Grow Garden, Grow

The benefit of all the rain we've been getting is that the garden is growing like gang busters these days! Unlike the past couple of years where we've struggled to keep the garden watered, this year is the exact opposite. I don't think the soil has dried out in two weeks, mushrooms are growing all over the garden and we're starting to have some fungus issues from all the moisture. I need to spray, both Neem and a general fungicide, but we can't get period of time that's dry long enough to do so. I have some leaf spot attacking my tomatoes and another type of leaf spot on my taters. Not out of control by any means, but if the humidity and rain don't take a break, it's gonna be a problem!

We've been harvesting lettuce for the past few weeks and have been enjoying the fresh salad, although it would be better if the cucumbers, tomatoes and carrots didn't have to be bought. The cabbage plants are starting to head up. We bought an early variety that has a smaller head in hopes of harvesting them before it gets too warm. We will defiantly be replanting cabbage around late August for a fall crop this year, along with broccoli, spinach, and another run of lettuce. Onions are kickin right along, They are growing good tops, although they need to be weeded thoroughly.

Ah, the potatoes! My potatoes seem to be doing very well, despite being assaulted by flea beetles and some kind of leaf spot. Cat says root crops a lesson from nature to me about trusting what I can't see. I always have visions of scab covering my beloved tubers or wire worms devouring their insides while I can't see. I haven't dug into any of the hills yet, trying to have enough patience to wait until they flower and I can harvest a few new potatoes. All of the squash, zucchini, and cucumbers that were planted are doing good. If there is one thing that grows in the garden is squash! We had it comin out of our ears last year! I'm anticipating having some of them by the 4th of July at the latest. Mmmmm, fried squash..... The beans are up and puttin out true leaves, with more growth anticipated soon. For 2 people, we probably planted more beans than we need, but we are also hoping to can and freeze some this year. One of the reasons we planted so many potatoes and onions this year, we eat alot of em, so we devoted a lot of space for em!

And so another attempt at corn will be made this year after last years dismal results. I would like to blame it on the drought, which played a role no doubt, but more to due with not having quite enough direct light to grow it properly. We'll see, some changes have been made and maybe the all the rain will make a difference. That is, if we keep getting it into the summer. The first couple of rows I planted are about 5-6" tall and the other 4 rows that I planted last week are just breaking through the ground now. Most of the marigold, nastrium, and other random wildflowers are starting to develop into plants or are just coming up. So, as you can see the garden is growing right along nicely.

Now, if we could only get enough of a break in the rain for me to do some prevention. I need to put some dishes with beer out tonight after it rains..... again, to knock off the slug population a bit. They've been merrily eating away at the black seeded simpson lettuce for the past week, they must die! We're trying to keep as organic as we possibly can, using Neem Insecticidal soap, organic fungicides, and what not. But I am more than prepared to escalate this affair to some seven dust if I can't keep the buggies under control. They will not win, I will defeat them!

Side dressings of the compost we made last year are being applied to most plants, with some mulch being thrown on afterwards. A lesson we learned form last year, dirt constantly splashing on the veggies and plants causes lots of problems and makes cleaning them later alot more work. So there it is, what's going on in the garden and we transition into summer over the next couple of weeks. I can almost taste the fresh BLT's!

Spring showers led to cleaning and some down time today to take some photos of what's going on around the house this week. After multiple years of dry weather, severe drought in some years, it's nice to see it raining somewhat regularly. Too often it seems I'm wishing we could get some later in the year as the summer lengthens, so I'll take what I can get. The irises in the front yard are blooming in all their glory. Purple petals with highlights of yellow peeking out, all standing above a forest of spiked green leaves. A wonderfully intricate plant, not a favorite, but one I always enjoying seeing.

While moving through the back yard, I marveled at the light on a dreary day. Making the green of the newly formed spring leaves and fresh grass, all that much more green. Accents of white dappling the background from a very large Dogwood in full bloom, doing it's best impression of still being in winter's snow. This time of the year always feels so natural to me, the renewal of life, a chance to do things again. I can never seem to get over the green, the intensity of it, the newness, a reminder of how things can rejuvenate themselves, waking from the slumber of of winter.

The azalea next to the creek is literally falling over with blooms. I really need to trim it back this year when it gets finished flowering. The rhododendron next to the bridge over the "creek" is on the verge of blooming, the very beginning of the opening buds can be seen. A sharp fuchsia poking out of the green encasing it. This is a nursery plant, so it tends to bloom a month or so earlier than the native rhododendron towering 30ft into the sky in the front yard. A beautiful plant non the less, always fateful reminder that spring is getting into it's rhythm and summer will be here in no time. Fishing is prime right now. Life is good.

Cat and I got the garden planted about as reasonably possible, with some of the late cold snaps we had. Most of the usual suspects are in the garden this year, although in some different proportions than last year. I really need to start getting the garden ready for the next year during the fall and not spend so much time chasing those last nice days in the woods before winter makes it's unwelcome return. Spring mix lettuce, black-seeded simpson , and some head lettuce are coming along nicely. The cabbage transplants are settling nicely into their homes as are the copious amounts of seed onions we panted, both Georgia sweet and red onions. We planted something like 10lbs of seed potatoes, an even split between yukon golds and .... some other type that I can't seem to recall at the moment. Almost all of them are above ground and doin their thing. For now, we're just mounding dirt up around them, but I'm hoping to make some 2ft tall tubes made out of chicken wire to grow more taters.

It's supposed to rain, which is good, but not so good. We've been really dry for the past two years, but I really need to get my summer crops started. I have an almost overwhelming desire to fry up some zucchini dredged in cornmeal and fried in Crisco. Squash and zucchini needs to get planted soon, but I need to rework the beds that will their home. Ditto with the peppers, beans, carrots and my beloved corn, that withered in the heat and drought last year. I did manage a bit of corn, but not much.

The grass needs to get cut, I passed up an opportunity to do it Friday to take a nap with Cat instead. I regret this at this moment, but not while I was in a nirvana of blissful nappiness! So, hopefully in all of this glorious life giving rain, it will take enough of a break that I can get a few things done. Like most things, I'm not that worried about it, but it passes the time to think about.

Procrastination Pays Off

I've been dreading turning the garden this year due to the death of our community tiller. Nightmares have haunted me since I found out that me and a mattock would be spending 2 or 3 days of quality time together. I've been putting it off, finding any excuse to avoid the labor of turning almost 1000sq ft by hand.

Cat and I were going to rent a tiller today and take advantage of the good weather, and get the garden turned before it started raining later this week. Last night,I was walking into the kitchen, getting ready to start dinner, when I thought I heard someone mowing my backyard. I looked out the window, and low and behold, it was Jeff bringing the previously dead tiller to the house. Yeah! My prayers have been answered. The nightmares can end!

I got up this morning and tilled the whole garden. It was also enlarged by about 2 1/2 feet along the longest side. I'm still working on setting the paths and will hopefully be laying down the mulch to cover them sometime real soon. The weather will play a big roll in that. But, I am very pleased that the garden is turned, its done and over with. Once the paths are set, the fun can begin. I'm guessing we'll plant early crops in another 2 weeks, with the main effort coming in the first week of May. Who knows, but there are rumors of seed buying going on this weekend!

So see, procrastination does sometimes payoff. I'd be ultra peeved if I had just turned 3/4 of it by hand, only to have the tiller turn up!

Harvest Time!

Well, the time has finally come that we are pulling a substantial amount of veggies out of the garden. Zucchini and squash are flooding the kitchen, along with cabbage and cucumbers. We literally have a pile of the stuff on the counter from tonights harvest.The onions are doing really well, I pulled a few of them tonite just because. Some of them are still growing, but most will be ready to harvest soon. I pulled a carrot out of unending curiosity and guess what, it looked like a carrot. Since it was orange, I decided to give it a taste and ii even tasted like a carrot. Hot Damn!!! Spinach went to crap, along with all the lettuce due to heat, most of it started to bolt, despite being bolt resistant. Marigolds and nostriums that we planted earlier are blooming in profusion throughout the garden. Mighty pretty if I might say so! Pulled out most of the broccoli, except the ones that were still putting off side shoots. And my two cucumber plants will probably take over most of the fallow lettuce rows.

Squash, ah squash. As seen from the photos, the squash and zucchini are growing just fine! One plant has started to collapse, so I need to keep an eye on it to make sure nothing weird going on. Bell peppers are starting to be harvested, the first green of the year came off the plant tonight, with more coming soon. The purple and yellow peppers are starting to bloom and set fruit. The tomatoes are seem to be going to total crap. I don't get it, they just start wilting, while the lower leaves turn yellow and then black. And it's rapidly spreading throughout the whole planting. Oh.... how I want a fresh BLT. Cat's herbs are doing well, along with a few sunflowers we planted. We're hoping to plant alot more next year.

My corn is doing well, much to my satisfaction. They could be doing better because light issues. I have 3 huge tulip poplars blocking my morning sun that will be disappearing this fall, before we put in the cover crop, hopefully. I say that because these trees are something like 5 ft in diameter, so I'm a little hesitant of dropping a tree that big, much less three. Luckily the house is nowhere near them, so there is at least that. I don't really know what I'm going to do with that much poplar, it's not that great of a wood for the wood stove.. So despite being in the throes of a tomato meltdown, the garden is still kickin right along. Pullin lots of weeds and makin lots of compost for next year. Hope fully the plans to put in a few raised beds will begin soon.

What's Goin on in the Garden?

Overall, things seem to be going well in the garden. The nastriums have started to bloom along with the marigolds, and we are starting to harvest squash and zucchini in large amounts. For the squash, I imagine I'm going to bring in about 30 or so this week. Yikes! The second planting of lettuce is being thinned for baby greens, some of the muslin started to bolt, but we just let it go. The flowers are pretty. Two cabbages will be ready to pick soon, and most of the others should be ready in another 3 or so weeks.

Most of the broccoli is done for the season, I wish we had planted more of it this year. Both of us are huge broccoli fans, and are willing to eat it regularly. The onions are starting to form nice bulbs, again, I wish we had planted more of them, but there's always next year. Carrots all seem to be progressing well, I guess. It's hard to tell since what I want is underground! If the tops are any indication, they should be great. The cucumbers are setting fruit nicely, we already harvested two earlier in the week, with many more on the way.

All of the squash is doing really well, and I mean really well! As stated before, we have about 12 crookneck plants, three zucchini, 3 butternuts, and 6 or so acorn plants that Cat planted last month. What was she thinking? In tr

anslation, we gots lots of squash. Which is good, but we need to limit the number of squash plants next year. The peppers are doing their thing. The first one should be ready to pick in another week or so, and all the other plants are starting to bear fruit. Mmmmmm peppers!!!!! Some peppers that we had sown from seed and forgotten about are suddenly putting on some growth. I weeded around them today, and I was shocked to see they had grown/ survived. Hmmm, will they grow enough to put out before it gets chilly? We'll see.

The other day I was turning the compost pile and came across a potato that was putting off growth, we didn't plant any taters since we couldn't find any starters. I decided to cut up and plant the sucker. Not surprisingly, they are putting off lots of green growth, so I have hopes of harvesting a few new potatoes before fall. Some of the tomatoes are really struggling. I think two of them have blight, so measures will be taken to stop it very soon. Despite almost 2" of rain in the past 3-4 days, they began to wilt almost as soon as the sun came out this afternoon. For sure it's something bacterial going on, I haven't noticed any bug infestations, but I know the stresses of our variable temps and dry to wet conditions may have something to do with it. Luckily, four of the plants are doing just fine! Fruit has set on all of them, including the heirloom, and I'm anticipating my first mater in about 10 days. If the blight doesn't kill them all!

Cat's wildflowers are starting to bloom, and most of her herbs are growing rapidly. A few sunflowers are starting to get some height, so we're both looking forward to them blooming. The corn, ah, the corn. My babies are coming along very nicely. Some good height has been established and they are super green. Can I make it grow any faster, I wish. But for now, I'm just happy to have something in that bed! Particularly after the disaster of the first sowing. I had pretty much given up in corn until Cat came with a packet she ran across somewhere at about the latest that I could get a crop in. So, I'm just tickled to have what I have.

As we come into the week of the 4th, harvesting is really getting started. All the hard work and effort is starting to pay off. Plus it's nice to eat something other than lettuce and spinach. Next years plans are still in the works, but I am starting to narrow down options based on budget and time, and the fact that we are only 2 people. Although, this year is a warm up to do some hardcore canning next year. I'll post some harvest pics later, can't pick anything for a few days as we had to do some bug killin this week. (calm down organic peeps, I'll be damned if I'll let all that work get eaten by a beetle!) We try to stay organic, but sometimes that's just not possible.

Adventures in Gardening.....

It has finally cooled down here! I don't mean to complain because I know it's hotter in other places, but man, we are not supposed to be in the mid 90's this time of the year. Thankfully, we're back into the upper 70's- lower 80's for highs. Accuweather is showing it continuing to mild for the rest of the month. Now if we could only get some rain! I did get about an inch over the past week, but it doesn't even put a dent into the 7+ inch deficit we're under. Because of the little heat wave some of the broccoli started to bolt, so we had to cut em before we wanted to. Spinach bolted also, maybe half of it. Other than that, things are jammin right along. Not all the broccoli was lost, so some of it shoud be ready some time in the next week. Lettuce and the cabbage are still doin their thing. Some of the cabbage is starting to head, the rest should begin soon. The black seeded simpson lettuce that we sowed a couple of weeks ago is growing rapidly, enough that we are starting to harvest baby leaves to thin it for now. I noticed today that our cucumbers are starting to bloom along with some of the squash and zucchini.

The heat did benefit the tomatoes and they are blooming profusely, with some fruit starting to form. My dream of BTL's sure to come true soon. Unfortunately, the heirlooms we bought aren't doing so well. The peppers liked the warm nights also and are blooming and starting to set peppers. Yum!! I am proud to say that I have about 70 corn plants coming up very nicely! So, hopefully sometime in August, Cat and I will be eating some super sweet fresh corn!

I continue to battle weeds that really liked the nitrogen boost I gave the plants last week. Dandelions and grass continue to pop up every where except where plants are big enough to shade them out. Another one of the reasons why I want to go to a square foot garden system. As said before, I'm composting like a mad man in hopes of adding 192 cubic feet of compost to the garden before winter.That's a helluva lota grass and leaves. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to plant a winter cover crop to break the soil up some and add nitrogen. Or try to double dig the beds while I incorporate the compost in. Seems like alot of work, but I seem to enjoy the labor part of it for some reason.

The thought of adding chickens to our variety of critters has been talked about recently. Beyond the fact that I can get quite haul of eggs, their poop is supposed to be a super fertilizer when composted. So, if anyone has some useful info on keeping hens, it would be great to hear it. Like most of this, I can only read about it, and that is a poor substitute for experience. I figure like most things, I'll be drawing up plans for a coop and start browsing Amazon for books on raising hens, and making it a bit more complicated than it has to be.

Adventures In Gardening III

It's June 7, and summer has arrived fir sure! Temperatures are soaring and we're not getting hardly any rain. Despite these issues, the garden seems to be coming along fairly well. We did get a couple of local isolated showers today that totaled up to almost an inch all together. Yeah! But in general, the region is not getting any rain.

So here's the good. The onions are developing nice looking thick green tops, the carrots are putting on nice growth and coming up everywhere. About half of the broccoli is starting to head, which Cat and I are really excited about!

The lettuce and spinach that we reseeded a couple of weeks ago are really starting to put some growth on. We've been eatin loose leaf for the past two weeks, enjoying tasty salads. Squash is growing like crazy, I'm actually concerned about space with them, they are getting so large. We only had a couple of zucchini germinate, but they are getting quite large also. Peppers are starting to bloom, along with the tomatoes. The anticipation of fresh BLT's, salads, and fried squash with catfish. Yum!!!

Now for the bad. The corn germinated poorly. I think something like ten plants germinated out of 70 or so seed. Ridiculous. Needless to say, more corn has been bought and replanted. I WILL GROW CORN!!! Just maybe not this year. I have hopes that this plantin will do better since it is significantly warmer out, but it is getting fairly late into the season, so we'll see. The tomatoes are doing well, but I'm having some problems with my heirlooms. Seems like I'm getting a black fungus or something. Black spots start to develop on the leaves and then eventually kill off the blooms. I plan on doin some checking over the next few days to figure out what's going on. If anyone has an idea, please let me know. I should of taken some pictures when I was out earlier. The cabbages are getting chewed on, so we plan to spray some of the plants down with insecticidal soap before things get totally out of control. My hope is that we won't have to kill any of the tomatoes off, and the corn germinates.

The cats (animals) have no respect for the garden, but what do they respect? They're constantly walking thru it and crapping in my mulched walkways! I plan on doing a rant about them in the near future! It's hot, and it's not raining, so we'll see where things are at in two weeks. I'm hoping to get some straw to mulch the beds with soon to lock more moisture in the soil and cut down on weed growth, which is hitting record levels. I'm amazed at how quickly the broccoli heads are growing, hopefully they will be ready in another 10-14 days.

I recently bought a chainsaw to cut wood for our woodburner in the basement. An 18" 43cc Echo, some pics will be posted in the future. Hopefully not of me in an emergency room! We get a lot of wind storms on the area that knock a lot of trees down, so it's a good source of free wood. A cord cut and split around here goes for about $180, I plan on setting aside 4 cords over the summer. That of course will be based on the availability of timber. Does anyone local know if any of the national forest areas or WMA's still issue permits for wood cutting?

Adventures In Gardening II

Things seem to being going well in the garden at the moment. Spent part of this week weeding and moving some squash seedlings around. Man, we are going to have a ton of squash this year, most of it is yellow crookneck, which works out well because it tastes soooo gooooddddd!!!! I love to dredge it in cornmeal and fry it. (Leave it to a Southerner to take something healthy and fry it!)The beds of lettuce and spinach that we replanted are rocking right along, although we did loose one of the okra transplants. And oddly enough, carrots are tuning up all over the garden. All I can figure is that they traveled on our shoes while doing other stuff around the garden before they germinated, at the moment the carrots we thought weren't going to do anything are coming up like weeds. Tomatoes all seem to be doing good, one of the cherries has started to bloom despite being only a foot tall. I wish the others would get with it, I've been dreaming of fresh BLT's for a month already!

The corn is starting to sprout...Yeah!! Although somewhat sporadically, maybe 1/5 has germinated so far. I'm trying to be patient, because each day I see more come up, but patience is not one of my best virtues. The broccoli's and cabbages are getting pretty big and it looked like a few of them might me getting ready to start heading. Don't really know, since I don't really know what I'm doing. Cat and I discussed that this would be a learning year, and boy has it been! We didn't put in near enough organic matter in the beds this year, so I've been letting the grass grow longer between cuttings and raking up the cuttings for the compost piles. I made 3 4'x4' compost bins out of chicken wire this year in hopes of completely filling all 3 by the end of summer. I'm mixing the cuttings with the endless supply of brown leaves I have around the yard, kitchen waste, and hopefully manure soon. I live down the street from a dairy farm, seems (smells) like they got plenty to spare. Occasionally I'll pick up horse apples out of the field from the neighbors horses and throw em in too. Overall it's doing pretty good.

Adventures in Gardening I

In light of recent economic issues and after finally getting used to living in a house (and not an apartment), the wife and I have jumped with both feet into gardening. Sometime around late February, we decided that we wanted a garden. Seems pretty simple huh? After doing some reading, since neither of us ever had much exposure to it, and then arguing about about shape and size, I tilled out a ridiculously large garden for a first time venture. About 700sq. ft. to be exact, but hey, that's how we roll!

After much tilling and raking, and then some more tilling, it was time to start planting. About this time Cat and I changed our plan and switched to some weird hybrid of square foot and rowed gardening. The tilled are is about 12' x 65', so we divided that into about 9 12'x5'-7' planting beds separated by 2' mulched paths.
You can kind of get an idea from the photo. At this point we started putting in rows, which was not the best decision in hind sight.(Our soil has a tendency to crust, which is not great for sowing seeds.) Our first sowing of seeds was only moderately successful. Out of the lettuce and spinach, only the mesclun mix germinated. Sometimes I tend to miss some obvious things, like the fact that we live at about 2400' ft of elevation and spring takes little longer to get here than in the valleys. We had a freeze around the beginning may that killed alot of seedlings. Somethings we thought didn't germinate did once the soil temp finally became favorable. Other things like cucumbers and okra didn't germinate at all. As a result, we flattened the rows and reseeded lettuce and spinach, along with with putting in some transplants to replace the cucumbers and okra. At this point, about 6 weeks after the initial planting, everything is starting to come together. New sowings of lettuce and spinach germinated in record time, and I have crookneck squash coming out everywhere.

The corn was planted last Saturday and a few of them have started germinating. This is a big deal for me. I've been told by multiple people that corn doesn't crow well in our yard. I find that a little weird seeing as how there's a dairy farm less than a 1/2 mile from me growing about 100+ acres of corn. Needless to say, alot of effort is being put into the corn. All together I'm throwing myself into the whole gardening thing. There's something very satisfying in watching vegetables that I'll hopefully to be able to eat some of grow because of our efforts. Plans are already being made to go to a full square foot system with raised beds as we can afford to build them, along with a drip irrigation system.

My internal conflict is about how much it's worth to spend money on raised beds, irrigation systems, row covers, and on and on and on. I mean geeze, I'm growing vegetables here, not trying to split the atom. Is it really worth buying all that crap to grow more veggies in the same amount of space? My wife seems to think so, I lend towards that decision, but I keep getting hung on the spending money to grow stuff. I mean really, how much should that heirloom tomato cost me to grow? This year we've put about $100 into the garden, which I find to be completely reasonable, but we want to start most of our transplants, so there's about $200-$300 on trays, lights, pots, starter mix, etc. I want a drip irrigation system so we can use mulches more effectively to save water and time. I use these as examples because they're the biggies. Sometimes I wonder if we're making it more complicated than it really needs to be, but damn, I want drip irrigation!

Well, that feels better. I'll post more photos as soon as I have some more recent ones. It's raining, finally- we're suffering from what's labeled as an exceptional drought. A 17" deficit last year and almost 5" so far this year. Needless to say, I'm quite happy to see some rain. Looks like we might actually get over an inch.