Garden in July - the misses

As always, a garden has certain wild card elements. Some in my control, some out of my control. This year is no different.

Here are some of the issues I've faced this season:

1) Compost heap: I had a dream. A dream of compost piles in the back corner of the yard. No tumbler, just heaps. And then the ugly rodent situation reared its ugly little head again, and I ditched that idea. Not ditched it, but put it on hold until I can get a tumbler.

2) Rain barrels: After getting all excited because our water reclamation center was selling them, I didn't buy 'em. A friend said he had old clean barrels I could have, and then we didn't hang out for awhile, kind of forgot, and then each time it rained I just got pissed as I remembered I wanted rain barrels.

3) Cauliflower: There was some mildewy yuk on the heads when they started to come up, and after cutting it back and waiting for new heads to come up, they didn't really co me up. I pulled it up to clear space for peppers (see #6)

4) Broccolini and Broccoli Raab: Neither grew well. Spindly and didn't really look "right" - a real shame as my grocery store no longer carries broccolini and we miss it. Horribly.

5) Supports: So I thought that the metal square cages - you know the ones? They can fold flat, but they can be put like a long fence, or folded into squares around plants? Anyway, thought I was all slick, used those along the back of my boxes to support tomatoes. How do I have the selective memory that allows me to forget HOW DAMN HEAVY tomatoes get??? Every year I forget. Anyway, they were obviously not strong enough to support my plants and I had to modify my plans and rig something up. Ghetto, but functional. See upcoming "HITS" post to see the pics. Maybe it should be in "MISSES" - you be the judge!

6) Zucchini takes up a LOT of space. As does watermelon. And butternut squash. And if you think you can shove a bunch of any of these in a 4x4 box, and try to slip something else in there...just don't. I had peppers planted in the back box with a variety of HUGE things, and ended up transplanting them to other boxes. They weren't really thriving where they were (I had them in a couple boxes) and they seem to have perked up a bit since being transplanted.

7) I guess my strawberries were mostly June-bearing. What a gyp. Great for those few weeks, and now we're strawberry-less. Sigh. Will have to remedy that next year. Also, my beautiful strawberry pyramid that I fashioned out of spare wood in the garage rafters? Yeah. Almost entirely dug into by THAT DANG DOG. In fairness, it was in her fervored pursuit of the rodents mentioned above, so I had a hard time being too angry. But it still sucked.

8) Square foot gardening is both boon and bane. Love it in so many ways. However, was lulled into thinking that with the landscape fabric underneath, there would be minimal weeding. DUH except for the ones that come from airborne sources. Or sneak over from the lawn. DUH, Amy.

9) I need to get things in order. As usual, I let things go, and have great ideas on paper at the beginning of the season, and then...well, life happens and I have half finished projects all over the place and that happened in the garden, too. I put in a brick pathway between two of the front boxes. Um...I am not good at this. I am going to get a pretty wood sign to put over it that reads "Ankle Breaker" in another language. It's a bit uneven, and not super great, but I am still proud of it. Ish.


Stay tuned for the "Hits"...

Garden pics - June 14th

Here's some pics from today showing the garden progress this season...



Following are the issues I'm facing and concerns:

1) Cauliflower has a black weirdness on top of the head. Looks like dirt/dust, but doesn't wipe off easily
2) Mini-roses have black spots on the leaves. I'm actually not too concerned about that
3) Honeysuckle smells great, but isn't really filling out/growing as much as I had hoped
4) We had one little hot pepper, and something swiped it/ate it. Our peppers in the same box as tomatoes seem to be slow to grow, and I realize they have huge tomato plants in the next row, but the tomatoes are at the north end of the box
5) The compost heap...Sigh. I need to get cracking on this, closing it off and really dedicating myself to it and getting it going
6)Corn is already knee high, and it isn't July! Just waiting for it to bring some horrible pests to the garden at large
7) Our herbs are not taking off as well as they have in the past. I guess when a 70 degree high is a HOT day in June, it could stump some of our herbs, but I really thought I'd have a ridiculous amount of basil by now. Not so much
8) Does anyone know where I can find the widget-or-whatever-you-call-it that tracks how much produce you're harvesting throughout the season?

Harvested almost 2 pounds of lettuce today, and half a pound of strawberries (awesome in comparison to the fact that we yielded about 3 strawberries - TOTAL - in 2008).

A friend of ours gave me a new water canning pot and a case of mason jars and lids to prepare me for the fall harvest and canning season. I'm going to be making some sauce this week to jam through the rest of the tomatoes I canned last summer.

How does YOUR garden grow???

Composting

So I marked off my little area in the back of the yard/garden for where I'm going to put the compost pile. But I haven't yet put up the pallets for walls. Which I think I need to do lest critters come about to nibble on our fruit remnants.

And I didn't yet purchase my kitchen composter, but decided to start collecting anyway. So whenever I'm cutting fruit, cracking eggs, or peeling potatoes, I toss the remains into a flower vase that has been sitting on the kitchen counter for a month (I had flowers in it, at some point...Mothers Day maybe? and I washed it, and never got around to bringing it downstairs to put away). I should snap a pic of my hillbilly kitchen composter, filled to the brim with stuff. So far, no fruit flies or stink, so I'll go with it. I do enjoy that there's some sweet nasty liquid at the bottom!

Garden update - May 22, 2009

Dinner tonight: Grilled southwest chicken salad. All the lettuce freshly cut from the garden. Dressing made with chives and parsley from the garden.

Nothing tastes better than eating the little guys that you've been watching grow from little seedlings.

I need to get one of those harvest tracker thing-ama-bobs because I'm meticulously weighing anything I cut/harvest from the garden (not herbs, but veggies, which has only been lettuce/greens thus far). I'm sure that will get hard to track once the tomatoes start up, as we pop so many little ones as a snack when hanging outside and just pick and give away over the fence.


Anyway, here's some pics from the past day or two of what's been shaking/developing. The lilacs finally bloomed - the scent is fantastic! We went from a late frost to mid to high 80 temperatures in the same week, and I think it took a minor toll on some of the plants, but all seem to be doing okay.

Green in the wrong kinda way...

Two of my friends who live up the block have an empty lot next to their house. Their father owns the empty lot, and they just put in a huge garden today. And when I say huge, I mean HUGE.

I am super jealous, and openly told them that. Their aunt and cousins were helping them put it in, and I think it is going to be more of a family kind of garden, but...did I mention it is HUGE? I swear it is bigger than my whole yard.

I can't believe I have garden envy like this. Sad, sad, sad.

Plea for Help

Ever get started looking for one little thing, and then you find a great forum, and then BOOM all of a sudden it is 3am and you still don't know if you can move your strawberries or how to do it, but you have about 8,000 new ideas for your garden and the wheels are turning because you're trying to think of where you can put this great new thing you just HAVE to grow?

Um, so it happened to me. OK, it's happened to me a lot. And it happened again last night. Sigh.

Anyway, in the week and a half since I last posted, a lot of stuff has started coming up and making itself known in the garden. Other stuff...not so much. I am doing a square foot gardening (kinda) thing, and still have two completely empty boxes, which is especially good since I always SUCK at succession planting and this way I will have some space to play around at the end of summer.

So here's the stuff I have questions on:
1) I gather that I cannot move my strawberries now (just planted them last year). However, is it okay for me to pluck out some of the daughter plants/runners that have rooted to transfer to a pyramid box set-up I'm building?

2) And if so....with the strawberry pyramid set up, I get the nesting doll thing with the box sizes. But do I fill the WHOLE bottom box with soil/compost/sand mix and then put the next box on top? I feel like that is wasting all that soil under the second box. I can't find a straight answer.

3) Is there a chance that the sunflower seeds I meticulously harvested from my rockin' flowers last summer/fall won't take this year? I planted a bunch today, and am now in fear that they won't grow for whatever reason and I'll be sunflower-less. I guess I can wait and see, but wonder if there are any odds for that kind of thing.

4) Our birdfeeder is currently right in the garden. We can move it with some effort, if we need to. Will the bird poop adversely affect the soil/plants? what about the leftover seed/feed that spills out? Just wonder if I need to move it for the benefit of the garden.

5) I want to start a compost pile. I'm thinking in the back of the yard, by the fence and the garden. I'm wondering if compost piles smell really bad. I know, I know, logic would dictate that they do. But just curious. I want it close to the garden, but don't want to have a stinky pile of compost spoiling my fake nature retreat.

6) Everyone's lilacs are blooming in town, except for mine. WTF? It is really annoying me as I cruise through town and smell the blooms, see everyone's pretty purple and white flowers, and come home to my shriveled looking whatever the heck is on there. Picture below, let me know if anyone has any insight.

Overview of them behind the swing. There are 4 bushes total.

Close up of the "blooms" - are they just not ready to burst open yet? Or is there something going on here?

Ditto to the above caption.

7) My raspberry canes, planted last summer, multiplied over the fall/spring. I pulled out a ton of the little scraggly ones, but some of the sturdier, thicker ones I have left. Will these become regular canes and produce fruit? The stalks aren't wood-like yet, like the canes I planted last year, but I am thinking this is just how these things work, right?

WHEW.

OK, so if anyone has any insight of any of these questions, I'd appreciate it!

OK.

Garden thus far...

So I've been taking advantage of the great weather we've been getting around here and planting some goodies in the garden.

I built a small cold frame using old windows and spare boards we had in the garage. Imagine my excitement as my little seedlings from my "Ghetto Greenhouses" made their way into the cold frame!! Imagine my joy as they seemed to be in the right place, some sunshine glowing in there, a little moisture building up!! Imagine my sorrow when I realized that I didn't pop it open on a warm day or two, and everything in there ROASTED. Sigh.

Also, a bunch of the seeds planted in ghetto greenhouses didn't sprout. Another sigh.

BUT...that's why we have garden centers with people you like running the show. Even though I now feel like a cheater. And even though I put in a lot of effort on those babies. Oh well. We will still have produce this season, by hook or by crook, and I planted a bunch of seeds directly into the garden boxes.

Also, I am giving the "Square Foot Gardening" method a whirl, but with some modifications. I built all the boxes and grids. Went out to buy the materials for the "Mel's Mix" and realized I'd have to sell my first born to fill every box with it, so I poked around on the internet and came up with some alternatives for Mel's Mix using compost, soil, some peat moss, and ran with it. Fingers crossed that it'll work out well enough.

Soooo....here's the play by play on what is planted. Frankly, I am just so damn excited to see GREEN happening all over the yard, I'm in a great mood every time I walk out there!!

Overview of the garden area (aka the back third of the yard)
Lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, rapini, broccolini
Chives & garlic chives in the mini-barrel, peas, beans, lettuce
Tomatoes, peppers (hot and bell), bush beans
Middle left - onions, leeks, celery, tomatoes. Middle middle - cucumbers. Back row - empty. Smaller box to the left - potatoes. Herbs in the pots (rosemary, thyme, parsley, lavender).
Raspberries and hyacinths (which blossomed today and smell amazing! And the cold frame of doom.
Strawberry patch. I'm building a pyramid box, and am unsure if I can move them at this stage or if I have to wait until next season? Thoughts?
Cherry Tree!!! and butterfly garden in the background.
I think this is the salvia from last year. And I planted a few snapdragons to get some color in there now.
Lilacs are nice and green, can't wait for them to blossom so I can smell them as I lounge on my swing!