First Day of Summer 2013

 

 

Happy Summer!

The garden is looking good this year.
It may look sparse, but that is to
be blamed on the late start due
to chilly temperatures and all that rain.
The tomatoes are there, below the supports.
They are almost tall enough to begin tying them up.
And, as you can see, I have a bumper crop of plantain.
I am thrilled.
Such a beautiful plant, inside and out.

The cucumbers are just booming!
We had about an inch of rain last night
and I bet if I went out and looked I
'could' harvest a few. They would
be small, but edible!
The man-child has developed a dill pickle addiction
and is growing cukes this year so that he can
learn to make his own.
Pick what you love and go from there.
Also included in the pic above is a very healthy,
desperately needing to be trimmed and worked, yarrow
and a very happy catnip.
I do love the way catnip smells.
It is in my Top 10.

And these crazy mounds are lemon balm
and more catnip. Let 'em grow.
They chose that spot and just appeared there.
Who am I to tell them to move?
They seem to really like it.
Every year they get bigger and bigger.
There is a bed of bee balm in the back
against the bunny house and a
photobomb branch of my Mother wort.

Looookeeee!!!
After 4 years! 4 years!
I finally have apples!
Yay!
However... I purchased this tree as
a Granny Smith.
This is not a Granny Smith apple tree.
For these here apples are ripe.
The closest I can guess is they are Yellow Transparents.
Not very tasty, but apparently good for cooking.
I am eating them anyway.
The Gala is loaded too.
And even last year's replacement Arkansas Black has an apple!
The Wolf River is holding out on me.

And check this out!
In all of my years of growing my Great Grandfather's bee balm,
I have never seen this.
A blossom with a small stalk sticking out of the top
with another blossom.
There are several of these beauties this time.
Cool.

And I have loads of bee balm this year.
It seems to me that it is blooming early this year.
And tall!
This stuff is higher than my head.. as you can see.
I am collecting the blossoms for teas, and salves and distillates.
Maybe even some jelly.
Oooooh! Mmmmmm!
Popping the seal on Bee Balm Blossom jelly in the dead of winter
is like opening up a jar of summer.
And then smearing it across a hot scone.
And eating it.
Hell yeah.

And now a word of apology..
I have been remiss.
I truly don't know what has been my issue
in the past 11 months.
But...
I am going to try take what is in my mind
and translate it into something interesting.
And...
I think I will post loads more recipes.
Recipes are fun. No?

After The Rain..

Now I am not complaining.
I wouldn't think of complaining.
How could I possibly complain about rain
when so many others need rain so badly?
In fact,
I feel kind of bad talking about rain
now that I have set down to do it.

But it rained.
And it rained quite a bit
over about a week's time.
I wasn't able to even think about the garden
because it is a bad thing to work in a wet garden.
I get disease enough without
inviting more.
And the weeds GREW!

It doesn't look it,
but some of those things are knee high!





So I attacked late this afternoon
with my handy-dandy,
old as sin.
literally held together with duct tape
electric weedeater
and 'made clean'.
                            
That's better.
Much better.
I then went along and took
the pitiful chard down to
the ground that that it can re-grow.
Stupid pill bugs.
The rain was their open invitation to
devour my chard.

And you can see that my tomatoes
have the funk on the lower branches.
The rain just spread that stuff
right on up.
Sigh...
It won't be the best tomato harvest that I have ever had,
but I still have some tomatoes left from last year
so that's ok.

But the peppers are happy
and I took the opportunity
to whack back a lot of my herbs
that had bloomed and gone
so that they can bloom again.
Happy bees in the late summer with
fresh blooms to suckle.
They are going to need it.

And I think that does it for us
on the rain for a while;
maybe the rest of the summer.
Nothing but blue skies in the forecast!
(and heat)

On The Evolving of a Garden...

In the beginning.....

It looked like this.
What a mess.
Goldenrod and Wild Asters
and more morning glories than you could count
and a myriad of other weeds that I couldn't name.
(though this is picture of the upper foundation
I don't have a clear shot of the lower foundation
in all of it's horror,but you get the idea)

It was a dark and dreary space.

And then we ran pot bellied pigs through it.

And chickens.

And we ended up with this.
Ok.. so that makes it sound simple and easy.
It wasn't! I can promise you that!
There were trees in there and honeysuckle rootballs
the size of watermelons in August.
It took pulling and yanking and digging and burning.
Repeat.
Then tilling and more digging and yanking and burning.
Then the raking and the dumping of the barn cleanings
and more tilling and raking.
Then woodstove ashes and more barn cleanings
and more tilling and raking.
But, at last, we had a smooth (ish) surface to work from.

Then came the laying of the beds
and more hauling of the poop and straw
and more digging.

But we had the beginnings of a new garden spot.
One with NO FREAKING CRABGRASS!
Which was the whole point.

And look how it has grown!
From this...

To this!

And this!

Now..you may be thinking that in comparison
to the scraped clean paths of the earlier pic,
my garden looks just awful!
Well.. there is a method to my madness.

The Method To My Madness..

Ok.. so we left off with this picture.
It looks scraggly and overgrown.
Well.. I used to scrape down the paths
about once a week etc..
and found that I was creating a problem.
The paths were exposed clay and would leach
all of the water out of the beds.
So I began to let the grass and clover
(and weeds) stay.
Now I only have to hit it every once in a while
with my electric weedeater
instead of scraping and scraping with the hoe.

And I have found that my overall garden health has gone up!
I have more moisture in the soil
and more pollinators
and good bugs
and happier toads
and more earthworms.

And you may notice the mess
under my pepper plants.
It looks just dreadful and as if
I don't ever spend time cleaning
my garden.
I have let it do that on purpose, I swear.
That tangle has nasturtiums, petunias,
wood sorrel and French sorrel.
It has some of my dandelions that I let grow and spread
everywhere for medicinal uses.
There is also white clover and lots of
red clover.
The red clover I harvest and dry for
medicinal teas and tonics all winter
and both clovers are wonderful for the soil.
I have red and white clover growing wild everywhere
in the whole garden.
The tangled mess also helps to cool the soil from
the cooking sun, retain moisture under the plants
and they provide hiding places for my toads
and draw in more pollinators.
I swear! My peppers have never looked better.

And this is what is going on
with the end of each tomato row...
a riotous tangle of growth.
I have petunias and nasturtiums,
marigolds and basils.
My Lime Basil reseeded itself like nothing
I have ever seen before!
They are everywhere!
I must have pulled a million of them
before I bothered to take a sniff.
I promptly stopped pulling them up.

This is the end of one tomato row.
It is a massive catnip.
Is it in the way?
Sure.
But it smells so divine
and draws so many happy pollinators
that I am more than happy to let it sprawl around.

And this is the whole point to the madness..
happy butterflies and honeybees
and bumblebees etc..
The world is becoming a deadly place for insects.
I want to give them as much haven as I can.
They can come here and eat and be safe
from pesticides and I can have ultimate pollination!

Because this is the end result!
About 10 days to go!!
I can't wait!

Coming Right Along..

It is all coming right along.
Mayhaps next year I can just
go out into the garden and plant
without having to start from total scratch.
We have been here about 4 years
and I have moved the garden every
single spring.
I am sick to death of breaking
virgin soil.

But I am liking it so far this year.
We had just great success with planting
in the shade last year
that we have moved it all under the trees,
with the tomatoes being the exception.
If you look at the top pic you can see
a few orange lines stretching
between the trees and poles.
Beans.
Well, gonna be beans as soon as I get
around to planting.
I plan on picking what I can reach and
the vines that go too high
can hold the beans that I will use dry
over next winter.
This is an experiment,
but I have hopes that it will work out fine.




And I am slowing beating back the honeysuckle
and privett jungle to reclaim this dappled grove as my own.
I have cleared a path through it at least.
And in the sunny spot at the end of the path
are new herbs.. Feverfew, Pyrethrum and Sweet Annie.
They can grow and spread all they want back there.
And in the jungle along the path, Foxglove and Marshmallow
are tucked.




And everywhere I stick a shovel
into the ground I come up with
old bricks.
I have them piled and piled
so it doesn't look neat and clean yet.
But there are new Calendula seedlings and
Echinacea there and my Yarrow is beginning to bloom.



Sweet Woodruff under the holly
with Sweet Grass and Apple Mint.
And Valerian in the strange square formed of
chunks of old concrete.




In this bed there is my most favorite herb, Costmary.
It shares the bed with two kinds of Oregano, Parsley,
Rosemary, Evening Primose and an errant Peppermint.
Along the back there are about 70 Basil seedlings
and a new Tansy shared from a friend.
And sprinkled around are some Dianthus that overwintered,
some Sweet Alyssium and a few other little annual bloomers.

Ha!! That line you see stretching across the herb bed
towards the beans.. that's a hair that was blown across the lens.
I just noticed it and I am not going to start this
whole thing all over again.



A hanging pot of petunias, Rocket, which will bloom a
reddish pink border the blackberry patch.
There is a soft curve of dill, my comfrey
and a French Sorrel too.
There is my chard bed that has Lamb'd Quarter
growing in it too.
And peeking on the side is
the red Jerusalem Artichokes.




Chamomile that I found in the lawn in the front.
My White Horehound is taking over
and I need to start sharing it with others.
A lavender that I cannot find the perfect home for
and will transplant for the third time
to location unknown this fall.
A Curry plant, inedible, but very aromatic,
Lime Thyme, plain Thyme, an Anise Hyssop
and my Plaintains.
And a few petunias for color.
I hope that I can get the petunias to reseed.
One of my favorite fragrances is true petunia,
reverted petunia. So heady and sweet. But
you just can't buy them in the stores.
They have to reseed to have fragrance.




My compost pile pumpkins!
They are crowded, but I am not going to mess with them.
Compost veggies grow the best.
There are oodles of little peppers in there too.
But knowing my luck, they are all jalapenos.
I grew and dried so many jalapenoes last summer
that I never have to grow them again.




Chard and coriander and one bed of onions
leading back to the Jerusalem Artichokes.
If you stand and watch for just a moment
you can watch them grow.




From the inside looking out.




From the outside looking in.




And I am a bad, bad, bad gardener.
Naughty, shameful gardener.
Do not let my words and images fool you
into thinking I am on top of it all
and completely organized.
Instead of cutting new paths through the
jungle and planting pretty flowers
and hanging blooming baskets,
I should ahve been attacking the mess of weeds
that are taking over the western edge of the garden.
I have so many tomatoes that need to go in
their beds as soon as possible.
But as you can see, the tomato bed
is an utter disaster that nothing can be
planted in.
My priorities are completely screwed.
sigh...

Well.. it is officially Spring
since I refilled and plugged in the fountain in the garden.
I had some hopes that a tree frog
would decide it would be a great place for eggs,
but no such luck.

And Spring decided to appear around February 10th.
That was the first really warm day
and it never really got cold again.
I find the whole thing terribly freaky.
We have been over 90* already. That was last Friday
and it was HOT.



And we have expanded the garden further into
the trees.
Some of you may recognize the area
as the previous home of the pot bellied pigs
We had such success last year growing
under shade that we are putting it all under shade
this year.
It is the only way to garden really with the
new weather that seems to mean
screeching hot summers with searing sun.
I think I will let the beans vines
go up the trees. I will harvest what
I can reach and the rest can become
dried shelly beans for the winter
and seeds for next summer.
I think...
I haven't laid it out or anything yet.
I have refused to plant out anything but peas,
onions and chard.
I was afraid the ground was too hot for
the peas to sprout, but they finally made it.

See that wall to the left?
That was a wall of honeysuckle last year,
but I cleared it all and the peas are
planted all along it.
Though I have decided to cover that area
with spreading blooming things like
catnip, lemon balm and bee balm.
I have put the transplants in already
and am willing them to spread and
fill that whole wall.
I think it will be nice to have
fragrant and blooming things there to draw the
pollinators in.
The wall will end up outside the fence in the end as well,
so no use trying to plant anything I care about too much.






My horehound overwintered great and stayed green.
I was able to make a few teas out of it.
Horehound tea with honey is delicious!
It tastes just like horehound candy.
(that is..if you are one of the few,
the proud that like horehound candy)




And there is a small grove of redbud trees in the new garden area.
I have moved the costmary there and it is thriving.
The next tree has oregano - regular and hot and spicy varieties.
And I had this weird geranium come up in the tomato patch last year.
It got big, but the leaves were a bit smaller and I swear I don't remember it blooming, but..
I found teeny, tiny, teeny, tiny little weird geranium seedlings
and I have put them along the back edge of the copse of redbuds.
I have more to move, but they are too small yet.
I will have to post pics of this weird plant
when it gets big this year.
You need to help me figure out what in the world..





And here is the footing for the new kitchen extension.
My baking life will be so much easier with a shiny, new kitchen!

I have missed you and the only explanation I have
is a comparison ; it's like an aunt.
You know you should go see the aunt,
but it gets put on the back burner
for so long that you feel guilt whenever
you think of your aunt.
You feel to guilty to show your face.
You know that once you do go see her,
everything will be just fine and like it used to be,
you are just too ashamed to make that first move.
And so it was with me and thee..
But I am here now. I took the plunge.
Now I can come here all the time again.
And I have lots to fill you in on.
There have been changes over the winter...
(cliffhangar, ya'll!)

The Goodness of the Garden...

Today's harvest.
Even with the heat and drought
the garden has been producing well.
Chicken poop, bunny poop and straw
are a girl's best friends.
We have been eating well and tonight
those tomatoes and peppers
will become pasta sauce.
Ok.. that is a lie.
I will pull the last of last year's
tomatoes out of the freezer for sauce
because it is the right thing to do.
I have been using the fresh tomatoes,
but I must stop!
So tonight I will be good and
use the old stuff up.
But you know...
that bowl looks like salsa to me.


And I made the fountain for the insects.
I spent $20 on a small
submersible pump,
took the galvanized tub,
a length of old sewer pipe
and an anonymous pipe that I
found in the yard,
some bricks and
Ta Da! Fountain.
It was an instant hit with
the local insect life.
Butterflies, bees, wasps
and other bugs visit daily.
I placed a small stone on top
of the pipe to make a bit of a spray
that splashes down and wets the soil
and stepping stone and the old pot
that is leaned against the tub.
It gives wet surfaces for the insects
to land on and drink from
without drowning.
I have noticed an increase of insect
activity on all of my blooming plants,
including the important ones
like my tomatoes, squashes and cukes.
I knew it would help, but I am
amazed at how quickly and how well
it has worked to draw the bugs.
Never, ever again will my garden
be without a water source.

Garden Fix-Its..

I usually don't plant squash in the
early part of the year.
The squash vine borers and squash bugs
are just too awful to justify
the effort.
But I forgot myself this year.
What was I thinking!?

But, as you can see,
they look healthy.
My secret weapon..?
The lowly syringe.
I sucked up organic insecticidal soap
into the syringe and
gave the squash vines a shot.
The vines/stems are hollow tubes
and the borers play around inside
the tubes and kill the stem
and the plant.
So, I shot the insecticidal
soap into the hollow tubes.
It worked like a charm!
I had borers and my plants were wilting
and then I didn't and the vines look healthy
and are producing great gobs of squash.
I think it also worked
upon the newly hatched borers
as they bore into the
vnes. They encountered the soaped
tubes and were killed.
Gotta think outside the box.



And we have the new tomato supports in place.
I love, love, love them!
No more struggles.
No more crazy vines everywhere.
No more collapsing supports.

And such a simple idea from Sweet Husband.
The fencing is attached to a board
and the board is hung from the
PVC with zip ties.
It can be easily taken down
and stored for the winter
and easily set up again
in the early spring
for early peas and then the tomatoes
come summer.
Great!!