Can You Smell That?

It's in the air.  I'm not talking about the feed lot on the edge of town although that odor is omnipresent in the atmosphere these days.

No.  I'm talking about spring.  Here we are just past the Ides of March and spring is definitely in the air.  I'm talking robins.  I'm talking greening grass.  I'm talking crocuses poking up from the ground.  I get spring fever really bad and this mid-March weekend was glorious for my garden and my spirit.

This year's tax refund treat was a little electric tiller/cultivator by Earthwise.  I bought it with my own hard-earned money stripped shamelessly from Uncle Sam's hand.  What do I love about this tiller?  Many things!  First of all, no gas or oil to mess with.  Then there's the push button starter.  That's right, no pull cord to yank my shoulder out of joint.  It weighs about 25 pounds so there is no struggling to guide the tiller and it goes after the soil like it's collecting a debt.

Yesterday, I assembled 'Tilly' and took her for a test spin. In about five minutes, I had turned over and incorporated the leaves and grass I used to mulch these two beds last fall.  Another five minutes of work and they'll be ready for planting.

Emboldened by my tilling prowess, I escorted Tilly to the opposite end of the garden where we had not yet broken ground for planting.  After about an hour, Tilly and I had created this:

No.  This is not a grave site.  At least I hope it's not.  This is the site of my potato patch for this year.  I am anxiously awaiting construction of a nice, wooden raised bed about 8 x 8 feet square.   I am very impressed with the performance of this little tiller and I heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a small tiller/cultivator.  This is the one I got.

Yep, it's time to think about potatoes again.  I remembered this when I went to the Big Town to get a new dog bed for Lucky.  In a fit of pique triggered by God knows what, last week he managed to flay and gut his old bed.  The gore factor was pretty significant and we had to haul the carcass away forthwith.  He went without a bed for almost a week.  The way he acted you'd think he had been consigned to the garage floor.  The living room has perfectly fine, if soiled and somewhat worn carpeting suitable for lounging by the canine crew.  Nonetheless, he moped and carried on while restlessly shifting from one spot on the floor to another heaving heavy sighs until I broke down and got him a new bed this afternoon.  Here he is 'enjoying' his new bed:

You're stealing my soul!

Lucky isn't super fond of having his picture taken.  I have more shots of the back of his head than anything else.  He's a beautiful animal with amazing blue eyes.  If I didn't have the pics from his puppy hood, I'd never be able to prove it.  In contrast, here is Dotti-dog on the same bed less than 30 seconds later:

Caught her mid-lick. This dog always makes me smile.

Back to the potatoes.  After much hemming and hawing at the display in the garden center carefully weighing the qualities of the available varieties, I went with the early season Yukon Gold and a white, mid-season called Superior. Stay tuned for performance critique and results as the season progresses.  I hope to plant by the first of April.

When I think of planting potatoes, I also think of planting onion sets.  This year is no different and the varieties are the same ol', same ol' I get every year.  Generic white, generic red and generic yellow.  The shallots grew gangbusters last year and they were right tasty so they went in the cart as well.

Yes, I know 300 is a lot of onions.  Typically I wind up discarding about 15-20% of the sets due to decay and then only about half of what's left will actually grow.  Plus, I've never gotten an onion any bigger than a tennis ball out of my garden.  Small onions don't bother me though.  I hate to leave a part of an onion in the fridge.  It never seems to get used up and pretty soon the fridge stinks of onion.  I also decided to try growing onions from seed this year.  It's a new thing for me so I'm reluctant to not plant onion sets as well.  I may have an abundance of onions at the farmer's market this year...which is another topic coming soon.  My first farmer's market experience as a seller!

So that's where I'm at.  I've started a few seeds...peppers and eggplants and the onions of course...but I'm not ready to talk about those.  For now, I'll dream about taters with sour cream and chives.  At least until the snap peas come on.

360 Degree July Garden Tour--2013 Edition

Phew!  Still hot! Not 360 degrees, but 97 is pretty warm. Yesterday was a scorcher!  So I spent my day indoors looking at and editing a whole slew of pictures I took of the garden inhabitants over the last week or so.  Let's start in the back garden where I have the vegetables growing.

Okay, so these aren't technically growing anymore.  Lying here on the edges of my Top Hat Blueberry bushes drying in the sun is but a mere portion of the onions I planted this year.  I planted them in three waves about 2 weeks apart and guess what?  They're all coming on at the same time anyway.  That's the last time I try that.  In the background, you can see where the bush beans will be emerging any time now.

This is the boatload of shallots that I got from the 12 or so sets I bought in the spring.  Note the cutting edge, high tech drying tray.  Can you tell I made it myself from an old trash can lid and a brick to keep it from sailing away in the wind?  Nothing but the best.

If you look a little left-ish from the onion drying station, you'll find where some of the onions had been growing and some still are, a respectable stand of volunteer dill and my potato buckets that have been re-purposed for cucumbers and tiny pumpkins.  I have created a 'trellis' by drilling holes in the edge of the buckets and running twine from there up to the edge of the patio cover.  Since I took this picture, the cucumbers in the two right hand buckets have grown at least a foot.

Against all the odds of a crazy spring and summer, I have an actual tomato.  I have spent a little time wondering if I would get any.  Apparently, I will get at least one little Roma.

Here we find a close up shot of the coleus I started from seed.  It was called 'Rainbow Mix' but all the coleus are pretty much exactly the same.  What are the odds?  Not much of a mix, if you ask me.

On the back arbor, I have hung four little planters with begonias, white petunias and moss rose.  An odd combination, I know.  I just went to the garden center and picked out the plants I liked the best.  This is what I wound up with.

The white petunias.  You can't tell in this pic, but there is a slight pink cast around the edges.

 

 

 

A particularly nice moss rose blossom

Look behind you and you'll see what might be the silliest garden thing I've ever done.  Yes.  That's corn.  It's a special variety called Corn On Deck and I got it online from Burpee.  I can't say I can recommend it though.  I got a package of 30 seeds and planted them according to the instructions.  This is all I got.  Admittedly, they are starting to tassel but whether or not I get any corn at all remains to be seen. And no, Burpee didn't pay me to say those things or give me the seed.  As much as it pains me to admit it, I bought it myself.  Let's step over to the berry bed.

These are the first raspberries I've ever grown.  They are black raspberries.  The tiny handful that I got were delicious.  Continuing on around the corner we find my second tomato bed.

The plants are still small but they are sturdy and there are blossoms forming.  I am always impatient for tomato season to begin.  This year has been torture.  That gigantic plant on the left side is my tomatillo plant(s).  Lots of sweet little yellow flowers but no fruit yet.  The marigolds in the front are from seedlings I started in March.

In the foreground here, my much anticipated asparagus plants have sprouted!  All but one of the crowns I planted has come up.  I was expecting a 50% survival rate, so this is unprecedented.  Looks like we'll have a good bed if they all make it through the winter.

 Just look what the cabbage loopers have done to my brussels sprouts!  I am constantly on the lookout for these tiny green menaces and my response is swift and squishy.  Next year, the brussels sprouts get the row cover treatment instead of the squashes.

A wider shot of the fence in progress.  Yes, the white chairs are for sitting and admiring the work so far.  Come around to the front yard.  There are some really great flowers to see there.

RAWR!!!

This is what I've been waiting to get to!  My hen n' chicks have flowered!  I've seen many beds of these succulent lovlies, but never any in flower.  They look FIERCE!

The most beautiful orange lilies I've ever grown.  The picture honestly does do not do them justice.  Stunning is the word.

On the other side of the bed we find bee balm in lavender.  This is the 'natural' color of these flowers.  It is just starting to come out in bloom now.

This is a hybrid bee balm...I've forgotten the variety just now.  I should write these things down.  This blossom is past its prime, but the red is spectacular!

Due to the fence construction activity, I've had to relocate my potted peppers.  Here they are sitting on the end of the driveway.  Lots of leaves and not many flowers yet.  But their time is coming.

On the fence around the kennel area are these two hanging pots with impatiens and coleus.  I did not start these from seed.  Aren't they beautiful?

Well, I guess that's it.  Good thing too as it's getting hot again.  What does your garden look like in the middle of summer?

Onions and garlic and shallots, oh my!

Yep, that about covers it.

The first wave of onions has been harvested.  They came earlier than I thought they might.  I was surprised to go out yesterday and find the tops of many of the first batch lying over on the ground.  So I have a couple racks of onions drying on the patio.

Most of the shallots were dug today also.  I got A LOT of shallots from the 12 or so I planted in the spring.  They are also drying on the patio.

I got curious though.  As I was pulling out some onions that had gone to seed, I realized that many of the garlic plants had turned brown.  So I dug them up and found little, tiny garlic bulbs.  I don't know if they'll be useful or not, but they are also drying on the patio.

All this onion pulling left me with a nearly empty raised bed.  So, I decided to give green beans another shot.  I planted a bunch when we got back from vacation, but nothing happened.  Not a single one grew.  So, I'm shooting for a fall crop of beans.  We shall see.

Now I'm eyeing the place where the garlic was and wondering when I should plant more snap peas...hrm....

I love summer.

Mid-spring Garden Update

Yeah, you'd never know it from the weather forecast, but it really is mid-spring.  I hear we're expecting a couple inches of snow tomorrow night.  What a bother.  I'll have to be out and about covering plants, I guess.

You see, I paid attention to the weather forecast this weekend.  It said nothing about a cold front or the potential for snow in the near future.  I figured we might be done.  We'll see about that.  But the problem is I set all my pretty little pepper seedlings out in their pots this weekend.

I'm a numbskull.  Yep.  I did it.

But that's not the update part:

• We finally finished up the much anticipated berry bed!  I have room for 3 raspberries, a gooseberry and about 18 strawberry plants one of which has given me a berry already.

• Although it's not strictly a part of the garden per se, we planted a State Fair apple tree on Friday.  It was Arbor Day after all.  And I wanted an apple tree.  Like my little white painted wire fences around my tree and new shrubs?  Yeah, I thought of that all by myself.  You can use it if you want.

• The bush cherries I ordered arrived last week and I got them in the ground on Saturday.  Little sticks with tiny little buds on them.  I noticed last night that some of the buds are becoming leaves already.
• The early plantings are thriving in the cool and damp spring we've had so far.  The onions have never looked better.  Every single onion, garlic clove and shallot I planted has sprouted, I think.  The peas are finally growing and the spinach is finally getting actual leaves.  We thinned the radishes last night and munched on the thinnings.  Very radish-y.  It has me reconsidering trying my hand at growing sprouts in the kitchen.  I can imagine how wonderful radish sprouts would be in stir fry.

• I'm trying brussel sprouts for the first time this year.  That's them under the milk jugs.  Long ago, a friend of mine grew some in his garden and I remember thinking they looked a little like aliens when I discovered them hanging in his garage in November.  He was still getting sprouts at Thanksgiving.  I'm not a big fan of sprouts, but maybe if I grow my own, I could be.  I never liked tomatoes until I grew my own.  I know, right?  Crazy.
• The only thing I'm concerned about are my potatoes.  I haven't seen a single sprout out of them yet.  Maybe they rotted in the pots?  Maybe they're taking their sweet time?  I'll give them awhile yet.  It's still early and it's been unseasonably cold.

So that's where I'm at.  I was hopeful to get some more planting done this weekend but between the rain and potential snow, I doubt it.  My tomatoes will have to wait another week or so.

And now, here is a lovely picture of my new fish: