RKayne's Blog

Got pics?
Feb 11, 2008 | 3:12 PM PST
Tags: Walla Walla Sweet Onions , Parsley , butterleaf lettuce , greenleaf lettuce , rosemary , Smooth Leafed Olympic Spinach

Allright! Got some pictures finally so you can see why we had so much fun, haha! This was last year, start to *halfway* finished. Go Here.

So, anyways, my post last year about why we stopped halfway, Here.

Well, now we have claimed the full space. That blackberry got a bit too happy were it was, guess I should have taken a pic, it had grown halfway up the space!

SO, now we have THIS space!

See the happy happy Parsley? All that soil..begging for plants!

There was a surprise, you can kinda see it down there. There was so much overgrowth under that blackberry that I had no clue it was there....

A rosemary bush. A very tough one who just now sees the light of day....

That was a serious chore that I felt, for sure :D

Here is a nice shot of G's garlic, he had some flower bulbs coming up (I *thought* I had gotten all those tulips out!) so he learned the difference between the garlic and them fast! As I know garlic really does not like to be transplanted I showed him how to take it ALL up, get out his garlic and then replant the garlic by digging the hole REALLY deep and dangling the roots down while filling the dirt around them. Fast learner, he is.

So, we proceeded to plant the entire area. In his garlic area he planted Early Radishes and towards the end he planted Spinach, then some Walla Walla sweet onions.

On my side I put in a *tad* bit of spinach, some more onions, some butterleaf lettuce and greenleaf lettuce. It's time...time to grow!

Emergency Cow Poop.
Feb 10, 2008 | 4:24 PM PST
Tags: Brandywine , Cherry Tomato , compost , butterleaf lettuce , green leaf lettuce , Walla Walla Sweet Onions , Smooth Leafed Olympic Spinach , Radishes , Garlic , Black Prince , Cold Frame

So, I talked to G today about how we really couldn't do much until we treated the dirt at the end to make it soil. He totally got it but was a bit put out as we really wanted to put the Walla Walla sweet onions in today...so, I came inside and got Carry to take me to the local Home Depot and we got some 'emergency cow poop', came home and I dumped about a bag and a half between the two spaces.

At this very moment I am reading a book called 'Cubed Foot Gardening' by Christopher O. Bird. Well, I really like what he has to say. So, we are doing an intensive seasonal rotation garden. Going through it I decided to ignore the packets suggestions (I know! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING???) Either way, I looked through our last frost, possible first frost...and found that for some reason (Ring of fire? Could it be the volcanoes? Hmmm...maybe ;) ) that our growing season is actually LONGER then where I grew up in NC! Maybe a month or so longer! Wow.

So, we planted! We planted the Walla Walla's that we were going to anyways, but they also planted the smooth leafed Olympic spinach according to the 'cubed ft design. Spinach is kinda tall so it gets the north side of the garden all over! Then we put the onions in front of the spinach to fill the area on the north side. On the south side I planted all the lettuces and some onions. I put the butterleaf and greenleaf through my newly opened area and then in his 'garlic rectangle' G put early radishes. So, assuming things work the way I have been reading, both online and in the book, and from what I saw last year....we should have solid green in about a month! wOOt!

Next week? Cold Frames based out of the containers that our greens come in.
We shall plant the tomatoes, we have Brandywine and my cross breed black prince/brandywines from last year, and some cherry sweets for G cuz that boy can GO through some maters!!! our deal, on his side he can eat all of them he wants, on ours, ASK! LOL!

Honestly....pics...
soon. I took some but the batteries need to charge up a bit, had to chare them a tad to take pics. Damn we need a new camera, haha.

The extra veggie space
Feb 10, 2008 | 9:20 AM PST
Tags: blackberry , rosemary , sage , thyme , parsley , coffee grounds , preparing soil , yellowjackets

Last year, when we moved it, I started reclaiming the section of 'gardening space' next to the house. These were fallow sections, with an odd assortment of flower bulbs that were in weird places and a lot of grass. I could barely see the walkway between the two raised beds. Granted, this is a rental house but how could I possibly NOT use them? Well, after the work the youngest and I did yesterday, guess we will have to stay another year, lol.

So, at the end of these beds was a HUGE nasty, mean and thoroughly entrenched blackberry, one of the sorts that makes you understand why they are the bane of the PNW. I figured, go ahead and clear what I could and then cut it back, at the very least. No way, there *is* also a nest of yellowjackets, who knows how long they have been there!

Being the organic gardener I am, and having turned rather a bit of the soil already and seeing all the 'wonderful' (note sarcasm) grubs that were here and there...I had an odd idea. I left the yellowjackets alone! They eat grubs so we had an understanding, I leave you alone, you leave me alone :D That worked out great, I think there was only one time I went around the corner and thought, hey...not today...not going in there! Otherwise, we were out there all the time so it balanced well and I didn't have to go through the trouble of wiping out an entire colony, haha. I know...yellowjackets, and ground ones at that, the kind that if it stung my Mom, she would be dead...but still, didn't want to kill them, especially since they were such a help in the end.

I know they are still there, but they are hibernating so we went ahead and did the clearing. I really don't know exactly were they are, I am not sure they are actually in the garden itself but maybe in some bushes that are very thick at the end, which is actually the top of a rockery beside our very steep and very narrow (pretty much the Seattle norm) driveway. Guess we will find out when it warms up! I really need to take pics, still have one somewhere I can dig up to show where I stopped digging last year. This year our youngest has the gardening bug so he gets to claim he helped a LOT.

So, cutting that blackberry, I started cutting sections and tossing them back to G to put in the yard waste...and cutting...and cutting. The grass was long enough that when it died out for winter there were a couple sections that I just pulled it up with NO weeds below. Of course where there were weeds they were seriously there, and then the bulb thing. Shouldn't you have a rhyme or reason to placement? No...whoever had put these in thought :D

The best thing was, in the corner I *think* the yellowjackets might be, under that blackberry from Hades...was a 2-3 foot tall Rosemary. Healthy, happy...and I had a chicken in the fridge so I sent G out to get some rosemary. He knew which one was the thyme as I had pointed it out between the silver and purple sage, and a handful of parsley and let him stuff them all into the chicken. So, lot of work, but immediate benefits. I will try to get some pics later, it has been raining pretty much ever since we were out there (started sprinkling while we still were but the little trooper has to have that gardening bug, he stuck it out, refused to leave until he was done turning the coffee grounds in!).

Wow...tired...beat.
Feb 10, 2008 | 12:34 AM PST
We beat the rain, C suggested (pointed out) that it was NOT raining for a sec, so we dashed out, got all the diggy tools, and reclaimed about 25-30 sq ft of gardening space...too tired right now to go into HOW it was to be that it was not claimed last year, will do so tomorrow.  Maybe take a pic or two, show off the disgustingly happy parsley and garlic...lol.  Let us say there was a lot of coffee involved, well, grounds, worked into the soil....