Mamas don't let your babies grow up to plant spearmint

There are a few things I will not plant in the garden proper ever again.  Anything in the mint family is now forever banned.  However, that does not mean I won't grow mint.  I'll simply relegate it to a container.  Spearmint and catnip are keeping company with oregano and lemon balm in the white recycled utility sink below.

Beside the sink is a "salad bowl".  I got this idea from another blog (but of course now cannot figure out which one - here is a link to the video though).  Simply put, you find yourself a container, fill it with potting soil, and populate it with leaf lettuce plants.  You harvest the outer leaves of the lettuce while the lettuce continues to put out new leaves from the center of the plant.  Voila!  Salad!

Behind the sink is my garlic bed.  Three out of the four varieties planted there are "hard neck" so they put out scapes. 

The scapes, if left alone, turn into blossoms I think, but "everyone" says to snip them off and cook them.  I tried that last week, sauteing some scapes with snap peas and chicken, but part of the scape is kind of tough for chewing.  That won't stop me from trying again, though.

Not in the picture above is my patio eggplant.  Last week it put out one lonely blossom.  You can tell that it is related to potatoes.

Sadly, today I spotted a baby bunny in the backyard.  I don't think he was the one I saw a while back - that one would be bigger by now - and I'm not sure how he got in.  But when I was mowing last night, I noticed that the pavers by one gate were a bit askew.  I straightened them out, but possibly not before he snuck in.  No damage so far, so maybe he hasn't been here long.

More sadly, a young robin learned about picture windows the hard way.  I was hoping he was only stunned, but he succumbed to his injuries quickly.  There are other baby birds in the yard right now besides young robins:  the wren babies send up a chirping chorus whenever a parent arrives with food, and below is a daddy cowbird with a youngster.

Mourning doves are another fixture at the bird bath.  The colors of their plumage are so subtle and soft.

Besides bunnies and birds, other critters have been spotted (heh).

It has been ages since I have seen a real ladybug.  Usually all I see are those Japanese ones which are more orange and bite.  I'm taking this ladybug's appearance in the meadow as a sign that my backyard habitat is working.

Speaking of the meadow, it looks pretty much like a weed patch right now, but a few bloomers belie that rumor:  yarrow, keys of heaven, daisy, catmint.  The vegetable garden is all planted for now, and I have been harvesting snap peas.  My SO and I continue to battle the weeds that are everywhere.  A weed is any plant that is growing where you don't want it, so that includes the mint mentioned at the start of this post.  I'm also edging the viburnum/arborvita beds, to reclaim them from the encroaching lawn.

Despite (or because of) the hard work, I enjoy the hours spent in the yard.  Some of the time, I am thinking of new things to try, already planning what I want to do next year.  Mostly I am just having a good time.  My ancestors include farmers and nurserymen, so I guess I come by it naturally.

First hummingbird of the season

Can you see the hummingbird?  It's the blur near the center.  Those things are fast.

Work (boo) and rain (yay) have interrupted the gardening, but tomorrow promises to be a delightful day.  Meanwhile, here are some pics from around the yard.

The climbing roses are a bit past their prime, but still gorgeous.

I'm not a geranium person, but I do like red.

This is the best display of 'Betty Corning' I have ever had.  It probably helps that I have not moved them recently.

The promise of potatoes.  Hope it's not an empty promise.

'Early Girl' tomato is the first to bloom, which I why I planted one. 

Scallions among the sweet potatoes.

Snap peas will be ready in a day or two.

This is the Wenk's that I overwintered inside, so naturally is is ahead of pepper schedule.

The purple-leafed growers in my front yard.

From the left:  smoke bush at the corner of the house, Crimson King maple in front, Japanese maple in the back, sand cherry bush, and barberry on the right.

Bathing beauty

I've been almost too busy to bother with the camera, but I did manage to catch a few of my backyard denizens doing their thing in my backyard.

Maybe once things calm down, I will be able to capture some better up-close-and-personal shots, but these will have to do for now.

This is the third year for my tulip tree, and it is looking better - leafier and maybe taller.

And it is a decent year for the climbing rose as well.

More bloomers coming on:  Keys of Heaven, yarrow, viburnum, Jethro Tull.

I have started to enjoy the strawberries (Oh. My. God.  Nothing beats a fresh strawberry still warm from the sun) and soon we will have snap peas.  The first planting of green beans are up and the pototoes are starting to blossom. 

Re the latter, a few days ago I mulched the potatoes with straw.  The next day Betsy Beagle acted as though there were something in that there straw.  I poked around but could not scare up anything.  I hope-hope-hope it is not field mice, poised to ruin the crop.

All transplants are in the ground except for the calendula.  The pumpkins and squash and cukes have been planted as well.  For hills, I dug a hole for each, filled the holes with composted manure and blood meal, then covered with the dug up soil.  I have not had very good results with cukes and zukes the past few years, so maybe this will help.

While I was at Lowe's buying composted manure and straw, it occurred to me that urban gardening is a lot more expensive than rural gardening.  When I lived in the country, I kept chickens and we mowed a couple of acres around the house, so I never needed to buy fertilizer or mulch.  I bought seeds at the local Ace Hardware, where they were available in bulk, which is an odd way of saying you could get a teeny tiny scoop of whatever instead of having to guess whether a packet was enough/too much.  We had outdoor cats, so no need to protect the garden from rodents; the dog discouraged the deer.  The chickens helped with insect pests, too.  I miss that feeling of interdependence.

One more bird observation before I go:  finches and/or sparrows have been dining on thyme seeds from the herb pot on the patio.  I've never seen that before.

Progress

I was out of town for most of the holiday weekend.  Fortunately, it did not rain more, so when I returned, things were dry enough that I could actually accomplish something yesterday.  The last two tomatoes are in their MiracleGro bags (I did that before I left), the peppers are in the ground along with some of the marigolds, and the first of the green beans are planted.  There are still the herbs and flower plants I started indoors to get planted, plus some direct-seeded veggies and flowers, all of which I hope to do this week.  Then it will be time to weed, weed, weed.

My SO came over yesterday and started weeding the meadow.  He does not always know what's what plantwise, but he knows what Canada thistle, garlic mustard, and dandelions look like, so I figured if he targeted those three, the rest of the plants would be safe.  It was his first foray into my yard this year, and he pooped out kind of quickly, but made a good start.  This Fiskars weeder was great help with thistle embedded in clumps of yarrow and bee balm.

While we were taking a break, we witnessed a bluebird trying to check out the bluebird house.  The resident sparrows were not willing to give it up, though.  I have a second bluebird house, so will put that up in the front yard, where it is more open, which the bluebirds favor and hopefully the sparrows will not.

Currently blooming are the iris, peonies, spring phlox, columbine, clematis, and honeysuckle vine.  The latter is not looking very healthy this year.  I have never pruned it, so maybe that would help.

Current edibles from the garden are rhubarb, chives, scallions, greens, and radishes.  Salad, anyone?

Lake front property

According to my rain gauge, 2.25" fell this afternoon, too much for the storm sewer at the end of the driveway.  The water came almost into the garage.  Thank goodness it has stopped raining.  For now.

Some gardening has occurred between rain showers.  Most of the tomatoes are planted - 8 Amish Paste, 2 German Pinks, and 2 Hungarian Heart all fit into the 4'x20' bed in the garden, and a Patio Princess is in a pot.  I am going to try something different with the two remaining - an Early Girl and a Fresh Salsa Hybrid - and plant them directly into bags of Miracle Grow potting soil.  I've seen this somewhere and thought I would give it a try.

The onions are looking good:

The yellow flags mark where the natural gas line crosses my yard.

Another experiment is growing sweet potatoes - my first time - in containers:  6 grow bags, 4 plastic pots, and two recycling bins the city no longer uses (we have single bin recycling now).

The white pot is for the Patio Princess.

 I tried mixing peat with my own compost, adding bone meal and blood meal, but ran out, so I hope to finish filling these with more Miracle Grow potting soil.  For the record, I prefer growing my garden in the ground, but my soil is heavy clay and not very amenable to root crops.  Until it shapes up, I will have to resort to some above ground solutions.

So far, the patio strawberry tower is looking good:

I expect the robins will be trying to steal berries off this.

 And, inside, the Meyer lemon is not only thriving, but blooming.

The smell is so sweet!

 I don't know if these will produce fruit without being outside where pollinators can get to them, but the plant looks too tiny to support lemons.

And that's all for now!

Raw deal

When I was a kid, I was quite the milk drinker.  I had milk at every meal, would even trade my lunch (except the cookies) for other kids' milk, and saw nothing wrong with washing down dill pickles with milk.  I loved milk.

When we lived in Ohio, the milk was delivered to our door by the dairyman.  When we moved to Illinois, we purchased our milk at the grocery store, but it still came from local dairies.  Into adulthood, I continued my milk drinking habit, even when teased about picking milk as my beverage of choice with pizza.

Then milk, especially whole milk, began to get a bad rap.  We switched to 2%, sometimes 1%, but rarely skim because it looked blue.  The funny thing is, even though we are consuming less milk fat, we keep getting fatter.

And milk no longer tastes good.  My theory is that, since milk is no longer produced just for local markets, the milk from multiple dairies is mixed together and trucked long distances to be processed, getting bruised along the way.  Then, it is not only pasteurized but ultra-pasteurized.  That sounds like a good thing until you consider the fact that ultra-pasteurized milk cannot be used to make cheese because the process alters the protein molecules.  Is it even milk anymore?

Some people resolve this issue by trying to purchase raw milk from local sources.  In many states - including mine - selling raw milk is illegal.  One local dairy is attempting to circumnavigate the legalities by selling "herd shares" and accepting "boarding fees" in exchange for raw milk.  It's an intriguing business model.

I don't know what to make of the health benefits touted by those who promote raw milk.  I doubt any scientific studies have been done.  I grow my own vegetables because I believe they are more nutritious than trucked-in-from-far-away, store-bought ones, and I KNOW they taste better.  So I may try raw milk for the taste, and choose to believe that it is better for me.

Anyone out there have any experience with raw milk?

Water, water everywhere...

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we really received that predefined one-inch-per-week of rain throughout the growing season instead of getting too much in May, not enough in August?  Fortunately, the weather forecast changes daily, this time from day-after-day of predicted rain to a break in the clouds tomorrow.  One problem with mowing high is the lawn looks long a couple of days after cutting, and the almost-constant showers are not helping any.

(Another problem with mowing high is finding dog poop - it is well hidden - so I patrol both before mowing and after, to find what I have missed.)

Yesterday, before the storms hit, I managed to stroll the nabe with Baby N, stopping to chat with one of the few neighbors who gardens.  Their vegetable patch (and yard and house) always look perfect; I have to remind myself not to compare their property with mine because they are both retired.  Anyway, the conversation naturally turned to rain and gardening.  They practice what I think of as "traditional" gardening - rototill in the spring, plant in rows.  Consequently, they have not been able to get the early veggies planted yet.  My unmolested raised beds, on the other hand, have onions, potatoes, peas, and lettuces going strong.  While my garden is not as pretty, it is productive.

The tomato plants I ordered from Seed Savers arrived last Wednesday, so Thursday I dug up the bed where I plan to plant the Amish Paste.  However, this time I marked the bed with string before I dug.  Since my raised beds are not planked in, they tend to bleed into the paths, making them appear smaller than they really are.  So, not only is there room for the Amish Paste, but for the Hungarian Heart and German Pink as well.  (My tomato patch sounds so international!)

I recently read in some gardening forum one man's solution to Canada thistle: smother crops.  He plants buckwheat in the summer and winter rye in the fall, and their dense growth chokes out the thistle.  Now that all the tomatoes will fit into one bed, I have a free bed to try this on.  There is also an area I am prepping for raspberries, so I can do the same there.  Each time I use RoundUP or WeedBGon, I suffer the guilts.

If it weren't so rainy out, I would provide you with a few pics of what is blooming right now.  You will just have to take my word about the bleeding heart, columbine, creeping phlox, lily of the valley, lilac, and spring phlox.  Or take a look at my May blog entries from years past.

That's too bad, but SCORE!

Our local Borders is closing.  Even though they fell out of favor with me a while ago, I am still sorry to see them go.  BUT the remaining stock has been progressively on sale, and a couple of days ago I purchased three hardcover cookbooks for 50-60% off:  The Complete Tassajara Cookbook by Edward Espe Brown, The Pleasures of Cooking for One by Judith Jones, and The Essential New York Times Cook Book by Amanda Hesser.

The latter has received most of my attention so far.  I'm anxious to try these rhubarb recipes first:  Rhubarb Bellini, Rhubarb-Strawberry Mousse, and Straight-Up Rhubarb Pie.  Most recipes have some commentary, but what can one say about Swedish Ginger Cookies made with BACON FAT?!?  And the Club Sandwich is as follows:  "Go to the club.  Drink six toasts.  Eat a slice of meat.  Drink six more toasts."  All I need is a club.

After I purchased the above books, I was perusing my own shelf of cookbooks and was surprised at some of them, as I don't recall buying them or ever cooking from them.  Must remedy that, but I am not sure how, without giving up my day job.

What's next?

My business trip this past week was bracketed by mowing.  Although I was gone only a few days, I expected things to look different upon my return.  While the rhododendrun and the forsythia are fading and the redbud and flowering crab are coming on strong, not much else changed.  Temps were cool, there wasn't much rain, so stasis prevailed.

The plants I started indoors are ready to be transplanted.  I could have started them a week or two later than I did, and it is obvious that using old seed frequently results in poor germination, but in general, I am satisfied.  I purchased some plants online and they have not arrived yet.  Just as well, as the tomatoes and peppers don't do well when the temp dips below 50 at night.  My transplants are being hardened off on the patio, where they were also watered thoroughly by yesterday's rain.  Today should be drier, but I have grandma-duty, so won't get out into the yard until late in the day.  Hopefully, it will be a good time to spray the thistle some more.

Besides attacking thistle with RoundUp, my one other non-organic weed control this year is using WeedBGon on the dandelions, which are running rampant.  I am also mowing at the highest setting on my Toro, which is supposed to help discourage lawn weeds.  I plan to test the soil in the front yard, to see if there are any amendments I could add that would also discourage weeds.  And I am leaving the mulched clippings on the lawn this year, for added nutrients.  I don't have much lawn left, but I would like it to look reasonably nice.  I don't try to wipe out al the dandelions, as song birds like the White-Throated Sparrow eat the seeds.  I saw some of these birds just yesterday.  Too bad they don't eat all the dandelion seeds.

Rainy days and Mondays

The rhododendron popped for easter, which was a lovely day, unlike today.  My goal this week is to get the lawn mowed at some point, if it ever stops raining.

I have tried to capture the now-gold goldfinches but they don't stay in one place very long.

They look like daffodils in flight.

Hope your weekend was finer than frog hair!

More happy

Finally, a break in the rain, so again I took the afternoon off to get a little gardening done.  Both the strawberries and the onions are now planted.  Yay!  And three pounds of onion sets is about 1.5 pounds too many, so I plan to share the extra with my kids.  Onions for all!

It was also a perfect day for spraying weeds - sunny but cool, with very little breeze.  I try to garden as organically as I can manage, using mulch and hoe and my bare hands to keep the weeds under control, but the Canada thistle does me in.  It is one weed that I consider RoundUp-worthy.  My goal is to eliminate it from my yard.

The cool weather has preserved the daffodils and forsythia - they are still going strong - and delayed everything else.  I was hoping the rhubarb would be ready for an Easter pie, but no such luck.  The rhododendron is about to pop, though, and I will probably have to mow next week.  Winter does give way to spring, eventually.

Me so happy

Ordinarily, I try to cram all my fun activities into evenings and weekends, which can be frustrating when the weather doesn't cooperate.  But this week I took advantage of the sunshine by taking a couple of afternoons off and spending them in my backyard.  The result:  I will not fret during the next rainy patchy, slated to start today and last for days.  I did not accomplish everything there was to do, but enough that I feel like I got a jump start on the season.

Wednesday afternoon my SO came over and we wrestled some hardware cloth into what I hope will be a vole-proof potato cage.  I did not come up with this idea myself, but saw it in a Growers Supply catalog, one of those I receive in the mail even though I have never ordered from them.  Basically, we scraped all the dirt off one garden bed, laid down hardware cloth for the bottom, wrapped sides around the bed, overlapping everything, fastened where fastening seemed necessary, then threw in enough dirt to hold the thing in place.

Thursday I added seed potatoes and shoveled the rest of the dirt back in, worked in a little blood meal, then covered it all with a thin layer of straw.  Grow, little taters, grow!

I worked up the pea bed on Wednesday and the onion bed on Thursday.  It is gratifying to see that my hardpan clay is becoming more friable as the years pass.

While I turned the top six inches or so and broke up the clods with a hoe, I wondered what my neighbors think of all the manual labor I put into my garden.  The thing is, I spend most of my days sitting in front of a computer.  If I didn't garden manually, I would have to join a gym.  And start seeing a shrink.  Playing in the dirt goes a long way to maintaining my mental and physical well-being.

I marvel at the periwinkle raised beds and persimmon window boxes highlighted in gardening catalogs, and wish my garden looked prettier.  But the prices are prohibitive.  My solution is to at least try to make my beds straight-ish.  Since I don't till, I also plan to relocate some lilies to the ends of each one.  Let nature provide the beauty.

The pea fence has seen better days, but it still functions (with a little help).  I actually planted the snow peas and lettuce yesterday, too.

I also dug up the strawberry bed yesterday, too, but no strawberries or onions were planted.  That's okay - gotta save something for the next dry spell.

Inside, I noticed that the blossoms on my little pepper plants are starting to form fruit, without any pollination assistance on my part.

Fun!

The forsythia are blooming - now what?

Yesterday I planted Eversweet everbearing strawberries into a coconut fiber tower.  My vision is fresh berries on my ice cream all summer long, right from the patio.

Hopefully, I will get the Allstar June-bearing strawberries into the garden soon.  And the potatoes and onions and peas.  And brassicas, if any of the local nurseries start offering more than one variety of cabbage and broccoli.  I did break down and buy some wave petunias and a spike for one of my planters, even though it is way too early to plant them.  I just could not help myself!

That is not a very good photo, is it?  That nice green leafy plant in front is the Meyer lemon from Stark Bros.  In the pot left and back is the Wenks pepper I dug from the garden last fall.  It has not been looking too perky lately, so today I repotted it.

 As you can see in that photo, we are experiencing some sunshine, which is supposed to last through tomorrow.  So I am taking tomorrow afternoon off, just to work in the yard before the next round of rain.  Not that the ducks mind the rain.

When I walked the nabe a few days ago, it seemed like every place where there was a few inches of standing water, there was a pair of ducks.

I finally captured a halfway decent photo of a robin, even though they have been hanging around the yard for weeks.

I wonder if this is the same one who did this to my picture window:

He is still at it today.  Maybe I should get one of those hawk decals to scare him away.

Since my forsythia bloom later than my neighbors', it looks a little anemic right now.  But I can't complain about the daffs.

Squirrel feeders and a PHD

These guys keep me amused while I work at home in the West Wing.  Better than TV!

I've seen at least three different ones in the yard at the same time.  Occasionally they dash away, in fear of a hawk or meter reader.

As for rabbits, the only ones I've spotted have been outside the fence looking in.  The neighbor girl blames me for the dirth of rabbits this winter - she likes to watch them out their patio door - even though I never killed or relocated any.  I just removed them from my backyard. 

Last night my PHD (Personal Hole Digger) came by to help me plant three American redbud trees.  I opted for inexpensive mail order ones, which look like four-foot sticks, but the root systems were very hearty.  His reward was a bouquet of daffodils, to brighten the gray days we have been having lately.

Today it has been raining most of the day, so my gardening will probably be limited to filling a small strawberry patio tower with potting soil and plants, and repotting a Meyer lemon tree.  I've tried growing trees in pots before, with very little no success.  That does not stop me from trying again.

Oh, and the garlic is up.  Yay!

He's ba-a-a-ack!

This morning, while sitting in the West Wing, I kept hearing this noise.  I thought it was birds in the guttering, but it went on and on.  Finally, I went to investigate.  The stupid robin was at it again, attacking his reflection in my picture window.  I can't help but think it is the same one, but who knows?

Finny is a fanatic about (among many things) soil testing.  I bought a soil test kit a while back, but had never used it.  Since there is no time like the present, yesterday I tested my garden soil.  I took eight samples, although I expected them to be rather uniform, and I was right - they were uniform: uniformly LOW in nitrogen.  My soil test kit is not very fancy, but there was no mistaking the readings:  good levels of P and K, bad levels of N.  And the soil is more alkaline than it should be, something I attribute to the well water that supplies my outdoor faucets.  But the nitrogen surprised me.  I though my compost would provide that, but apparently I'm wrong.  So I will be amending my garden soil, with  manure and/or blood meal.  And to lower the pH, coffee grounds, pine needles, and sphagnum peat.  Finny, my zucchini thank you.

Margaret raised the subject of phenology recently.  Basically, phenology is planting according to nature's calendar instead of the one on the wall.  This can be tricky, depending on where you live and what varieties you grow.  For example, if I plant potatoes when the forsythia bloom, does it matter that my forsythia blooms later than my neighbor's?  Anyway, I decided to try to keep track of when flowers and shrubs bloom in my yard, to see if I can track them to when I plant vegetables in the garden.  My only concern is a late frost, something even Mother Nature can't predict.

Speaking of potatoes, they, along with the onions, arrived the other day.  And the underground utility guy came and marked my back yard yesterday.  I chatted with him about just how deep the utilities are buried.  He said the natural gas lines are three feet down, but the others - electricity, telephone, cable - are usually 6-9 inches down, maybe 12.  That is good to know, as my SO is coming over tonight, to help me dig holes for three redbud trees.

And so it begins.

Unusual sightings, a soup-making orgy, and live plants!

This morning I could see something odd reflected in my bathroom mirror.  The sliver of outdoors I can see that way showed a blob on the street.  I peeked out the window at said blob and decided it must be a black cat I saw down by the pond the other day.  Then it moved, or rather, waddled across the way and disappeared behind my neighbor's pines.  It was a raccoon.  I've seen them in the nabe on occasion, but not in a long while, like years.  I'm a little surprised they have not been spotted in my backyard, raiding the bird feeders.

A couple of squirrels are bird feeder regulars these days.  Their winter stores must be exhausted, and/or they are gathering goodies to take back to the rest of the family.  Around here, squirrels get "frisky" in February and the gestational period is around 44 days, so yes, the daddy squirrels are probably hunting and foraging for the mama squirrels and their broods.

But what I find odd is the squirrels have been drinking out of the bird bath.  I have never witnessed that before.  Unfortunately, no pics, so no evidence.  You will have to trust me on this one.

We are getting April showers now, so I have been channeling my gardening frustrations into using up the last the the frozen veggies by making soup, which is then returned to the freezer for later consumption.  I've lost track of which ones are which on some of these pics, but all recipes are from Love Soup.

Maybe White Bean and Garlic Soup with Greens?  (I still have LOTS of garlic from last summer.)

I think this is Green Lentil with Cumin and Lemon.

Definitely Beet Soup with Ginger!

This is part of Cannellini and Golden Tomato soup, the golden tomato part, obviously.  I used yellow cherry tomatoes I had frozen last summer.  The peels come off easily, but dealing with over 2.5 pounds of them was still a chore.

I could not find dried cannellini beans at the Co-op, so I substituted navy beans, which did not work well.  Too watery.  Now I'm not sure what to do with the leftovers.  Maybe if I cook rice in the broth?

And since this woman does not live by soup alone:

Now I must go tend to those live plants that just arrived via UPS from Stark Bros.

It won't be long now!

Today I bought some hardware cloth at Menards.  The 24" x 25' rolls were on sale, at about half price, but not the 36" or 48" rolls.  So while I would have preferred to get the 48" roll, I bought several 24" ones, enough to vole-proof my potato bed.

It has been a while since I have seen a rabbit in my backyard, but I did find a big tuft of bunny fur.  Maybe the hawk got him?  I sealed off the one gate where bunny egress was still possible, and am now rethinking the need to enclose the veggie garden in rabbit fencing.  Knock on wood!

My order from Lee Valley arrived already - an oriole feeder and a floating row cover for the brassicas.  The latter has no supports.  I think you just lay it over the plants and cover the edges with dirt.  I will probably enclose the plants in hoops of chicken wire initially - just in case that rabbit is fooling me - so the plants should be okay with the row cover.  I think.  Gardening is always an experiment.

My orders from Stark Bros and Pinetree are also on their way.  Already?  I'm not prepared!  And it's supposed to rain all weekend!  Gardening is also a gamble.