kohoutjm's Blog

What happened to May?
Jun 11, 2009 | 12:46 AM PST
Tags: Peas , Lettuce , Minchow Iris , Mystery Plant

So I realized today that I had not posted photos or a blog entry in all of May and noticed that June is going fast. Here is the most recent set of photos I took. The mystery plant is not a peony. Here is the photo of it all grown up. It is in full shade.

 

Last year my mom sent some of her "Minchow" Iris divisions in a large bag. I cleaned them up and planted as many as I could then hoped for the best. Out of the newly planted (last fall) I had 3 sets bloom. They all looked like the one below. However my mom claims there should be some yellow ones. I will have to wait til next year to find out!

Lastly my vegetable garden is doing well. I have decided that I will not try radishes again next year. This is the third year that they have failed miserably in my garden and I am tired of trying. Other things are doing really well. The peppers are in and growing along with the 5 tomato plants. I have been harvesting lettuce for 3-4 weeks and I just started harvesting the sugar snap peas last week. My daughter has decided that mommy doesn't get any and proceeds to eat them faster than I can pick them. We have had lots of storms this week and some strong winds. I went out on Monday to find all of my peas knocked over. I propped them up as best as I could, hopefully they will continue to produce. Anyway, here is the pic of the peas and lettuce patch.

Happy Gardening everyone!

A good start
Mar 21, 2009 | 8:35 PM PST
Tags: transplants , tomatoes , dill , garlic chives , forsythia , garden , lettuce

Between Thursday, Friday and today (Saturday), I feel as though I got a good start on the garden. Here's what happened so far.

Hand turned about 2/3 of the garden. Managed to get the radishes, onions, and peas in yesterday. Today I finished planting the lettuces. Here's what I put in today:

• Lettuce Salad Bowl (Lake Valley™ brand) - matures in 50 days
• Mesclun Salad Mix (Burpee® brand) - matures in 48 days
  › 15% Black Seeded Simpson
  › 15% Red Salad Bowl
  › 15% Lollo Rossa
  › 15% Royal Oak Leaf
  › 20% Arugula Rocket
  › 20% Radicchio Verona
• Tom Thumb Letuce Butterhead (Burpee® brand) - matures in 65 days
• Mesclun Zesty Salad Mixture (Lake Valley™ brand) - matures in 45 days
  › 25% Tango
  › 15% Lola Rossa
  › 15% Black Seeded Simpson
  › 15% Deer Tongue Red
  › 15% Royal Oak Leaf
  › 5% Arugula
  › 5% Frisee
  › 5% Mizuna
• Lettuce Simpson Black Seeded (Lake Valley™ brand) - matures in 45 days

Later I was able to put out seed for Violas and transplant some of my seedlings. Here are some pictures:
Yellow Pear Tomatoes, Garlic Chives

Garlic Chives and Sweet Marjoram

Dill, Patio Tomatoes, and one Celebrity Tomato

Also cut some of the Forsythia to bring inside for some color. They should start to bloom in the next 5-6 days. I am so excited about Spring 2009!

Composting with Oma-Gro®
Mar 20, 2009 | 6:54 AM PST
Tags: compost , Oma-Gro® , onions , peas , radish , lettuce , local economy , Omaha , Nebraska
I took a couple of days off of work and the weather is going to cooperate and allow me lots of time in the garden. Yesterday I purchased some Oma-Gro® compost and was very excited to find out that it comes from Omaha, NE, only 60 miles away from here. It makes me feel like I am supporting our local economy and providing jobs to people in the area. We will see how much it helps, it looks nice. Dark and crumbly a few 6-8 inch stick here or there, but overall very easy to work into the soil. I am hand turning my garden this year and yeaterday I managed to turn about 1/3 of it. I am getting ready to head out again as it is now 40º and will be near 60º later today. The ground temperature is holding right about 50-55º. So I will be planting some onions, peas, radishes, and lettuce. They are calling for rain for the next couple of days, so I should be golden if I can get them in the ground today. Wish me luck. I should have photos later of my hard work in the garden.