come free from the compost we’re generating.  but this year our compost just wasn’t ready and i needed a lot of soil.  so we sprung for one load of compost and one load of topsoil.  the compost looks fantastic.  the topsoil looks horrible.  to be honest, it looks like fill dirt – full of fist sized clumps of dirt that may as well be rocks and not very crumbly at all (looked almost clay like in some parts).  so now i’m nervous that i’m going to kill everything because they’re getting suffocated by the dirt. marvelous.  i’ll keep you posted

the life of a garden – 2009

honestly, where has the summer gone?  the most startling realization that fall was in fact approaching was on my way to work two weeks ago.  my usual 60 mph speed (let’s be honest, if i can break 45 on the two-lane route of death, it’s a happy day) was disrupted – by the flashing school zone lights.  SCHOOL is starting already!  it’s ludicrous.

what’s also ludicrous is just how many pictures i’ve taken of the garden this year.  but it’s a good thing too  – because when i’m about to make the same mistake as this year by growing tomatoes nowhere near the vicinity of a trellis and am forced to prop them up in various embarrassing degrees of string and stake concoctions, i’ll have a picture to remind me.

so i took some iniative for the first time in ages and corralled them all into one place – well, at least i’m in the process of coralling them – and anyone with a large bit of time on their hands can hop on over here and see the whole process from barren chunk of weedy lawn, to “hey! i’ve grown something you can eat!”

before and after: garden shots

although not taken from the same angle each time (note to self for next year) i dug up some photos that give a pretty good representation of how the garden looked before anything was happening up until now.  i’ll give just the very first and the very last right now, and fill in the middle later this week.

March 09 – the fence was up and one lone 4′x4′ box of garlic had been planted (waay too late i might add). and that’s about it.

august 09 - thankfully, a few things survived. the middle right box (the aforementioned garlic) has already been harvested, which is why it’s empty.

garden update: june 13

this is a garden auger.  feel the power.

as you can tell from the four bamboo posts already in, we drilled a small but deep hole at an 65ish degree angle.  this helps the poles to lean in

then its time to use your muscles and jam the pole firmly into place.  many blisters and sore muscles will ensue.

in general, we aimed to sink the poles about 12 inches into the ground

if you make a really intense face, the pole will go in easier

even i had to bring out the guns and help

finally! all eight poles are in.  we designed this system using 1 pole every 2 feet – the boxes are 8 feet long, so that comes out to 4 poles on each side.  is this the best design?  not sure – this will be a year of trial and error

a few shots of the (nearly) finished product from a couple different angles.  (later we secured all the post tops together by mounting a horizontal pole across the top and lashing them together)

the first two boxes hold the tomatoes, basil, and squash/zucchini/cukes/pumpkins/watermelon (both boxes eventually had trellises installed over them).  the last box, the potatoes and onions

the lettuce has really started to fill in

this box has really started to take off – thankfully it won’t need trellises like the other two.

a closer look…

strawberries

pepper buds

a pot of parsley, oregano, and basil i bought last weekend at the farmer’s market

the rest of the tomato seedling stragglers.  these guys will hopefully catch up in the growth department

what jackson has in his mouth 95% of the time

keeping up

right now i have a folder of garden pictures opened in photoshop.  they’re all ready to go, just waiting for me to touch them up, resize them, and post them for your viewing pleasure.  i took these pictures on saturday, the 13th.  just 3 days ago.  but i’m realizing that they’re already outdated because the garden is changing constantly.   daily.

some of that is our doing (the trellises are finally up!) and some of that is the rain’s doing.  literally, i can see growth from one day to the next.  our bush beans, potatoes, peppers, and some tomatoes are flowering.  everything is growing taller, fuller, lusher.  the strawberries are getting bigger and more plentiful.  and the truth of the matter is:  i can’t keep up!

so all of this is to say:  i have some pictures, explanations, garden how-to’s (and how not to-do’s) coming up, but in the meantime, this is what we’ve been up to:

- have started mini harvests of spinach, garlic and shallot shoots, onion chives, and dill

- finally transplanted the rest of the tomato seedlings to their forever homes

- searched everywhere in town for a garden auger (basically the biggest drill bit you’ve ever seen, to drill postholes for our bamboo trellises)

- gave up and ordered one online.  crossed fingers it would come in before the weekend.  it did!

- prior to this, we coated all of the bamboo poles in a clear poly in the hopes of extending their shelf life

- rigged up an interesting trellis system for boxes holding tomatoes and squash/zucchini/cukes, etc. (more explanation and pictures to come) after much trial and error

- started encouraging plants to become friends with trellis system in hopes of taking the garden up and not out.  crossed fingers that it will work

- weeded everywhere.  the plants aren’t the only ones that are enjoying this rain.

so that’s about it for the garden.  like i said, its been hard to keep track of all the progress, but at least there is progress.  in other news, our hydrangeas and strawflowers will probably be in bloom sometime this week or next.  can’t wait to see what colors will show up.  i should probably also snap a few pictures of the front yard too.  lots of color and growth going on up there too.

the garden: june 8

welcome to our garden: june edition

front left box:

several tomato plants, with basil in between.  the back left corner is a squash seedling.

i just planted several varieties of lettuce last week and it’s already coming in!

the basil that got hit during a random freeze towards the end of may is trying to make a comeback.

another squash plant.

front right box:

bush beans

Carmen bell pepper.

tiiiny little pepper buds

the first strawberries of the season.

bloomsdale longstanding spinach.  part of our first harvest of the season.

second box, right hand side:

garlic and shallots.  these guys are doing really well.  and i’ve been nibbling at their stems every now and then.  really good.

last box, left side:

potatoes and onions.  i read recently that marigolds planted near potatoes helps ward off bugs that are attracted to the leaves of the potato plant.  even if it doesn’t work, the color is still nice.

some of the oregano i got for free on freecycle.  i decided to pot it in order to contain it better.  oregano is known to be quick growing and invasive if given too much space.

all the seedlings left to transplant.  mostly tomatoes. and really – can you have too many tomatoes?

and growing in the rest of the yard…

last year’s mint – back with a vengence.

also, a little bit of wintergreen.

the two types of sedum from the M.I.L.

the clematis is blooming!  most of the varieties i’ve seen are hot pink, but ours is a very very deep maroon.

the hydrangeas have also started to bud.

the strawflowers are still hanging in there.  no blooms yet though.

so finally, i’m caught up on garden updates.  hopefully i can keep track of everything better from here on out.

what’s growin on: june 3

i hate blog posts with no pictures, so i promise i’ll add some when i finally get them on my computer. i mean, honestly, it’s june already and i still haven’t posted any pictures that actually show the trees with leaves!  this will all be remedied.  6/4 UPDATE: pics below!!

in the meantime, this is what’s going on in a nutshell:

- i bought an entire flat of strawflowers  (here’s what they’ll eventually look like) from the farmer’s market and planted them in a small bed next to our garage.  i hope to fill it in more with some zinnias.  both are annuals, but are prone to reseeding themselves.  let’s hope.

- all of the boxes have been constructed, filled with soil, and marked into square foot grids.

- ross and i have done a lot of weeding – in the front, in the back mulch bed, and in the garden.  we’re not all there yet, but much better.

- our peonies are blooming!  i have two different types: one light pink that had it’s biggest blooms yet, and one dark pink that bloomed for the first time this year.

- we’ve been wracking our brains to figure out a system to make all of my climbing veggies happy and not sprawling all over the ground – aka some sort of trellis system.  we’ll be putting that little experiment to the test this weekend.  more to follow.

- everything but the basil survived a random frost we had two weeks ago.  i’ve reseeded some of it, but this year i may just have to give in and buy basil seedlings.

- already growing: garlic, shallots, strawberries (tribute), red and yellow onions, two rosemary bushes, and potatoes (yukon gold and banana fingerling)

- now planted: 4 red peppers from the farmer’s market (carmen), 2 of each of the 3 peppers i grew from seed (Orange Bell, Red Belgian, Golden Treasure), two types of bush beans (one green variety and one yellow), spinach (bloomsdale longstanding), dill, oregano, cilantro (not sure if that will make it), a couple types of lettuce that may or may not make it, 2-3 of each variety of tomato i grew from seed (Roman Candle, Green Zebra, Moneymaker, Carbon, German Red Strawberry, Wes, Yellow Pear, and Sungold), squash (horn of plenty and white bush scallop), zucchini (costada romanesco), pie pumpkins (winter luxury pie), cucumbers (diva), and watermelon (white sugar lump).  i know it sounds like a lot, but there really isn’t that much of any one plant.  just small amounts of a lot of varieties.  so we’ll see how they do.

- nabbed some free oregano off of freecycle, so should have a nice crop of that this year.  also nabbed two types of sedum from the mother-in-law and planted them in front of the garage.  our clematis (planted last year) is blooming in front of the garage as well.

- i’m sure there’s more, but those are the highlights.  the most important task right now is a trellising system to keep everything growing up and not everywhere like some sort of plant vomit.

p.s. this is my 100th post on almost eden!

the garden groweth