Back in the Garden Again

The 2016 gardening season is in full swing now. Nearly everything is planted in the garden and we’ve already been able to pick some things. It is wonderful to be in the second year of a garden. The chives were up and ready to use by the middle of April and on the 25^th of that month we had our first asparagus. We made a rhubarb pie on May 7^th. We had to supplement the fresh rhubarb with some frozen from last year to fill the crust but it tasted very good. The strawberries are coming back strong as well.

Garden at rest in mid-April

Home-grown asparagus - yum!

As usual, I spent much of late winter/early spring poring over seed catalogs and working out my garden layout. After the fungus on the chard and beets last year I had to make sure I rotated things around this year. That’s just good practice anyway, but it did lead to a lot of erasing on my plan. I thought I had it all set when I realized I had put the tomatoes where the potatoes were last year and that’s a no no. So, I had to make some changes but finally got everything worked out.

Potatoes starting to peek through

I put the first seeds in the ground on April 29 – scallions, beets and arugula. At the beginning of May we put in the potatoes, carrots, pak choi, chard, snap peas and garden peas. Since then we have been battling squirrels who think their nuts are still stashed in the garden from last winter. In all fairness, I have pulled out two acorns that were on their way to turning into oak trees so the squirrels are not entirely wrong.

An oak tree in the garden? I don't think so.

Nearly every day there were new little drill holes in the raised beds. I wouldn’t mind the digging so much if it didn’t disturb the new seedlings. The only seeds the tree rats seem to actually be digging up and eating are the snap peas which have been entirely cleaned out. All the other plants are just collateral damage of the digging. I tried dusting everything with cayenne pepper but that seemed to have no effect. I probably didn’t use enough. One container got spread over the entire garden. I have some other pepper-based repellent on the way from Amazon so we’ll see how that works.

The Enemy

The strawberry bed seems to be a favorite place for the squirrel digging. Again, they have not damage the plants, they are just digging everywhere among them. I worried that when the strawberries actually did come on that the squirrels would finally turn their attention to the berries. After waiting over a year for the fruit myself, I am not about to give them up to the squirrels or the chipmunks or the birds, for that matter. So, I got some bird netting and made a little cage over the plants. I got that done a few days ago and so far so good. (fingers crossed)

Protecting the strawberries

I just got the rest of the seeds in the ground yesterday. The list is similar to last year – corn, pumpkins, beans, cucumbers, summer squashes, acorn squash. I gave up on some vegetables I planted last year like kale, turnips and spinach and have added watermelon radishes to the mix. I started several plants indoors earlier in the spring but I forgot to start hardening them off until yesterday morning so I’m not ready to plant them out yet. I’ll write more about starting the seeds in my next post.

View of the garden on May 28

My husband asked me the other day if it actually saved any money growing produce ourselves or if it was cheaper to just buy vegetables at the grocery store. My first thought was that it must be less expensive at the store, especially if you figure in the time we put in to keep the garden running. Of course that’s one of my favorite parts of gardening so I hesitate to consider that an expense. So, I decided to run some numbers. This year, we spent $23.89 on seeds and $55.77 to amend the soil. We also spent $374.87 for everything needed to start seeds indoors. That’s a grand total $454.53 (so far). Will the garden produce that much store-quality veg? I don’t know. If it does, great. If not, well, at least I had a great time playing in the dirt!

Pak choi seedling

Strawberry blossoms

Arugula before thinning

Chive blossoms

Garden pea seedling

Where's Winter?

It has been a very odd winter. It snowed a bit then it got warm then it rained then it got warmer (68 degrees on Christmas Eve day!) then it snowed a little again then it got cold (about 7 degrees, so not really cold) and now it’s warm and raining again. The other day I actually saw a forsythia bush blossoming! Sheesh. I wish the weather would make up its mind.

A little frosty

Just a bit of snow

The snow blower anxiously awaiting snow

Our house has a nice little fireplace. Unfortunately it has been rare to have a day cold enough this season to warrant a fire. There were a couple of cold evenings, though, when we could have a fire. There’s nothing like sitting in front of a glowing fireplace, watching the dancing flames, soaking up the heat. We’ve found a combination of pressed wood “logs” and actual wood make a nice balance of heat and flames.

So many pretty colors: oranges...

...purple and yellow...

...pinks and reds.

This fall my husband took down a couple of trees in the back yard to use for firewood. While it’s far too green to burn this year, it should be very nice for next winter. I grew up with a variety of wood-fueled heat sources. By the time the first snow fell, the cellar was filled with firewood. Row upon row would be stacked from floor to ceiling. I never cared for the creepy-crawlies that would come out of the wood, though the tiny pocket snake was rather cute. Still, I’m glad our home-cut firewood is stacked out in the garage.

The pile waiting for next year

Some nice cherry and locust wood

We finally put the bird feeder out for the season. Normally, we wait until there is snow on the ground but who knows when that’s going to be. The chickadees found the feeder within minutes. I love chickadees! Soon after that, a titmouse showed up. Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal now frequent the feeder along with a tiny wren. A small flock of finches stops by on occasion as well. I love watching the birds and it’s much easier to get photos of them when they come to you. Of course the bird seeds have also attracted Tubby McSquirrel and his friends but if I want to feed the birds, I have to host the squirrels as well.

A chickadee being tall

A titmouse and chickadee sharing the feeder

Squirrel!

It just doesn’t feel like winter without the snow. Sure, the wind is cold and the trees are bare but the grass is still oddly green. I enjoy the snow. That’s why I still live in New York State. I get tired of it after a while but it just doesn’t feel like winter without a white blanket over everything. The snow will come. I’m sure of that. Until then, I’ll just have to look back at pictures from winters when we lived on the mountain.

Looking back at winter in 2009 in the Adirondacks

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like…Springtime?

So, it’s the 15^th of December and honeybees are still working over the flowers on the lettuce in the garden. The temperature was at a record high yesterday. I was actually able to pick some fresh herbs from the garden for dinner last night. This doesn’t feel right to me. This is New York State. It doesn’t even feel like just an extended autumn. The warmth and the rain and the smell of the air all remind me of springtime. Strange. At least I got to enjoy the bees, though they seemed rather frantic.

Usually by this time of year nearly all insect life outside is dead or asleep. I’m not used to seeing so many tiny creatures still active.

Putting the Garden to Bed

It’s been a strange autumn. We had a frost in early October then a snow storm and then 70 degree weather again. Then the weekends were rainy. So, it took me quite some time to actually put the garden in order for the winter.

The first hard frost was enough to kill nearly everything in the garden but it was a couple weeks before I could get in to clean up everything. It is always a bit sad to see everything suddenly brown when just a day earlier it was all brilliant and green. But it’s also nice to know that the growing season is done and it time for the next step.

I like to pull out all the dead plants in the fall. Some people let them stand and then till them into the soil in the spring. I like the look of a cleaned up garden bed so I pull everything out. Some of the dead plants I put into the compost bin. Some I leave on the beds. I don’t really have a scientific process for this. It just depends on what I feel like that day. For example, the eggplants, though they barely produced any fruit, set out deep roots. When I pulled the plants, a lot of soil came with them. So, I decided to leave the plants lying in the garden bed so I can shake some more soil off of them in the spring. The tomatoes, I removed to the brush heap in the back. Toward the end of the season the leaves got brown and spotty so I don’t want the plants lying on the soil. Similarly, when the fungus hit my chard and beets mid-season, I put the infected leaves out back. The lettuce, when I finally pull it will go into the compost bin.

Even as I type this, just days before Thanksgiving, the lettuce is still going strong. I was going to tear it out two weekends ago when I took care of the rest of the plants but a honey bee was working over the tiny lettuce flowers. The weather was so hot after I planted the second round of seeds that the lettuce came up bitter. But the plants looked nice so I just let them grow. Now I am pleased that there was something there for the little pollinators to work on later into the season.

Lettuce flowers

The strawberries got their straw and the asparagus got a good thick layer of maple leaves. Conveniently, there are a couple of maple trees near the garden so I just had to rake some leaves over and toss them over the garden fence. And even though it has been quite windy at time since I put the leaves down, the combination of the raised bed and the fact that it has fencing along two sides has kept the leaves in place.

Shh, the asparagus is sleeping.

So, for the most part, the garden is ready for its long winter’s nap.

And here are a few autumnal photos from around the yard.

The Garden's Last Hoorah

This last week of chilly weather has made it clear that autumn is upon us. The garden, however, seems to think it is springtime. Or at least some of the plants are giving things another go. The acorn squash plants have put on three new squash, each the size of a walnut. One year, when we were living on the mountain, we actually got two full rounds of acorn squash. The ones in the second batch were smaller and didn’t have a very long storage life but they were still tasty. I don’t think we’ll have time to see these new squash come to full maturity.

Acorn squash, round two.

The squash are not the only plants trying again. The tomatoes have put out a bunch of new blossoms as have the purple and fillet beans. A single new kohlrabi seedling has even appeared. The yellow squash has set fruit for the first time this season. Too bad they probably won’t get big enough to eat. It’s unusual for a single type of plant to fail me several times in one season. The cucumbers are giving it another go too. The peppers are still trying hard as are the eggplants. This isn’t really a second attempt for either of them as they have been very slow to produce the whole time.

More blossoms on the tomatoes.

Cucumbers making one final, pitiful push.

A new spiky eggplant flower

The rattlesnake beans have put on a fresh batch of blossoms as well. I’m really enjoying those beans. I grew them primarily for shell beans but as I picked the dried pods today, I also was able to pick a generous handful of fresh beans. With the new blossoms and tiny beans just starting, I may get more fresh beans before frost comes. As for the dried beans, we got 3 ½ cups from about a dozen plants. I’m not sure if that’s good or not but I’m pleased.

New bean blossom.

Rattlesnake beans to shell.

Beans!

Rattlesnake beans ready to become baked beans or soup.

The garden is apparently not ready to be put to bed yet. That’s okay. It’ll be nice to get those last few beans and tomatoes. We did do some final harvesting, though. We pulled all the carrots and dug the rest of the potatoes. The potato harvest was not overwhelming by any means but the carrots made up for it. 

Our meager harvest of potatoes.

Carrots enjoying some afternoon sun.

The corn and pumpkins are definitely finished. There is no way that either will be attempting a second round. The plants are completely dead. The corn was rather disappointing. I think it was the variety. It made small, irregular ears that grew up through the leaves. Weird. I plan on looking for a different type next year. But I collected the stalks and bound them together to decorate the front of our house. We got two pumpkins but one was chewed on while still on the vine. It still makes a decent decoration with the other pumpkin and a ceramic chicken.  

This corn is finished.

One perfect little pumpkin.

All decorated for autumn.