Dirt in my Fingernails

Going vertical

2011-06-11T11:47:00.005-04:00

My plants are starting to get big enough that they need some support. This picture shows my cucumbers starting to grow up the trellis. I "train" them at the beginning of the season using plant twist ties and then their own vining tendrils take over and they'll end up covering the trellis.

I always struggle to find the best way to stake my tomato plants. I'm never quite satisfied with the methods I've chosen. This year I'm borrowing an idea I got from my friend Vicki at work. I'm using the triangular cages (opened up) like I did with my tomatoes in 2008. But I am combining them with stakes added for support. The cages in 2008 turned out to be too flimsy and fell over under the weight of the tomatoes by August. Then in 2009 and 2010 I used stakes but I didn't like how they don't allow the plant to spread out. Maybe combining the two will be the best of both worlds. So this morning I went out and got my cages and stakes out of the mini barn and set them up with my tomatoes. Here is a picture of my two Cherokee Purple plants with a basil plant in the middle The cage is tied to the stakes and then the tomatoes are tied to the cage.

And just for fun (not vertical) my zucchinis have blossoms! I know they are still a little ways off from producing zucchinis, but they are getting there! I love this time of year!

Today's weather:
High temp: 82 F
Low temp: 67 F
Humid, cloudy, chance of scattered showers

So far, so good

2011-06-05T12:30:00.006-04:00

This is one of my Cherokee Purple tomato plants. I planted it in the garden about three weeks ago. Obviously it is loving its new home! Lots of rain and now hot temps are making them flourish! The other tomato plants look almost as good.

In this photo you can see my sweet bell peppers in the foreground and my cucumbers in the background under the trellis. I have two Big Bertha bell pepper plants (they make great stuffed peppers!). I also have two Chocolate Beauty bells. This is a new variety for me this year. Apparently the peppers turn a chocolate color when they are ripe and they are very sweet. I have two varieties of cucumbers planted. I lost a couple of plants early on when the weather was still cool and stormy. But those that survived have gotten much stronger and are really growing. They will be growing up the trellis in no time!

I planted Fordhook Lima Bush Beans today. I still need to plant the pole beans, but I am going to wait until next weekend for that. I realize that means I'll have a late harvest this year, but it just can't be helped.

Here's a photo of my garden today. I'm pretty happy with how it is coming along, especially considering how I've neglected it more than usual this year.

And here is a photo of my backyard, looking at it from the patio. Plans are in the works to make a perennial flower bed just to the left of the patio, encircling the birdbath and the corner of the patio. We are making the vegetable garden the priority right now, but once it is in we will focus on the perennial bed more.

Today's weather:
High temp: 84 F
Low temp: 67 F
Cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms

The Garden is Almost In

2011-05-30T18:26:00.006-04:00

We have had a lot of rain this spring and, of course, the rain usually happens on the weekends when I'm off work. So getting the garden going this year has been a challenge. However, as you can see, my early plantings are loving it. In the picture above I have red cabbage, green cabbage, spinach, swiss chard, kale, and three kinds of lettuce.

Jeff has been working on getting the ground dug up for me. Last weekend I went to the Bloomington Farmer's Market and bought hot pepper plants, tomato plants, and zucchini plants. Today I planted flower seeds along the southern most edge of the garden: sunflowers, nasturtiums, and verbena. Here's a picture of my perennial coreopsis that grows in one of the front corners of the garden:

My fourteen year old mowed the lawn so I used the clippings to mulch the plants that are in the ground and established. Working out in the garden today was difficult. It was really hot and humid and miserable. So I didn't do everything that needed to be done. Other things I still have to do to consider the garden ready to go are planting bush lima beans, planting green beans, trimming around the garden fence, and mulching the walkways. I'm getting close.

Here is the garden this evening with the shadows being cast as the sun is low in the sky:

Today's weather:
High temp: 90 degrees
Low temp: 70 degrees
Very sunny and humid.

First Plantings 2011

2011-04-10T15:23:00.005-04:00

Last weekend I bought some organic garden soil to mix into the soil in the first area I planned to plant this year. Yesterday, I had planned to head down to the Bloomington Farmer's Market. It's my favorite place to buy seedlings in the spring and they are more likely to have organic than places locally. But Mother Nature had other ideas. It rained all morning so I skipped the farmer's market.

This morning Jeff and I headed out to Cox's Plant Farm and bought green and red cabbage seedlings as well as some head lettuce seedlings. Jeff talked me into getting a rhubarb plant and trying it. It will take up a good size portion of the garden and is a perennial that won't be ready to eat from until at least the second year. But I think we've proved we're in for the long haul when it comes to gardening, so we are ready to commit to perennial vegetables. Asparagus can't be far behind...

Anyway, there were other plants I wanted that Cox's didn't have so we headed back to town and went to the Garden Center at Lowe's. Something bugs me about buying garden plants at a Lowe's, but I've got to give them props. They had a lot more variety than Cox's did for the things that I wanted. I bought kale, swiss chard, spinach, and two more kinds of lettuce.

In the picture at the top you can see the spring bed that I've planted today. On the left side of the bed are 12 head lettuce plants, 4 Buttercrunch lettuce plants, and 4 Red Sails red leaf lettuce plants. Then next to the lettuce from top to bottom are 4 spinach plants, 4 swiss chard plants (Bright Lights), and 8 Winterbor kale plants. Finally, on the far right are 6 red cabbage and 4 green cabbage plants. They look a little wilty and it is really windy out today, but I've watered them and hope they perk up soon.

It is unseasonably warm for April. The average for this day in April is 59 degrees. Right now it is 82 degrees and the record high is 84. So there you go. For my plants' sake it needs to cool off just a tad. Plus I'm afraid I got too much sun, first time being back out in it and all.

Oh, and here's the rhubarb plant Jeff wanted. I imagine it will eventually take over the northeast corner of my garden.

One last thing. Return readers may wonder how the vole situation is going. Well, I did a lot of thinking about my options and our commitment to being as organic as possible. I guess I basically decided to do nothing. I've been checking the area quite a bit and it looks like the vole tracks are not new. I really haven't been able to see any evidence that makes me think they are still there. Of course they could be. But I am going to take a wait and see attitude. If they reappear, I will probably use mousetraps. But until then, I will just keep a close eye on things.

Today's weather:
High temp: 82
Low temp: 67
Very windy, chance of rain/thunderstorms overnight

My winter guests

2011-03-27T13:26:00.005-04:00

Apparently the voles that ate half of my sweet potato crop last year decided to take residence in my garden over the winter. You can see the evidence they've left behind. These tracks run through the garden and disappear into holes that run underground. They also run out of the garden and meander over to my compost bin. I can't tell if they are still there though because the tracks don't look very new. One of the neighbor's cats likes to hang out back in the compost area. If the cat took care of the voles, then I'm in luck. If not, I need to deal with them before I plant this year's garden or it will be an uphill battle all year.

I went to Cox's Plant Farm for the first time of the season yesterday. When we told them about our vole problem, they recommended I place castor bean seeds in the vole tracks. Apparently castor beans (and all parts of the castor bean plant, for that matter) are poisonous. They will kill the voles if they are eaten. I'll admit to being nervous about using anything poisonous. Maybe I'll only put them inside the garden fence so random animals and kids won't be near them.

I'm planning to plant my first spring crops in a couple of weeks and I need to start prepping the beds.

Today's weather:
High temp: 41 F
Low temp: 28 F
Sunny and cold

I needed support

2010-06-06T18:37:00.007-04:00

The focus of today's garden work was creating structural support for my growing plants. I built two of the supports pictured above for my pole beans. I was late getting them planted so they are probably behind other people's beans.

I also got in my minibarn and dug out cages for my bell pepper plants and my tomatoes. Here are a couple of tomato plants in their new cages:

I had already gotten all the plants in the garden (finally!) but then I've had a couple of casualties. One of the two Burpless Cucumbers that I planted died. So I replaced it with two General Lee cucumbers. Also, two of my four Big Bertha Bell Pepper plants don't seem to be doing so well so I replaced them with two California Wonder Bells. I have been gradually adding grass clippings as mulch to the garden and I'm not finished yet. All the seeds have sprouted and all the plants are growing. Here is what my garden looks like on the evening of June 6:

Today's weather:
High temp: 78 F
Low temp: 62 F
Partly cloudy and breezy (a.k.a. perfect!)

The garden is in!

2010-05-24T11:54:00.009-04:00

It is as hot and humid as late July outside! I worked out in the garden for about an hour and a half this morning and I finally had to come in. I can't take the heat! But the good news is all of my plants are in. I still need to plant the bush bean and pole bean seeds and I plan to toss a few pumpkin seeds on the compost pile and see if anything comes up. But the transplants are in. All total I spent exactly $50 on plants this year. I don't remember exactly what I spent on seeds, but I think it was in the neighborhood of $6 or so. I still need to buy supplies to make a cucumber trellis as well as bean and tomato supports, but expenses so far have been relatively low (thankfully!).

In the top picture today you can see how my two broccoli plants have grown since I put them in. Also, the nasturtiums I planted between the broccoli are up and growing. Behind the broccoli are the two cucumber plants I bought this weekend. I went back to the variety I tried two summers ago: Burpless Hybrid. They were long and skinny and the taste was the best I've ever tasted in a cucumber. I think my trellis-building will have to wait until after graduation next weekend. Oh, and also in this picture you can see the snow peas flowering and climbing up their trellis. The chives are still in bloom although I think the flowers are on their way out.

Take a look here at my root crops. The beets are really growing. And the green onions and carrots are starting to make a respectable showing.

Here are my hot peppers tucked in behind the flowering sage. I have planted one banana pepper, one poblano, two jalepeno, and four serrano. Also toward the back is a rosemary plant that I tucked into the only available spare place in the garden.

So here is the garden today. Jeff mowed the lawn this morning so I had him pile the grass clippings in the back. Once they cool off and start decomposing, I'll spread them around my plants (tomatoes first!) as mulch. Other things I've added to the garden today that I haven't mentioned yet are Beauregard sweet potatoes (twice as many as last year), two Italian oregano plants, two curly parsley plants, two butternut squash plants, and four Big Bertha sweet bell pepper plants.

Today's weather:
High temp 86 F
Low temp 65 F
Sunny with 10% humidity (which feel like a lot more than that if you ask me!)

Planting time!

2010-05-15T15:16:00.006-04:00

My lone zucchini plant. I didn't grow zucchini last year and missed it so I decided to grow it again this year.

I have had this day designated as my planting day for weeks now so I didn't let a sick kid or the threat of rain deter me. So this morning I left Jeff at home to tend the sick kid and took my 13 year old down to the Bloomington Farmer's Market in search of plants for my garden. I'd made a list based on my garden plan. That place was packed with vendors and shoppers. I ended up spending $17 and I got 4 tomato plants (2 Cherokee Purples, 1 Beefy Boy, and 1 Roma), 4 hot pepper plants (2 Jalepeno, 1 Banana Pepper, and 1 Poblano), 1 zucchini plant, 4 Sweet Genovese Basil plants, and 1 rosemary plant. I was disappointed that I couldn't find any cucumber or butternut squash plants, and the only sweet bell pepper plants I could find were California Wonder and I want Big Bertha. I also didn't buy any oregano or parsley because I was out of cash. So obviously I am not done shopping for plants although I am done for today. I am thinking of making a trip to Cox's Plant Farm near Clayton, Indiana. Next to the farmer's market, it is my favorite place to buy plants.

Above is a photo of one of the tomato plants I bought alongside a basil plant. (Returning readers will remember that I plant basil among my tomatoes to attract parasitic wasps in order to control the disgusting tomato pest, the Tomato Hornworm.) I am a bit torn about the tomato situation. I only bought 4 tomato plants today and interplanted them with basil. I am trying to learn from past mistakes and last year I learned two things about tomatoes. One is that I prefer to let my tomatoes sprawl with minor support instead of staking and pruning. I find I get more tomatoes that way. The other thing I learned is that you can't crowd tomatoes. They need their room, especially if you let them sprawl. So my 4 tomato plants and basil plants take up all the room I have for them in the garden. But 4 tomato plants is not many at all. I want to make salsa and tomato sauce and I just don't think 4 plants will cut it. But I don't know where I could fit any more in. I need to think about that a while.

My garden planting isn't done. Here's what I've planted so far: lots of snow peas (now flowering), butterhead lettuces (almost ready to start harvesting), 4 rows of beets (2 inches tall), two rows of green onions and one row of carrots (all about 1 inch tall), 2 broccoli transplants, nasturtium seeds (two sets of leaves each so far), a row of sunflowers (about 4-5 inches tall), dill seeds (sprouting), kale seeds (sprouting), 4 tomato plants, 4 basil plants, 4 hot pepper plants, 1 rosemary plant, 1 zucchini plant, and yarrow seeds (the last 6 items planted today). I have already got bush bean and pole bean seeds but I'm holding off on planting those because I'm exhausted. Still need to buy 1 oregano plant, 1 parsley plant, 2 cucumber plants, 1 butternut squash plant, 3-4 bell pepper plants, and 1-2 sweet potato plants. My perennial chives, sage, coreopsis, and lavender are coming back again. Here's what my garden looked like today when I finished (just as the rain was starting, by the way.):

Today's weather:
High temp: 68 F
Low temp: 55 F
Showers.

Blackberries in bloom

2010-05-07T11:30:00.007-04:00

Our blackberries are blooming!

I will spare you the gory details, but I was injured almost two weeks ago so I have neglected my garden during that time. I'm still using a wrist brace and hobbling on bruised legs, but today I was able to head back out to my garden. I was excited to discover the beautiful white blossoms all over our blackberry bushes.

The other plants are growing nicely and have appreciated the rain we've gotten recently. My beets are over an inch tall now so I thinned them out a bit this morning. I can also see my carrot and green onions are popping out of the soil. Also, when I planted my broccoli plants a couple of weeks ago, I planted nasturtium seeds between them and today I noticed them breaking through the soil.

In addition to weeding the peas and lettuce, I planted a few more lettuce seeds to fill in the blank spots that never germinated the first time. I found a couple of dill plants that had apparently reseeded from last year's crop. I saved them and filled in more dill seeds around them. I had an extra blank spot so I planted some kale. It is a little late in the spring to be planting that cold-weather crop, but it doesn't hurt to try. This weekend is supposed to be very cool, but I'm hoping it warms up by the 15th because that is the day I have designated planting day here in our garden. Fingers crossed!

Today's weather:

High temp: 82 F

Low temp: 47 F

Sunny and warm today, storms - possibly severe - this evening.

Weeding in the rain

2010-04-25T10:31:00.008-04:00

I've never been the prissy kind of girly-girl who was afraid to get her hands dirty (hence the name of my blog). I figure if you go through life trying to keep from getting your hands dirty, you miss out on an awful lot. My hands are dirty today.

It started raining Friday evening and has continued to rain off and on since then. It held off for a little while yesterday, but rain has never been far away. It is frustrating when it rains on the weekend when you desperately need to give some attention to your garden. This morning when I woke up around 7am, we checked the weather. Weather.com said storms would be here around 11am. There was my window of opportunity. So I put on some okay-to-get-dirty clothes and headed out to the garden. By 8:45am my fingers were covered in mud.

All this rain has not only helped my seedlings germinate, it has brought weeds. Actually, weeding while it is raining is kind of a good idea. Wet earth holds onto plants much less tightly than dry earth. With rubber garden shoes on, MP3 player on shuffle, and rain gently activating my natural curl ;-) I set about weeding around my peas and the perimeter of my garden along the fence. I was done by 10am. Let the storms commence.

In other garden news, yesterday we went to the Bloomington Farmer's Market and bought my broccoli seedlings for this year's garden. The picture at the top of today's blog entry is one of those plants in its new home in my garden. While I did some browsing of other plants, I think it is still a bit too early for the other plants I have planned. I will be returning to the farmer's market when I'm ready for more plants.

The peas and lettuce, which had germinated a while ago, are growing. Some of my other seeds have popped up as well. Here are some of the beet seedlings:

And here are some of the sunflowers Dylan planted:

I am so excited - my garden is coming back to life!

Today's weather:
High temp: 61 F
Low temp: 57 F
Rain, thunderstorms, and wind.

Planting sunflowers and root crops

2010-04-11T18:31:00.008-04:00

Today has been another beautiful day and I was lucky enough to spend the afternoon in my garden. I even managed to get Dylan to help me. He's happier than he looks...it's just the sun in his eyes.

We decided to plant sunflowers all along the back (northern) edge of the garden. They are Mammoth Russian Sunflowers that grow to be 8-12 feet tall and the flowers are 10-12 inches in diameter. These will be Dylan's project. If they grow as they're supposed to, I imagine he'll be really excited once they start towering over us.

I also decided to plant the root crops I'd been meaning to plant ever since April 3. I smoothed out the bed designated for these crops and then planted one 5' row of St. Valery Heirloom carrots, two 5' rows of White Lisbon bunching onions (green onions), and four 5' rows of Tall Top Early Wonder beets. I grew one row of beets last year as a trial crop to see both how easy they were to grow and also how easy it would be to get my family to eat them. They turned out to be easy to grow and I managed to get everyone to eat them. Dylan and I even liked them. My only regret was not planting more. So this year I am planting lots more and plan to can what we don't eat out of the ground. Green onions is another crop I didn't have enough of last year so I planted two rows and then later in the season I'll plant more.

Today's weather:
High temp: 74 F
Low temp: 48 F
Sunny with slight breeze.

Here Come the Peas, Here Come the Peas

2010-04-07T09:10:00.006-04:00

My peas have sprouted! I basically put the camera down on the ground to get this angle. I doubt they are even an inch tall so far, but they are off to a good start. We will be watching these closely for our first harvest.

Here is our preparation work in progress. We are in the middle of digging under the green manure (winter rye and hairy vetch) that we planted last fall. We have eight beds in the vegetable garden and the one we're working on now is the fourth so far. You can see in the back of this photo two of the beds that we've finished. We are having trouble juggling work schedules, other commitments (i.e. scouts), and rain showers. But our main planting dates will be May 15 and 16 so we still have a little time left.

Today's weather:
High temp: 71 F
Low temp: 47 F
Cloudy and windy, thunderstorms this afternoon and evening, some possibly severe.

Easter Sunday in the Garden

2010-04-04T20:30:00.002-04:00

It was a beautiful Easter Sunday today. The sun was shining all day long and the temperature got up to 76 degrees. Tomorrow looks like it will be more of the same so I am hoping they don't call me in to work. I have a lot to do in the garden to get it ready for the season.

Jeff and I took advantage of the great weather this afternoon and worked on digging under 3 of the beds. He was the muscle of the operation and dug it all up. I went over it all and broke up the big dirt clods with my hoe. We did a digging technique called double digging where you dig up the top layer, pile it elsewhere, and then dig a second layer. This digs the soil up a little lower than single digging would. I'm planning to plant carrots, green onions, and beets soon so I want loose, deep soil.

My peas and lettuce that I planted two weeks ago have sprouted. They are just barely cracking the soil so I don't have any pictures to share yet. No sign of the mice again. We did set two traps inside my fence near the holes where I saw the mouse when I planted the peas. However, that was several days ago and all we managed to catch was a bird. Oops. If I notice something is nibbling on my peas, I'm going to be really mad.

I also had this season's first "harvest" today. I snipped some of my chives (which are back like clockwork) to include in tonight's dinner which we enjoyed on the patio. I love this time of year!

Today's weather:
High temp: 76 F
Low temp: 46 F
Sunny and breezy

First planting of the year!

2010-03-20T17:57:00.002-04:00

Today I planted 150 pea seeds and two rows of lettuce. The peas are organic Oregon Sugar Pod. The lettuce is an all-season butterhead mix that contains Arctic King, Bibb, Buttercrunch, Matchless, and North Pole.

The bad news is I discovered a new challenge for this year's garden: mice have taken up residence under the garden. I need to find an organic way to keep them away from my plants. Growing a garden is like raising kids...every year brings new challenges.

Today's weather:
High temp: 68 F
Low temp: 39 F
Mostly cloudy with occasional sun coming through.

Pea trellises are in!

2010-03-17T14:25:00.004-04:00

It is a sunny 60 degrees here on St. Patrick's Day so I spent this afternoon repairing and installing my pea trellises in their 2010 garden home. I used the twine I bought the other day to resecure both joints on both trellises. (Here is a link to a post that I made last summer that includes a picture of what the trellises look like.) I rotate my crops each year to minimize the spread of disease and to replenish the soil nutrient-wise. Last summer the peas were at the northeast corner of the garden. This year they will be along the western edge. I plan to plant peas and lettuce (and maybe some spinach) this weekend.

Today's weather:
High temp: 62 F
Low temp: 36 F
Sunny and breezy

Turning over the soil, taking tools out of storage, and dusting off my blog

2010-03-12T09:18:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was officially the first day of the 2010 gardening season at my house. The weather, for the first time, was sunny and a balmy 65 degrees. I want to do some improvements and expansions this year so it occurred to me I need to sit down and come up with a plan if I want to get everything ready before planting time. I gathered my materials around me: the new farmer's almanac, my sketch plan for the 2010 garden, several gardening books, my calendar, and some blank paper. I made a list of all the plants for this year's garden and looked up on the Purdue Extension Office website the recommended planting dates for each plant in our area. It shouldn't have surprised me, but the first planting dates are right around the corner (March 20 for peas and lettuce).

So I went outside into the garden and was pleased that the soil is fairly dried out (amazing considering the amount of snow we got in February this year). I had planted cover crops last fall: winter rye and hairy vetch. They are considered green manure which nourish the soil. So, as I'd read to do, I went out into the area I intend to plant with peas and lettuce and turned the soil. Literally. I turned it upside down so that the grasses are now underground where they can rot and send nutrients into the soil. I was thrilled to see the soil is in great shape. Very nice and healthy tilth and tons of earthworms (always a sign of healthy garden soil).

Then I got into the barn and dug out my pea trellises from last year. I had used plastic mesh stapled to the wood frames and that part was still in tact. But the twine I had used to secure the joints of the trellises had started rotting and I realized I'd used the last of our twine last fall. So I headed to Lowe's to buy some more twine. In the short time I was there, the clouds rolled in and it began to sprinkle. And then rain. Ah spring... So I never did get the chance to fix the trellises and get them set up. I am planning to do that on Saturday.

Also, I am planning to add 6 feet to the south end of my garden this year (6' X 20' = 120 sq. ft.). This will mean redoing our fencing and I haven't figured out how I am going to get rid of the grass that is there now. I'm going back and forth about a couple of different options. The truth of the matter is that it probably won't be really good garden soil until the 2011 garden, but that's okay. I'll do what I can this year.

I just love this time of year. I can't wait for the green to return.

Today's weather:
High temp: 60 F
Low temp: 42 F
Cloudy with drizzly rain.

Independence Day update

2009-07-03T15:11:00.010-04:00

I haven't been updating my garden blog like I did last summer. I admit, Facebook is preoccupying my online time. I realized it has been nearly a month since I updated my blog so I thought it was time.

My husband is out of town and he took my camera with him so I don't have any current pictures yet. I'll get some next week. The garden is really exploding right now and you need to see the progress.

In the meantime, I'll share some other pictures I took during the month of June of various parts of the garden.

Our one broccoli plant that survived the spring has been getting bigger and bigger by the day, it seemed. I finally cut the flower off today (that's the part we usually buy in the store, for those of you who have never grown broccoli before). The one bunch I got is bigger than some I've bought at the grocery store. Anyway, here is a picture of the plant before there was much of a flower (photo taken June 16):

And isn't this a beautiful head of cabbage? (Photo also taken June 16):

Here is my 7-year-old son crouching next to the broccoli plant. You can also see some of the tomatoes, bell peppers, corn, peas, and sage. Photo taken June 21:

We've had a new visitor to our garden for most of the month of June. He is a toad that my son has named "Froggy". Photo taken June 20:

Here you can see our cabbage plant surrounded by tomatoes. I had to stake the tomatoes up as they were starting to sprawl everywhere. I'm expecting an amazing tomato harvest this year. Photo taken June 20:

And finally, here is an overall shot of the garden on June 21. It was two weeks ago and I have to tell you this photo is already outdated. The garden has grown a lot in the last two weeks. Stay tuned next week for an updated photo of the garden.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 81 F
Low temp: 65 F
Sunny today, chance of rain tonight.

Finally all planted!

2009-06-05T15:22:00.005-04:00

After many delays, I have finally got my sweet potatoes in the ground. Whew! I can't wait for September and the harvest!

Meanwhile, here's a picture of my peas today:As you can see, they are full of pea pods that are filling up with peas. It won't be long now before my first harvest!

My corn is also up. I have 4 rows of 5 plants and they are about 4 inches tall now. Here's a photo I took today before I mulched them:

I was so excited when I went outside this morning to find several of my bean plants are poking their heads out of the ground! My cucumber plants have also grown. And look, one of my Roma tomato plants has the first blossom of the season on it!

We've had quite a bit of rain lately and a cold spell that killed my basil seedlings. Today is much warmer and nicer and hopefully the cold is behind us. I plan to replace the basil plants and then I should be set. All I have to worry about now are pests and disease!

Today's local weather:
High temp: 75 F
Low temp: 55 F
Sunny and fair

My Garden is almost all planted

2009-05-31T19:53:00.009-04:00

I have spent the better part of the last 3 days working in my garden and I almost have it all planted. I almost said I was almost done, but garden work is never really done. Anyway, it is going to have quite a different look this year. I am adding two things I didn't have much of last year: color and height. I have planted many flowers. You can see the yellow Tickseed in the near right corner along with the red geranium and purple violet I got for Mother's Day. My chives and sage are still blooming. And I have planted Cosmos, Nasturtiums, Marigolds, Indian Blankets, Bee Balm and flowering herbs like dill and anise hyssop. Those beneficial insects will be swarming! I also have the pea trellises (you can see the peas are now half-way up the trellises I built). There are several small peas popping out on the plants and they should be ready to pick in the next week or two. I also had my 7yo son help me build the 7 teepees for the pole beans in front.

Besides the flowers and herbs I already mentioned, here's a list of what I've planted this year:

* Tomatoes - Cherokee Purple (3)
* Tomatoes - Brandywines (2)
* Tomatoes - Roma (4)
* Tomatoes - Black Cherry (1)
* Tomatoes - Golden Nugget (1)
* Tomatoes - Green Zebra (1)
* Tomatoes - mystery (1) - I forgot by the time I got it home what it is
* Pepper - bell "Big Bertha" (4)
* Pepper - Sweet Banana peppers (4)
* Pepper - Habeneros (4)
* Pepper - Jalepenos (4)
* Eggplant - Black Beauty (3)
* Peas - approx. 80 plants
* Beans - green bush "Blue Lake" (1 row so far)
* Beans - black bush "Black Turtle" (2 rows)
* Beans - green pole "Kentucky Wonder" (63 plants)
* Corn - sweet yellow "Country Gentleman" (4 rows in a block)
* Cucumber - (forgot the variety) (2)
* Beets - Tall Top Early Wonder (2 rows)
* Radishes - Crimson Giant (1 row inside pea trellis)
* Lettuce - mixture (1 row inside pea trellis)
* Broccoli - (1)
* Cauliflower - (4)
* Cabbage - (2)
* Garlic - (4)

I have to admit, I've bought Beauregard Sweet Potatoes, but they have been on the bottom of my priority list and I'm too exhausted to put them in tonight. But I will do it tomorrow definitely!

Here are some more photos I took today:
Sage in bloom.

Pea trellis with plants growing half-way up to the top. Also the sage is a lot bigger in this photo than the last one I took.

My one surviving broccoli plant. I don't know if it will produce much to eat, but isn't it pretty?

One of my eggplants. This photo shows two things I've done to organically help along my garden. First, I used bathroom dixie cups with their bottoms cut out to make cutworm collars for my eggplants. This should prevent cutworms from severing the stem at the surface of the ground while the plant is young and vulnerable. Also, I am mulching all of my established plants with grass clippings from lawnmowing. It does an amazing job of keeping the soil moist as the sun is already beating down on us. Unmulched soil is caked and cracked like concrete. But when I scraped away the grass clippings just next to the cracked soil, it was cool and moist and loamy. Perfect!

Today's local weather:
High temp: 78 F
Low temp: 58 F
Sunny and warm

My garden is ready!

2009-05-10T13:37:00.005-04:00

Here's a picture of my garden this morning. I spent hours yesterday working in it getting the last of the mulch out (9 more bags did it, for those of you keeping track). I also dug in the last of the composted cow manure. Well, most of it. You can see in the front left bed that I got the manure spread out but it didn't get dug in. By the time I got to that point yesterday around 6pm, my back and legs were calling foul. I could barely move so I thought I should stop. I had also intended to plant my sweet corn and bush beans, but I didn't get to that yet. Hopefully I'll do that either tonight or tomorrow night.

The large yellow flower is actually my collard greens leftover from last fall. They are about 5 feet tall now and covered with pretty yellow flowers. Just behind them are a couple of chive plants that are full of little round purple blossoms.

Also, in this picture you can see how my peas are growing right up the mesh on the trellises just the way they're supposed to. In front of this trellis is one of my sage plants. The sage is covered with purple buds about to burst open.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 66 F
Low temp: 44 F
Sunny with a little breeze

Kids, this is why you need to study math in school

2009-05-02T16:14:00.005-04:00

So after a week of daily rains, it finally stopped raining today! Yay! I headed to the store to buy mulch for the walkways in my garden. All this rain is making the weeds go crazy in the garden and I have to get it in shape before the end of the month and big planting time.

I tried to carefully calculate how much mulch I'd need to buy to cover only the walkways. Using my written garden plan, I figured that I have 192 square feet of walkways in my garden. I did a google search to find a formula to help me figure out how much mulch I'd need to cover an area that big with 3 inches of mulch. The formula was something like (192 X 3) / 324 = no. of cubic yards of mulch. Based on that info, I figured I needed 1.77777 or about 1 3/4 cubic yards of mulch. OK. Simple enough, right? My problem came when I got to the store. Because I'm planning to transport it in my minivan and I want to use it today, I don't want to buy it in bulk and have it delivered. I just want to buy the bags of mulch and do it myself. Well. The bags contain 2 cubic FEET of mulch. On the spot in the crowded store I had to convert cubic yards to cubic feet. Now, I am pretty good at math, but it is a use-it-or-lose-it kind of thing. I haven't had to figure something like this for a long time. I figured each bag = 2 cubic feet so 3 bags would equal 1 cubic yard, right? If I needed 1.75 cubic yards, 5 bags should be about what I need, right? Wrong. Here's how my 5 bags looked after I spread them on the walkways in my garden:

Obviously I miscalculated and vastly underestimated the amount of mulch I'd need. Based on the coverage of these 5 bags, I think I need 9 more bags for a total of 14 bags. I give up trying to calculate the number of cubic yards.

Anyway, what I did was put down several layers of newspaper pulled from the recycling bins and I covered that with about 3 inches of mulch. This hardwood mulch is only for the walkways since it isn't good to have it so near the vegetables. I plan to use grass clippings to mulch the vegetables just like last year. The one corner I did finish looks pretty good. The empty bed in the middle is where I plan to plant some sweet corn and sweet bell peppers.

And take a look at one of my chive plants. Isn't it beautiful?

Today's local weather:
High temp: 64 F
Low temp: 50 F
Mostly cloudy

Battling Weeds

2009-04-25T11:05:00.007-04:00

It has been doing what it is supposed to do in April - rain. Rain is good for my garden (and I keep reminding myself of that). EXCEPT more rain inevitably means more weeds. I haven't been able to work in my garden because it has either been raining or I've been busy doing other things. This weekend I am purposely avoiding doing anything else so I can tend to my garden.

My peas are up and growing! In this picture is one of two pea trellises I built. On each side of the trellis I planted two rows of peas. I read somewhere to plant something like 16 plants per person in your family in order to get a large enough crop. So since we have 5 people, I planted a total of 80 pea plants. There were 3 or 4 that didn't come up, but most did. Also in this photo in the lower right corner is one of my sage plants that survived from last year. I also planted zinnias right next to it but they haven't come up yet. On the far end of the trellis I planted several cosmos seeds. They have come up and are about 2 inches tall. I'm thrilled they have sprouted.

The best news is that the peas look healthy. Don't you agree?

Meanwhile, my seeds inside are looking great. My biggest problem this year will likely be not having enough room in the garden to plant all that I want. Here are approximately 9 plants each of 5 different varieties of tomatoes including yellow pear, sweet 100's, and romas. There are also a couple of jalepeno pepper seedlings in the lower right corner of the picture.

I also have Cherokee Purple and Brandywine tomatoes here. Also, there is Holy Basil, Purple Ruffle Basil, and Sweet Genovese Basil. Also in this picture are Sweet Banana Pepper seedlings. I have Lemon Balm and Dill as well, but they aren't in the photo. (Yes, I see it is time to water.)

Today's local weather:
High temp: 82 F
Low temp: 62 F
Warm and windy

Already falling behind schedule

2009-04-03T11:47:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, the high temp was 70 F which was perfect to work in the garden. We had added 400 lbs. of composted cow manure to half of the garden a couple of weeks ago. But yesterday I decided to add another 400 lbs. to the other half of the garden. My 7yo son, bless his heart, was eager to help me with his new Spongebob gardening gloves and cultivating tools. I even got my husband to help dig the manure in when I started losing steam. I was surprised by how many weeds were already there. The worst place for weeds was right at the edge of each border where it met the walkway. I used my hoe to get the biggest ones out. As soon as I get the chance (weather and money permitting), I need to buy some hardwood mulch, bring the newspapers out of the recycling bin, and cover my walkways. I can't let the weeds get the upper hand and, in my experience, that's what June is all about. What's that old saying? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?

So anyway, we finished amending the garden soil and made plans for the walkways. Also, yesterday I noticed my peas peeking their heads above the soil. You have to look kind of close to see them, but they are definitely there. The two pea beds are on the outer northeast corner of the garden. The corner where they come together was unplanted until a few days ago. I planted cosmos seeds there. I can't wait for them to bloom!

I grew cosmos in the front yard just in front of our master bedroom window when we first moved here. As my memory serves, they grow to be around 4 feet tall with lacy foliage and delicate flowers. I bought the seeds for the variety that has flowers in different shades of pink. That's what I grew before and I loved them so I bought the same this time. I'm growing the cosmos in the garden for two reasons. First, they are beautiful and will make good cutting flowers for a vase on my summertime table. My second reason for growing them is that I hope to attract beneficial insects and bees and hummingbirds by planting a variety of flowers throughout the garden. Unfortunately, if I remember correctly, the cosmos isn't really in a phase of spectacular bloom until around September. That's a long time to wait. But it is definitely worth it.

Meanwhile, it is colder today. It rained overnight (good news for the peas and cosmos). I want and need to get back outside and do more work, but I'm waiting for it to warm up a little more. Here is my garden "to do" list for today:

* water cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and onion seedlings in indoor peat pots
* plant new flat of tomato and pepper seeds
* plant outside seeds of beets, radishes, lettuces (and maybe more cabbage/broccoli)
* plant annual flower seeds in various parts of the garden

On my kitchen table right now, I have lots of seeds to be planted. For peppers, I only have California Wonder (sweet) peppers and an early variety of jalepenos. I would like to get one more kind of hot pepper at least. As for tomatoes, I already have seeds for roma, organic cherry tomatoes, sweet 100 cherry tomatoes, yellow pear, and grape tomatoes. I have ordered seeds for Cherokee Purples and Brandywines, but they haven't arrived yet.

Tomorrow is opening day for an area farmer's market, and we plan to be there. We are gradually adapting a locavore diet (eating locally grown/farmed food as much as possible) so we plan to hit up our farmer's markets to supplement what we grow ourselves.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 53 F
Low temp: 34 F
Partly cloudy and windy with wind gusts up to 40mph.

Pea trellises and seedlings

2009-03-31T20:10:00.007-04:00

On Sunday, March 22, I bought the supplies and built these pea trellises. Lowe's didn't have the right width of plastic mesh to go up high enough. I bought the mesh that was 2' wide to go around the bottom of the trellises. I figured I'd go back and buy a second roll to add to the top once the peas start growing. The package says the peas take 7-14 days to germinate. Today is day 9. Two seeds have popped out of the soil, but I'm wondering if they were just flooded out by rain we had a couple of nights ago. See how green the grass is? Which reminds me...I need to put down newspapers and mulch in my walkways before the weeds take over.

I also started a flat of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and onion seeds a couple of weeks ago. I had them in my laundry room (the warmest room in the house) under the florescent lights. However, I think my lights are too far overhead and my seedlings became tall and leggy as a result of light starvation. Yesterday I repotted them into larger (4") peat pots. I planted them deeper in the soil and went out today and bought a florescent light to install under my kitchen cabinets. Now the repotted seedlings can sit on my kitchen counter under the lights for about 14 hours a day until they're ready to go outside. They already look happier, see?

Unfortunately, I lost several seedlings that didn't make it. I originally started 18 each of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and onions. I only transplanted the healthiest looking seedlings for a total of 3 cabbage, 3 broccoli, 3 cauliflower, and 9 onions. Also, I have my doubts that the broccoli seedlings will pull out of their slumped over lankiness. Everything else looks good though.

My next plan is to plant some more seeds, specifically tomatoes and peppers. I already have several varieties of each that I'd bought. Today I got online and ordered more: Cherokee Purples, Brandywines, sweet corn, and pole beans. I also ordered 3 types of basil, dill, and catnip. I don't plan to have an inch of unused space in this year's garden.

Work Day in the Garden

2009-03-15T18:07:00.006-04:00

Today was a beautiful day - the first this year that I was able to be outside in short sleeves. So, of course, we had to use the day to get the garden ready. I had planned to add the compost from our compost bin to the garden to get the soil ready. But last weekend when I went to scoop it out, I realized that the tomato vines I'd added in October had not broken down and (worse) were all matted together so that the compost is an unusable mess. We stirred it up so that the heat of this coming summer will eventually break it down. But in the meantime, I needed to purchase soil amendments again this year.

Today we purchased 400 lbs. of composted cow manure with organic hummus. I spent the afternoon mixing that into 4 of the 8 beds in my garden. I prioritized and added manure to the beds that I've planned to house my cabbages, broccoli, and cauliflower seedlings that are now growing in my laundry room. I also added it to the bed where I plan to plant pea seeds next weekend. Finally, I added it to the front beds. I don't plan to plant anything there for a while yet, but this is where I planted potatoes last year and they ended up rotting because of bad drainage. I think this is the neediest soil in my garden. Hopefully all the organic matter will improve the soil. The good news is that I was happy with the texture of the soil that was there when I started. And I saw lots of earthworms in the soil. Those are always a good indicator of healthy soil. Worms don't like deficient soil.

Jeff also had work to do. He noticed this weekend that our blueberry bushes look like someone has taken garden shears and snipped off the ends of the branches. See?

Anyway, he pulled the netting out of storage and covered all the berry plants. We're thinking the neighborhood wild rabbits have been eating the tender young growth. We hope it isn't too late in the season for them to snap out of it or else we won't be having any blueberries this summer.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 64 F
Low temp: 43 F
Sunny with light wind.

And So It Begins...

2009-03-01T15:33:00.004-05:00

Today I finally started my first seeds for the 2009 garden season. I had planned to start cabbage last weekend. But I got so busy with the "get ready for the coming week" chores that I didn't have time.

So today, I started seeds for 2 kinds of cabbage, 2 kinds of cauliflower, broccoli, and yellow onions. They are in a flat in my laundry room where it is warm until they sprout. Then I will move them under the lights.

I still have about 3 weeks before I can plant anything outside. I have bought lots of pea seeds to plant then. I will also plant lettuce and spinach then. I may even try some radishes this year.

This time of year is so exciting!

Today's local weather:
High temp: 32 F
Low temp: 24 F
Partly cloudy and windy

Winter Garden Hiatus

2009-02-08T09:17:00.004-05:00

Here was my garden under a foot of snow on January 31, 2009. I'm hoping that under all of that snow, the strawberries and garlic are hibernating and saving up energy to grow once the weather warms up.

Obviously, the garden is on hiatus right now and has been for several months. But...GREAT JOY...the end is near. Paul James, the host of Gardening by the Yard, is keeping me going with episodes about garden preparations and planning in the end of winter. Yesterday, I watched a recent episode that discussed French kitchen gardens (a.k.a. a potager). I was struck by how this style is so close to my own garden. I plan to look more into this concept and maybe turn my little American kitchen garden into a French kitchen garden!

I also sat down yesterday with a cup of coffee, my calendar, and a printout of the vegetable planting guide for Indiana created by the Purdue Horticultural Cooperative Extension Service. I began jotting down on my calendar when and what I will be planting this year. It looks like I need to start some of my first seeds (cabbage) in just a couple of weeks. Last year my seed-starting efforts didn't work out very well. Since then I've done lots of reading and am ready to tackle the challenge again. We'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, I'm looking at seed catalogs and trying to decide which varieties to try this year. I'll be posting more as garden season gears up again.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 42 F
Low temp: 33 F

New Year Around the Garden

2009-01-01T13:21:00.007-05:00

Happy New Year! This is the off season in the garden and you can see my garden lies cold and bare, filled with potential for coming seasons.

Obviously we don't have any snow right now, but the temperatures are hovering around 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Our strawberries have some green still showing and it looks like this sage is still alive.

The blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry bushes are bare and will be trimmed back in the spring.

Even our compost bin has slowed down its work. It is full to the top and, as you can see, our one maple tree in the front yard supplied more leaves than we could fit into the bin. I'm saving them to add to the compost bin whenever there is room.

In the meantime, I am inside and starting to think about next summer's garden. I've decided there are some things I will definitely plant again: sweet potatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes (hopefully adding a few new varieties). There are some that I don't want to plant again: pumpkin, spaghetti squash, and potatoes. I'm on the fence about zucchini. I can't decide if it was worth the effort. The bugs were a pain to deal with, but I did get a good harvest before the squash vine borer destroyed my plants. I'll probably do the salad veggies again although I've tried spinach twice and just can't get it to grow. I probably won't try it again. I also don't know if I'm up to the challenge of onions yet.

New things I want to try this year include sweet corn, pole beans, and beets. I've considered growing one Brussels sprout plant. I grew one about 13 years ago when we were young and had a community garden plot. I'm the only one in my family who likes them and they take up so much space. But they are my favorite veggie so I am undecided. I also plan to incorporate some flowers in the garden this year. I want to attract the beneficial insects and pollinators that I've learned I need for a successful garden.

Now is the time to browse catalogs and read gardening info online. I still rave about Garden Web. I'm browsing online catalogs like Seeds of Change and, of course, Burpee. And since the paper magazines don't come out often enough to suit me, I look at their websites. For example, there is Mother Earth News and Organic Gardening.

So many plants to consider...

Local weather:
High temp: 36 F (feels like 26 F)
Low temp: 26 F (feels like 19 F)
50% chance of snow showers

Reindeer Games

2008-12-20T08:43:00.002-05:00

Because this is the dormant season in my garden (and the busy season in my work life), I haven't posted much lately in the garden blog. But now that school is officially out for winter break until January, I have time to share a couple of things with you. First, the photo above is of my new indoor plants. My principal bought every teacher a poinsettia (left) for Christmas. Also, one of my students gave me the beautiful holiday cactus (right) for Christmas. You can't see it well in the photo, but it is full of tiny pink buds just getting ready to open. Both plants are now adorning my dining table.

It has been a busy fall. I'm in my first year teaching third grade and it is the hardest job I'll ever love. Unlike jobs I've had in the past, you never really feel like "you've got it" or "you're in a routine". Or maybe you do and I just haven't gotten there yet. My experience is that there is constantly something new just around the bend and I have to learn about it, think a lot about the best way I can meet the expectations set for me, and what I need to do to accomplish it. Just when I think I'm done, a new thing comes along.

I am starting to feel more comfortable with what my students are capable of and what I need to do for them as far as pacing. Pacing is the hardest thing about teaching. You have so much that you need to teach them and that has to be balanced with their prior knowledge and how fast/slow they need to go to learn new material.

I'm happy that I have a two-week vacation to relax with my family. But I'm also excited about starting a new semester in January. We will be starting some new subjects (history and health) and I feel more comfortable with the subjects I'll be continuing.

This past week was trying. The week before the holidays is probably the wildest week in any elementary school. The students were almost literally bouncing off the walls. Yesterday we had our class Christmas party. We played some games (including a relay race where each student eventually sported a red Rudolph nose - picture below). I gave them a snack (Little Debbie Christmas Tree cake and Sprite). We finished off the party by exchanging gifts (books) and I gave them each a personalized stocking filled with goodies from me. It was a fun and exhausting week.

After the Frost

2008-10-23T13:04:00.005-04:00

We were hit by frost on Tuesday night. We've been busy and hadn't tried to save anything. I just shrugged and figured whatever gets zapped, gets zapped. Today my garden looks like this.
At least my lettuce (mostly Red Sails), carrots, onions, mustard and collards and cabbages still look pretty good.

My tomatoes are all done for and the bell peppers look sad and wilty.

And my basil has turned brown.

We are on fall break from school and are about to go on our annual fall/Halloween camping trip. When we get back, it looks like I have lots of clean up to do in the garden.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 64
Low temp: 46
Partly cloudy, showers overnight.

Delayed Gratification

2008-10-09T14:38:00.004-04:00

I had been holding off on harvesting my Beauregard sweet potatoes because I'd read somewhere that you should wait for the foliage to start turning brown before they are ready. Then yesterday I was poking around on gardenweb.com and I read that you are supposed to get sweet potatoes out of the ground before the first frost. Now, it has "only" been getting down to the 40's at night lately, but I don't want to be caught off guard. I am really busy right now so I need to use the time when I have it. Besides, it is October now and I planted these things on Mother's Day weekend in May. That should be plenty of time, right?

Well, as you can see, I have a very respectable crop. This was my first time to grow sweet potatoes and I didn't know how to plant them. I didn't realize you were supposed to take the plant from the nursery and separate it into slips before planting them all. I just planted the whole thing as one big clump. As a result, many of my potatoes are on the smallish side. But I'm not complaining. And next year I'll know how to plant them. I think I have several fairly large ones despite them being crowded!

This was definitely one of my more successful crops and I will grow them again without a doubt.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 75 F
Low temp: 46 F
Sunny and clear

The garden is winding down

2008-09-29T09:06:00.011-04:00

It has been a month since I lasted posted here at Dirt in my Fingernails. School has started and I have been substitute teaching a lot. Plus I have been hired to start teaching a third grade class full-time starting in November so I have been gathering materials and making plans. I have been neglecting my garden, I'm afraid.

As you can see from the picture above, the garden is no longer full of lush green life like it was in July. It's to be expected I suppose. Several of the crops have been removed and others are in their last days and weeks.

As you can see here, my tomato plants are still full of tomatoes that I have not been able to keep up with. Many of them have problems with cracking and usually go straight to the compost bin. Also, my big Beef Heart plants became so top-heavy with huge tomatoes that they fell over, taking the flimsy trellis with them. Several large tomatoes rest on the ground outside the garden where they are being feasted on by the army of slugs that have appeared. I should probably do something about it, but with everything else going on, I have kind of lost the will to fight. The tomatoes I do pick usually sit in a bowl on my kitchen counter for a few days until they begin to spoil and I take them out to the compost. I just can't keep up with them and I don't have time to process them. Next year I'll plan better. You can also see the bell pepper plants to the right. I've found that if I catch the pepper when it is just right, I can take it inside and use it immediately or cut it up immediately to freeze. If I wait too long, it'll rot on the vine or on my counter waiting to be used. I've lost several of those already. And the patch of weeds in the middle of this photo is where my pumpkins used to be. I need to clear this area out so that those nasty squash bugs don't have a comfy home to overwinter in.

As you can see above, my sweet potatoes are flourishing. They've spread out to cover a huge area and I can't wait to dig them up and see what we have. Jeff is getting antsy and wanting me to dig them up, but from what I understand, I need to wait until the foliage on top begins to die away before I dig.

I have planted several items for my fall crops and they seem to be doing well so far. Here are the mustard greens and collard greens I planted in August. The collards appear to be getting eaten by the cabbage worms I've discovered. I tried Neem Soap spray. We'll see how it works.

Here are my cabbages that are also being eaten by cabbage worms.

And here are the lettuces and spinach I planted in early August. For some reason, many of the seeds I planted didn't come up. This is all I have from that particular planting. There is Black Seeded Simpson on the bottom, Red Sails in the middle and Spinach on top. I also made a second later planting of spinach over on the right where you see the little tiny green sprouts. And yes, the weeds are encroaching on the left...I need to get to that.

And finally, in mid-September I went out and planted the rest of my lettuce and spinach seeds in several vacated spots in the garden. Here is a close-up shot of spinach (bottom) and Red Sails lettuce (top) seedlings in the bed where the melons used to live. They are only two weeks old but are off to a great start!

Today's local weather:
High temp: 76 F
Low temp: 54 F
Sunny in the morning, thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening.

Spaghetti Sauce - My Latest Experiment

2008-08-28T11:40:00.009-04:00

So on Thursday, August 28, I decided to try my hand at making spaghetti sauce using my roma tomatoes. I had frozen 3 gallon-sized ziploc bags full of washed and cored romas plus I had probably another gallon's worth that I'd just picked sitting on my counter. I thought I'd share with all the web surfers out there what I did and how it went.

First, I had to soften the tomatoes so that the seeds and skins could be removed from the tomato flesh. I took all three bags pictured here plus the ones on my counter and filled this stock pot almost to the top.

I heated the tomatoes on high heat and let them simmer just 5 minutes or so, long enough to soften them and loosen the skins. Then I ladled them into the food mill to press the juice and flesh through and separate out the skins and seeds.

Once everything had gone through the food mill, I had quite a bit of juice in my turkey roasting pan.

This was what was left over and what will feed my compost bin:

Next, I put the roasting pan of juice into a 350 degree oven for one hour. After one hour, I turned the temp down to 300 degrees for four more hours. I stirred it every half an hour to make sure it wasn't sticking. The point of doing all this was to have the water cook out and reduce the juice so that it was thick like sauce and not runny.

One hour before the sauce was done, I prepared and added the seasonings. (I'll post my recipe at the end of this post.) After the end of the total 5 hours of oven time, I took the sauce out of the oven. It smelled wonderful. Meanwhile, I had brought my boiling water bath canner full of water to a boil. I had sterilized some quart jars and had the lids and rings simmering (not boiling) on the stove for 5 minutes. When the sauce was ready, I used my funnel and ladle to fill hot quart jars with the hot sauce (remembering to remove the bay leaves first!). I wiped the rims of the jars, used tongs to put on a lid and then screw on the rings to fingertip tight. I then put them in the boiling water bath canner. All of those tomatoes had simmered down to just over 3 quarts of sauce. (I knew it would be considerably less than what I started out with, but it was still a disappointment after all that work!)

Anyway, I boiled the quart jars for 45 minutes. Then I removed them to cool. Here they are. The white powdery stuff on the outside of the jars is mineral deposits from our hard water in the boiling water bath. After the jars cool, I have to wipe that stuff off before I label them.

The good news is that there was a little bit left over so I added some chopped tomatoes and sauteed onions and garlic to it the next night and we tried it on pasta. It is really really good. The only difference I will make next time is I will decrease the amount of crushed red pepper in the recipe. It calls for 1 tsp. but I think the end result was a little too spicy for my 6yo's tastes. Jeff and the two older boys will like it, but I think next year I'll only add 1/2 tsp.

Oh, and in case you're interested, here's the recipe I used. I have to credit the folks in the Harvest Forum over at gardenweb.com with the recipe. I altered a couple of the instructions/ingredients as mentioned.

Spaghetti Sauce

4 gallons fresh roma tomatoes (yielding approx. 16 cups puree)
3 Tbsp. oil
4 cups chopped onions
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 tsp. oregano, crushed
2 bay leaves
1 Tbsp. plain salt (non-iodized)
1 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. crushed red pepper
1 Tbsp. dried parsley
1 Tbsp. celery leaves, minced (I skipped this ingredient)
1/4 c. lemon juice

Prepare tomatoes yielding approximately 16 cups of puree.
Saute onions in oil until soft and translucent. Combine with remaining ingredients except lemon juice in heavy saucepan. Simmer 2 hours stirring often until desired consistency.*

* Instead of simmering 2 hours, I roasted in the oven for one additional hour after simmering the tomato juice for 4 hours, as mentioned in my description above.

REMOVE BAY LEAVES. Pour into jars and can (as described above).

Yumm! Next year I'll need to grow more roma plants so that I have more than 3 quarts of sauce to show for it!

My new garden visitors

2008-08-28T08:59:00.005-04:00

I went to Back-to-School Night at the high school last night so Jeff had to tend the garden. When I got home, he told me that in the course of watering the garden, he'd found two praying mantises. This photo isn't the exact Praying Mantis found in our garden. I borrowed the picture from the above link on wikipedia. However, ours looked just like this one.

This is such great news! I'd been hoping all season to see at least one praying mantis and Jeff found two, each at a different location in the yard. According to wikipedia, these things mate in the fall so maybe that's what they are getting ready for. They are more than welcome to lay their eggs in my yard.

Why am I so excited about these praying mantises? Praying mantises are one of the good guys, bug-wise. They are predatory insects who feed on those nasty bugs who would try to eat my garden. So inviting them into my garden is an organic way to control bugs. My only hope is that they stick around and invite some friends and have some babies. It was very obvious to me that once I put in my garden, the bad bugs showed up. I was only hoping the good guys would eventually realize this was a great place to find a meal. Yippee!!

In my pre-garden days I'd never think I'd be cheering the arrival of new bugs. Now I am enlightened.

Today's Local Weather:
High temp: 85 F
Low temp: 67 F
Morning fog, plentiful sunshine later, possible thunderstorms over night.

Today's harvest

2008-08-22T10:13:00.004-04:00

This is what I got out of my garden just this morning:That would be (clockwise from the left):

* four Cherokee Purple tomatoes
* three Beef Heart tomatoes
* two Better Boy tomatoes
* a bucket full of Roma tomatoes
* one spaghetti squash
* one muskmelon
* one red bell pepper
* one golden bell pepper
* 5 cucumbers
* a huge container of grape and cherry tomatoes

The harvest is particularly large today because I worked yesterday subbing all day in a classroom so I totally neglected the garden. Even last night I had to take my 12yo son to his guitar lesson and make dinner so I didn't even walk out to the garden at all. But today I didn't work so I made up for it. What a haul! I need to figure out what to do with it all.

Meanwhile, look what I found growing back behind my tomatoes near the birdfeeder. I included my sandal in the photo just so you'd have a sense of scale of these things. Huge!

Today's local weather:
High temp: 87 F
Low temp: 69 F
Cloudy, chance of showers or thunderstorms throughout the day.

Lessons My Garden is Teaching Me

2008-08-20T09:52:00.004-04:00

Things in the garden are slowing down a bit and the kids are in school again, so I have time to be philosophical. I planted this garden this year to give me something to do over the summer months so that I wouldn't dwell on the fact that I didn't have a permanent job. There was a possibility that growing our own food might offset our grocery bills a little, but that wasn't a big motivation for me. It would just be a nice bonus. What I didn't expect were all the other things I'd learn from having my own garden.

I live in a stereotypical suburban neighborhood which is probably like hundreds of identical neighborhoods all over the country. We have winding roads with names that are "Peaceful" or "Moonlight" or are named after nature like "Red Maple". Cul-de-sacs with basketball goals and kids riding bikes sit at every turn. Cookie cutter houses sit on row-by-row of 1/4 acre lots, all separated by the obligatory privacy fence which cuts us off from our neighbors and fosters the delusion that we are more spread out than we really are. Our yards are planted with grass and an ornamental tree or two with Walmart shrubs and annuals planted next to the front door. We sterilize the lawn with chemicals to kill all of the "weeds" and insects. The key is that *we* control what lives and dies on our little rectangle of land.

And we all do it. Most of us never give a thought to it. It's just what you do.

But what if we don't? What if we decide not to use chemicals and to let the dandelions and clover grow? What if we decide to attract life to our land rather than keeping it away? We can put up bird houses, bird feeders, bird baths. We can plant other plants that aren't there to impress the neighbors.

In my suburban backyard, near the privacy fences my neighbors had erected, I planted a garden. Not a manicured flower garden. But a large, fenced-in vegetable garden. We also planted berries that (from what I am told) will eventually spread out of control.

We didn't sterilize our land this year...we invited life. Now with that invitation is the risk of (gasp) bugs and weeds. But my garden has taught me to look at that differently.

In my pre-garden days, I thought of bugs as pests. Period. And weeds made the lawn look uncared for. I no longer feel that way. Bugs are not one size fits all. There is a huge variety of life out there that we wipe out when we sterilize our lawns. But when we allow life to exist in its normal state, we realize the delicate balance that was created by Mother Nature, Creation, God (whatever you call it). If we stop trying to control everything and just let it be, everything can manage very well on its own, thank you very much. Yes, there are bad bugs out there that can eat your food crops. But there are also good bugs out there that will eat your bad bugs. And yes, clover and dandelions make your lawn spotty. But they also attract bees which pollinate your other plants. Even snakes can be scary, but they eat nasty yard pests like mice and voles. It is all in the balance. Human beings like to upset that balance. We need to work more at respecting and preserving it.

My garden has also taught me to resist perfection. See that picture at the top of my post? In my old way of thinking, I would look at that photo and see all that is wrong with it. My spaghetti squash up front looks pathetic, my walkways are getting covered with weeds, the pumpkin patch is yellowing and wilting, and I've even left some bricks out when I was finished using them. I was good at beating myself up for not making things perfect. But now when I look at this photo I see it differently. I see the open spot up front where my (now dead) zucchini once stood. I have 22 cups of shredded zucchini in my freezer. I see the sprawling sweet potato plant that keeps growing and (I'm assuming) producing sweet potatoes underground. I see the spaghetti squash that has survived despite the attack the plants have undergone. So far I have frozen the flesh of 6 spaghetti squash that I managed to salvage from the damaged plants. And I think that two of those that remain may be salvageable. My pumpkin patch has several healthy looking pumpkins that are turning orange. Wilting vines aren't stopping them. My huge tomato plants are still producing and I'm picking a huge amount each and every day. And right up front under that lattice are the lettuce seeds I've just planted and will be germinating soon for my fall crop.

This garden, my first real garden, has seen a lot of success. It isn't perfect, but then what is? It has been a blessing in more ways than anyone can see.

Local weather today:
High temp: 84 F
Low temp: 64 F
Partly cloudy

A Race Against Time

2008-08-18T08:50:00.004-04:00

Jeff has been nursing the pumpkin patch along for the last several weeks. Starting in mid-July, we have been undergoing an all-out attack on the pumpkins which included squash bugs, squash vine borers, powdery mildew, and scorching hot sun. The fact that anything is still alive out there is, in itself, a miracle. But it is barely holding on. Here is what my pumpkin patch looks like this morning.As you can see, the pumpkins are turning orange. The tiny Jack-Be-Littles (not pictured) are doing great and look fine. There are 3 Sugar Pie pumpkins and two are mostly orange and one is only starting to change. This particular photograph shows our two jack-o-lantern pumpkins in the early stages of changing to orange. I have to say that the amount of work and space that goes into growing pumpkins sure doesn't seem to be commensurate with what you have to show for it. I would rather not grow them next year but instead use the space for something that wouldn't have me pulling my hair out so much. But Jeff wants pumpkins. I finally compromised and said I will do one pumpkin plant next year and that is it.

Today is August 18. Do you think this pumpkin will survive and make it until Halloween?

Today's local weather:
High temp: 84 F
Low temp: 61 F
Sunny

Life Cycle of a Garden

2008-08-14T09:29:00.009-04:00

Lately, I've been frantically working to preserve what I can from our garden before they go bad. So far I have put up:

10 pints of dill pickle slices
8 pints of bread and butter pickle slices
8 pints of dill pickle spears
22 cups of frozen shredded zucchini
200 (approximately) dried then frozen cherry tomatoes
4 baked, shredded then frozen spaghetti squash

I have also frozen a gallon bag of roma tomatoes, a gallon of Better Boys, and a gallon of Beef Hearts for temporary holding until I gather enough to can. I am hoping to can the last batch of pickles today now that the kids are all back at school and I have the house to myself today.

But in between picking, freezing, and canning, lately I've been thinking about the life cycle of a garden. It's amazing to me to see it change over time. It occurred to me that a garden's life is similar to a person's life. When the seedlings are small, there isn't much to them yet, but you just know they're filled with limitless potential. Then you watch them grow and spread out. If you nurture and protect them, they can spread out further than you ever expected them to. Suddenly, in the heart of summer, they're thriving and producing beyond your wildest dreams and every item you pick feels like a blessing. But then it happens. Gradually you begin to notice weaknesses. It could be bugs or a disease that suddenly appears. You do everything you can to minimize the damage and prolong the life of these precious plants. If you do a good job and the plants are strong, they can still last quite a while. But, as fall approaches, they begin to fade. Production slows down and some plants succumb to the bugs or disease or just the stress of coping with the demands of late summer. They begin to die off. The garden becomes sparser and what is left begins to look feeble. You realize the end is near for this crop. It has been a good run, but it is nearly over. As temperatures cool and winter approaches, you reconcile yourself to accept the garden's fate. It is sad, but there is one thing that pulls you through...seed packets saved for next year.

My 2008 Garden:March 31, 2008 (Before tilling)

April 18, 2008 (Preparing the soil)

May 31, 2008 (The seedlings are planted)

June 22, 2008 (Everything is growing)

July 7, 2008 (The plants are young adults)

July 29, 2008 (The plants are producing like crazy but starting to show signs of trouble)

August 14, 2008 (Plants are beginning to die off and production slowing down)

Stay tuned for more...

Today's local weather:
High temp: 80 F
Low temp: 60 F
Partly cloudy with chance of afternoon thundershowers

Sugar Baby Watermelon

2008-08-11T09:36:00.004-04:00

This is the first ripe Sugar Baby Watermelon from my melon patch this year. I picked one in July and when I cut into it, it was still white...not close to being ripe. But as you can see, this one is perfect. It's large too. We cut into it on Saturday. I sliced half of it for dinner as you can see here:We ate it with dinner Saturday and Sunday and I think there are still one or two slices left. I have the other half of the melon still in the fridge and we need to eat it today.

Meanwhile, I have 3 more ripe watermelons and 7 or 8 ripe muskmelons in the garden right now. What am I going to do with all of them?

Today local weather:
High temp: 77 F
Low temp: 58 F
Sunny and unusually cool

Ode to the Cherokee Purple

2008-08-07T18:59:00.005-04:00

Ok, I will admit that the idea to plant Cherokee Purple tomatoes this year was not mine. My husband got the idea in his head that he liked the idea of a "Cherokee" heirloom tomato and I humored him by buying a couple of plants when I bought my Better Boys, Beef Hearts, Romas, and Sweet 100's. I figured it was just another one of his "big ideas". I stand humbly corrected.

I am here to testify that Cherokee Purples are wonderful! We will be growing them for the forseeable future. Not only are they an interesting and striking color of purplish red (see photo above), they are also flavorful and juicy. I know photos don't convey things like flavor and juiciness, but get a load of this:We like to slice up a tomato with dinner and eat slices with just a little bit of salt on top. One tomato is enough for our family of 5.

Our success with this variety has made me want to branch out and try some other "off the beaten path" varieties next year.

And one more tomato note...I have also been impressed with our Beef Heart tomatoes. They are quite huge. I never expected to grow something so large. They are also meaty and juicy (almost as good as Cherokee Purple, but not quite). Here's a photo of my 6yo son holding the two Beef Hearts I picked last night.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 81 F
Low temp: 58 F
Partly cloudy and windy

Every Day It's Something New

2008-08-05T12:00:00.004-04:00

Yesterday at lunch, I decided to make BLT's. I went out into the garden to pick some tomatoes for the sandwiches. As I was picking, I noticed a strange looking goo on some of the leaves. I'd never seen it before and wondered what it was. I looked directly above it to see where it might have come from and this is what I saw:After my initial shock and gasp of disgust, I called my 16yo son over to look. For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is what is called the Tomato Hornworm. I've seen pictures of these things on the internet, but let me say, internet photos do not fully capture the size and scale of these buggers. They are about 4 inches long and 1/2 inch in diameter. They are a wonderful example of adaptation as their coloring and design makes them blend in with tomato plants and they are really hard to pick out. That's why it is such a shock when you finally do see them. This huge caterpillar is right there under your nose and you don't even see it. Makes me skin crawl just to think of it.

Anyway, we found three different ones and pulled them off to kill them. I admit that I have gotten over being squeamish after killing dozens of squash bugs with my own hands. But these Tomato Horn Worms were a different matter altogether. They were just too big for me to deal with. So I played the defenseless female card (haha) and got my teenage son to do the nasty work for me. Wearing my gardening gloves, he pulled them off the plant. It was actually kind of hard to do. Those things have several pairs of feet that really grip the stem and it was hard to pull it off. Then once he threw it on the ground, we either stepped on it and cut it in two with a gardening shovel. It was very disgusting. The whole experience had me worked up for hours.

My son said it reminded him of the giant green caterpillar in A Bug's Life. That's true. They must have used the Tomato Horn Worm as their inspiration for the character. From a distance they are actually kind of pretty as they have a design that runs down their backs.

Part Two: Surgery

2008-08-04T08:14:00.002-04:00

If Saturday night was a murderous rampage, Sunday night was surgery night. I'll get into that in a minute. But now for something completely different:You never know what you'll find when collecting things from your garden for your dinner salad.

Now onto the surgery...I spent my evening in the pumpkin patch. I went out armed with knife and a bottle of organic mildew cure for the powdery mildew. I decided to cut out the worst leaves/vines, to douse what was left with mildew cure, and hopefully revive these sick plants. I started hacking away at sick leaves and throwing them into a pile outside the garden. I discovered that most of the sick leaves had both powdery mildew AND the frass that indicates squash vine borer. My theory is that the squash vine borers drilled into the vines making them more susceptible to diseases like powdery mildew. When I was finished hacking away, I had packed a 30 gallon trash bag with leaves and vines. The pumpkin patch is probably half as dense as it was before. With the worst of the plants gone, I went around and covered everything that was left with the mildew cure. My hopes were lifted by new green (healthy) looking growth that I discovered when I peeled away the bad.

One thing about clearing away all those large leaves - it is easy to see that there are lots of weeds that have moved in. In fact, I realize they may have been contributing to the problem. So this morning before the heat sets in for the day, I am outside pulling weeds from the pumpkin patch. I've already done one section and am taking a coffee break to update the blog before I go back out again. I was excited to have to share my area with the bees who were buzzing around because there are several new blossoms opened this morning! What a terrific sign! I hope I've been able to nurse the plants back to health.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 91 F
Low temp: 73 F
Lots of sun and hot

Shading Fall Plantings

2008-08-03T11:54:00.004-04:00

As I mentioned in my last post, yesterday I planted mustard and collard greens, spinach, and broccoli and cauliflower for fall crops. According to the August/September 2008 issue of Mother Earth News, the heat this time of year can be torture for plants, particularly new plantings for the fall. I learned that many established plants won't pollinate once the daytime temps are over 86 degrees. And seeds will not germinate if the soil temperature is too high. Apparently if daytime temps reach 90 degrees, soil temperatures can be 110 degrees - too hot for germination.

So this morning before the heat set in, I dug out some extra lattice we had stored in our minibarn and laid it down over the areas where I'd planted seed yesterday. I used bricks to prop them up so that air can circulate underneath the lattice. Once the roots are established, I'll either remove the lattice or replace it with a more appropriate shading for seedlings.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 83 F
Low temp: 66 F
Abundant sunshine

My murderous rampage

2008-08-02T21:09:00.002-04:00

I went on a murderous rampage tonight although I fear it may be too late. We decided to pull out the big guns. Now, we've tried to stay organic as much as possible and have had generally good luck. But this squash vine borer thing has gotten out of control. We went to the organic supply store to buy beneficial nematodes to attack the pesky grubs, but we found out that the store didn't have any in stock. They'd have to order it for us. We felt that time was of the essence so we looked for other alternatives. We ended up getting a product called Rotenone. It is an organic pesticide. However, some organic gardeners dispute its use because it is still considered moderately hazardous. It is considered "organic" because it is made from naturally occurring substances.

Compared to "nonorganic" pesticides, it is still less harmful over all and the damage being inflicted in our garden is bad enough that we felt we need to go this route. I waited until this evening after all the bees (i.e. pollinators) had left the garden before I began stalking my prey. I had made up a gallon of solution using 4 tsp. of the rotenone to 1 gallon of water. With spray bottle in one gloved hand and a knife in the other, I headed toward my squash. My second zucchini has been hanging on for dear life for two days now so I doused it good. My spaghetti squash is looking worse and worse every day. It is yellow and wilted and some leaves are starting to turn brown. It may be too late for the zucchini and spaghetti squash, but I'm doing what I can. I also went through the pumpkin patch and sprayed all of the vines that I could. All three plant crops had evidence of the borers (the golden frass at the site of entry). I'll see in the morning if I notice any difference.

In other news, I planted some of my fall crops today. I direct seeded everything in a vacant area of the garden. I re-planted the broccoli and cauliflower (since what I planted two weeks ago never came up). I also planted mustard and collard greens and several spinach plants. I'm going to plant more lettuce too, but I'm holding off on that since the Indiana Extension Service says to wait until August 15 for fall plantings of lettuce.

Today we went to visit the place where we had a plot in a community garden when we were first married. We were walking up and down the aisles between the plots and critiquing what we saw. We were amused at the fact that we both have learned so much since that time we tried to garden years ago. It made me feel better about my own garden. Most of these gardens were not well-tended. They were overgrown, ripe veggies hung on the vine as food for the pests that were moving in, and everything needed to be watered. Despite the problems we've had lately, I think our garden is in pretty good shape and we are doing a lot of things right. This was exactly the pick-me-up I needed today.

End of July Garden Update

2008-08-01T14:26:00.009-04:00

So technically I'm a day late, but it is time for the monthly garden review.

First of all, I finally have a new blog header picture! I've been waiting for that particular bunch of cherry tomatoes to ripen for weeks solely for the photo op. I've had them pegged for my blog header for a while and today they were finally picture-worthy in my opinion.

I have to admit, the end of this month finds me in kind of a sad gardening mood. I realize now that the early part of the summer was easy on us. July has been much more difficult. Challenges that passed us by early on have started to hit us hard the last couple of weeks of the month.

Here's a plant-by-plant update:

* July started with bitter lettuces being dug up and added to compost. Their former bed sat empty for most of the month of July. For fall crops, I direct sowed some broccoli and cauliflower in that spot and so far I've only seen one broccoli seedling.
* Carrots are still in the garden and we've harvested a few, but generally I've decided I planted them too close together and didn't thin them out enough. They haven't had adequate room to grow to a useful size.
* The green onions have been slow to grow, but the ones I've pulled up to use in salads have been good. Next year I want to plant a bigger crop of these. We go through green onions faster than what this crop has allowed.
* My two zucchini plants provided us with lots and lots of zucchini. Most of it has been shredded and frozen. A week ago one plant succumbed to the squash vine borer and I fear that today the same thing is happening to the remaining plant. I think zucchini is done for this year.
* My potatoes didn't make it this year. I planted both Red Norland and Irish Cobblers. They started out impressively enough. But I didn't have a lot of soil to mound on them properly. What really did them in, though, is the amount of rain we had this May and June. It rained and rained and rained and area rivers and ponds flooded. Many people lost their homes so I guess I'm lucky that I only lost my potatoes. The tops turned yellow and died off way early and when I dug them up, the potatoes I found were rotten. I'd heard that potatoes were "really easy" to grow, but I don't think I'll try them again next year.
* My sweet potato plant looks healthy as ever. It has been vining out all over the place and will probably take over the area previously occupied by its next door neighbor: the zucchini. Still no idea how it is doing underground, but if the foliage is any clue, it's doing well.
* My yellow onions started to fall over which I took as a sign to harvest. I pulled about every other one up and was really disappointed with how small they were. I expected bigger. Maybe I planted them too closely together. I left the other half of onions in the ground to see if they'll grow anymore and the other ones are drying on my back patio before I store them.
* The bush beans did really well. We had two fairly large harvests and they tasted great. I plan to do pole beans next year. I might plant more bush beans too to provide us a harvest before the pole beans are ready.
* The pumpkins have become a thorn in my side, so to speak. The main reason I'm growing them is because of my husband thinking it would be neat to have our own pumpkin to carve at Halloween. Meanwhile, the pumpkins have provided me more worries than the rest of the garden combined. They are huge and are growing into the neighboring beds. There is no longer a walkway between the pumpkins and the tomatoes and bell peppers. Plus, I am tormented by an infestation of squash bugs and squash vine borers. I have to go out and kill bugs and tear off leaves with eggs every day. And now my pumpkins are covered with a nasty case of powdery mildew.The good news is that I seem to have several pumpkins set (3 different kinds) and if the plants hold out, we should have a decent harvest.
* We have three watermelons growing on the vine and the first one looks almost ready.
* We have had 8 muskmelons growing on the vines and so far I have picked two. The first one turned out to be not quite ripe yet. The second one, however, is delicious and juicy.
* I have been overwhelmed by the cucumbers my two little plants have produced so far. I have put up 10 pints of dill pickles and 8 pints of bread and butter pickles and I have a big collection of cucumbers in my fridge that I think I'm going to do as dill spears sometime this weekend. Not only are they plentiful, but they taste really good too. My mom says she's never tasted a better cucumber. At the nursery they were just labeled as "burpless cucumbers".
* We have been harvesting green bell peppers once every couple of days for use in salads or as a seasoning. I have ten bell pepper plants and one has already produced all of its peppers and I pulled it for the compost bin. The other plants are still full of small but growing peppers.
* My spaghetti squash plants have been making me proud. I have 9 spaghetti squash in various stages of development. I think the first one is about done.However, my leaves are turning yellow and the plants don't look good. I don't know if the problem is squash vine borer, powdery mildew, or just lack of a good watering, but I worry that the plants won't last long enough for the squash to ripen.
* The tomatoes are doing well (knock on wood). I have been bringing in a bowl of ripe tomatoes every morning. Most of them are cherry tomatoes, but some of the bigger ones have started turning. Last night we sliced and ate our first Cherokee Purple with dinner and it was delicious!

I suppose I should consider myself lucky and remember all the positive things that have come out of the garden so far. It has been a pretty good garden, especially when you consider this is my first real garden. And nothing is perfect. There will always be problems. I guess the trick is to stay one step ahead of the bad guys and never let them get the upper hand.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 90 F
Low temp: 66 F
Partly cloudy with thunderstorms this evening.

Organic solution for powdery mildew

2008-07-31T10:56:00.006-04:00

The hot and humid weather of late July in Indiana has come and along with it, Powdery Mildew in my garden. My spaghetti squash, zucchini, and especially pumpkins are all affected. So this morning I made up a mixture of 1 cup of skim milk to 9 cups of water and filled a spray bottle so that I could organically get rid of the powdery mildew. It was a lot of work and not very enjoyable since at 10:00am it is already about 80 degrees and 74% humidity. But I managed to refill my spray bottle three times and douse all the affected plants. According to the website I just linked to, a weekly application should be in order. Sigh. I'm still worried about the possibility of squash vine borer infestation, but for now it doesn't seem to be a problem (with the exception of one lost zucchini plant).

Meanwhile, the harvest continues. I continue to get at least 2-3 cucumbers a day. This morning I picked 3, one of which is a record breaker in length at a whopping 16 inches.
Also, here is a photo that is representative of the tomatoes I'm harvesting each day lately.This isn't a huge amount, but we're getting that much every day. It's starting to be more than we can eat. This particular example shows one Better Boy, two Romas, several large grape tomatoes, and scads of cherry tomatoes. At this point, the majority are still cherry tomatoes. They are the Sweet 100 variety and they live up to their name. When I buy tomatoes at the grocery store, grape tomatoes are always sweeter than cherry tomatoes. But in these homegrown tomatoes, the cherry are far sweeter than the grape. I am going to cut back on the number of mini tomatoes I grow next year, and I think I'll stick solely to the Sweet 100 cherries.

As for dealing with the backlog of cherry tomatoes, I discovered via the internet that you can dry cherry tomatoes to save for later use. The other day I sliced a cookie tray full of cherry tomatoes, laid them cut side up on the tray, and baked them in the oven at 200 degrees for at least 4 hours. They probably could have gone a little longer, but I had to leave the house and didn't want to leave the oven on. So I put them in a baggie and put it in the freezer. That should be fine. I can rehydrate them and add them to soups for seasoning this winter. I'll probably end up doing that again as the cherries continue to ripen. The number of green cherries still on the vine far outnumbers what I've picked so far.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 86 F
Low temp: 68 F
Hot and very humid

Squash Vine Borer

2008-07-27T11:22:00.003-04:00

As a follow up to yesterday's post about the dying zucchini, it seems I have a case of Squash Vine Borers. I pulled up the dead plant last night and the main stem broke off in my hand just an inch or two above ground level. What I found looked much like the two pictures at the bottom of the page I've linked to. Big white juicy grubs, three of them, squirming around in a rotted stem. I've put them in a trash bag and tied it off. Now I'm on the lookout for frass (a golden cornmeal-like substance that appears around the holes once the little grubs burrow into the stems). I haven't seen any more yet, but I'm paranoid.

The really annoying thing is I saw a pretty looking new insect in the garden yesterday and spent over an hour searching on the internet trying to figure out what it was. I never found a satisfactory match. Then this morning, my husband found a photo of the adult moth form of the squash vine borer. I'm 100% positive that's what I saw yesterday. If only I'd known! I should have killed it then and there...UGH!

Today's local weather:
High temp: 83 F
Low temp: 65 F
Sunny and clear

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

2008-07-26T16:16:00.002-04:00

We made a discovery this morning when Jeff was watering the garden. Having the water raining down onto the plants made the squash bugs come out. He stood there watering while I was on the watch for the bugs. Whenever I'd see one, I'd squash it (pun intended). I must have killed at least 5 or 6 just this morning. We've killed 2-3 a day for the past several days. I've also made at least two trips a day out to check the leaves of the pumpkins, spaghetti squash, and zucchini. I've torn off several corners of leaves with clusters of squash bug eggs on them. I drown them in the bucket of water with dish soap. I'm doing my best to keep those critters from gaining control in my garden.

Death of a Zucchini

2008-07-26T16:11:00.002-04:00

As you can see, it looks like one of my two zucchini plants has about bit the dust (the one on the left). I noticed that it hadn't really been sending out blossoms the last couple of days and was a little wilty looking this morning. Jeff watered the garden and we hoped it might perk up. If anything it has gotten much worse. I'm not sure what the culprit is, but you can see the other plant (on the right) looks fine. In fact, it has about 3 new zucchini on it. I suppose I should pull up the dying plant so whatever is wrong with it doesn't affect the healthy plant.

It has served us well...

Big Salad

2008-07-23T09:05:00.002-04:00

This is what I harvested from my garden last night:

* 4 large grape tomatoes
* 8 cherry tomatoes
* 6 long cucumbers
* 2 large zucchini
* 1 green bell pepper
* 3 green onions
* 2 carrots (my first two this year!)

I had to buy the lettuce and spinach at the store, but I combined them with the tomatoes, half a cucumber, the bell pepper, the green onions, and the carrots to make a big salad to go with dinner. This is exactly what I had in mind when I planted all these salad veggies! It's too bad I couldn't provide the lettuce and spinach too. But timing is everything in gardening.

The carrots were a risk. I'd checked on the carrots before and they were no bigger than toothpicks. But I'd been purposely avoiding them hoping they were growing. I decided to try again yesterday and I got two plump carrots that were about 4" each. The variety is St. Valery (heirloom) which I got from Seeds of Change. According to the seed packet and the website, these should be at least 8" long, but I attribute their length to my soil. I imagine it is pretty dense down deep and I didn't have the equipment necessary to dig deep enough. But I'm not complaining. 4" carrots are fine with me. A bigger carrot problem, in my opinion, is I had trouble thinning them and I worry that some of the remaining carrots are so close together that they won't grow very much as a result. I've thinned a couple of times, but it is hard to reach in there. Part of the problem is that the carrots are on the interior of their bed and are a little harder for me to comfortably reach. More lessons for next year.

So I now have 11 cucumbers in my fridge. I also have 9 zucchini. I've decided that today I'm going to shred the zucchini and freeze it for future zucchini breads.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 79 F
Low temp: 59 F
Sunny and clear

Looking ahead to fall

2008-07-22T09:35:00.005-04:00

These are the dog days of summer where daytime highs are in the upper 80's to lower 90's. My garden has become a jungle and every day offers something to harvest. But I am beginning to think about transitioning to fall.

Yesterday I picked the second and final batch of beans from my Blue Lake bush beans. I was surprised that the second batch was almost as big as the first was a week ago. I simmered them on the stove for a couple of hours and we had them with dinner last night. They were delicious, but I really wished I'd gone the pole bean route because two batches of green beans just aren't enough for me or for the family. But, the bush beans are spent for the season, so when I harvested the beans, I pulled the plants up and put them in the compost bin. This clears an area for some fall plantings that I plan to make around August 1.The space along the left (just next to the onions) is where the beans had been. Across the path from them is the area where my lettuce was earlier in the summer. I've already planted broccoli and cauliflower seeds in the former lettuce bed. They haven't germinated yet but it has only just been 7 days. Any day now...

Here's something that has me excited: my spaghetti squash. I have 8 spaghetti squash set so far. I love them and can't wait to begin harvesting them. The rest of my family isn't so fond of them. I'll have a lot to eat myself one of these days. Of course, I haven't figured out how or where I'm going to store them. I really wish I had a root cellar. This picture is a closeup (complete with morning rain still on) of the largest of my 8 spaghetti squash:

Finally, it is only Tuesday and I'm already thinking this coming Friday will be Pickle Day part 2. In the time since Saturday I have accumulated 5 huge cucumbers in my fridge and there are at least 3-4 more out there today. By Friday I will have enough for more pickles. I love looking at my two plants that have vined all over the garden fence and take up probably 15 feet of its length. Isn't it pretty?

Today's local weather:
High temp: 84 F
Low temp: 62 F
Partly cloudy, chance of showers this afternoon

Bug update

2008-07-21T10:59:00.003-04:00

Well, everyone I've heard from has confirmed that the insect in the top photo of my last post is a striped cucumber beetle. The second is harder to pin down, but it seems likely that it is a squash bug...a bad bug. I was hoping it was a good one.

Anyway, the very next day I went outside and was surprised that I could find only a fraction of the bugs I saw the day before. I was scouring those plants and found very few cucumber beetles. The few I found were hiding inside the closing blossoms of various plants. I found one squash bug on a zucchini I was picking and I killed it. I haven't seen any more since. My husband says he's seen 5 or 6, but I've only seen two. And I've been wandering in the garden on the lookout.

Either they are good at hiding (and I'm bad at seeing) or maybe the birds have gotten them? We have a tree and birdfeeder at the corner of the garden and that corner has become bird hangout central this summer. I attribute our low bug population up to this point in part to the many birds.

In my reading, I'm starting to think I am lucky that these bugs only appeared now after my plants are well established. They could have been devestating if they'd appeared when the plants were small and starting out. Next year will be a worry as there may be descendents from these current bugs. I will be keeping an eye out for these critters and will be looking into what I can do to fight them.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 87 F
Low temp: 67 F
Scattered severe thunderstorms

What are these bugs?

2008-07-19T11:18:00.005-04:00

This post is a request for help from my readers. I have been really lucky with bugs this year. I think using chemicals in past years has kept all bugs away. That was a real problem for me early on because I had no pollinators. I had to do it myself. I'm thrilled to say that the bees are back. Every morning I have lots of bumblebees and even honeybees buzzing around the blossoms in my garden, pollinating them and helping my garden to grow. However, yesterday I discovered a new bug and this one I'm not so happy about. Here's an enlarged photo I took yesterday of the inside of one of my male pumpkin blossoms:The large insect on top is a bumblebee and he's just doing his job. It's the smaller one down below that has me more worried. Can anyone confirm for me whether this is a striped cucumber beetle? They have suddenly appeared from out of nowhere and this morning there were at least one or two in every single one of my spaghetti squash blossoms and most of the pumpkin blossoms. I've only seen a couple on the cucumbers and nearby melons, but there are bound to be more. I've tried squishing some when I find them, but there are so many and I can't get my fingers into the blossoms without destroying them.

Then this morning as I was checking on them, I discovered this on one of my pumpkin leaves:At first I thought this might be one of the Assassin Bugs I've heard about. But then a quick search on the internet brought up pictures that don't look exactly like this one. Anyone know what it is? Is it a beneficial insect? Has the cavalry arrived to help me battle the cucumber beetles (if that is indeed what they are)?

I want to find an organic way to deal with this, but I do feel like I need to do something quick as there are tons of these bugs covering my garden! Help!

Today's local weather:
High temp: 86 F
Low temp: 72 F
Partly cloudy with scattered thunderstorms in the evening

Pickle Day

2008-07-18T14:06:00.009-04:00

Today was my first ever canning experience. I'm thrilled to say that my two cucumber plants that worried me back in May are now officially out of control. In the past week I have collected 18 foot-long cucumbers. And yes, foot-long is long but lest you think I'm letting them get too big, that is the size this particular variety gets. They are absolutely delicious. I never want a store-bought cucumber again.

Alas, what is one to do with this many cucumbers? Make pickles!

I began by slicing the cucumbers. Slicing was easier than spears since the cucumbers were so long. Besides, I like pickles on my burgers.
The recipe I used called for 7 pounds of cucumbers. It seemed like a huge amount (and did turn out to be too many in the end), but we had the cucumbers for it.So once the cukes were sliced, I packed them into the pint jars we'd been warming in the dishwasher. Here my 6yo son watches the excitement.After I packed the jars with cucumbers, I handed them to my mom who ladled in the pickling liquid (vinegar and spices).Once filled, we put on the lids and rings and put them into a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Now that they're finished, all 10 pints of kosher dill pickles sit cooling on my kitchen counter.Once they cool for 24 hours, I can store them. Then I have to wait 4-6 weeks before they're ready to eat. But they should keep for up to a year.

The thing is, I may have enough cucumbers to do this again next Friday! I may end up giving away pickles as Christmas presents this year!

Today's local weather:
High temp: 86 F
Low temp: 70 F
Partly cloudy

My Great Disappointment

2008-07-16T08:45:00.003-04:00

Yes, these are my Red Norland potatoes today. My Irish Cobblers look about the same. They are done for, I'm afraid.

I'm not sure exactly what happened to them, but I have a feeling it was all the rain we got this spring/early summer. When I tried to dig one up to see what they look like under ground, the soil was water-logged dense clay. No wonder they didn't grow.

I have to admit that they started looking bad a few weeks ago. And the rest of my garden is thriving so much, I kind of ignored the potatoes. At this point, I'm thinking of just digging up what I can and starting over with my fall crops. Of course, I am worried about the quality of the soil but don't really know what to do about it. My dad said I could add sand to it for next year's potato crop. But I don't even know if I'll be doing potatoes again next year. Right now I'm leaning toward not. I will do sweet potatoes though. They're better for you anyway.

Oh, and I planted some broccoli and cauliflower seeds last night for my fall crop. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for those. My family loves broccoli. I'm not so sure about the cauliflower. But I like it anyway.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 90 F
Low temp: 68 F
Sunny and clear

Bean Harvest

2008-07-14T21:46:00.004-04:00

It occurred to me this evening as I wandered the paths of my garden, that the bush beans were in serious need of harvest. Suddenly the tiny beans had filled out and were weighing some plants down to the ground. These beans are several inches long and as wide or wider than a pencil. And every plant was bursting with them. I know what we'll be having for dinner tomorrow night...

Today's local weather:
High temp: 83 F
Low temp: 59 F
Partly cloudy, clear in the evening

Be Careful What You Wish For

2008-07-13T08:25:00.006-04:00

We've gotten several more inches of rain again this week. I'm starting to get a panicky feeling because my garden is becoming an overgrown jungle. Yesterday morning it stormed heavily most of the morning and in the afternoon when I went out to check on it, my tomatoes looked like this:
I don't know if you can make it out well or not, but these tomatoes (two Cherokee Purple and one Better Boy) are hanging to the left at almost a 45 degree angle. My little wire trellis is no longer able to support the heavy developing fruit, particularly with the soft well-watered ground. These tomatoes are lying on top of my bush beans. It can only get worse as all of these plants have TONS of new blossoms and/or new pea-sized tomatoes starting. So this morning I went out with twine and tied the wire trellis to the fence to try to hold the whole thing upright for the remainder of the season. I need to get more twine and tie it in more spots. Does this look like a hillbilly remedy, or what?

Obviously I need better support for my tomatoes. In the spring when I bought the trellis, I was using my previous experience growing tomatoes as a guide. I've grown tomatoes several times in the past, but they always ended up being kind of spindly without producing much fruit. This wire trellis would surely handle them fine. What I didn't reckon on was the fact that really preparing the soil, protecting the plants from pests, and adding fertilizer once early on (not to mention all the natural watering they've gotten this year) would make them swell with tomatoes. I'm thrilled with the output, but wish I'd bought more sturdy supports. There is always next year. Lesson learned.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 81 F
Low temp: 60 F
Cloudy early becoming mostly sunny, clear tonight.

Harvest and What I've Learned So Far

2008-07-10T08:24:00.005-04:00

Here are some of my first harvested produce from the garden. There are two zucchini, three cucumbers, two green onion and one small yellow onion, my first ripe tomato, and my first green bell pepper. Most of these were for a salad for dinner and we ate them fresh from the garden.

I've been thinking lately about how much I've learned just in the last four months about gardening. There have been so many lessons that I think will help me as I plan next year's garden. Here's a list of lessons that come to mind:

* Not all bugs are bad - some bugs are "good guys"
* Organic fertilizer makes a huge difference in the growth of new plants
* When starting seedlings indoors, I need to provide them more space to grow inside (either transplant to bigger pots while still inside or plant in a bigger pot in the first place)
* When starting seedlings indoors, I need a bigger light so the seedlings don't have to stretch (and become spindly) to reach the light
* I need to have a cold frame or some sort of protection to harden off seedlings before setting them out
* Once the seedlings are in the ground and set in, mulch to prevent weeds and control soil moisture and temp
* May and June will require more weeding than July and later because the plants haven't grown enough to block the weeds' sunlight yet
* Flowers in the garden are not just a visual accessory, they are necessary for attracting pollinators
* If pollinators don't come and work for you, do it yourself with a small child's paintbrush
* Plant lettuce early and protect it from heat and sun
* Harvest as soon as the plant is ready and often
* Once a plant is spent, remove it from the garden to keep the garden tidy
* Make sure there is enough space in the garden for the full-grown size of the plants you choose
* Make vertical supports to maximize space, especially with sprawling plants.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 83 F
Low temp: 66 F
Partly cloudy

I love my garden

2008-07-08T09:09:00.010-04:00

I've been playing on the computer this morning. I figured out how to superimpose labels on the photo I took this morning of my garden. I know that I've been posting a lot of pictures, many of them perhaps redundant. I figure this January when temps are hovering around zero and everything is covered with white, I'll sit and browse through all these pictures and remind myself of the garden in full swing.

A few days ago, Martha left a comment on one of my posts asking how big the garden is and what I plan to do with the leftovers. The vegetable garden is 20' X 24'. As big as it is, lately I've been feeling like it isn't big enough. Of course, I live in surburbia so I am lucky to have what I have. I'm not complaining. I find myself already thinking about how I can manage the space better next year. As for leftovers, I'm not sure. I will can and freeze what I can, and I have family nearby. My father used to garden when I was a kid so my parents love homegrown veggies. But they don't garden anymore. Dad has already asked me to give them any extra zucchini when they start getting backed up.

In another comment Molly Day asked about hand pollinating. I first read an article about it in my paper copy of Mother Earth News (sorry, I can't remember which issue, but it was from earlier in 2008). Then I've been reading the gardening forums at gardenweb.com. They have a forum devoted solely to Pumpkins, Squash, and Gourds. Recently there has been a discussion about hand pollinating and there have been several helpful pictures posted. Basically, a male blossom has a single stamen inside. It looks like the tip of an orange Q-tip and it is covered with a yellowish dust (pollen). Here's a picture I just ran out and took:
A female blossom looks very different inside. It has several whorled tube-like structures called the pistol. Here's a picture (although I apologize that it isn't clearer):
Another way to identify a female blossom is that it always has immature fruit behind it. So the female zucchini has a small zucchini fruit behind it, the pumpkin has a small round yellow ball behind it, the melons have a small green round ball behind it. Here's that same female zucchini blossom with a small unfertilized zucchini behind it:

Today's local weather:
High temp: 85 F
Low temp: 70 F
Humid with chance of thunderstorms this afternoon

Evening photos

2008-07-06T08:46:00.006-04:00

I realized that all the photos I've shared so far have been taken before noon. I think the garden has a very different feel and look in the evening, so last night as we were waiting for it to get dark enough to set off the fireworks I'd bought, I took a few photos. It was about 9:00pm so it was getting dark but it wasn't totally dark for about another hour. The top photo today is a closeup of the nasturtiums and marigolds planted at the base of my celtic birdbath. Isn't it pretty?

Here is the northeast corner of my garden. Those 4-foot tall bushes at the back are tomatoes. There are two cherry tomatoes, two beef heart, and two roma. The big bed in the middle are the pumpkins which I've shared often before. You can also see the row of carrots still growing in the bed that used to house my lettuces. Back by the minibarn is the compost bin and some black-eyed susans.

This next photo is of the northwest corner of the garden. Along the back are more 4-foot tomato plants. These are Cherokee Purples and Better Boy. I have a couple of grape tomato plants just to the right, but they were just outside of the range of the photo. Along the left fence you can see a row of yellow onions and then just to the right of the onions is two rows of bush beans. There's a pine tree to the left of the garden and you can see another one of Jeff's birdfeeders back behind the tomatoes.

I really like this last photo because of its perspective. It is from the rear of the garden (near the birdfeeder in the last photo) looking south toward our house. You can even see our back patio in the background. The foreground of the photo are some of the tomato plants. Behind the tomatoes you can see (from left to right) pumpkins, cucumbers, watermelon, muskmelon, potatoes (which appear to be dying), and spaghetti squash.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 86 F
Low temp: 66 F
Sunny with few clouds or wind

Lots of rain makes the garden grow

2008-07-05T09:23:00.004-04:00

This has got to be a freakish year as far as precipitation goes and I will not expect future years to be so wet. We have gotten so much rain since the end of May. I think I have watered my garden once maybe twice in all that time. Every couple of days it rains...a lot...and fills up my rain gauge!

My first muskmelon today:

Meanwhile, my garden is growing out of control. This is a good thing overall. My zucchini plants are producing a zucchini a day. (And those zucchini are huge now that I have started hand-pollinating them.) My muskmelon and watermelon plants have vined out and taken over their entire bed. My pumpkins have vined and filled their beds. My spaghetti squash is stretching out, filling about 1/3 of their beds so far and this morning had blossoms for the first time. And my tomato plants are becoming too big and heavy for my trellis to support them.

Just one branch of a cherry tomato plant today:

Between the non-stop rain and the holiday, I haven't had much time to work in the garden for a few days. I need to see what can be done to support the tomato plants and I need to get some weeding done. The vining plants that I mentioned early are starting to reach out into the walkways and I'm afraid it won't be long before they swallow up the entire path way around the bed. Eek!

My muskmelon (far left) and baby watermelon (near right) bed today:

The exciting news is that now that the pumpkin vines have grown long enough, there is finally a female blossom opened this morning. I was so excited to finally see it! I used one of the many male blossoms to pollinate it. I hope it is the first of many. With all of these vines taking over my garden, I'd at least like something to show for it!

My pumpkin patch today:

End of June Garden Update

2008-06-30T19:39:00.003-04:00

I was surfing around through some garden blogs and it occurred to me that I should post an overall garden update what with it being the last day in June and all. I don't have my camera right now so pictures will have to wait, but here's the lowdown on my edible backyard:

Veggie garden:
* lettuce has turned bitter and tonight I will dig them up for the compost pile
* carrots are getting bigger but still not big enough to eat
* green onions, like carrots, not big enough to eat but they're getting there
* zucchini plants (2) each plant grows 3-4 zucchini at a time; they have been staying small and then turning yellow and deflating so just yesterday morning I started hand pollinating them
* Red Norland and Irish Cobbler potatoes don't look so good; growth seems stunted and plants are turning yellow; don't know if it is time to harvest
* sweet potato plant has leaves that look healthy and are spreading; don't know what is going on underground since I didn't know to separate the slips when I planted
* yellow onions are tall, robust, and starting to flower
* bush beans look healthy, lots of flowers, and I noticed the first tiny bean today
* pumpkins have prominent male blooms every morning and lots of vines with immature blooms just waiting to open (I'm hoping they're female blooms)
* baby watermelon vines are spreading out every day with lots of pale yellow flowers and several pea-sized fruits
* muskmelon vines are spreading out like the watermelon with slightly darker yellow flowers and today my son found our first fruit - it's the size of a large kiwi!
* cucumber plants (2) are spreading out and growing up the side of my fence with lots of flowers and tiny baby cucumberlets; today I saw two different large cucumbers in the later stages of ripening
* bell pepper plants (10) have lots of tiny buds and most plants have one ripening pepper
* spaghetti squash plants (4) are vining out and are smaller than the other squashes since I planted them later from seed, but they are making good progress
* tomatoes are out of control due to fertilizer; plants are more like bushes and every single plant has a least a few green tomatoes on them; I am starting to worry about what to do with all the cherry and grape tomatoes once they ripen because there are LOTS; also lots of romas (I think I'll be canning this year)

Berry garden:
* strawberries continue to ripen berries on a regular basis although they wouldn't win a marathon
* blueberries are taking forever to ripen but finally a few ripen each day
* blackberries just started turning and we haven't been able to pick any yet
* raspberries are ripening one or two handfuls of berries per day; I pick them and freeze them until I get enough to do something with them

Today's local weather:
High temp: 75 F
Low temp: 55 F
Sunny and breezy

Thinning pumpkins and buying annuals

2008-06-29T07:51:00.005-04:00

I'm still sad about the demise of my lettuces, but I decided I have to move on. As you can see, my pumpkin bed was starting to get out of control and it is still only June! So yesterday, I did what I had been putting off doing. I thinned the pumpkins. When I planted the plants, I realized there were too many in too close quarters, but I wasn't sure how they would do and I planted extra in case. I figured I'd pull out the extras if they ever got too crowded. Yesterday was that day.

I took out half of the plants and they are still stretching to the limits of their space, but maybe they aren't so cramped now. Of course, with all of those plants out of the garden, my compost bin is filling up. And I have decided to start hand pollinating my squashes using the instructions from the people on the Vegetable Gardening forum at gardenweb.com. I was getting 3-4 zucchini at a time per each plant but they never got more than 3 inches long and then started deflating and turning yellow. I think poor pollination was the problem. I'll see if my hand pollination changes things at all.

I also finally went shopping yesterday for some annuals to put in containers on my back patio. That was the area that I've most neglected this year. This is the time of year when we start spending a lot of time, especially evenings, on the back patio and I wanted to spruce it up. Here's what I bought:

* Butter Daisy (Melampodium paludosum)
* Dahlietta Series Dahlia (Dahlia hybrida Dahlietta Series)
* Blue Salvia (Salvia farinacea)
* Periwinkle (Vinca) (Catharanthus roseus)
* Asparagus Fern (Asparagus densifloras "Sprengerii")
* Petunia (pink)
* Zinnia (Zinnia elegans) (gold)
* Serena Angelonia (Angelonia angustifolia "Serena Series")
* Dichondra
* Wave Series Petunia (lavender)
* Spike Dracaena (Dracaena indivisa)

I planted them in containers placed around the corners of my patio. Once I'm sure they've adjusted to their new homes and are thriving, I'll take some pictures to share with you.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 74 F
Low temp: 58 F
Isolated thunderstorms afternoon and evening

Bitter lettuce

2008-06-28T18:12:00.003-04:00

I am so disgusted. Isn't this a beautiful bed of lettuces?
A week ago we were eating from this bed and it tasted great. Suddenly, day before yesterday I made a salad from it and the lettuce was terribly bitter. We couldn't finish the salad. The next morning I wondered if maybe it was a fluke and I'd just happened on a bad plant. So I went out and sampled different plants, different varieties, different ages of plants. The verdict was undeniable. It is all bad. Such a waste. I am going to have to dig it all up and put it in the compost bin.

I knew it was only a matter of time before my lettuce couldn't handle the heat; I just didn't think it would be this soon.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 82 F (current temp at 6:15pm)
Low temp: 63 F
Partly cloudy

First bell pepper

2008-06-27T07:53:00.004-04:00

I found my first bell pepper yesterday. The day before it was only a blossom. Now my bell pepper plants (I have 10) are filled with flowers. Hopefully I'll have a bumper crop.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 85 F
Low temp: 72 F
Partly cloudy, chance of thunderstorms late in the day

Hail Damage

2008-06-23T13:41:00.008-04:00

Yesterday we had a storm come through and it started out with about 10 minutes of pea-to-nickel sized hail. I stood helplessly at my sliding glass door watching my garden get pelted with ice balls. This morning I went out to investigate the damage.
This is a pumpkin leaf that obviously became perforated by the hail. Several of the large leaves were like this.
Here you can see how one of my cucumber plants was damaged. It has the same holes in the leaves as the pumpkin, and it also has a broken vine. I hope that doesn't keep it from growing.

Overall the damage could have been much worse. Most of the plants showed no damage at all and those that were damaged look like they can probably shake it off and survive. I was lucky. This pumpkin still looks pretty good, don't you think?

Today's local weather:
High temp: 75 F
Low temp: 56 F
Sunshine and mixed clouds with slight possibility of thunderstorm

Growing season

2008-06-22T09:37:00.010-04:00

I took this photo of my vegetable garden this morning at 9:15. I can't believe how much my garden changes in one week's time. The regular sun and warm temps combined with all the rain we got a few weeks ago are working to make everything grow by leaps and bounds. I've taken to drinking my morning coffee on my back patio so I can enjoy the garden and watch the birds who've made my backyard their home. Our backyard has a totally different feel this year and it is so much more welcoming and alive.

My lettuces are plentiful and I'm to the point now where I worry that we won't be able to eat it all before it bolts. I'm going to my UU Christian Circle meeting this afternoon and I'm planning to take them a big salad made from my lettuces. I can't wait for my tomatoes to turn red, but that's still a ways off. It's frustrating because I see my tomato plants filling up with green tomatoes, but they aren't red yet. Here's a close-up shot of one of my grape tomato plants.
However, I do have a cucumber ready to pick and add to my salad.
I also have a zucchini that's ready to pick. I'll have to find some way to use it in tonight's dinner.
You might notice in some of the pictures that I've added grass clippings to mulch some of the plants. I know that organic gardeners recommend mulching plants as a way to regulate soil temperature and prevent weeds, but I had trouble finding something to mulch my plants with that is available this time of year and that won't stunt their growth. The folks on the organic gardening forum at gardenweb.com suggested I use grass clippings. So I told Jeff to hook up the bag that came with the mower and collect them for me when he mowed the lawn. One mowing provided enough mulch for just under half of the garden. Next time he mows I'll mulch the rest of the garden. I hope it works. If nothing else, it looks nicer.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 80 F
Low temp: 58 F
Partly cloudy with afternoon/evening thunderstorms

Signs of life

2008-06-12T07:45:00.011-04:00

I just took this picture about 15 minutes ago. It is one of two zucchini plants that are getting huge. They each are 2-3 feet in diameter and now this morning this one has a huge flower. Yesterday I also saw these signs of life:
Two weeks ago I thought this cucumber plant was a goner. The base of its stem had gotten white and brittle. I posted a picture of it at its worst at the top of my May 31, 2008 post. However, I noticed that the leafy growth on top was still green and growing so I left it alone. Yesterday I noticed two healthy-looking yellow flowers on it. The other plant has flowers too. Talk about Phoenix rising from the ashes!

This muskmelon plant also has several flowers.

One of my garden tasks yesterday was to tie the tomato plants to the trellis. They are getting big and bushy (thanks to the fertilizer I added a couple of weeks ago) and will topple over soon without support. Anyway, while twining I found this - my first green roma tomato. See it there in the middle just below the horizontal trellis bar? All of my plants have blooms on them and one of the grape tomato plants has three little tomatoes. I'm expecting more every day.

I'm so overjoyed because I've tried gardening in the past, but I just wasn't doing it right. My plants, if they lived at all, were spindly, unhealthy, and bore little fruit. This year the plants are doing what they're supposed to! Everything is getting bigger and bigger each day. The things that I think have made the biggest difference are 1) the fence has kept rabbits out of the garden, 2) the organic fertilizer has really fed all the plants, and the neem oil soap has kept the little bugs off of the plants.

We have recently been deluged with rain. In fact, south of us towns were underwater. We lucked out and only got drenched and then the water ran off. It has been raining a lot more than usual for several weeks now. While this has had horrible consequences for many homeowners in my area, my garden has benefited. I haven't had to water my garden for a couple of weeks now. Mother Nature is taking care of it for me. And those steady, deep rains are far better than anything I can do with my hose.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 90 F
Low temp: 72 F
Partly cloudy, hot and humid.

New routines

2008-06-02T19:29:00.006-04:00

Today begins the first full week of summer vacation for us, so I am now home during the weekdays. I decided to start some new routines of daily household (including garden) maintenance.

My chores for today included weeding the spinach/squash bed, planting more onion sets in the place where my original spinach never came up, and replacing the grape tomato plant that got broken in two over the weekend.

Over the weekend we finally set up our compost bin. I'm really excited about it and I get so tickled every time I have to take something from the kitchen out to add to the compost.

Also, I'm worried about a couple of things. My bush beans were getting eaten by something. I never figured out exactly what it was, but I bought some spray made from potassium and neem oil. I covered them that evening and I haven't noticed anymore evidence of them being eaten since.

I am also afraid I have some kind of disease or fungus in one corner of the garden, but I can't identify it from all the gardening books I have. My cucumber plants stems are white and split, but the plants aren't dying. In fact, the leafy tops are growing and sending out more healthy looking growth each day. I did spray it with the same stuff as the beans in the off chance it might help. I have no idea if this is something the cucumbers can overcome or if I need to get the plants out of the garden. I wish these things were easier to diagnose! I also noticed my muskmelon plants showing the same symptoms - white, split stems. Sigh. If anyone reads this and has any thoughts about what might be happening, please leave me a comment.

Oh, and my spaghetti squash and pie pumpkin plants finally sprouted and look healthy. My zucchini plants are getting huge and I need to harvest some of my lettuce.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 84 F
Low temp: 66 F
Sunny

First garden problems

2008-05-31T11:05:00.010-04:00

My garden is looking really nice. I see a lot of potential as most things are off to a good and healthy start. However, I am encountering some problems that I'm trying to deal with today.

First of all, you may remember that my original cucumber seedlings died when I set them out. So I bought 4 new plants at the nursery and set them out a few weeks ago. Two of those four have now died and the other two look like this. The main stem has turned white and gotten brittle. It looks like it is dying. Oddly, though, the leaves at the top look really healthy. I'm not sure about the problem. It may be "damping off" due to soil that doesn't drain well, lots of water lately, and soil too high in nitrogen. I'm afraid I'll lose my cucumbers again. I could replant them or plant something else there, but I need to figure out the problem and do something about it or I'll just keep having the same problem.

In this bed I have planted a row of onions on the far left and then two rows of bush beans. (Yes, experienced gardeners will point out that beans and onions shouldn't be planted together. I discovered this *after* I'd planted them all. Lesson learned for next time.) So far they don't seem to be disagreeing with each other. However, my bean seedlings do show a few signs that something is nibbling on the leaves. It is small and since we have a fence, I tend to think it is some kind of insect. I couldn't see any when I looked, but the damage could be happening at night time. I'm not sure what to do. I think I may plants some marigolds in the middle of the beans as a first step.

Yesterday I discovered that this grape tomato plant was bent over at a 90 degree angle. Not sure whether to blame wind, birds, or children. Anyway, I used twine to stake it upright. Then last night we had a gulley-washer of a storm. This morning it had fallen over again. I restaked it, tying it higher on the trellis and hoping it'll snap out of it, but I'm not too positive. We went to the farmer's market and bought another grape tomato plant just in case this one doesn't pull through.

But a lot in the garden is looking really good. For example:

My Seeds of Change Sucrine lettuce seedings (second succession planting)

Two zucchini plants

This bed of potato plants (these are Red Norlands and my Irish Cobblers look just as good in the bed opposite these - not pictured)

Our strawberries (this is just one of many plants that are bursting with berries about to ripen)

and blueberries (this is one of four plants full of blueberries that are turning blue).

Today's local weather:
High temp 83 F
Low temp 60 F
Sunny with 30% chance of showers

Guano, fish, and blood

2008-05-26T10:56:00.004-04:00

So now that I have just about everything in the ground in my garden, I felt it was time to add fertilizer. Yesterday we drove quite a distance to a store that sells organic gardening supplies. It's far enough away that we can't go there every day or even every week, but it is definitely the place to go to stock up on organic fertilizers and pesticides.

I bought two boxes of this organic tomato and vegetable fertilizer. We also bought one box of the variety for fruit and flowers for the berry garden. I went out and added it as directed to the tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, and sweet potatoes. I'll probably go back and add it to other plants as they get more established.

I also planted my third succession planting of lettuces, spinach, carrots and green onions. I feel renewed hope for these veggies. The first planting of spinach never did come up and I assumed at this point it was too late in the season to count on much. I was ready to give up on the spinach this year. But now I notice that my second planting that I made a couple of weeks ago has come up. So I took that as a sign that I shouldn't give up yet. I also noticed tiny little carrot and green onion sprouts where, a couple of weeks ago, there were none. My lettuces are also looking good. I may have some good salad veggies after all. Now my only hope is that it doesn't get too hot too soon.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 79 F
Low temp: 63 F
Partly cloudy, scattered strong storms this afternoon

Sticking with it

2008-05-22T10:29:00.005-04:00

Isn't this a beautiful picture? This is my double shepherd's hook in the perennial bed leading up to my front doorway. It is meant to attract hummingbirds to our home. A sight like this really makes me feel like summer is here. Unfortunately, we haven't seen any hummingbirds yet this year. It seems really strange to us and we can't figure out where they are. They've been visiting us for years. And if this beautiful planter and nectar aren't enough, right behind them along my house are tons of red and yellow columbine plants.

As beautiful as things have been in the front, things in the backyard haven't fared so well. Mother's Day weekend I set out all of my seedlings. Usually that is a safe date around here. This year it has been unusually rainy and cooler than usual. Needless to say, my seedlings didn't do well. Everything I had started from seed died once they were set outside. Either it got too wet/cold for them or I just didn't harden them off long enough.

Anyway, I wasn't about to give up for the year, so we headed off to the nursery last weekend to buy new plants. I came home with four more tomato plants (bringing my total to 12), 4 cucumber plants, lots of bell peppers (4 green, 4 red, and 2 yellow), 2 zucchini plants, 1 sweet potato plant, a bag of yellow onion sets and bush green bean seeds, 4 lettuce plants, two large pumpkin plants, 3 miniature pumpkin plants, 4 baby watermelon plants, and 4 muskmelon plants. I put them out into the garden and after 5 days in the ground, they all seem to be doing well. The onion sets are even starting to sprout.

Today's local weather:
Low temp: 47 F
High temp: 69 F
Sunny

Busy weekend

2008-05-12T10:44:00.007-04:00

We started off Saturday morning with a trip to the local nursery. Local gardening wisdom is that you wait until Mother's Day to plant and with this being Mother's Day weekend, the nursery was packed. And it is a fairly large nursery so the amount and variety of plants was a little overwhelming to me. Fortunately, we went there with specific things in mind to help us focus. If we hadn't, we might have been there all day!

Here are two of the eight tomato plants I bought. These two are Romas. We also bought two Cherokee Purples, two Better Boy, and two Beef Hearts.

I also bought five herb plants. In this picture are the basil, chives, and cilantro. I also bought sage and thyme. These are all in the two herb beds that border my back porch. It's close to my kitchen for easy cooking access.

And look at these! These are some of the Red Norland potatoes I planted three weeks ago. I've got tons coming up. A few of my Irish Cobbler potatoes are also coming up although they are a later variety. I need to add some soil to the sides of these plants. That's on today's "to-do" list after I get my errands finished.

I also transplanted 13 bell pepper plant seedlings (yeah, I know it is a lot, but I assume some of them will die). I transplanted two cucumber plants. I also planted my second succession planting of lettuces, spinach, carrots, and green onions.

Jeff added mulch to the walking paths in the garden. It looks so much more attractive now and hopefully the moisture and temperature will be more controlled. We had wanted to use straw instead of a hardwood mulch, but it is almost impossible to find it this time of year. We decided we are probably going to go no-till anyway from now on, so these walking paths will be walking paths in the future. I realize with hardwood mulch there is a risk of it decomposing and leaching nitrogen from the soil, but we'll keep a close eye on it. I'd like to add mulch around the base of some plants, but I'm not sure what to use that won't hurt the plants. And even if I figure it out, I'm not sure where to buy things that are more organic. Most of the stores around here carry only your traditional (i.e. non-organic supplies). I have work to do.

It rained all day yesterday after I got the plants in on Saturday so they should be off to a good start!

Today's local weather:
High temp: 63 F
Low temp: 46 F
Sunny and breezy

Spring Wildflowers

2008-05-07T09:10:00.012-04:00

Over on my main blog I shared that our family went on the first camping trip of the season last weekend. One of the things I love to do most on these trips is go hiking to identify wildlowers. May is an excellent time to find spring wildflowers and this year I hit the motherload. Everything seemed to be in bloom!

What I do is hike along with my National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers (Eastern Edition) and a pencil and my digital camera. Whenever I find a wildflower, I use the book to identify it then pencil into my book where and when I found it. Then I try to get a shot of it with my camera. This year I also picked up a brochure put out by the park. The brochure confirmed most of my ID's and in some cases listed a slightly different variety of the flower than what I'd thought.

Anyway, here's what I found in bloom this year:

This first one is Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum) which grows everywhere!

Another flower that was prolific this year was the Celandine Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) which is also known as the Wood Poppy.

Bordering the hiking trail on the hills near the creekbed were hundreds of these flowers. They're called Shooting Star (Dodecatheon meadia). The identification book listed them with the pink flowers, but almost all of the ones I saw were white like this.

This dark purple flower was also popping up everywhere. It's called Spring Larkspur (Delphinium tricorne).

Lots of this Blue Phlox (Phlox divaricata) everywhere.

May in Indiana means it is Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) time. These little table-like green plants carpet the forest floor and in May a little white bloom opens up in the space between the two leaves.

This next one is one of my favorites, but I've had trouble pegging down the name. Based on the info in my identification book, I thought it was called Toadshade (Trillium sessile) or Red Trillium. The brochure I got from the park, however, identifies it as Prairie Trillium (Trillium recurvatum). I guess it is six of one, half a dozen of the other since there is very little difference. At first it is kind of hard to see these as the blooms are fairly dark and can blend into the leaves and other dark plants on the forest floor. But once your eyes get trained, you see them everywhere.

Here's another one that is hard to see because it folds over on itself. The purplish-brown part of the flower is hidden by the green exterior. It's called Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum).

Well, there are a few others, but this post is probably graphics-intensive enough. I apologize to all those on dial-up.

My front yard

2008-04-29T21:15:00.003-04:00

I've been spending so much time getting the garden in the backyard started, that I'd been neglecting my front yard. Finally this weekend I cleaned up and pruned the perennial bed next to the walkway up to my front door. It really is amazing what a difference a new layer of mulch can make.

Most of the perennial flowers aren't in bloom yet. But here's one that is (Bleeding Heart):

Today's local weather:
High temp: 55 F
Low temp: 38 F
Partly cloudy and cold, chance of frost tonight (covering plants with straw)

Filled with potential

2008-04-22T10:13:00.007-04:00

Here's what my garden looks like this morning:

This view is from the southwest corner of our backyard (our house is behind me). On the left side is the berry patch which is largely Jeff's domain. In the foreground of the berry patch are our prayer flags as this undertaking is largely a spiritual experience for us both. We are honoring the resurrection of life. Directly behind the prayer flags are strawberry plants. I believe he said there are thirty something strawberry plants in all. Here's a close up view of part of them:

Behind the strawberry patch are two trellis systems Jeff built to support our brambles. We have two raspberry bushes, two blackberry bushes, and four blueberry bushes. Jeff likes berries.

Meanwhile, to the right of the berry garden is "my" vegetable garden. I'm the one who tends it the most. So far I've planted the first succession of salad veggies (spinach, carrots, green onions, and two kinds of lettuce). I will continue every 2-3 weeks to plant a bit of each one so that we have them ready to harvest at intervals instead of all at once. Here is where my salad seedlings lie, not yet germinated having been planted only three days ago:

I've also planted two kinds of potatoes (Red Norland and Irish Cobbler), one spaghetti squash seedling, one small sugar pumpkin seedling, and one large (Halloween) pumpkin seedling. Here's how the large pumpkin seedling looked this morning after its first night in the ground:

Today's local weather:
High temp 76 F
Low temp 54 F
Sunny

Prepping the beds

2008-04-18T16:28:00.005-04:00

I've been busy with work since I last posted, but things have been moving right along with the garden. We had the guy come and plow our 20' X 24' garden plot. Then we bought materials and made a two-foot fence around the perimeter to keep the neighborhood wild rabbits out. Then I marked off my garden design using tent stakes and twine.

Today I bought 16 40-lb. bags of composted cow manure (that's 640 lbs.). While that sounds like a lot (and felt like a lot trying to carry the bags myself while everyone else was at school/work) it really barely covers the space I have intended for plants. I may end up sending Jeff back for more. I've opened all the bags, spread them out and have been using our garden claw to work the manure into the soil. I'm far from done, but my body is starting to give out. I'm in bad shape and I've definitely burnt some calories today. Here's how the garden looks right now:

Today's local weather:
High temp: 75 F
Low temp: 47 F
Sunny.

Outdoor workday

2008-04-05T17:36:00.007-04:00

Today is another beautiful day so we were able to do a few things on our garden "to do" list. First of all, because we are starting a new garden, we need to have someone come and till up the land for us. Jeff contacted a local guy who had an ad in our newspaper. He came today to take a look and give us an estimate on what it will cost us. The plot is 20' X 24'. Here's a picture:

If you look closely, you can see the twine and stakes that mark off the rectangular plot. Anyway, he wanted to charge us $120 for the job. Jeff talked him down to $90. It still seems high. My dad had his garden plot tilled a few years ago for just $40. Oh well, it is still cheaper than buying a $200 tiller ourselves.

Of course creating this new garden plot meant that we had to move a baby pine tree that Jeff had planted with our 11yo son a year ago. We just couldn't get rid of it, so we found a new home for it at the side of our yard. My 16yo moved it for us. Here it is in its new location.

And finally, Jeff and the 16yo set up this new birdhouse for the birds attracted to our new birdbath and feeders located at various locations around our yard.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 63 F
Low temp: 37 F
Sunny.

They're sprouting!

2008-04-03T16:36:00.003-04:00

My seeds are sprouting already! Yippee! We have them set up in covered trays on the kitchen counter under a special light. All of the sprouts in this picture are marigolds. But my zinnias and bell peppers have also sprouted. This is so exciting!

Berry trellis system

2008-04-01T19:01:00.004-04:00

Here is one of two trellis systems Jeff built yesterday and today to support our berry bushes. You can see we still haven't removed the straw mulch. It's still cold outside. But we're slowly getting things ready. Yesterday I started three trays of seeds inside to transplant outside later.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 54 F
Low temp: 30 F
Thunderstorms last night, overcast and windy today

Milky sporing our yard

2008-03-31T12:56:00.006-04:00

First of all, take a look at our brand new addition to our backyard. I am absolutely in love with it! It is our new celtic knot birdbath. Talk about personalizing. Anyone who knows me will know how perfect this is.

And here's an overhead view of the inside.

I also have bought flower seeds to plant around the base of the birdbath as soon as I have time to work the soil.

Now, onto my intended topic for today: milky spore. We have been plagued with Japanese Beetles in the past and anyone who has dealt with them knows what a nuisance they can be in the garden. We have used chemical products like Sevin in the past to get rid of them. But since we have decided to make more environmental choices from now on, we decided to try milky spore. It is a greener way of getting rid of the pest by basically targeting the grubs that grow under ground and eventually become the Japanese Beetle. It's a bacteria that is deadly to the Japanese Beetle, but harmless to other beneficial insects, pets, humans, other plants and water sources.

I was skeptical. To me it sounds too good to be true. If it is so easy to get rid of these pesky things, why isn't everyone using milky spore? Jeff thinks it is because it isn't advertised as much as the chemical alternatives. Plus it is much slower. It may take a while for the disease to spread among the grubs and, depending on what time of year it is applied, may not work for a year or two. And it is relatively expensive. It cost me $30 for a container that covered my backyard (half of a 1/4 acre lot). But it is supposed to work for 10 to 15 years with one application. My own dad used it on his lawn two years ago and he said last summer he saw almost no Japanese Beetles.

So today I was out in the yard stepping off a 4-foot checkerboard pattern and at each stop sprinkling 1 tsp. of the powder on the lawn. Rain is in the forecast so that is good - they recommend watering a new application to help it leach into the soil. I'm curious and anxious to see if this makes a dent in our Japanese Beetle population. Considering we live in a suburban neighborhood and our neighbors aren't using the milky spore, I don't know how strong a protection our application will be, but it is worth a try. I will keep you updated throughout the season.

Today's local weather info:
High temp: 64 F
Low temp: 54 F
Windy with rain showers (60%)

Beginning the 2008 gardening season

2008-03-30T09:49:00.000-04:00

We've gardened in the past with various success. This year we plan to expand and take the whole thing more seriously. Last year we had a tiny vegetable (mostly tomato) garden in the corner of our backyard. My husband planted raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. I have perennial flowers in the front yard. I have flower beds near the back porch and I plan to fill them with kitchen herbs this year. Finally, I will put annual flowers in pots on the back porch. We have other plans which include a trellis for the berries and a birdbath for our porch extension. Plus, we are going to try to make organic choices this year instead of relying on chemical pesticides like we have in the past.

Could we be biting off more than we can chew? Stay tuned and find out.