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Well, this is the second time I've tried growing broccoli. After the first attempt, I didn't plan on trying it again. I don't love eating the vegetable enough to put up with it, I thought. The first time, some creature ate through the stems and they all flopped over before I could harvest. This time, I found a pack of 6 plants at the ACE hardware store near me and they looked so beautiful I thought I'd try again. And...they bolted before I could harvest them. It hasn't even been very sunny or hot here. What is up? I think I'll pull them out and plant...well, that's the problem...can't decide. Oh! I've been wanting some onion plants, so that's what I'll do. Hope I don't have a problem finding some starts. It seems like I don't have a lot of luck finding them when I want them.
I need to build my fourth raised bed and fill it soon. It's silly to have it almost built and then not follow through. The logs are lying there in formation. I just need to dig some trenches to set them in and fill it with some soil mix.
Then, what should I plant? Maybe for now I'll just plant a cover crop until I figure out what to plant.
The strawberries are driving me crazy. There are millions of them ripening all at once, but RIGHT when they are ALMOST ripe, robins (I've caught them in the act so many times that I'm convinced they're the major culprit) get them or they rot and get moldy. I pick bowls full of the almost-ripe-enough ones and they just don't taste great. I've frozen two gallon ziplocks of them. Maybe I'll make strawberry ice cream soon with my ice cream maker. Even almost ripe strawberries would taste good in ice cream! *Sigh* I have GOT to build those row covers for them! I do love to procrastinate!
Those damn robins, by the way, sit atop my topsy turvey tomato planters and crap strawberry seed poo ALL OVER the planters and the tomatoes! As if to say, "I'll eat your strawberries you slaved over and then I will CRAP all over your tomatoes as a an extra bonus!" Wee!
I'd like to pull out a few rows and replace with asparagus. We don't need so many strawberries. I think maybe currants might be nice, too, I don't know. Honestly, until I get a canning element for my stove I don't want to plant too much of anything! It'll all go to waste!
I went to our town's farmer's market today and there were 4 stands! Two were selling birdhouses, one was selling metal sculptures and one was selling some houseplants. No veggies, no seedlings, no fruit, no homemade soaps or sachets or honey or ANYTHING. I wonder if I could make some money there for my excess produce. It'd be EASY to create a much more appealing and useful stand at that market. They need it!
Well, tomorrow is another weekday when I will be NOT working. Oh, it's a rough life. But, don't get the wrong idea, I have 3 multi-day training sessions to go to this summer and am traveling for most of July (not that that's a hardship, but it does make the summer FLY by even faster). I'll be back in that classroom before I can even wonder what happened to my summer! But, I am NOT complaining. Teaching is perfect for gardening obsessed humans.
Got a few more things done today after I got home yesterday, DD was trying to finish up moving into there new home they purchased then remodeled. So proud of her, her first home she got on her own. They are finally at a point that it won't be long she can plant the plants I've saved for her in pots for her own yard. I did get the cattle panel arbor up with my newphew in laws help. Added some manure to the area, worked it in an planted some Willowleaf Pole Butterbeans. Replanted in spots some of the Sieva BBeans where the others hadn't come up. I think the Sieva seeds must have gotten old seeing how they are coming up in spots. They were given to me when our feed store went out of business back before spring. So if I can just get enough of them to make I'll replant saved seeds next year with fresh seed. The Willowleaft must be ok, the ones I planted earlier so far are trying to break ground. I still have some planting area left that needs something in there, but what?
We had a good storm come thru about 4 yesterday afternoon an everything got a good drink, so afterwards I checked the greenhouse, all was good. But while there I noticed my Devil's Claw seed pods had gotten blown onto the ground with a few seeds scattered. I took them an put the in the squash bed (open ground area). I think those are neat seed pods. Wicked looking! If they come up fine, if they don't thats fine to. I finally took the time to get my last large container done up an planted the last of the comfrey that I almost let die. Good Lord at the roots on them. But they stand a better chance now to survive. They just look bad for now. Weeded a few more beds, not that there bad but don't want them to be either.
If the wind isn't up after work today I think I'll do some round up in spots just so it doesn't get out of hand b4 my surgery. After that I won't be able to pick up anything over 8 lbs for 6 wks. So better get as much done in the over 8 lb catagory finished up today. I put up 4 more pvc stakes for mators an got some others retied. Added a little manure to one of the asparagus containers, just because.the others I had done a few weeks ago responded so well after doing this. I thnk I may have ID'd my mystery vine that came up in the strawberry patch to be cantolope. May be wrong, but from my (not so good) memory I think thats what it is. So my trellising may not work without some olf panytyose to use for a sling. Will see if it ever forms some fruit. Trudy
So, tis the season for Bonsai to look great! Decided to have an update on how they are doing. 
Needs a trim, hehe...
One of the Wisterias...
One of my Favorite Japanese Maples (almost 4 yrs old)
Babies...and strawberries that are going in the ground tonight!
It was 103 today, no idea of the heat index. Way to hot to be outside, but gotta do whatcha gotta do. Stopped by the feed store on the way home to get some corn for the hogs an scatch for the chickens an wound up buying a 6 pack of Jubilee Watermelon seedlings an 2 tomatoes, but 1 of them had 2 in the pot so I got 3 total. Like I need more, after 111 tomatoe plants you'd think it'd be enough. But I had some empty spots to fill in one of the mator beds so there ya go. Got them planted an repotted a Rabbiteye Blueberry bush I had bought back in the spring that I just can't seem to get in the ground, but this one was still in the plastic tubing thing, It really needs to develop a better root system b4 going in the ground in this heat. So its in the garden area right next to the faucet so I'll have to trip over it to water. That way I don't overlook it. I also potted up a lemon tree that I had rooted a piece of off a friends lemon tree, so I named it Howells Lemon. It to went into a garden path so it gets watered when I water the garden.
While weeding I noticed the garlic bed had bout finished up an needed dug up, so I took the time to get them dug an in the shade so they can dry. A few are left that aren't quiet ready yet. But most of them were. Now to figure out what to put in that kinda large area. I thought about putting up a cattle panel an arch it for a walk thru trellis, then plant some more pole butterbeans. Even then I'll still have some room left over. Decisions!
After reading the blog about the strawberries, can't remeber the username I got to noticing how the strawberry patch that I just this spring put some runners in now has runners everywhere. So I may need this fall to plant them somewhere or give them away. I may put at least some in with some of the flower beds. But I don't want no 300 of them, lol. Thats way to many for me. I'm trying to get things done/somewhat caught up b4 Wednesday, cause Thursday I'll be out of commission for awhile due to surgery an recovery. But the plus is I'll be home an in the cool a/c.
I can't seem to figure out how to post pics to a blog yet, wish there was a simple "attach photo" button to click on in here to simplify things. I'm not that computer smart to start with, lol. trudy
Hi everyone, how are you tonight? I hope this finds everyone well. I hope everybody's garden is growing and blooming as they should!
Just wanted to let you know that everything is going well in my garden. I now have tons of tomatoes, basil, sage, thyme, dill, scallions, radish, carrots, peas, strawberries and my coleus is growing beautifully!! I only have 1 green pepper so far and my broccoli raab is so far so good. I haven't had to really water the garden because we seem to be getting overnight showers almost every night so that saves me the water. I am waiting for my tomatoes to turn red. I posted here about it and was told not to water them and when I told my husband he told me that I have to water them. I don't know what to believe. This is the first time I have ever had more than 5 or 6 tomatoes. I have like 20 roma's, about 15 cherry and like 20 grape tomatoes. I am just waiting. Any other suggestions would be helpful. One person tells me to stop watering them so they will ripen and another person tells me to continue watering them so they get bigger and they will ripen on their own. Which one is true, false or are they both wrong????? Questions, questions, questions!!
See everybody later. I have to get my dinner out of the oven now.
Take care all, Byeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Jeanne
Hi All, I just had to come and share. I picked my very first fruit ever yesterday. It was the best tasting strawberry I have ever had. It looked and tasted perfect!! I can't believe I grew it!!!!
Thanks for listening......Jeanne XOXO
We built a raised bed for them, made sure they wouldn't be too close to the shed, did the best we could to "pump up" the dirt we filled the bed with, planted the recommended space apart, let them settle in last year without producing fruit. They survived the winter FABULOUSLY! and now they are ripening like crazy!!
What's the problem you say? They're TOO full and they aren't getting enough air circulation down the center of the long rectangular bed and several are just molding before we can get to them! I hate to lose even one to something that I think I should be able to control!! OK, the obvious answer would be to just thin them out. Yeah right, not to a pack-rat personality like me, I don't stop eating when I could and probably should just throw out what I didn't finish on my plate, THAT WOULD BE WASTING, and I can't seem to trim my indoor plants and just throw away the clippings, I HAVE TO TRY TO ROOT THEM BACK INTO THE POT, and so on and so on...pull out a plant to permanently get rid of it when possibly it could become another separate but whole plant, IMPOSSIBLE!!
so the obvious answer to me is.....
let my hubby do it....he has no conscience...he just wants the DANG STRAWBERRIES
works for me...
I have EIGHT DAYS LEFT until summer break! One of my students today said "I can't wait for school to be over for summer," and I had to restrain myself from shouting "I KNOW! Me EITHER!" with a crazed look in my eyes.
D and I planted pumpkins and sunflowers in the front garden plot. We can't decide what to do with that plot so we just keep planting crops of things that will cover the area up and keep the weeds down until we do figure out WHAT to do.
The soil in this plot has been walked all over and hasn't been amended much, so it's hard packed clay. Instead of tilling (this is a BIG area, here and we're getting a seriously late start), we brought huge cartfulls of a soil/compost mix and formed mounds on top of the existing soil in which to plant pumpkins. I made the piles pretty large b/c I know that pumpkins are heavy feeders. D wanted to plant sunflowers in the mounds, too, even though I told him I didn't want them competing w/ the pumpkins, but he was emphatic. He had to have his sunflowers. They ARE beautiful and the birds go nuts for them, so I'm excited to have them again this summer/fall. We planted Lumina, Cinderella and one other variety of pumpkin whose name I have forgotten. I love the cinderella ones. They are so pretty and the brightest orange color. What am I going to do with all these pumpkins? I think we'll be putting up a "pumpkins for sale" sign in October!
Our strawberries are still being eaten before they get completely ripe. I don't know what's doing it. I'd love to get one of those motion-triggered cameras set up out there and find out what's responsible for this destruction. Can't we have just a FEW strawberries? No?
I lost two cucumber transplants but had two extras on the sidelines, waiting for their turn, and they're doing fine, I think. The two tomato plants I put in the "Topsy Turvies" are flourishing, while the ones I planted in the ground aren't growing much yet. The topsy turvy plants had a good head start, though.
My clematis are doing okay. Okay as in they're not dead or dying. I can't really see any obvious growth on them. No flowers, either, but I didn't expect any yet. I haven't had to water them once since I planted them with the nice layer of mulch I gave each container. I LOVE love love mulch. I'd mulch everything if I could.
I've yet to start the bed by the hammock yet. I think I'll get to it once school lets out. Which, did I mention?...is in EIGHT DAYS!
Got my peas and strawberries in today. The strawberries were bare-root plants, not sure I liked the look of them when I took them out, looked pretty dead to me, all except 3 that were sprouting leaves. Guess we'll see. Did a little more weeding, gave all the veggies a good soaking. It's been dry for a while now, and no rain in the forecast any time soon.
Had the night off last night, so actually got to go out in the morning and work, which was a nice change. The quality of the light is different in mid-morning than it is at any other time of day. Worked out there until it was too hot to get any more done, then took off on the motorcycle to go mow grass at my grandfather's.
Hey all, I just wanted to pop on over and let everyone know that I have been very busy with the boys battling illness after illness and now I have an ear ache that is killing me and I am going to the doctor for today.
Everything in my garden is growing wonderfully. I have tons of tomatoes and strawberries that are not quite ready for picking. So far I have lots of herbs and 1 green pepper that is getting bigger everyday. My carrots, peas, radish, broccoli raab and more herbs are growing but are not ready to be harvested.
I lost all my spinach, it died on me so I am going to plant more. We ate the mesclun mix salad with dinner one night and the boys devoured it. They call salad "dinosaur food" and they couldn't wait to eat it, so I cut it down and we enjoyed it. Some of what was left over in the pot died and the rest of it is growing tall and now has flowers on it! I will also be planting more salad soon.
I really didn't think my garden would turn out to be as successful as it is. I am very proud of myself and I can't wait to get my hands on the first tomato, strawberry, radish, carrot and pea and taste the fruits of my labor! I absolutely have fallen in love with gardening. It is amazing to me when I go out everyday and see how big my tomatoes and pepper have gotten since the night before. I love seeing the strawberries popping up all over like crazy. It is like a dream come true for me. I have always wanted the ability to grow my own foods and be rewarded with success and now it has come true for me!!
I can't wait til the first tomato gets ripe enough to pick, I am hauling my butt to the store and getting some fresh mozzarella cheese and I am going to make my very first tomato, basil and mozzarella salad with fresh home grown tomatoes and basil from MY GARDEN!!! Oooohhhhhhhh, I am getting very excited!
Well gotta run now, take care all!
Jeanne
This weekend (gosh am I behind on this blog!) I planted... broccoli, dill, marigold, spinach, arugula, lemon and regular cucumbers, 3 heirloom tomatoes, carrots, bush beans, beets, chard, OH and 2 rows of corn. I liked divaqs idea about bay leaves keeping earwigs away from plants. Didn't you talk about that in one of your blogs? (See me assuming you're reading my blog? ) We had such a *shudder* huge earwig problem w/ our corn the first time we tried it that we've passed on growing corn since then. I despise earwigs. Don't know why. Bugs don't usually bother me that much. Actually, fly eggs, lice and tics make my scalp prickle and my skin crawl, but that's it. That and earwigs. Loads and loads of earwigs hiding out in the husks when I shuck those suckers. Falling out and crawling everywhere. Dear lord help me. Ugh. Ummm...what was I saying? Oh yes! Bay leaves! I will try that this year because I LOVE corn on the cob. I got the "Candy Corn" variety. If the bay leaves don't work I'll just make D shuck them.
So, a side effect of trucking logs and chippings from the forest into our veggie garden is that now we have ants ALL OVER the garden! Big huge ones, little tiny ones, they're EVERYWHERE! Ah well, that's what we get!
The first few ripe strawberries were pecked all to hell before we could eat them. We keep telling ourselves we can share a FEW...but I'm a teeny tiny bit selfish with my strawberries. Anyone have any good covering ideas for rows of strawberries? Something cheap and easy that'll keep the birds off, but let us get to the berries relatively easily? If nothing exists, I'll let the birds have free reign and just take what I can get.
The other night a coyote got into our trash. He woke us up (our trash can sits not too far away one floor down from our open bedroom window) at around 2 am. It was a full moon, so we could ID him. He ran away when he heard me whispering to D to get a flashlight. Very exciting! I haven't heard them howling yet this year, but I love that sound!
Ahhh, summer is right around the corner! Yipeeeeeeeeee!
I can’t speak for other places, but in the Seattle area it is common to see a lot of retaining walls built from large basalt or granite garden rocks stacked to form walls. When visiting Japan more than a decade ago, I saw some of these same garden rock walls, but they had been designed with a wonderful selection of plants growing out of them, which turned them into a beautiful extension of the landscape, rather than a purely plain and functional aspect.
When I bought my house, I discovered that the previous owners had scattered a couple of dump truck loads of large garden rocks all over the yard, in a seemingly random pattern. I spent a couple of years moving them to form retaining walls or rock stairways. It was great exercise and kind of fun moving all those 1 to 3 man size boulders around by hand.
While I had been building the rock walls, I realized that I wanted to beautify them like I had seen done in Japan, and definitely didn’t want the great southern light exposure to go to waste. So I backfilled the rocks with good garden soil and began planting strawberries and herbs in all the nooks and crannies that I could.
While this helped limit the expansion of strawberry plants, it presented extra challenges on them getting enough water, since water tended to drain down the backside of the rocks and sometimes miss the strawberries. I experimented with different soils and had the greatest success with a richer compost based soil, since it can retain water better. I also experimented with trying to form cupping shapes around the base of the plants with compacted compost, in order to catch and hold on to the water longer, which also seemed to help. The first year was the hardest and some planting years I seemed to lose about half of my new strawberry plants, but once they get a good root system, the strawberries seemed to do okay.
While the rockery does limit the strawberries aggressive expansion, it doesn’t completely stop it. Every spring I do need to still remove or move strawberry plants that spread into the bordering planting areas before planting in them. Without the natural control of the rockery, it would be much worse.
In this below picture you can see an example of the spread of strawberries into my planting area.
While cleaning up the bordering planting areas is when I usually move strawberries to new places among the rocks, or replace ones that died or are struggling.
I don’t just have strawberries growing in rocks, but also have a variety of herbs intermingled as well, such as Corsican mint and Creeping Thyme.
I am planning on expanding to including more edible plants intermingled among the rocks, but am planning on strawberries being the foundational plant in the design.
There is hardly anything to me that can beat the incredibly wonderful flavor of a sweet ripe strawberry that has been ripened fresh on the plant. While store bought strawberries are good, they just can’t match the sweetness and flavor of a strawberry grown and ripened right on the plant. Strawberries are definitely one of my most favorite of berries. So, I knew I needed to include them in my edible landscaping. The problem is that most of the strawberry plants you find are June bearing or everbearing varieties that require full sun and quickly spread in a seasons time via runners to consume all the space they can. That isn’t exactly something you would use in your typical yard landscape.
However, there are a couple of other options, namely musk (Fragaria moschata) or alpine (Fragaria vesca) strawberries . Both types can still produce incredibly flavored berries in partial sun settings, meaning they can be grown as ground covers under larger plants. While the berries are smaller in size, they have an even stronger strawberry flavor. It is as if all that flavor and sweetness of a larger berry was compacted into a smaller size. Some alpine strawberries are grown commercially for gourmet cooking. Musk strawberries spread by runners, just like their cousins you find at most nurseries, but the alpine strawberries spread by slow expansion of roots or by seeds. I’ve tried both musk and alpine and by far prefer the alpine strawberries for landscaping.
Since Alpine strawberries don’t send out runners, you can use them as edging plants, groundcovers, and so on, without worrying about them taking over and spreading into unwanted areas.
My alpine strawberries plants have been able to grow lots and lots of berries in almost full shade, with their berry producing season starting as early as May and ending as late as December. They've even been nicknamed by some as the "perpetual strawberry". Out of the 5 different kinds of strawberries I grow, my alpines beat all the others in overall berry production. I’ve found myself growing tired of picking strawberries every few days for months of time. Though, be warned, the berries are smaller, so it will take more if considering volume.
I prefer using my alpine strawberries as flavoring in things like strawberry shakes, strawberry-rhubarb pie or cobbler, or part of a berry jam. Since the flavor is stronger it takes less berries to have a good strawberry flavor. I've found that I like to wait until the berries are soft to the touch and at their maximum sweetness before picking them and either using them in some fruity wonder, or freezing them for later use.
I am really excited; since it looks like I will start getting alpine strawberries in something like a couple of weeks. My plants are loaded with blossoms and I can see berries already forming.
I’m growing both the red and white/yellow variety of alpine strawberries. I prefer the red, since I’ve found it more difficult to tell when the white/yellow variety is ripe. The white/yellow variety has a slightly sweeter almost pineapple-ish flavor to it. If you have a problem with birds eating your strawberries, you might find better luck with the white/yellow variety, since I’ve heard that birds tend to leave it alone.
Alpine strawberry plants are very hardy. The plants like humus-rich, acid soil in a sheltered site in sun or partial shade. They are hardy to zone 4. If you want more, simply divide one of the plants and plant the divisions in the locations you would like them. You will find that if you miss picking some berries that little strawberry seedlings will grow where the berries fell the following spring. It is not difficult to grow alpine strawberries from seed if you remember to freeze the seed for 3 to 4 weeks before sowing.
The alpine strawberry plant is sometimes used as an herbal medicine, via an herbal tea made from the leaves, stems, and/or flowers, which is believed to aid in the treatment of diarrhea. I haven't tried this myself, but might try experimenting with it in the future.
Its been gonna storm all week, but has been missin us. Staying north, I didn't want it to be bad weather but just get some of the rain off of it. So every afternoon when I'd get home from work I get to planting. Same today, I did get a lot planted, more hollyhocks, black eye susans, Phillipine Violets, Mexican Flame vines, Spanish Flags, Morning Glory trees, Oakleaf Hydrangeas, White Obedient Plant, Morning Glory bush (questinable as to whether they make it here), Borage, some lillies I couldn't never seem to get planted also got done today. Finished up planting the last of the potatoes I've not been able to find the time to plant. I've not been that good at growing them, so I'll be interesting to see what they do being planted so late. The other afternoon when it was suppose to rain I got my Lady Banks rose and Lavaglut rose planted.
Friday I picked another bucket of strawberries, think I'll put it up as a pie filling this time. My baby chicks are doing well, out growing there large box thats for sure. Had planned to put them outside today, but DH says to wait til after next Wed., cuz its suppose to be back down in the 40's at night til Wed. I was gonna C & P the bloom list, but this site won't let me.
Well its lightening a good bit now, so its getting closer. A tornado has already been spotted in Ala north of us. trudy
We have got sooooooo much done in the last week. The vegetable garden is much closer to being...well you can't really say done, but just about everything is planted. The only things left to be planted are the Eggplant, (which I think I will wait another week for it to warm up just a little more at night) and the Melons (cantaloupe and Chantarais melon).
The strawberries are doing great too. Berries are ripening just about every day. The only problem is we haven't been able to enjoy them because the birds keep eating half of each berry. Yesterday I put some bird netting over them that I folded in half. I hope that does the trip and keeps them out.
Potatoes are doing awsome, at least from all appearances that is. They are plenty tall and the flowers are starting to open as of a couple of days ago. The flowers on the white potatoes are a white backround with just a slight touch of lavender on each petal and a yellow center. The red potatoes have a medium purple flower with a yellow center. I haven't seen any pollinators around them though and I am not sure if they even need it. I am excited to dig into the mulch and see whats there but I really want to wait until they get bigger until we dig them all out. So I will try to exercise some self control and wait until the plants start to die back to take a peek. I have planted white, red and purple.
Didn't seem to hurt much, I had covered the tender things in the veggie garden but the lantanas, brugs, mexican sage and things like that did get bit. I hope they will be ok seeing how it didn't freeze, only frost last night. Tonight is suppose to be frost as well, hopefully this will be the end of it. Ordinarily I would be uncovering things come late morning, but tomorrow I'll be at work when its time to uncover, so I hope things don't "cook" waiting on me to get off work. I tried to transfer some of the entries from my journal over here without luck. Don't know what I'm not doing right, Ole well I'll figure it out sooner or later.
Friday I stopped by a "Pick your own Strawberry Farm" and picked a bucket of berries, they had all but 4 rows covered in preparation for the upcoming cold week end. Figured it was best to get them then just in case the cold ruined them. I had previously dryed them or made jelly but have plenty of that already to do us awhile and wanted to do something different. So I decided to make some of the strawberry glaze that we like putting on cheesecake that I would normally buy at the grocery store. I just can't see buying something I can make myself. And at least I'd know whats in it. I found a recipe online an tweaked it a little for my taste and it turned out great. The true test is how it will hold up for long term storage, don't think it'll be a problem, will see. Here is the recipe:
Strawberry
Glaze
4 c. pureed strawberries
4 c. granulated sugar
8 TBS Lemon Juice
20 drops red food coloring
6 TBS Corn Starch
Wash an hull berries, in a blender liquidfy berries til smooth, I strained the juice to remove the seeds. Put all ingredients into a non stick pot, be sure not to overcook. Once bubbly and as thick as u want it ladle into steriized jars, top with sterile lids. Water Bath 8 oz jars for 10 min., Pint jars for 15-20 min.
trudy
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