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7.15.20 Garden Tour

Jul18

2020_07_Jacqui_marigold_leeks

Welcome to the July garden.  Sunlight, warmth and water are what the plants have been craving and they are thriving.  Jacqui-cat is looking for some petting as she gingerly steps between the marigolds and the King Richard leeks.

Lilltle Leaf H-10 organic cucumber
Butternut squash saved seed
Sugar Baby watermelon from Lizzy
The cucurbits have pulled through the initial onslaught of striped cucumber beetles. After a number of years of not having enough cucumbers to make pickles, I’ve planted a number of patches through out the garden. Butternut winter squash is our old standby. The seeds are easy to save. It’s in moschata family and doesn’t cross with other squash varieties. The Sugar Baby watermelon is the surprise of the season. I’ve never grown  a watermelon. HB randomly mentioned that he would like to grow one because he likes the shape of the leaves and my dear friend Linda gave him this beautiful seedling. It even has a teeny tiny watermelon.

Striped Zebra and San Marzono Tomatoes from Andi
Rutgers, Jubilee and Grandma Mary tomatoes
Tomatoes are my annual challenge. I have the hardest time getting them staked up.  I know they need to be pruned, but I’m not really sure how to do it properly.  The hornworms are expected any day!  Thank goodness, they have been so forgiving to me over the years.  My garden buddy and sister goddess Andi shared the most magnificent tomato seedlings with me this spring. I’m looking forward to having heirloom Green Zebra’s this fall.

2020_07_corn

Top Hat open pollinated corn is a seed crop this year.  I am concerned about seed availability next spring and want to have as many seeds as I can produce for next years food crops. If you are interested in how to “de-hybridize” an F1 crop, here is an interesting story of how Top Hat was selected from Tuxedo corn.

Alliums are a constant weeding challenge! The grasses are disguised to look just like garlic or onions and require vigilance, sharp eyes and lots of mulching to prevent them from overtaking my treasured bulbs of flavor.  The garlic tips are beginning to turn brown. When half to two thirds of the leaves are brown, it’s time to harvest. Usually the last week of July for me. The braiding garlic is ready first followed by the Music Pink hardneck.

2020_07_greens

Greens, beans and ganja.  We eat a lot of greens. I try plant rolling patches to keep us in ready supply, moving from spinach to chard to bok choy and back to spinach again in the fall. This year I am planting an overwintering greens garden. I have often had unintentional early spring goodness from the newly emerging garden and believe it will work well to plant on the other side of the calendar.

Diablo Brussels sprouts and  Covina organic broccoli are thriving. I plant brassica as a fall crop. Brocolli loves the cooler weather and keeps growing and producing through September and October.  I ordered the broccoli before the pandemic was known. It strikes me somewhat ironic to be tending a Covina broccoli….

Flowers everywhere. Tucked away in sweet little corners, massed in beds, pampered and treasured, they delight me during my morning garden inspection. You can see Lizzy’s orange frilly zinnia, the echinacha is ready to burst into bloom, the poppies are forming tseed heads while the last lingering purple petals feed the bees in the morning. The little Canadian Shield rose is my prize this year. I thought the rose bush was dead, but one little spring came to life followed by a sweet red rose bud.  The Campfire rose is also a first year transplant. There have been many flowers on this vigorous bush. Tricolor salvia is an old reliable for my flower vases. It is an annual that self seeds throughout the garden, but I always plant a few extra so I can place them in strategic locations. Feed my soul.

2020_07_prelude_raspberries

The garden tour ends in the Prelude raspberry row. We have been rewarded with a bumper crop to graze on. They haven’t made it to the jam pot or freezer yet!  I need to find a place outside of the vegetable garden so they have enough room to spread into a true raspberry patch. I would love to see your mid July garden photos!  What delights you in your garden?

#2020gardenbuddies

#gardentour

Garden Tour April 2017: Meet the Seedlings

Apr6

Snow outside, but green and even some blooms inside.  Soon, very soon, the great transition begins and I will be moving all my green babies outside to their summer homes.

I’m enjoying the flower gardening blogs I’ve discovered on this new journey!  Kindred souls around the world. I found stunning kale ready for the compost shredder in the garden rumination blog from England. His blog inspired this seedling garden tour!

Let me introduce my 2017 garden babies.


Durango Marigold. Edible flower marigold for the Green Love garden. This is the first time I’ve grown this variety. The seed is from Johnny’s Selected Seed. I’ve had great success with Johnny’s varieties.

Garden Peach Tomato. I have three extra early plants that I plan to grow in pots to use in the Green Love Renaissance Garden. The yellow tomatoes, blush red when they are ripe and have peach like fuzzy skin. These plants are from my saved seed.  

Stevia. The saved seed is from my garden buddy Andy. It hasn’t germinated yet, but I am hopeful.  

Crazy Daisy. I love daisies. I pick our field daisies and sing an old Jud Strunk song I carry on my heart. This daisy has a whirly curly description.

Penny Mix Pansies. This variety is reported to bloom all through the summer. They are smaller plants and not as vigorous as the Majestic Giants. I’m hoping they work in the pots and planters.

Sorbet Pansies. I love the colors in this variety. My favorite is a light flecked that make me smile, smile, smile. 
More Durango Marigolds and Shasta Daisies. I am planning a border with calendula, Shasta daisy and something blue, maybe larkspur. 
Ailsa Craig onions. Sweet and sooooo big. These have been a main stay in my summer cooking garden for years. They don’t store very well, but even the small ones are big. 

Borettana Cipolini. The most beautiful onion for braiding. They are flat, button-like. I’ve made yummy creamed onion with the smaller ones. A super storage onion, too.

Talon Onion. A new storage onion from Fedco Seeds. We ran out of onions early this winter. I’m hoping to do better! 

Bleu Solaize Leek. They come alive with a shimmery blue color. The layering pattern of leek leaves is a close up fascination for Farmer Brown.

Majestic Giant Pansies. My old reliable stand by. Magnificent color. Large blooms. It is incredibly vigorous compared to Sorbet or Penny.

Cannabis. All legally grown. With gratitude, with love, with joy.

Master Kush. An indica cross created out of two landrace strains from different parts of the Hindu Kush region. 
Orange Crush. A sativa-dominant strain with California Orange and Blueberry.
Chronic. A hybrid cross between Northern Lights, Skunk, and AK-47 originally bred by Serious Seeds in 1994.

Rose cutting from my ancestor, Moses Patrick’s graveyard.  It has leaves!!!! 

Daisies. “More, more, more” said the garden mama.

Daddy Mix Petunia. Another old favorite of mine. The seed is inexpensive and there are so many colors.
Zowie Zinnia.  I’m growing Zowie in containers for the Green Love garden. It’s an AAS winner and the descriptions say “magnificent.”

Benary’s Giant Zinnia. For Farmer Brown it’s not a flower garden without giant Zinnia and he will make me bouquets with them until frost takes them out.

Seems like all this life
Was just a dream
Stella Blue

End of the Month Garden View: March

Mar31

It’s the last day of March on The Hill and we are expecting more snow.  The view of the main garden from the upstairs window makes me think getting peas planted by Tax Day might be pushing it.  I still have high hopes.  Peas and larkspur are planted by seed at the same time.  I love the bold blue the larkspur brings to the landscape.  I’m hoping to plant them both in mid April and again at the first week of May.

CALENDULA


Taking advantage of a south facing window. Light is at a premium right now. Every available space is filling up with seedlings and transplants. This is calendula. I love its blazing color. If I keep it picked regularly, the blooms keep coming. It will be one of the last blooming flowers in my garden. This is one of three calendula that showed up in one of Harry’s “winter surprise” pots. He will bring in a planter of soil before the ground freezes, keeps it watered and in sunlight and we see what happens! We had calendula, pansies, pigweed and clover this year. I transplanted out the calendula and will see what happens!

TRANSPLANTED PANSIES

I have about 100 seedlings from three varieties of pansies- all from Johnny’s Selected Seeds.  Penny is reputed to bloom all season long.  The fairly colors are unusual for pansies–orange, yellow, blue. Majestic Giants, traditional pansies with extra large flowers and Sorbet, an early flowering variety.   Most of the seedlings will be transplanted into containers for the Green Love Renaissance garden.  I also have a few choice spots for them in the main garden too!

NEXT STOP FOR PANSIES AND ONION SEEDLINGS


It’s like saying hello to an old friend to go out on the south side of the house.  Harry and I sat outside sunning ourselves in this oasis of ground.  The cold frame may not look like much, but it works really well for the pansies and the onion seedlings.  I won’t start hardening them off out here until this next batch of snow has passed.

I’ve used this method successfully for years. What I like is being able to remove the apparatus and store the until I need it again.  This area is quite shaded when the trees leave out, but right now it is the perfect place for the seedlings that can tolerate some cold.

For materials I used plastic tubing, old tent poles, greenhouse plastic and dimensional lumber from previous projects.  The tent poles are from tents that are missing pieces.  I stretched them out and cut them apart to make “stakes” to poke in the ground.  The black tube goes over the “stakes” and I shoved it into the ground to secure it a bit.  The lumber and plant pots secure down the plastic. It’s crude, but I had a blast putting it together.  The sun was shining as I stood on my little island of soil surrounded by snow.  Sweetness.

STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER


I was lifting up a piece of wood to hold down the cold frame plastic and found new baby strawberry plants saying hello to me.  One of my plans is to pot up plants that are already growing around the yard or self seeding in the garden. This is my first challenge I think.  Wild strawberries transplant well and make excellent container plants.  There is no cost for the seed and I can keep the potted plants outside.  I wonder how they would do with attention and care?

Thanks to The Constant Gardener for the inspiration to share an end of the month photo.

“Every so often you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right.”