You may recall that Troy cut back in the garden this year. His corn was doing very well, but we got some mighty severe winds yesterday:
We were spared the extended power outage that a lot of others are dealing with, but a lot of the corn looks like elephants when through it. Ok, not elephants, but cows at least.
We have some fruit that has made it this far. The peach trees dropped a lot of fruit and the squirrels took almost all of the apples. The ones that are left are this....
...big.
I also found a red dragonfly in the garden. I'm not sure I've seen one before.
Possibly an Autumn Meadowhawk?
I also found lots of these beetles:
I don't know what they are, These Detroit Japanese beetles are doing lots and lots of damage to the grape vines and apple trees. Not good.
Apparently they eat anything and everything in the garden and as an added bonus the larvae kill/damage your lawn. If curious, read this article for a program to reduce local populations.
Troy assures me that they also are not resistant to squashing.
We're starting to see results from our work in the garden.
Troy planted a different variety of cucumber hoping that it would be better for canning. I got a whole sink full of them yesterday:
They are shorter than last year's, but just as fat--I'm still going to have to cut them into spears before pickling. I probably have enough there to do a batch, and have some dill from my sister that needs to be used, but I couldn't get up the energy to do them yet.
The first tomato is starting to look conspicuously orange:
Not quite ready to eat yet, but Troy's kind of hoping it'll be before July 4. Just an arbitrary date to say you had very early tomatoes. (He's a little competitive that way.) We don't have too many other tomatoes yet, but I never heard someone compare when the fifth tomato was ready so I guess after the first, it doesn't really matter!
Troy has hog wire up along the tomatoes and I have been training them. So far so good.
The ancho peppers are coming along as well. I was surprised to see two of them pretty much ready to go:
These'll be dried. They're hot, but not as much as jalapenos (for comparison). Which is fine with me!
Finally, it was very interesting to observe the ants using Troy's row marking string as a super highway:
It seems they love it. Hundreds of ants going back and forth, touching antennae every time they pass each other.
Here's a glimpse of the purple peonies that are doing so well at the edge of the woods. Two summers ago there was one healthy sized bush with about a dozen blooms. And now look. And this is after I took three clumps to move into my own patches of garden.
My transplants are looking ok, but don't look like they will bloom this year. Probably because I took some of the smaller sized plants figuring I could replant them more easily. My peony that is blooming well is the white one I put in two years ago:
I didn't know it was white though. I had forgotten. The first year it didn't do much. Last year it came up and I thought it was a surprise dahlia. (It never bloomed or I would have seen the difference!) Then this spring when it came up I realized it looked like the other peonies in the woods and finally correctly identified it. And now it's blooming so there is no question. Isn't that touch of pink in the center just lovely?
It just about disappears by the time the bloom opens up fully:
These are just the first two blooms to open. There are lots and lots more to come--it'll be great!
Troy bought me three more packs of peonies this week. I don't have them in the ground yet, but I did weed the garden by the garage this afternoon where I plan to put them. (Filled the wheelbarrow three times with weeds--that's what I get for leaving it so long.)
My widow's tears are doing well this year. They go by another name too, but I can't remember it. What is odd is that I bought purple blossomed plants, and have only ever noticed purple blossoms, but this year some white ones surprised me:
The other thing I've realized is that they close up when the sun's not on them, and in the spot they're in now, that happens at about 2:00. I might have to move them because without the open blooms, they look pretty weedy. (I have enough actual weeds; I don't need flowers that impersonate weeds.)
Troy has put in half of the irrigation system. He can now water the garden proper. The other half will water the grapes and orchard, whenever it gets put in. There wasn't enough water pressure to make the irrigation system work so Troy had to increase the pump's pressure. Good for me, I don't have to turn it back down before I shower--love it!
Troy is out tonight finishing the flashing on the east side of the shop because guess what! We are planning to finish the siding tomorrow. That would be great.
You can see Troy's new fruit and nut trees are leafing already (left). They seem to be doing well, by why wouldn't they with the mix of rain and nice weather we've been having?
The orchard's also doing well. Here you've got the apple trees marked with red; the peach trees marked with yellow; Tom's peach trees (in the back) with orange; and my crab apple and redbud trees marked with white. I put them in the year before Troy got all the fruit trees so he just worked around them.
Look what else is doing well:
Yes, we're getting strawberries! They're coming in nicely.
And this brings me to my question. Troy is getting tired of weeding the grass out of the strawberry bed, and I'm certainly not keen on it either. We didn't have any edging to keep it out and Troy thought about putting in a frame made of two-by-fours.
We've done this before and it works, but the wood needs a lot of structure to keep it straight. It has same problem of all edging that it either works its way too high or too low after a year or two.
So he thought of going lower tech: cardboard
What do you think? Is this Redneck (with a capital R), or smart ecological use of resources?
We figure: 1. Cardboard won't hurt the lawnmower. 2. It'll compost and actually improve the soil in time. 3. Any edging needs redoing after 2-3 years so it's not any more work (and might be less because of the ease of installation). 4. Cardboard is free and readily available.
You can tell we're leaning toward favouring the cardboard. But sometimes I worry that our "Redneck meter" isn't very reliable. So help us out and leave a comment if you think we need an intervention.
In other garden news, Troy had his seedlings hardening off on Sunday, getting them ready to put in the ground (probably on Tuesday):
This includes deCicco broccoli, Brunswick cabbage, Boston pickling cucumbers, ancho poblano hot peppers, Moskovich Russian tomatoes and desert king watermelon. (The irises are looking nice too, aren't they?)
He's also been planting seeds directly into the garden:
This includes Detroit dark red beets, cosmic purple carrots (I'm really excited about those), Reid's yellow dent corn, delicatesse blue kohlrabi (what the heck? blue?), and Oregon sugar pod peas. Sunday he was working on the last seeds: scarlet runner beans, Romano Italian flat pole beans, and aquadoulce fava beans.
If there's any room left, he'll plant some of the great northern white beans we've been eating lately to fill in the empty space as a green manure.
Troy has read that 30 per cent of American bee hives were "lost" again this past winter. This can only push food prices up, so by producing our own we hope to protect ourselves from the cost increase. Plus, removing our demand from the supply will help your prices stay lower. You can thank us later. ;-)
Here's a poll for the Redneck question in case leaving a comment is too much work:
It is a crazy early spring we're having this year, isn't it!? Bad news: it's time to cut the grass already. :(
Good news: it's just plain exciting to look around at everything else popping up. I mean I know all these things are supposed to survive the winter and come back even though they look so dead. But still, when it happens, it's like a miracle.
Leaves on the bittersweet and trumpet vines. Peony popping up--I even caught them soon enough that I transplanted three clumps from the woods (where they love to taunt me) into my gardens. The tulips, dafs and hyacinths are done already, but the allium and lilies are coming up already!
Troy's garden is a lot more work than mine has been. I looked out the window and saw this the other day:
It looked like a garbage crew had visited the west garden. (Picking up or dropping off, I wasn't sure!) Then I realized it was his bags of shredded paper. He was getting ready to blend it into the soil with the Rototiller.
A few days later, the job was nearly done:
On another part of the garden, Troy's been trying a different method of weed control. He's been putting down cardboard boxes and covering them with the mulch we still have from the maple trees taken down in 2007: When it's time to plant, he'll just stab a hole through the cardboard and plant into the soil. It's a lot of work, but he's hoping it will pretty much eliminate weeding. Plus the cardboard will add to the pathetic soil.
His seedlings in the dining room are doing well under his lavish attention: He's got hot peppers, cabbage, Russian tomatoes, broccoli, cucumber, and watermelon started.
The fruit trees are greening up. Only one dead peach tree which the supplier will be replacing this spring. Tom, you'll be happy to hear that the two peach trees we got from you are looking the best of all!
This morning before church, I picked what I thought was the first lonely sprig of asparagus. Then coming in from the car after church, I saw that my other plant had two already. So I heated them with butter in the microwave and had them with lunch. Very tasty.
And finally, Troy has been diligently weeding the strawberry patch and tells me we may have fruit before May! Can you even imagine? Strawberries in April! That will be one to remember.
The garden is really starting to give back now. We're going to have a hard time keeping up. (An old old story.) I'm not so good about checking things every day to see what's ready. I'm more of a check in once or twice a week type. That is perhaps not the best method.
Today, however, I did go out to check the cucumbers. I hadn't been in quite a while and Troy is begging for more pickles because he really likes them. They're relatively easy so I thought I might be able to do a batch tonight.
The cucumber plants look about done, but they still had fruit to offer up. I picked about two dozen, totalling over 20 lbs. Plus we still have a few in the fridge and basement I'll try pickle. (Troy's not so fussy about the crunch so he's willing to try it.) Troy got the prize, though, when he pulled out one I had somehow missed: a cuke that weighed more than 2lbs on its own! It's about as long as my forearm. I let that get a little big for a pickle!
While I was out there, I couldn't help but notice the tomatoes were starting to ripen. We really hadn't had any until now. (Although once again, I was a little late; there turned out to be a lot of overripe ones I had to compost.) Troy planted Vincent Wats and they are huge. The largest topped 1.5lbs.
When Troy came home and figured out I was harvesting tomatoes, he almost did a little jig. He was very happy. I barely got the first bag in before he was slicing, salting, and forking it down. He hasn't had a good tomato in a couple years; and this one was good. I, myself, don't like tomatoes but was just happy that he was happy.
Then he cooked the bacon while I picked the rest of the tomatoes. The plants really got wild and I don't want to say that it is impossible to pick them, but I'd consider calling it completely impossible. It's nuts. But I managed and hopefully the plants can take being walked on. (Can I get a "git'er done!"?)
The other day Troy picked a watermelon and tried it out. It wasn't great. This was a disappointment as Troy thought it was the first watermelon he planted that he was able to get ripen before the season ran out.
Thinking maybe the first one was overripe, today he picked another one. It wasn't any better. More disappointment. (But with less anticipation beforehand, so not as bad.)
While we were at it, we picked a likely looking cantaloupe (musk melon if you prefer): It turned out to be quite good. Very very juicy.
We've heard rumours that some people can cantaloupe. They mixed it with peaches. I'm not sure I'm going to try it. I'm scared of wasting a lot of good peaches.
With the tomatoes, cucumbers, and pears I picked (more on that later), I think I have enough canning on the todo list.
And no painting today. Very disappointing. I can report, however, that the window trim is done! It went from this:to this:
Much better, isn't it? And remember all that hoopla and drama about the non-paintable caulk? Well, I must have fixed it good enough because all the paint appears to be sticking in place.
A little garden update since I haven't been up to too much lately. (A little painting, but pictures of white on white aren't so exciting.)
The corn is doing so well Troy is worried that it cross breeded with the field corn. But there are no other signs that we have anything but tall and thriving popcorn.
Troy's hands reach to 8 feet so that'll give you an idea of how tall it is.
The sunflowers are also doing well. They just started to bloom this past week.
The tallest ones still haven't had their blooms open up.
Is it that time of year again? We are being flooded with beans. Isaac picked a huge bowlful a few days ago, and then when I sent him out last night to pick what I thought would be a few stragglers to fill my last canning jar, he comes in with almost as many as I already had. Phew! All from a half row of plants.
All these beans meant we had to do something with them. And that meant on the first night of my vacation, the night before leaving for a week, I was canning beans. Does that make any sense?
I was happy to find my canning journal and make the entry. (Can I really be that organized?) It was fun to read last year's. I had already forgotten most of the details (naturally) and it was amusing to read notes like "forgot to remove the skins" on one tomato entry. I mean, how could I forget to remove the skins? But apparently I did. I didn't have many favourable remarks about how the applesauce came out either but it all got eaten, so it couldn't have been that bad!
Entry 1 for 2009 is for 7 quarts of beans with 1 tsp of salt. Out of our own garden. Troy figures that's about 3 month's worth of beans. (Cause we're sure not eating them every night.)
Our strawberry patch is really cranking them out now.
I got so many raspberries, the three of us couldn't eat them in one sitting. (And we tried.)
Those are some hot banana peppers. Troy's first batch failed, so we bought some plants to make up for the lost time. I filled two of my pots with the hot variety and another pot with the last sweet banana pepper plant the nursery had!
Troy is going to dig for some new potatoes this week. I can't wait!
Being well past the time for the tulips and dafs which were lovely this year, the irises have started to burst open in the sun and warmer weather of the last couple days.
We have lilac/purple ones which Wendy donated and helped me to plant last spring along the driveway. The grass really wants to take over, but I'll work on that slowly.
And then we have the more burgundy ones that my sister Judy donated and helped me to plant along the south side of the house. Only a few are open in each bed, but the rest are almost there. The alliums came up early this year (I thought). They are in full bloom now, distracting from the now-bare stems of the tulips and dafs and barely keeping above the lilies which are thick as thieves. Gertrude and Antonio are enjoying the colours and keeping a careful eye on all those who use the path between the garage in and house. Be careful Antonio doesn't peck off a button as you walk by: he can't get enough of bright or shiny things.
I had a nice surprise in the bed by the propane tank: One of the dahlias from last year decided to come back. How nice! The perspective on this pic doesn't show it, but it's almost 2 feet tall already.
And finally, my spirea bush is really outdoing itself this year I have noticed a lot of really full and vibrant spirea bushes in people's yard, but mine has never been able to keep up. I'd like to think it is due to my TLC, although I'm not sure you can call severe pruning tender loving care. But if it's what it needs, you gotta do it.
I will add that Troy has all eight fruit trees in the ground. I put on the last of the trunk protectors for him and used some scrap pieces to put around my poor stunted Red Bud and Crab Apple trees. I planted them about two years ago. They were the tiny starter trees you get from the Arbor Foundation and still are not more than 18" tall.
Perhaps now that Troy has some trees around them they will get a little more of the care that they deserve. Except the one which I discovered had been driven over by the tractor. I don't think it will live to benefit from Troy's TLC. But ever the optimist and believer in nature's ability to grow stuff, I put a trunk protector around what was left and will wait to see!
Well, well, it has been a while since I indulged in a garden update. (This will be rather "picture heavy.") I must say I have not been in the garden much and most of it is a mess. What is blooming and growing is only the stuff that can stand neglect and the dry summer we've been having. Having said all that, I will dwell on the positive here.
My glads did extremely well. Most were around four feet tall, and I thought they were doing so well: strong and erect. Then we had the first rainstorm...and indeed a lot of them were flat on the ground. They were converted into a very lovely bouquet in a vase, though, and the rest kept right on doing great. The arum italicum have shed all their leaves and are into the next stage:They put up these stalks with green berry-like seeds which slowly turn to red. They have been multiplying nicely on their own (I only moved three of them I thought, but have had more than that in volunteers) but I need to move them somewhere where they'll have a little more space on their own and a little less sun.
I put in some dahlias this spring as well. The one has smaller yellow blooms (up to 3") and although there are quite a few of them, they are nothing special. The one beside it has bigger blooms (at least 4") and just keeps on pumping them out. The red and orange combinations are so pretty.
Tom brought some new garden residents for me. I am really enjoying Gertrude and Antonio's company: But if you're not careful Antonio will give you very suspicious looks. It takes a while for him to warm up to you. Gertrude tries to keep him in line, but you know how that goes... Our vegetables are also only doing as well as they can with neglect. We have quite a few volunteer tomatoes in the front that are now making fruit; none of it is ripe yet. It is also the variety that Troy didn't like so I'm not really sure why I'm letting them get on, but I guess if I can let the crabgrass grow, I may as well let the tomatoes grow too.
Focusing on the positive, I picked five pounds of potatoes from Troy's plants the other day. They were de-de-de-DE-lish! Mmm mMM. Yukon golds; so so good. And I guess the corn is coming along. I love the red tassel, but I have to say it keeps catching my eye when I pass a window and it is very distracting. Troy planted regular sweet corn and popping corn, but I do not know which this is. [ETA: Troy didn't plant any sweet corn; only popping corn. Apparently he told me this, but I forgot.]Now the mystery volunteer. These huge yellow flowers have also been catching my eye through the window. When I finally went to see what it was, I saw a melon (or squash?) plant bravely putting out flowers and fruit. We certainly didn't plant it and assume it came from seeds in the compost. If you can identify the fruit, please let me know!! I'd like to know what I might be eating! [That's a bee diving into the flower head first.]
It is a crazy early spring we're having this year, isn't it!? Bad news: it's time to cut the grass already. :(
It looked like a garbage crew had visited the west garden. (Picking up or dropping off, I wasn't sure!) Then I realized it was his bags of shredded paper. He was getting ready to blend it into the soil with the Rototiller.
When it's time to plant, he'll just stab a hole through the cardboard and plant into the soil. It's a lot of work, but he's hoping it will pretty much eliminate weeding. Plus the cardboard will add to the pathetic soil.
He's got hot peppers, cabbage, Russian tomatoes, broccoli, cucumber, and watermelon started.
So I heated them with butter in the microwave and had them with lunch. Very tasty.
Can you even imagine? Strawberries in April! That will be one to remember.
Thinking maybe the first one was overripe, today he picked another one. It wasn't any better. More disappointment. (But with less anticipation beforehand, so not as bad.)
It turned out to be quite good. Very very juicy.
to this:
Is it that time of year again? We are being flooded with beans. Isaac picked a huge bowlful a few days ago, and then when I sent him out last night to pick what I thought would be a few stragglers to fill my last canning jar, he comes in with almost as many as I already had. Phew! All from a half row of plants.
I was happy to find my canning journal and make the entry. (Can I really be that organized?) It was fun to read last year's. I had already forgotten most of the details (naturally) and it was amusing to read notes like "forgot to remove the skins" on one tomato entry. I mean, how could I forget to remove the skins? But apparently I did. I didn't have many favourable remarks about how the applesauce came out either but it all got eaten, so it couldn't have been that bad!
Our strawberry patch is really cranking them out now.
Being well past the time for the tulips and dafs which were lovely this year, the irises have started to burst open in the sun and warmer weather of the last couple days.
The grass really wants to take over, but I'll work on that slowly.
Only a few are open in each bed, but the rest are almost there.
Gertrude and Antonio are enjoying the colours and keeping a careful eye on all those who use the path between the garage in and house. Be careful Antonio doesn't peck off a button as you walk by: he can't get enough of bright or shiny things.
One of the dahlias from last year decided to come back. How nice! The perspective on this pic doesn't show it, but it's almost 2 feet tall already.
I have noticed a lot of really full and vibrant spirea bushes in people's yard, but mine has never been able to keep up. I'd like to think it is due to my TLC, although I'm not sure you can call severe pruning tender loving care. But if it's what it needs, you gotta do it.
They put up these stalks with green berry-like seeds which slowly turn to red. They have been multiplying nicely on their own (I only moved three of them I thought, but have had more than that in volunteers) but I need to move them somewhere where they'll have a little more space on their own and a little less sun.
Tom brought some new garden residents for me. I am really enjoying Gertrude and Antonio's company:
But if you're not careful Antonio will give you very suspicious looks. It takes a while for him to warm up to you. Gertrude tries to keep him in line, but you know how that goes...
Our vegetables are also only doing as well as they can with neglect. We have quite a few volunteer tomatoes in the front that are now making fruit; none of it is ripe yet. It is also the variety that Troy didn't like so I'm not really sure why I'm letting them get on, but I guess if I can let the crabgrass grow, I may as well let the tomatoes grow too.
Now the mystery volunteer. These huge yellow flowers have also been catching my eye through the window. When I finally went to see what it was, I saw a melon (or squash?) plant bravely putting out flowers and fruit. We certainly didn't plant it and assume it came from seeds in the compost. If you can identify the fruit, please let me know!! I'd like to know what I might be eating!
[That's a bee diving into the flower head first.]
