gardens grow

as soon as i finish writing this, i'll need to up-date again immediately, with fresh photos. these are so dated! we have had so much rain and warm weather, that the plants are growing inches every day, right before our eyes!

first off, let me say that this is the year of the lettuce! our lettuce, all 4 varieties, did remarkably well this spring, and we still have some that has not quite bolted.



we had heads, actual heads of buttercruch, and a variety of romaine (i guess, i don't know the name of this seed that i saved from a neighbor last year, but i love it), plus some thin leafed heirloom, and black seeded simpson. at first i thought it was the pricey fox farm all natural plant food i gave them, but i heard from other local gardeners that their lettuce did exceptionally well too. we have been enjoying delicious salads every night for over a month.

spinach, not so much. it just bolts so damn fast! i did manage to harvest two huge bowls, which, of course, saute down to nothing, but delicious, nonetheless. arugula has been wonderful, and i just keep planting it, and harvesting a round or two of leaves before they bolt.

the yummy peas have come and gone. i have ours planted in a spot that is okay for spring stuff, and they had a good start, but it gets shady when the trees fill in, and i credit our somewhat skimpy pea harvest to lack of proper sun. still though, cosmo snacked to his heart's content (and so did his parents).

the husk cherries are going nuts, and have tons of little lantern fruits, all tucked away under the broad leaves. the flea beetles like them, but don't seem to be doing too much damage.


we have peppers, from those little babies i started from seed! i am so proud. the peppers are way bigger now, than shown here, and so are the tomatoes--all of them completely loaded with green fruit.

i've got potatoes, hilled with dirt and straw, hangin' in there, despite the persistent attack of the flea beetle, and the pole beans have reached the top of their trellis this week, studded with lovely purple bean blossoms. the edamame is not only in the ground (june 6), but now has a second set of true leaves!



we have eaten broccoli from our garden, and have two cabbbages trying to form heads, while i hand pick those pesky cabbage worms off their leaves.



i tried covering them with floating row cover, before the moths could get to them to lay their eggs, but it didn't work. now i fear that if i cover them, i will trap the caterpillers under there, and won't notice the damage until it is too late. instead, i just inspect them VERY carefully, once a day.

but i am realizing that i'm just the kind of gardener that likes to fuss over my plants. i don't mind weeding, it allows me to spend time in each bed. and since i want to look at them all the time anyway, why not look for pests that might need to be removed? i love to walk through the garden just after a rain. everything is so green and lush. my farmer friend, shaun, says that's because there is nitrogen in rain water. maybe so. but this growing stuff?...it's pure magic to me. i am utterly astonished. every day.

one last little surprise: my butterfly plant (weed?) came back! i guess i didn't realize it was a perennial. so lovely.

what kind of season are you having?

self seeders

so, we had this little pot on the back porch. it once had parsley growing in it. i had it indoors over the winter, until the plant died, for one reason or another. once the weather warmed, i noticed a lot of life in that pot. tons of little seedlings were taking over. they were not parsley. i didn't recognize them at all. they didn't look like any of the common weeds around here nor any think i'd ever planted. mystery.

a few weeks ago, i saw someone at the farmer's market selling sweet annie seedlings. they looked just like those mysterious plants on my porch. then, i put it all together: i had hung the dried sweet annie, that shawn and denise gave us last year, out on our porch light.

it had been inside all winter, but had lost its fragrance, and was beginning to annoy me. i hung it outside in the early spring. the seeds had blown down, into that pot, and sprouted. voila! sweet annie in a pot.

potatoes for earth day

yesterday i spent many glorious hours in the garden. can't think of a better way to celebrate earth day. legend has it, potatoes are to be planted during the waning of the moon. i consulted the farmer's almanac, and noted that yesterday was a good day for planting root crops. it happened to be sunny and fairly warm, so, it all worked out.



i dug three large holes for them, in two different beds. mixed in a little compost at the bottom of the hole, then set in the seed potatoes, cut side down. cosmo helped. we covered them with about 4 inches of soil, and when they sprout, we'll keep mounding soil up around their stems, since the potatoes apparently form in that space between the seed potato, and the top of the soil. this is all new to me. i thought you just plopped a potato in the ground, and it made a bunch of little potatoes. had no idea it was so involved. but, i like involved. that is why i am trying leeks this year too.

i may not have mentioned that i started 3 new beds along the property line. since we are renting, i wasn't sure how much lawn i could really get away with digging up. so, our neighbor jack (and his son, the farmer, shawn) who own the place next door, offered a strip between our houses for me to garden. it gets lots of sun, and the soil seems nice. i've got potatoes there, and plan to also have tomatoes, green beans and edamame.

yesterday i fashioned a bean arbor out of bamboo. ideally, the beans will climb the poles and string at the ends of two separate beds, and then climb across to form a lovely green arbor overt the path between beds. i may have made it too tall though, and i may need to go fix that.



this weekend is the annual neighborhood plant exchange. i can't wait. i also plan to do a lot of sowing and transplanting. better consult the farmer's almanac. i am convinced that they list some days as infertile, or bad for planting, just to give farmers a rest in the spring...

an ounce of prevention...

i knew a freeze was predicted last night. i thought of bringing the salad box in, or at least covering it. but, i was really tired from getting up early to see our guests off, for their early morning flight back to L.A.

i went to bed early, and thought of the delicate little seedlings outside, not one bit.
woke up to some frost covered plants, and more regret than i can handle this morning. we'll find out later who survived. right now, it's too soon to tell.

mon cheri

i don't know if spring is actually coming early this year, or if it is just a matter of perception, or, if i am going to get a rude awaking with 3 inches of snow in a week. all i know is i've been digging and planting and hovering over seed beds and choosing the next section of lawn to dig up for garden expansion, like it's mid april. i'm a lot more cocky this year. i'm not so fearful of frost. i know the vegetables that don't mind a little cold, and i've planted them. we've had a few nights of below freezing temps since then, but everything is doing great.

indoors, i've started brandywine tomatoes (from seeds i saved last fall), cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers and hot peppers, poppies, and husk cherries. i found out later that the poppies could have just been direct seeded outside. they germinated quickly, and are growing like weeds. besides the poppies, the brandywines were the first to come up (let's hear it for heirlooms!). my farmer friend, amy, warned me that peppers can be difficult to germinate. they need warmth. so, i set a heat lamp over them, and a heating pad underneath. at one point i stuck a thermometer in the soil, and it was over 90 degrees. eventually they came up, and i'll tell ya, i felt so proud!

the last one to germinate was the husk cherry. i first encountered this lovely fruit when i was in switzerland for a semester abroad as a graduate student. i found them growing on the grounds of the villa where we lived and had our studio. they have a husk over them, sort of like a tomatillo (their close relative) but it's small, golden, and looks like a paper lantern. inside the husk is a marble-sized, orange-colored berry. being a brazen forager, of course, i tasted one. i could tell it was edible because it was so delicious. later i found them in a candy store, the paper husk still attached, but pulled back, and twisted above the berry, which was dipped in smooth, dark, swiss chocolate. wow.
since then, i've been searching for information about this plant. i would tell people about it, draw (and paint, see above) pictures of it, but no one would know what i was talking about. i found some growing in a park in chicago, but still didn't know the name. when i saw them featured in johnney's seed catalog, i decided i had to try to grow them. i figure, if they can grow in chicago, they can grow here. they are also known as cape gooseberry, ground cherry, and they had a very cute name in the swiss candy shop, which i cannot remember. in my bastardization of the french language (though we were in the italian part of switzerland), i refer to them as mon cheri.

what new plants are you experimenting with in your garden, this year?

do i really want to know?

i added an inexpensive soil testing kit with my seeds order this year, thinking it would be good to know what's lacking in our garden soil, rather than just shooting in the dark. when it arrived though, i was hesitant to use it, since i had already started working beds, and planting seeds. do i really want to know how bad it is? am i going to do what's required to amend the soil? doubtful. i'll probably just keep adding compost, leaf mold, an occasional bag of peat, and hope for the best.



after reading the instructions though, i decided it would be fun to do the test with carl (we both enjoy playing scientist) and if we don't end up adding anything special to our garden beds, then at least we know which nutrients (or lack thereof) to blame if our plants don't thrive.



we did the test. it was indeed fun. maybe we'll add something to one bed, as an experiment, and maybe we won't.



in other news, the arugula has already sprouted, and so has some of the lettuce and spinach in the salad box. expected lows in the twenties for tonight and tomorrow, so i'll bring the salad box indoors, close the cold frame, and cover the other beds, and our baby lilac, which has already started opening its buds.

has anyone else in our neck of the woods started gardening yet?

p.s. today is the one year anniversary for this garden blog!

return

i guess my garden blogging is as seasonal as my garden. we've had two days of spring-like weather, and now, I'M BACK, BABY! here's a couple of shots of the garden, and the cold frame, buried deep in snow.



re: the cold frame
i failed to understand that the sunlight falls in different places in the winter, than it does in the summer. thus, my lovely cold frame was in full shade all winter long. it is shaded by the building (our storage space/art studio) just south of the bed. needless to say, there was not much going on in there all winter. however, two broccoli plants, 3 kale, one parsley, and a micro lettuce sprout did survive to see the sunlight, which is now beginning to fall on that box.




i guess it will make a good place to get an early start on some plants. plus, carl spotted one little broccoli flower! i sowed some arugula seeds in there yesterday, and started a salad box on the porch, with cold-loving greens.



today, the warmest one yet (at 75 degrees!), i spent most of the day outside, in the garden. my seed order arrived too, along with a new rain gage for carl, and an inexpensive soil testing kit. i don't know if i have the courage to test the soil. i don't really want to know how bad it is...

................

last fall i went to a worm composting workshop at the wonderlab, where, for $10, i got information about vermiculture, and came home with a worm-composting system, including the worms. the bin is made from 3 five-gallon buckets, with holes drilled in the lid, as well as the bottoms of two of the buckets. i've been feeding the worms all winter, and keeping them in the insulated studio. they've done really well, and have been very easy to deal with. today, i dumped the buckets, and attempted to sort worms, bedding and half-eaten food from the worm castings, which are the good stuff, for the garden. it was a bit tedious, but i ended up with a dump truck full of compost. a tonka truck load, that is. i haven't decided which bed with get this yummy treat.



i also tried to turn one of our compost bins, and dug out some (mostly)composted stuff from the bottom of the bin. i spread that on a bed that i think i'll fill with spinach and other spring greens. the main garden area that i worked and planted last year is okay for some things, but once the oak tree fills out, it gets too much shade. so, i'm thinking it is a good spot for the early greens and peas. and, in spite of the lack of full sun, beans, carrots, tomatoes and basil did fine there last year. i moved my pea trellis, and planted peas!

a boy after my own heart

last night, after lights out, as cosmo was getting tucked into bed, he laid his head down, i kissed him and was about to leave the room, when he said to me,

"our peas look great."

i almost cried. instead i said,

"they sure do, cosmo. goodnight."

"goodnight, mama."

and he's right, they look fantastic.

oceans of violets in bloom

compared to last month, we have many more blooms to show off this time, for garden blogger's bloom day. this is our first spring in indiana, and it's exciting to discover all of the spring flowers in our yard, and our neighborhood. i keep singing that line from the prince song, when the doves cry, because some of our neighbor's lawns are carpeted in blooming violets right now. we have some in our yard too.



we also have some very tiny flowers that look like miniature violets, but i don't know their name.



cosmo's favorite is the dandelion, but he has also learned to spot, and say forsythia. the one blooming outside his bedroom window fills his room with a glorious golden glow when the sun hits it just right. he calls that one "cosmo's for-si-tee-ta"



yesterday we discovered a few grape hyacinths in the lawn. i had been admiring them on our walks, in other people's yards. they might be my favorite of the spring bulbs.



our neighbor jack has a wonderful peach tree in bloom, visible from where i sit right now.



and across the street, a magnolia is peaking. i stole a few blossoms for the house.




our daffodils finally bloomed, and i was inspired to do a watercolor of one of them. when i finished, i remembered something a painting instructor in college once told us: don't bother trying to paint beautiful things found in nature, like sunsets or flowers. you will never be able to make something as beautiful as a sunset. you can't improve on that. instead, challenge yourself to make beautiful paintings out of the mundane objects in our lives (he was really into still life arrangements of boxes, mannequin pieces, etc.).



while i enjoyed painting the daffodil, because it allowed me to do an intimate study of it, the painting really pales against the flower itself, or even the photograph.

our red amaryllis, indoors, is on its second round of blooms. it sure has a striking presence in our living room.



the burst of color all around gives me something to focus my attention on while i wait and wait and wait. when is the predicted last frost date, again??? april 22? may 5?