Lucky Us Ranch

Sad Goodbyes

2010-04-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

Well, the Lucky Us Ranch is about to be disbanded. It will have to be someone else's dream now. Perfect for a young couple who wants to simplify, about an acre of land, amazing garden spots, potential for a very lovely orchard, if someone were so inclined to put one in.

Right now, it has rain barrels hooked up, a spiral herb garden with perennials coming up. There are enchanting cone flowers by the back window, and a whole bioswale* filled with garden flowers. (Really, it's the ditch in front that carries the storm water down the street, but we wanted to slow it down some, and also, to not have to mow that sucker.)

There were so many things we did right, and so much that still needed to be done. The garage, I am pretty sure, once had a door for chickens to come in and out of. Maybe it will again. I would have liked that.

It really was a nice dream while it lasted. But it wasn't for us. Maybe it will be for you. If you are interested, let me know.

So much going on!

2009-05-23T10:48:00.000-07:00

Hello garden people and not gardening people. We've been so busy juggling so many Ranch projects that we've had little or no time to take pictures or do any updates. A quick run down of things to come: strawberry bed (forever), garden hoopa, bamboo fence part deux, growth, growth, growth, bioswale and the vandalism of bioswale, additional rain barrels, still yet even more growth, Greasel, the refinishing of the deck, a new tomato bed and so much more.

We'll start posting items as we get the the time and friendly photo evidence.

But a quick note; the salad greens have been coming up fat and steady and Marina has once again demonstrated why she is the dressing maven. She made a ginger dressing the other night that was outstanding. She just pulls them out of an invisible hat. Another reason why this is indeed, The Lucky Us Ranch.

So much to tell!

2009-04-11T05:42:00.000-07:00

The little sproutlins are popping up all over the house. We're a museum of Styrofoam and plastic. Not the best things to have around but when you're using them for seedlings over and over again, then I guess it's alright.

The nasturtiums came up inside but outside they seem to be hiding along with the breadseed poppies. The cold crops having survived three freeze scares after a whole lot of straw, leaves, sheets, and whatever else we could find were put on top and around all the wee plants. The tulips are looking good, transplanted bulbs are doing well.

Marina has built a bamboo gate, a waddle fence, and a rain chain for the rain barrel, which is full after a huge storm.

I think that some pictures are in order. Farm cat Topher thinks so too.

Babies!

2009-03-16T00:05:00.000-07:00

Here are the toilet paper roll seedlings in their egg carton tray. Broccoli babies, aren't they cute? (Night-blooming jasmine in foreground)

If I'd thought about it before this picture was taken, I would have pulled off the t.p. first. It's like the kid in school with the yearbook picture that's wrong, somehow... maybe he has some ketchup on his face, and you just know his mama was mortified when she saw the wallet-sized photos she was going to have to send to family.

Ah, well. Actually, this picture was taken a week or so ago, and the weather was sooo nice today, and is supposed to stay nice for the coming week or so, that I thought it was time to plant.

The way this is supposed to work is, to minimize the disturbance to the roots, you just plant the whole thing in the ground after opening up the bottom a bit. And that's just what I did on the ones that were singles. But see, since some of these had two baby plants come up, I gently shook the soil and separated those. I know I am supposed to just plant the whole thing, after all, that was the point. But when it comes to thinning them, I just can't bring myself to do it. It's like that scene in "Sophie's Choice", when Meryl Streep has to decide which kid to keep... it's very traumatic for me.

So instead I try to plant them both, disturbing the roots horribly. Probably won't matter anyway, it really is too early to plant, I think. Not just broccoli, either. We planted all kinds of things today.

So good night broccoli, brussel sprouts, peas, lettuce and onions. Sleep well in your new beds.

Fence, New Beds

2009-02-10T08:56:00.000-08:00

On one hand, there is something funny and quirky about having a border of thick, lush, poison ivy growing beside our driveway. It reminds me of the mixed message I used to get at the end of the “Beverly Hillbillies”. I could have sworn there was a long list of “make-yourself-at-home” type phrases as they were smiling and waving from their front porch, only to finish with “Don't come back now, ya hear?” (Turns out it's actually “Y'all come back now,” but that isn't how I heard it.)
Ultimately, though, we decided the poison ivy had to go, so we've been working hard digging up roots and trying to smother what's there with layers of cardboard, paper, leaves, compost. At first, we were just going for the worst spot, but in an unusual burst of enthusiasm, brought on, no doubt, by the spring-like spell we are having, we extended the initial poison-ivy smothering bed all the way down the drive. If we are successful, we will no longer have to run out to meet our visitors with “get out on the right side of the car!” greeting.

Famous friend Steve brought us a load of cane last year, and we have found so many uses for this sturdy stuff. We built tomato tee-pees that worked beautifully. But still there was so much left, and I felt guilty every time I looked at the stack. At the same time, I was annoyed by the neighbors straight behind us. Their landlord decided to trim back all of the overhanging trees (grr! not like he was planning a garden in back, or that they were in danger of possibly breaking off onto the house, 300 feet away! He just doesn't like trees, obvious when you look into that barren back lot.) So now my flat-back, sheared trees cannot block the ugly that is the back of the the two houses on the other street. Poor trees.

But back to the cane... here is the last of it, serving to obscure the view through to the other side and to serve as a backdrop for what is sure to be a stunning naturalized understory garden. I am hoping to get some more cane from Steve so I can finish this thing. Eventually.

Making a fence by hand from cane gives me new appreciation for the workers in some distant land churning out those 6 foot panels. This is hard work.

Another Farmer's Almanac Challenge

2009-01-22T11:38:00.000-08:00

From the Farmer's Almanac:

Remember on St. Vincent’s Day,
If that the Sun his beams display,
Be sure to mark the transient beam—
Which through the casement sheds a gleam;
For ’tis a token bright and clear
Of prosperous weather all the year.

St. Vincent’s Day (today, Jan. 22) is heralded for its weather lore. A sunny day signifies “more wine than water” and means that the sap might begin to rise. Frost on that day presages a delayed crop.

So, looks like we're in for a good harvest, because the sun is full-on today. Oh, I hope it's right. I'd hate to be tricked by a poem.

What to use to start seedlings

2009-01-18T12:50:00.000-08:00

This is the “Cheap Tip” of the day from our other blog, but it is a great garden tip, so I am reposting it here. Turn your used toilet paper rolls into starters for your seedlings. When they get large enough, you can put the whole thing in the ground, no need to shock your little babies as they make the transition. They stay put in the cardboard, which decomposes in the ground.

Last year, we did not start collecting these soon enough, so we had a shortage. We made some from newspaper, making tubes (slightly wider than the toilet paper tubes) and folding the bottoms in. Mostly they stayed together, but I should have bunched them together in a container of some kind, like this guy on the ever-helpful Baker Creek forum... Here's a picture from his post:

I like peat starts, but at this quantity, they are kind of pricey. And I like the small, plastic planters, but I never have enough and I wouldn't think of buying them new. I like reusing plastic containers with holes punched in the bottoms, but since I am limiting my plastics now, I don't have enough to use.

So, it looks like paper planters are going to be all up in my garden this year. I think it's a good thing.

Garden Tag

2009-01-13T11:40:00.000-08:00

I'd never thought about it before, but our friend Denise mentioned copper garden tags. I had to look them up to see one, and immediately I thought I could make something similar. So here is the homemade version using all found materials. Some I saw were fixed, some dangling. I went with the dangling version.

I used an aluminum soda can, a wire hanger, old jewelry findings and beads and wire. I cut two tags, one slightly larger than the other, then wrote backward on the opposite side. I folded the edge of the larger piece over the smaller, so there would be no sharp sides to it, poked some holes and dangled some beads.

Not sure how I feel about the beads yet. Here are instructions for making a copper version. They're very pretty, and you could easily do it this way too. I just found a beautiful idea for leaves and raffia, and I like the look very much. Maybe I will try one like that next.

Seed Inventory 2009

2009-01-09T08:03:00.000-08:00

Here we are, dreaming of this year's garden. We have all of our seeds spread out in front of us, making us shake with delight (like just before our cat Topher gets a bite of tuna). So here is the list:

New and partial packets (all heirloom seeds from Baker Creek)
Just in... heirloom seeds from Bountiful Gardens! I will add them in purple.

Squash (“White Bush Scallop” summer squash, “Red Kuri” & “Pie Pumkin” both winter, loofah)
Peppers (“Tabasco” & “Chinese 5 Color” both hot, “Purple Beauty” & “Golden Cal. Wonder”, both sweet)
Greens (Pepper Cress, Mesclun mix, “Ford Hook Giant” chard, “Romanesco Italia” broccoli)(“Arctic King” butterhead lettuce, celery)
Fruit (Kiwi & melons-"Banana", "Tigger", "Kiwano")(black currant, "Moon and Stars" watermelon)
Eggplants (Rosa Bianca, Rotunda Bianca)
Grains ("Stowells Evergreen" corn, "Love Lies Bleeding" amaranth "Country Gentleman" corn)
Root crops ("Bull's Blood" & "Chioggia" both beets, "Cosmic Purple" carrots) ("Giant Zittau" onion)
Herbs (Summer Savory, Sweet Annie, Soapwort, Cumin, Wormwood, Oregano, Lemongrass, Thai Sweet Basil, Cinnamon Basil, Anise Hyssop, Catnip, Cilantro, Dill)(Borage, Chamomile, Toothache plant, Meadowsweet, Savory, Sweet Cicely, Valerian)
Beans & Peas ("Molly Frasier" climbing, Hyacinth Bean, Snow Pea)("Envy" Soy bean, Fava Bean)
Tomato (Brandywine, Paul Robeson, also tomatillo)(Chadwicks Cherry Tomato)
Cucumber (lemon, delikatesse)
Flowers, other (Poppy, Nasturtiums, Sweet Rocket, Asparagus)

We also have some nigella and clematis seeds we collected from established plants. It's gonna be an exciting year.

Carpet Weedkiller?

2009-01-05T06:27:00.000-08:00

As we work on our garden, we read or hear about ideas that have worked well for others and are eager to try these things. I am not sure that all of these are GOOD ideas, but since this is the 'show me' state, we like to see these things for ourselves.

Steve (friend with much more gardening experience) told me about a house he recently worked on, a very nice house that belonged to an old woman who'd passed away. The garden space was covered by old carpet, and at first Steve could not understand why anyone would do such a thing. Ugly outdoor patio area? Garden as landfill? He removed the carpet and saw the rich, weed-free soil underneath, and realized this must have been this old-timer's way of prepping for the following season.

I was especially excited about the idea of using old carpet. We'd pulled up some nasty carpet from our house when we first moved in. It was part of our 'greening' up the house efforts, but I knew that carpets were a major issue in landfills and wasn't looking forward to being part of the problem. With this new idea, I could put the carpet to work AND keep it out of the landfill. Happy days.

But now, I am concerned. Since carpets leach toxins (one of the reasons they are a problem in landfills) it’s possible that our carpet is doing just that, right now, in our vegetable garden! How will I know if my soil is safe? I am hoping it will be okay, especially after we add the layers, but I would hate to think our effort to do something green turned out to be really, really brown.

I asked for help in the ever-entertaining “I Dig My Garden” forum on the Baker Creek website, and got a wide range of suggestions and helpful (and not as helpful, but funny. High heels? Oh, it does digress there) advice. Ultimately, though, I don't think anyone knows for certain. I will probably remove it, just to be safe. After all, we will be topping all of this off with cardboard, newspapers, leaves, compost and soil in the Spring.

Testing the Wisdom of the Farmer's Almanac

2009-01-01T18:05:00.000-08:00

According to the Farmer's Almanac “If there is no wind on New Year’s Day, the summer will be dry; if there’s a good breeze, there will be rain enough for a decent crop.”

The Farmer's Almanac is full of this kind of stuff, but I never know if it's true. By the time the results are in, I forget what the forecast was. This year, though, I am going to test it out. New Year’s Day was not windy here in Springfield, not one bit. So if Farmer's Almanac wisdom is right, we are in for a dry summer. Looks like we are gonna have to get those rain barrels hooked up as soon as the weather turns fair.

ADDENDUM: Not to let the Farmer's Almanac off the hook, but it was exceedingly windy on the day we made the no-till bed by the fence (Dec. 30) and again, on Jan 3.

New Year, New Bed

2009-01-01T17:10:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of the new bed we are planning. This location is plagued with poison ivy. Shortly after we moved in,
we noticed the poison ivy hedge on that side of the driveway and avoided it. This year,we did our best to fight it by digging up all the sprouts as they emerged, but soon, we lost the battle. Someone suggested round-up, and the problem was so bad that we actually considered it. Depending on how this year's poison ivy battle goes, we may resort to it.

Since neither of us have much experience with gardens, we may not have done this correctly, but this is our attempt at a no-till garden, a-la Ruth Stout. (We used this method in our main garden as well, but were not as careful or deliberate with the layers.) We started with a layer of cardboard, to act as a barrier between the poison ivy and the plants. We covered this with several layers of newspaper, then watered it all down. On top of this, we put a thick layer of dried leaves.

Cardboard, newspaper and leaves (from friend, Steve. Thanks!)

I am pouring more water on the whole thing (cardboard, paper, leaves) to hold it in place.

On top of all of this, we brought in the top layer from our compost pile, the green stuff that hasn't decomposed much. On this, we put a thick layer of dark, finished compost.

Compost topping over thick layer of wetted leaves, newspaper and cardboard.

On top of all of this, we added a layer of topsoil, then a final layer of leaves as mulch. After this, we took the emptied leaf bags, cut them flat, and staked them into the bed. I was hoping the plastic would help the leaf mulch keep the weeds out, but I am not sure if this was a good move or not. I hope the plastic doesn't leach anything awful.

We trimmed the sides with small bits of sticks, which we hope will become mulch. In the Spring, we plan to plant a hedge of amaranth (from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. It's called "Love Lies Bleeding, and Thomas Jefferson grew it in his Monticello garden too) and maybe something in front, preferably another food crop.

ADDENDUM: After some thought about the possibility of what might leach from the plastic, we removed the black plastic bags. The leaves are fairly mulched and should stay in place (mostly).

Review ('08) Lettuce, Turnips, Chard

2008-12-29T17:21:00.000-08:00

The lettuce was a mix from Baker Creek. “European Mix” an heirloom mix of greens and lettuces. The other plants were given to us by my friend Steve. These were our earliest harvested crops.

Lettuce (1 bed, many plants) We sprinkled the seeds on the top of the small bed just on the other side of the waddle fence we built. It was a mix, so lots of different things came up, including arugula (also known as “rocket”, in case you think our lettuce bed is getting elitist). It made lots of salad greens for us, varied and interesting. Since I didn't plant it in rows, though, it was hard to tell which plants were lettuces until they'd gotten bigger. There are lots of weeds that look like salad greens, yep. Next year, we'll plant our salad crop in rows, so we can pull weeds sooner.

Turnips (4 or 5) The leaves were not as pretty, and I've never really cared for turnips, but once we were growing them, something in me changed. Suddenly, I loved the turnip so much. Alan did too. We ate the whole thing, leaves and root. The turnip inspired me to cook. It made Alan cry. I am not sure why, something about the joy of growing things, I think. He is emotional like that.

Chard (4-5) The chard just kept going and going. We STILL have chard out there, under some leaf mulch. It's amazing. At first, I was a little creeped out by it, because some bug loved it and I was prissy about eating stuff that something else already ate. (It was an early crop... I got used to sharing by the time the corn came in!) It was good, though, and made me feel like I was eating something healthy because it cooks up a dark green. I made the mistake of cutting out the stems, which are apparently edible and very delicious.

Review ('08) Berries

2008-12-28T13:23:00.000-08:00

Blackberries - Ah, the berries. The blackberries were like a huge beast out of the 1950s when we moved in. Straggly. Brambly. Monstrous. When they finally started to come in I got obsessed with getting a net over them so the birdies wouldn’t chomp our crop. I bought a black nylon net and tried to get the thing over a 6' tall by 9' long blackberry monster. It was impossible. The net would get stuck in the thorns, rip, and tear. Tender berry babies were getting lost. I needed some immediate help. Enter Marina. She took one end of the net and I the other. Up and over, berries safe and sound. We managed to harvest a fair amount of tart berries but robins kept getting under the net to eat the berries and then bounced around frantically trying to escape. We would let them go but not without a good scolding.

After the season was over, I finally read about how to care for berries. I learned that I needed to go out and cut down all the cane that had given us this year’s berries. That thinned the herd a lot! Once I removed that cane and the old cane from days gone by, I was able to see into the garden and the blackberry cane looked beautiful. All that’s needed now is to get some new wire to tie the cane to and then blackberry heaven will be a few months away.

Raspberries - The raspberry was a tiny little bush, just a couple of feet high, but it produced some huge fruit. The fruit was so delicious and every berry tasted like an obscene delicacy. Unfortunately, my exuberant clearing of the blackberry caused me to lose track of where I was and I cut down the raspberry. Chagrin! I’m really, really hoping that it comes back.

Review ('08) Not So Successful Plantings

2008-12-27T20:16:00.000-08:00

Most of the garden did well. Only a few crops let us down. Broccoli, Jerusalem artichokes, peas potatoes, mint and hyacinth beans did not do as well as expected. The mint was mentioned in a previous post, here are the other unsuccessful plants.

Broccoli (about 8 plants) Steve, who gave me many plant things, also gave me these cute, little starts. I put them in a spot in the garden that is partially shaded by some rogue trees, and they did beautifully, growing huge and leafy. Unfortunately, they never made crowns. Steve's home plants never produced either. He suspects we planted them too late.

Jerusalem Artichokes (about 12 bulbs) From Steve. I've grown these before, and when I thought I'd like to grow something else in the spot, it was impossible to get rid of them. They are so incredibly hardy. That's why I was stunned when I saw how poorly they did against the fence (I was hoping they'd form a screen to block the view of the neighbors). My best guess is either the spot does not receive enough sun, or the walnut tree is too close and it is one of those plants that doesn't care for the walnut juju.

Peas (about 6 vines) Heirloom seeds. They did alright for a while. I think we got 3 or 4 pods. For some reason, they turned yellow and died, just like that. We still don't know why, although possible guesses are too much heat, soil needed care, or maybe the stormwater that rushed by it. We will try again, both in this location and another.

Potatoes (8 plants) Some time in May, some of our potatoes (meant for eating) sprouted, so we planted them in an impromptu bed. They struggled and produced only a few potatoes, probably because they were in the ground so late. The potatoes were okay, but very small.

Carrots (8 plants) When I was a kid, we sprouted the tops cut off of carrots and grew them in water. I think it was a science project. Since I was planting a garden and had some space, I thought I'd try carrots again, using this method I learned in 5th grade. It worked, and these lovely fern-like fronds filled the edge of the lettuce bed. When the time came to harvest these, though, all that existed underground were the tops looking about the way they did when they went in the ground.

Hyacinth Bean (8 plants) Heirloom seeds. The idea was to shield the south side of the house with trellises full of some blooming vine, so we planted hyacinth bean. In the pictures, they look like beautiful orchids, and the beans are edible. They sprouted, but never grew much. I have a feeling rabbits ate them, although it didn't help that I neglected to prepare the soil in their location. By the way, the trellises were pretty hideous contraptions we made by hand. Our neighbors, though, never complained.

Review ('08) The Herb Bed

2008-12-27T19:29:00.000-08:00

A big mass of winter creeper grew in a huge tangle in our backyard. Even though it’s a vine, this pile was so thick that it looked like a bush, three feet tall. It took many passes to chop it all out, and the center vine was as big around as a thigh. (Mostly, I don't like killing plants, but this thing is a monstervine that takes over everything. Horrible stuff, invasive and hard to kill. I can’t believe they sold this at the hardware store as a groundcover.) Not only this, but it sheltered mosquitoes, lots of them. So it had to go.

In it's place, we planted the herb garden. Besides oregano, catnip, and basil (covered in a previous post) we grew lavender, rosemary, lemongrass and strawberries in that spot. 3 beds, each surrounded by rocks, enclosed a center area, making a small bed for the lemongrass. Off to one side is a small tree of some kind, not yet determined, possibly a chokecherry.

Rosemary & Lavender (one plant each) In April, we went to Baker Creek and bought these as seedlings from a vendor at the festival. Both plants fared well in the spot, which received a lot of sun. The bed was raised slightly, enclosed by a circle of rocks about 4-6 inches high. These plants shared their bed with basil and peppers, because when the plants were small, they had plenty of room. As they grew, though, the basil partially shaded the lavender. Still, they fared fairly well and are overwintering in the garden. I am hoping that the proximity to the large rocks on their south side, plus the glass windshield and mulch I place over the plants when the weather is particularly nasty, will help protect it from the winter. I've taken cuttings just in case, and with luck, these will root and form their own plants.

Lemongrass (one plant) Another plant given to me by my good friend Steve, this one came as a scraggly-looking weed, half dead and decrepit. It soon revived, filling in with bright green spears of grass, looking like a beautiful living fountain in the middle of our herbs. The leaves made the best tea, and the smell was so nice. Unfortunately, the way we planted it made it too difficult to dig out for the winter, and since it is a tropical plant, it will probably die. I pulled some pieces and started roots in water, but so far, they look pretty bad in the pot.

Strawberries (two plants) We bought these at the farmer’s market. I could not decide between the two types, so we bought one of each. Of these, one died, and one went on to make more plants. I wish I'd kept the tags so I'd know which one we have. Ah, well. We've mulched them with corn stalks and leaves (although the leaves are not recommended, as they hold moisture next to the plant, which is, apparently, bad). I hope they make it. If they do, they will get transplanted to a different spot, since the bed they are in is pretty small.

Review ('08) Surprise Crops

2008-12-27T11:32:00.000-08:00

Not everything in our garden was intentionally planted there by us. Some things just came up on their own, like magical presents from the goddess of the garden. Or something like that.

Cantaloupe (approx. 8 vines) The best of these was the cantaloupe. It just sprung up all tight in a bunch, and I suppose it came from the improper composting we were doing. (See, rather than make a heap, we thought to ourselves “Why not just place the organic matter on the ground where it will go in the end anyway?” It probably would have worked if we'd generated a great deal more organic matter, but as it was, a thin layer of waste topped a section of yard that would eventually become the site of our garden.)

We transplanted it to the same row as the cucumber, and it grew and spread and was amazing. The fruit was no bigger than a softball, a single-serving of cantaloupe. In retrospect, sharing the row with cucumbers was probably an unwise move, as the cantaloupe seem to have cross pollinated with the cucumbers, giving them a slight cucumber flavor. Still, free cantaloupe, and they were carefree.

Onion (2?) Unplanted onion also came up, and not that chumpy kind that grows in your yard accidentally, no! This onion was big, no doubt some kind of growth from the pseudo-compost layer. Sadly, we lost track of it, and once we came back from our trip, signs of the plant were gone, so I don't know if they were any good.

Nigella (2 plants) Near the house, in a bed I have not tended, this weird, wonderful flower grew. It was hard to find out what it was, but eventually I did. Nigella. I saved some of the seeds and plan to plant a bunch of it next year. What a cool plant. It has this strange, double-decker flower, kind of like a passion flower, only smaller, and the leaves are thin and fern-like.

Weeds (several) Two other plants, a beautiful flower and a beautiful grass, sprouted up. The flower was like a morning glory, white with bright magenta edges. It twined around the tomato stakes and I loved seeing it there. The grass was a triangular stemmed thing, with beautiful spear leaves, kinda like a spider plant. It was so pretty. I let both of these plants stay. Turns out that was a mistake, because after reading an article about the peskiest weeds, I learned that my beautiful morning glory was actually bindweed, the strangler of garden plants. And my pretty grass was yellow nutsedge, an invasive weed that is difficult to get rid of. Unless you have pigs. Which we don’t.

So I nurtured these two weeds, and will, no doubt, be seeing them again next year. It isn’t a total wash, though. The nutsedge, it turns out, creates underground tubers that are used by some cultures as food. “Chufa”, it’s called, and apparently it can be roasted and ground and turned into a delicious drink. Looks like we will know for sure next spring.

Review ('08) The Three Sisters

2008-12-25T18:59:00.000-08:00

Corn, Beans, and Squash, the Three Sisters, was a project we knew we wanted to take on from the moment we thought, “garden!” I don’t think we could have sustained a group of people larger than the two of us and cat but with little mistakes can come great successes and we hope that next year’s trio will take care of more than just our little tribe.

Corn (25 plants) - the corn went in first right after the final frost date. We made ten mounds of soil and manure about 2' wide and 8" tall. In this lovely brown went 5 seeds per mound in a star pattern. After a couple of weeks of steady rain and sun, the corn said “hi.” It was so tiny but took off really quickly. Once the hatchlings were a foot high it was time for the beans. Gradually, as the stalks got taller, their roots tangled and hanging down like thick, heavy teeth, began to become exposed. I had to pile on more manure and soil around each mound. The mounds began to expand! I realized then that I had made the mounds too small to begin with and actually too close together. The plants to the south were growing much faster than the plants in the back which were becoming dwarfed. We had a lot of rain in late June with high winds that really beat the hell out of the proud stalks.

Altogether, we harvested about a bushel of corn. It was a sweet heirloom, Country Gentleman, and it was delicious. It was the only vegetable that was bug-friendly. An ugly, green worm managed to find a place to hang out in each plant, munch munching away on our crop. Next year we’ll know to put olive oil on the silks to keep out the pesky varmit.

Beans (3 plants) - yeah, but we planted 40! These heirloom beans were not sprouted ahead of time. They were stuck in the soil right around each stalk of 12" high corn. But for some reason the climbing bean did not sprout, sing, or climb. We managed to only have 3 plants that barely produced. I don’t even remember tasting one. I don’t know what lesson we may have learned from the bean fiasco but like our peas, they were a bummer in the summer.

Squash (?) - The yellow squash, another heirloom, went in 2 weeks after the beans, about the end of June. We put about 4 seeds in each mound surrounding the corn and “beans.” They started poking their heads out in mid July. The heat was starting to come on strong but with ample water and fish emulsion they seemed to tolerate anything that came their way. We had to leave for a family gathering in Colorado at the end of July and during our time away no one was around to water the plants. The heat was intense and stalled the growth of the little squash. We managed to bring some of it back and the little yellow squash was beginning to show up by the end of September but it was too late. The weather turned and the one or two squash we had, out of the 30+ we planted, never grew longer than 3". Next year, more water, a steady diet of attention and love, and better soil and compost will bring a better crop.

Review ('08) Catnip, Oregano and Mints

2008-12-25T17:54:00.000-08:00

More review of the results of our ’08 garden. The catnip was grown from seed, as was one of the oregano plants. The others were starts from various sources.

Catnip (1 small bed)
Catnip is a mint. I didn’t know this until I started growing it. I planted a couple of seeds in a pot, and transplanted these into a bed which I planned to share with another herb. Luckily, I never got around to figuring out what to split the space with, because the catnip would have killed it off. It took over the entire bed, and was, by far, the most productive of all the herbs I planted. Unfortunately, our cat did not care so much for the homegrown organic stuff, but our neighbor’s cat certainly did.

Oregano (1 small bed, 2 plants)
I started the oregano from seed, but only a pitiful sproutling or two emerged. These stayed small for most of the summer. I didn't even know they were still there when I came home with the starts from the store, Lowe’s I think. After a while, though, I noticed I had two oregano plants in the bed. One was large and took over the space (Lowe's) and one that was small but growing (from seed). I could not detect a difference in flavor, but the super oregano was probably a hybrid. We saved no seeds from the other.

Spearmint (2 plants) Chocolate Mint (1 plant) Pineapple Mint (1 plant)
My friend Steve brought two plants he'd dug up from his spearmint bed. It seemed that no matter how much he neglected it (build a deck over it, never water it) that bed of spearmint perservered. In fact, I often heard him talk of it as if it were a nuisance. I planted the two plants he gave me beside the house in the preexisting beds, only with different results. Instead of having mint everywhere, the plants struggled. When I cut the top 4 inches off the stalks, the rest of the stalk would turn brown and die. The plants struggled and never did well.

Similar results with the chocolate mint, planted down the bed about 4 feet away. I bought this plant at the local farmer's market. It smelled great, but never took off, and, like the spearmint, did not like being cut.

The pineapple mint died right away. I planted it in a sunny spot, but did not prep the soil, and kind of forgot about it. I am going to try to grow kiwi there next time.

Review ('08) Tomatoes, Peppers, Basil

2008-12-12T19:30:00.000-08:00

Overall, we were pleased with the results of our first garden. Some crops did better than others. We tried to stick with the heirloom seeds we bought at Baker's Creek, but a couple of our plants came from the hardware store.

Tomatoes (about 16 plants)
We planted two varieties of tomatoes, both heirlooms. Brandywine is one of those all-time favorites, and we liked it alright, but our favorite was the Paul Robeson. Although not as large as the Brandywine, the Paul Robeson (a deep purple, nearly black tomato) is really tasty. We planted these two too close to save seeds, as they cross polinated, but we plan to keep them apart next year.

A friend gave us some old tomato cages. These are the kind of cages you see everywhere, wire circles , larger on top than on bottom. They stand about 2.5 feet tall, with 8 inches or so of wire pushed into the ground. At first, they were great, and made our tomatoes look tame. But as the tomatoes gained height, they overflowed the cages and spilled out over the top. For the other tomatoes, we made bamboo supports that stood about 6 ft. tall and looked a little like coverless teepees over the tomatoes. These worked pretty well, and stood up to the winds. We just read about another method, one where you weave non-stretching twine between posts, so we will try that next year.

Of the initial 24 plants, only 16 survived to fruit. A couple developed a strange rot that hollowed out the center of each branch, and we pulled these immediately. A few small transplants were eaten by something, rabbits probably.

Basil (about 8 plants)
Two types, Thai basil and cinnamon basil, were grown both among the tomatoes and in the freestanding herb garden. The plants in the herb garden grew much larger, I suspect because they had better sun. We didn't care for the cinnamon basil's flavor, it tasted "grassy" but drying it seems to have helped. Both varieties took off once the weather turned warm.

Peppers (about 4 plants)
The Chinese peppers were shaded in the garden, and I suspect the lack of sun hindered their growth. We got two peppers from that plant. The habeñeros (which were purchased from Ace Hardware... not an heirloom) did remarkably well in the herb garden, and held its own among the vegetables. They were, by most accounts, far too hot to eat. Wunderle planted his tabasco plant in our garden (bought as a start from the farmer's market, I think) which did so well that we decided it would make a beautiful ornamental and should be planted someplace outside of the garden.

Review ('08) First Garden, Overview

2008-12-12T18:56:00.001-08:00

One of the reasons we bought this house was because of the lot. It was large for city standards (nearly an acre) and got good sun, perfect for growing a garden. Our plan was to grow some of our own food, partially in reaction to the news about genetically modified plants, so we were extremely conscientious about the sources of our plants. We knew we wanted heirloom seeds, the kind that could be collected and used next growing season.

So we made our plans for our garden. Five long rows and two small beds made up our garden.

We chose to use the “no-till” method, primarily because we did not have a tiller, nor did we want the expense of renting one (expense, by the way, is a major motivator behind the garden, that is, the reduction of expense. Therefore, whenever possible, we tried to use methods that were inexpensive or free, using what we had on hand rather than buying new things, and looking for used tools when we could). After reading more about it, however, we likely would have chosen this method of gardening anyway, for all its benefits.

In the Fall of ’07, we started heaping grass clippings on the spot where we intended to have our garden. On top of this, we tossed out our kitchen scraps. It was our first attempt at composting. Steve (my friend who told me about the no-till method) saw this and said we weren't actually composting so much as trashing up the space. It did look terrible, I have to admit.

But, in the Spring, we were rewarded with mostly decomposed grass and kitchen scraps. We piled these into mounds, leaving the ground bare where the grass/garbage had been. Then we covered these bare strips with cardboard, and covered the mounds with newspaper. If we'd overlapped these a little better, we might have avoided the crabgrass that worked its way up from between the two surfaces.

Our city has a wonderful yard waste recycling center, and our friend Steve brought a big load of mulch, which we spread over the cardboard. He also brought a fresh load of compost. We mixed the compost with some unpleasant-looking dirt that had been dumped in the back of our lot, (probably removed to build the pond). Another friend, Chris, brought us a big pile of decomposed horse manure. I don't think I can express how grateful I am to Chris for that load of horseshit. It made all the difference in our garden.

These three ingredients went on top of the newspaper, making garden-looking mounds on top of our hidden grass/compost/newspaper stuff.

We wove a waddle fence, but after finishing the front half, we decided that there was not enough time for building the fence all the way around, and so, we sprung for some chicken wire.

Starting plants from seed is a good way to reduce cost, but we noticed that we had not properly anticipated the number of pots we would ultimately need. The pots we had consisted of pots from plants that had gone to plant heaven, and a couple of used pots we picked up at the thrift store. This was not nearly enough. I started making pots from paper, but could not make enough for all the plants. Because of this, I have already begun making/saving pots for next year. I should have plenty.

Another difficulty in starting plants indoors was finding enough space next to the sunny window for all of them.

We eventually planted all of our starts, and sowed some directly into the soil. This year, we grew 2 kinds of tomatoes, 3 kinds of peppers, 2 kinds of basil, some potatoes, other spices, cucumbers, melons, lettuce mix, corn, beans, squash, greens, peas, turnips, broccoli. Mixed success.