The Garden Today

For weeks I've been meaning to write an update of the garden's progress, but I don't feel like I have much to report. The garden has been doing its thing with little interference from me. I've pulled some weeds, supported some vines, harvested some veggies, the usual. So, finally, for the sake of keeping a record, here is a general overview of how it grows.

Droopy pumpkin vines on the back fence. (left side)

The weather this season has been less than ideal but the plants are still soldiering on. Those in the squash family seem to be having a particularly tough time. They didn't like the soaking rains early on and now that it's turned hot and dry, they have a tendency to droop during the day. The leaves on the pumpkin vines were particularly limp this afternoon (see above), but they have set fruit (see below).
 

One of a few small pumpkins starting.

The zucchini have had a rough time of it. I put out two plants this spring and both died. When the first one died, I planted a few seeds in its place. When the second one died, I replaced it with a plant from the local grocery store. As of right now (knock on wood) both are doing okay. The plant from the directly sown seeds is actually starting to produce tiny zucchini. It feels like it's late, but I'll take it.

The first tiny zucchini.

The yellow squash are also struggling. One plant seems to be doing okay and has a teeny tiny little bitty squash started. The other is a wilted flattened sad specimen at the moment.

Poor sad little yellow squash.

While the cucumber plants also look overwhelmed by the heat, that has not kept them from making fruit like it's going out of style. We are deep into cucumber season - one of my favorite seasons of the year - with bags of them in the fridge and plans to start giving them away, maybe, if my 2-3 cucumber-a-day habit gets tiresome. 

So many cucumbers.

My husband and I joke that the only thing that loves the heat and humidity here in our river valley is the corn. Ours is no exception. I've never grown decorative corn before so I'm not sure what metrics I should be judging for its success. It was over knee high on the 4th of July, so that's something. It looks happy and we'll see how it goes.

A pretty little insect of some kind on the corn.

Corn and beans make fine neighbors.

Last year we planted the shell beans in the same bed as the corn and pumpkins. This year, with the smaller beds, the corn and beans became next-door neighbors with the pumpkins more down-the-street neighbors. As always, the rattlesnake and turtle beans are happily growing along with little-to-no trouble. The turtles are sending up more climbing vines than they have in the past. I just encouraged them to join the rattlesnakes on the trellis and all seem happy.  

Oh how I love happy beans.

Our other beans have not had such an easy time of it. I got a sack of tricolor beans this year - yellow, green, and purple - and planted the seeds so that I would have two plants of each type. Well, early in the season, something decided to come along and pull up all but one of the plants. I think it was a crow, or other bird. They weren't dug up or eaten, just plucked from the ground and laid on the dirt to wither and die. (sad, no?) I planted more seeds, unsure of which color had survived. The next round of seeds did grow, but not very well. The one plant from the original batch is now producing beans - green ones - and I've decided to be content with that. I'll still hope the others catch up too.

Our bed of Bright Lights chard.

As usual, the chard is one of the stars of the garden. I've only done one picking so far and made lovely chard, mushroom, and goat cheese tarts. I really have to get in there and harvest more. The more I pick, the more it'll produce and it freezes very well.

Experimental tomatoes.

When I was back in the planning phase of the garden last winter, I came across some Burpee direct sow tomato seeds. The promise was that, when planted directly in the garden just before the last frost date, the tomatoes would grow and produce at the same rate as tomatoes that had been started early inside. So, I thought I'd give it a try. I planted enough seeds directly in the garden to have two each of the cherry tomatoes and the beefsteak ones. One of the cherry tomato plants died about a month in but we were able to replace it in the garden bed with a mystery tomato plant growing out of the compost bin. The other tomato plants are doing very well and have started setting fruit. I haven't checked to see how that compares to tomatoes we have grown in years past but, so far, the experiment seems to be a success.

The first of the direct-sow beefsteaks.

I also planted some slightly experimental pepper plants. The experiment, or more properly, mystery, is that I don't know what color the peppers will be. The pack had four different types - red, orange, yellow, and purple. I'm hoping for a variety of colors but we're still in the waiting phase. At least I know that they are not ready to pick until they are no longer green.

One pepper waiting to reveal its final color.

I think that's all that's going on in the garden now. We harvested all the pak choi, arugula, and radishes. We got three garlic scapes that had turned woody before I picked them. Oh yeah! And our peas are currently making peas. 

As for my herb garden just outside my back door, it's exactly what I had hoped for. I can pop out the door, grab some herbs and barely miss a beat while I'm cooking. The deer sampled some of them early on but they bounced back. The dill had some sort of caterpillar infestation, so it's been stripped of nearly all its fronds and flowers. I did let a few rogue dill plants stay in the main garden, though, so I still have them for my recipes. Overall, I'm very pleased with my patio herbs.

My lovely herbs.

And all around the yard, the other plants and flowers are doing their thing. I'm happy to see that the mondarda and orange butterfly plants are still drawing in the bees. I'll have to do a separate update post about the wild seeds I planted over the winter. It's been a mixed bag with them. And then there's the Subaru tree to write about too. And an update on the luffa plants. I guess I do have some stories to tell still even as the garden plods along.

Bee being busy.

Rebuild Time Part 2

Last spring, we replaced half of the old wooden beds in our garden with metal ones. This year, we finished the job. There were still two 4-foot by 11-foot and two 1-foot by 11-foot wooden bed to replace. One of the smaller beds was filled with asparagus, which we relocated outside the garden. Part of the other smaller bed had horseradish, which we pulled out and deposited along the back treeline. After that, there was just a lot of dirt moving to do.

Garden bed rebuild in progress.

It has been a very wet spring. Because of that, and my lack of enthusiasm for hard work, the rebuild took several weeks to finish. My husband really did most of it. He built the six new metal beds, shoveled tons of dirt, added compost, and relaid the stone paths. I helped by decided which type and how many bags of new soil we would get to fill in and I added those bags to the beds. And finally, it was all done.

All the bed replacements finally finished!

But that was not all of the rebuild. For the past couple of years, the deer have been making themselves at home in the garden. Beyond the nibbled plants and obvious hoof prints, we got photographic proof last fall.

A taller fence was obviously needed. Our original fence was four feet tall. We got a couple more rolls of 4-foot wide plastic mesh fencing and 6-foot long bamboo poles for fence posts. The process of adding height to the existing fence actually went more smoothly than I expected. I had a plan, of course, but was still surprised that the plan worked so well. We wove the bamboo poles through the mesh fencing then lifted them up and zip-tied them to the fence posts that were already there. Then I went around and hand "sewed" the seam between the two fences so there wasn't a gap.

"Sewing" the fence seam together with some garden twine.

The result is an 8-foot tall fence all the way around our garden (except for over the gate).

Let's see those deer jump over this! (I know they could so please don't.)

With the garden now better protected, I got the rest of the seeds and plants into the ground. I had planted the hardier seeds - radishes, arugula, pak choi, chard, and peas - and the direct-sew tomato seeds (as directed) before the average last frost date and before we finished the fence. 

A lovely row of sugar snap peas.

After the fence I planted the bush beans, turtle beans, rattlesnake beans, blue Jarrahdale pumpkins, and glass gem ornamental corn. I also transplanted pepper, zucchini, yellow squash, and cucumber plants.

The young plants hardening off a few days before transplanting.

The spring rains continued and I mostly stayed out of the garden. Yesterday, I finally thinned out the seedlings. I also added a fence for the peas. Everything is growing, though much of it is unhappy with the large amount of rain. 

Corn and radishes before thinning.

This poor little cucumber plant isn't well.

One other thing we planted outside the garden was some luffa plants. We had very good luck growing them a few years ago. We still had some seed left and they were still viable, so now there's a tall teepee in the back yard near the new asparagus bed. There is also one long pie pumpkin plant under the teepee. 

I don't know why I didn't take a picture of the whole teepee.

You grow, luffa!

So far, the pumpkin and luffa plants have been left alone by our backyard wildlife. We'll see if that lasts. 

Oh deer, oh deer.

A sweet, fluffy bunny.

 

That Time We Moved the Asparagus Bed

Last spring, we rebuilt half of the garden by taking out the old wooden raised beds and replacing them with metal ones. This spring, we replaced the other half. I'll be posting about that soon. Moving the tons of dirt from the old beds into the new ones was a lot of work, but the real chore, in my opinion, was digging out the asparagus bed. 

The "old" asparagus bed behind the Three Sisters bed.

Back in March, I tried to get the process started by digging up the asparagus while it was still dormant. At that time, I found that the ground was still frozen, so I couldn't do any digging. At least, that's what I thought. The ground certain still had some ice in it, but when I went back to try again after it had warmed up considerably, I still found it very hard to dig. 

Over the winter, I had researched how to relocate an asparagus bed. I read that it was a delicate process to remove the fragile roots and crowns and that I needed to be gentle with them. With that in mind, I carefully began the extraction. The gentle approach got me nowhere. I could barely get the tines of my garden fork into the earth. So, I got out a shovel and began to tentative probe the soil to loosen it around roots. When my husband found me jumping on the shovel like a pogo stick he suggested getting out an ax. I chuckled and allowed him to take over for a bit. Finally, he was able to remove an asparagus crown.

You've heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster...

One of the first things we planted in our brand-new garden some 10 years was the asparagus bed. I guess after that long, the tiny, delicate asparagus crowns had turned to hulking beasts. That would explain the difficulty digging and maybe why some of the asparagus spears last year were somewhat malformed. I assumed that had been insects but it might have been the result of intense overcrowding.

It ended up taking more than a month to fully remove all the asparagus from the old bed. I strained by back while working on it and my husband's attention was on moving soil to the new beds. By the time we had hauled all the bits of asparagus out of its 1-foot by 11-foot bed, I was, frankly, tired of it.

One of the newer 3'x6' beds temporarily held all the dug-up asparagus.

For a couple days, I considered just dumping the load at the back of our property and letting it fend for itself. But then I noticed the tiny green spears reaching out of the mass of twisted roots.

Life will find a way.

I couldn't just exile the asparagus when it was doing its best to keep going. So, I went to work digging a new, larger bed outside of the garden proper. The digging started out easily enough. Removing the first layer of turf was actually kind of fun. Then I got into the rocks. There were so many rocks. I have vowed that the next place we live will have soil free of rocks. By the time I get over the last move, however, and actually want to move again, I'll likely be too old to dig a hole anyway. 

That's going to have to be good enough.

After heaving the dug-up asparagus "crowns" over the garden fence rather than carrying them all the way out through the gate, I laid them into the hole. I probably should have used fewer of them or made a larger bed but I didn't have the heart or the energy to do either. 

Sorry, they're just going to have to figure it out.

I had to shake out the turf in order to recover enough soil to completely cover the asparagus in its new home but it all seemed to work out.

All done!

Now, almost a month later, the asparagus has put up new spears. There aren't a lot but it proves that at least some of them survived the violent, haphazard transplanting. 

Hey, maybe this will actually work!

You may notice in the photo that many of the spears appear to be broken off. They were bitten off, more likely. I didn't think that deer ate asparagus, but they do seem to like to sample nearly everything we try to grow around here. I've just decided to shrug and late nature take its course.

Was it only the fence keeping the deer from devastating our asparagus crop?

Let's Get This Party Started

Okay, so it was actually herbs that got started, not a party, but I'm just as happy. About a month ago, on March 16, I got out my starter trays, Jiffy pellets, and seed envelopes and got to work.

I like having a plan.

First off, I gave my starter trays a nice bleach bath. There's no reason to not begin with everything freshly disinfected.

We don't need any dormant funk messing things up.

I love the Jiffy peat pellets. Since I found them, I've used them exclusively to get my seedlings started. All you have to do is soak them in some warm water then slip them into the starter tray. Easy-peasy.

Jiffy pellets taking a swim.

While I feel like I can identify most herbs by sight now, it's always a good idea to record what seeds are planted where. In this case, I did two cells each for the herbs as well as eight for peppers and four additional for some wild native plant seeds. Then, the covered trays were placed lovingly under the grow light to enjoy fourteen hours of artificial sunlight each day thanks to the convenient timer.

Now do your duty!

Just four days later, the first dill seedlings emerged. 

Dill!

The dill was quickly followed by basil and asters the next day. Three days after that, the thyme, rosemary, lavender, catnip, and peppers emerged. The parsley was the final green sprout to show up on March 26.

Thyme, parsley, basil, rosemary, and catnip up front on April 13.

Lavender and dill on April 13.

As my little seedlings are enjoying the steady, calm weather inside the house, I'm making plans for their lives outside. I started my patio herb garden last summer with just two pots of herbs. Over the winter and spring, I've been collecting more pots.

Such pretty examples of international commerce.

Home Goods and T.J. Maxx have proven to be the best places to get reasonably-priced, pretty pots. I've added a lovely orange pot shaped like a tulip ($19.99, made in Vietnam), one with a painted floral design ($14.99, made in Spain), one with a raised feather pattern (14.99, made in Vietnam), a simple pale blue one ($16.99, made in Spain) , and a white one with partridges and pears ($16.99, made in China) to my collection. 

I think my basil will be in this pot.

We've still got a least a month before the seedlings end out all together outside on the patio. For now, the chives are on their own out in the world. Well, they're not entirely alone. They have the daffodils for company.

The chives seem happy enough with their yellow friends.

And the occasional rabbit comes by for a visit now and then.

I wonder if this is one of last years' munchkins?

False Spring

Over the past few weeks, warm weather has descended upon us. Rejoice, the sunshine and warm temperatures cheer. Spring is here! But, no, it's not. Not really. This is False Spring. Now, I know that meteorological spring begins in just under a week, but as a life-long New Yorker, I know that there's still at least one more shot of winter on the way. I joke that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb - white and fluffy. We've had major snow storms well into April. The week before our wedding at the end of May (some 20+ years ago), there was snow in the middle of the state. Perhaps global climate change is finally making spring arrive earlier, but I'm still skeptical. (Not of climate change! That's absolutely a thing. I'm skeptical that spring is really hear.)

Our backyard on March 16, 2017

Of course, that doesn't mean I'm not already dreaming about Real Spring. I've purchased my seeds for this year's garden and have graphed out a plan. We're trying some new tomato seeds from Burpee this year that don't need to be started indoors. They are supposed to be directly sown in the garden. I look forward to seeing how they actually work. I will be starting some other seeds - peppers and herbs - probably in the next week or so.

Reviewing last year's garden plan and sorting seeds on hand.

The new raised beds are in the garage waiting to be built and placed in our garden as we finish the rebuild that we started last spring. We've still got four old wooden beds to remove. They currently contain the asparagus, horseradish, rhubarb, and chives. They'll all need to be moved and, today, I decided to start that process. I began with the chives. I noticed a week or so ago that they were starting to emerge.

Hello, you spicy little darlings.

Back in August, I decided that I was going to create a container herb garden. Over the winter I've collected a couple more flowerpots to use, but I didn't have one yet that I liked for the chives. So, this morning we went out to Lowe's and I found a lovely terracotta pot. It's labeled an azalea pot, but I think it looks just right for my chives. I hauled the pot and potting soil and implements of destruction out into the garden and went to work.

Rather than carry the chives all the way to the house...

A wonderful large lump of chives.

The chives would have completely filled the terracotta pot, so I split them into three pieces. One piece went into the pot while the other two got relocated outside the fence. You can never have too many chives. Then I gave them all a nice long drink of water. Since the chives were happily living outside before I pulled them from the garden, I figured they could stay outside. I do worry about another round of winter weather coming in, though. The chives would not be as well protected from the cold in the pot as they were in the cozy garden bed. So, I tucked them in next to the daffodils beside the house. The heat reflected from the house always get the bulbs going in this flower bed first, so I figured it would be a good temporary spot for the chives.

Stay warm little ones!

I was having such a nice time working in the garden, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to dig up the asparagus bed. I did a little reading about the best time to transplant asparagus, and this seemed like the right time. It was warned that moving a mature bed would take time and patience, so I was ready for a long haul project. 

Moving time!

I started by raking away the leaves we had placed as mulch. As I did, I noticed a strange shininess near the center of the bed. It was ice.

Why did it take my brain so long to figure out what this was?

With a great feeling of disappointment, I realized that the ground was still frozen. There was no way that I was going to be digging out any asparagus crowns today. I did try, but was quickly defeated. Oh well. The forecast has continued warm temperatures for the next week. Maybe the ground will thaw before it snows again. Or maybe it won't snow at all. The birds think it's spring - I watched a crow collecting nesting material and heard a cardinal singing his heart out. And some of the plants away from the heat of the house are beginning to come back to life. Maybe I'm just a pessimist when it comes to weather, and spring really is here. I guess time will tell. 

One of 70 bulbs I planted last fall.

Here comes a daylily!

Cardinal was singing but hiding in the yew. (auto focus fail)

zzzzzzz

PS: It did snow again on March 26. It wasn't much and it all melted immediately, but I'm pleased my prediction of another storm came true. 

A duck couple visited the parking lot at my job during the storm.