Lemon tree very pretty

And the lemon flower is sweet. So sweet, in fact, the scent of this one plant fills a large room and seeps into the rest of the house. Cloying!

Last year, its first one in my care, this Meyer lemon tree gave me two lemons. So far, it has six blossoms on it this year, five at the very top.

I plan to train it into one main trunk as it grows, or maybe two intertwined, if that is possible.

Proof that the sweet potato is producing slips. Since I plan to plant sweet potatoes around June 1, there is plenty of time for these to get large enough to be ripped from the mother potato and to develop their own roots. I hope.

Proof that there will be basil as well, to be planted with the tomatoes come mid May.

Since it will be a month before 'mater planting, I decided these leggy beauties needed to be transplanted into larger pots (or cups, as the case may be) to develop more roots.

These are actually paper cups inside of plastic ones. I should be able to simply rip off the bottom of the paper cup and transplant, using the top of the cup as a collar. If I had planned ahead, I would have chosen red cups, as tomato plants supposedly respond favorably to the color red.

Remember that pair of mallards I thought I had chased a way? I succeeded in getting them out of the backyard but not off my property entirely.

This is the female, nesting under a peony on the south side of the house. The funny thing is, my son and I had noticed the nest on Easter Sunday, but I thought it was a rabbit nest. Imagine my surprise when I checked it out the next day.

I wonder if she has nested here before. In previous years I had noticed a depression in that flower bed, but since I don't usually pay much attention to it until later in the season, I might have just not known the nest was actively used.

Here is the wine bottle edging I mentioned in my previous post. This idea is not original with me - I saw just such a display while visiting the Master Gardener gardens at IPFW one year.

And just to be clear, I did NOT empty all those bottles myself.

Hard to keep up

I've been gardening but not blogging about it (obviously) even though I use this blog to help me keep track of what I am doing in the house and garden. So here is what I have been doing:

Planting onions:

Still spindly

Planting shrubs:

These are in the ground now, despite the tree roots left behind by the silver maples

Transplanting rhubarb:

A tractor tire is forever

Transplanting parsley:

Cement block planters - where are the flamingos?

Discouraging mallards from nesting in my yard:

Him

Her

Encouraging wrens:

See serviceberry blooming in the back?

Anticipating praying mantis hatchlings:

Sorry about the craptastic photo

The peas are up, although germination is a bit spotty. I moved a hosta from the west side of the laundry room to the north side of the West Wing, so it will get less sun; moved a yarrow into the hole left by said hosta; transplanted a crocosmia into one of the patio beds; forgot to water a transplanted tiger lily (I'm afraid to check on it). I have been watering everything else, though. Stupid weather.

The patio beds are partially edged in (empty) wine bottles that have been multiplying in the garage. I've been whacking at the honeysuckle vines, in hopes of rejuvenating them. I mowed and spot treated some dandelions with Weed-B-Gone, since doing that last year seems to have made a difference. My neighbor across the street had a sump pump problem and tore up the carpet in his basement as a result; that carpet is now helping suppress "weeds" (a.k.a. mint, lemon balm, thistle, garlic mustard) in the garden.

And plants have been arriving: raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, asparagus. Potatoes too. There are Roma tomato plants started inside, along with basil. And the sweet potato is *finally* starting to sprout, just after I ordered a heat pad for it.

Is that everything? Probably not, but it's better than nothing.

A Tale of Two Birdhouses

I read somewhere that if sparrows keep taking over the bluebird house in your yard, locating a second one 5-15 feet away may solve this problem. The sparrows will live in one while the bluebirds take the other. Apparently, they don't mind being cross-species neighbors.

For rent or lease

So I did as suggested, but so far, no takers. From my home office, I have watched both male sparrows and male bluebirds lay claim to one or the other house, only to have the house rejected by the females. I'm guessing this happens with human beings as well.

Inside action this week included repotting the rosemary starts. I have had people tell me that rosemary is difficult to grow, but that has not been my experience. Yet.

Cups of rosemary

One group of insiders are now outside, hardening off and soon to be transplanted into the garden. I am not pleased with how spindly these onions are. I don't know what to do to fatten them up, either.

Catching some rays

Even though I keep seeing articles about not being fooled by the warmer-than-normal spring temperatures, that doesn't mean one can't start buying plants. Here is one Alberta spruce conica and two juniper chinensis, destined for the west side of the West Wing. These should top out at the right height and reach the right width and provide some protection from the winter winds. Also, drought tolerant.

New arrivals

The mint, catnip, lemon balm, and oregano survived the winter in their above ground container. Not that I was concerned - one look at the garden proper and it is apparent that these plants have many cousins nearby. Mint must be the easiest crop to raise.

Repurposed sink

The garlic looks great. Every bulb sprouted, although some varieties appear hardier than others. This is year three for growing garlic, and I think the square foot gardening method will be a success with this crop.

Garlic as high as a stuffed elephant's eye

I was afraid I would have to start watering the garlic - already! - but fortunately we received a good inch of rain last week. Time for another inch, though. I really hope it is not going to be another dry summer.

First significant rainfall

I mowed for the first time this year last Sunday. Since I used the mower so little last year, I decided not to have it serviced. Thank goodness it started on the fourth pull. I am still wavering over whether to weed 'n feed this year. There are new ecolawn products out, grasses that grow slowly and require less mowing. But they are incredibly expensive, plus they require sod removal. Ugh. Maybe after I retire.

Tagged!

I want to dig up the daffodil bulbs this year and divide them, but once the flowers are gone, there is no way to tell one from another. The names of these varieties are a mystery, too, so each clump is getting a tag with a number. So far, four varieties are blooming, although one - the solid yellow - may actually be two varieties, one large and one small. It is difficult to determine whether blossoms are naturally small or just stunted.

Last year I planted three redbuds which look slightly better than sticks. Even so, one coughed up a few blossoms this spring.

The service berry is in bloom, while many of the early shows are starting to fade already. One concern I have with all this earliness is, there are no bees out and about yet. Are they going to be screwed up from missing this action?

Everything is popping

Besides the daffodils and forsythia, the rhododendron, hyacinth, grape hyacinth, the neighbor's pear tree, etc. are bursting with color. No dandelions yet. (Knock on wood!)

Screwed up already

I like to plan. When I decided to try square foot gardening, I planned and planned and planned. I planned a big garden, then reduced the size. I planned to plant everything because with square foot gardening, there would be room, then decided to take it slower. Once I decided on what to grow and how much, I planned how the crops would be rotated. I had it all planned out.

Yesterday the time was right for planting peas. I calculated how many pea seeds I would need and counted out how many I had. First glitch: The number of pea seeds for the snow peas was not enough for the four squares I had planned. No problem, though - peas are peas (for planting purposes, at least). So I changed plans and decided on two squares of snow peas, four squares of English peas, and six squares of snap peas. I would use the same number of squares I originally planned for peas, but in slightly different amounts of each type.

Peas are not peas for growing purposes, though. The variety of English peas I chose will grow only two feet tall and should not need staking. The snow peas, however, will grow five feet tall and the snap peas four feet tall. So the squares for snow peas and snap peas should abut each other to make the most efficient use of the supports.

Finally, planning revised, I approached the first bed and brushed away the leaves and measured out the four squares for the English peas. I carefully poked holes every two inches, in rows two inches apart.

I dropped the seeds into the holes and poked them to a depth of one inch.

I covered the squares with homemade compost.

And then, just as I was tamping down the soil with my hands, I realized I had planted the wrong bed.

Because of the shed, of the beds we had built and filled, I had reserved the one that would get the most sun for tomatoes. And that was the bed I had just planted the English peas in. Well, too bad. I mentally shifted the beds, keeping the ones for peas next to each other and the tomato bed at the other end of the row. In spite of all my planning, I can be flexible.

The supports will be from previously utilized PVC pipe and either chicken wire or plastic coated hardware cloth, both of which are in plentiful supply in the shed. Now if it would only rain.

Meanwhile, the daffodils and the forsythia have popped.

All the daffodils decided to bloom at one time instead of their usual staggered sequence. Ditto the forsythia - my bushes usually bloom later than the neighbor's, but not this year.

Weird, weird weather.

Warm enough for tomatoes

Not only is it in the 70s today, the nights are above 50 degrees, my trigger point for transplanting tomatoes. Of course, I don't expect it to stay this way. Also, I have not even *started* my tomato plants yet.

A few flowers are responding to the sunshine and warm temps.

I'm first - I win!

The first of the daffodils are growing where I plan to locate a cold frame - and now you know why.

And in second place...

My SO helped me start filling the raised beds, where square foot gardening meets lasagna gardening. Sometimes I am a stickler for rules, but not in the garden. So instead of mixing together 1/3 peat, 1/3 of 5 different types of compost, and 1/3 vermiculite, we just layered the materials into the beds. For one thing, using that much vermiculite was going to be prohibitively expensive. For another, I think vegetables should be grown in the ground, even if that ground is raised, so I am including some garden soil - the clay will help retain moisture. Also, Home Depot had only two kinds of compost and I did not feel like driving around looking for more.

Peaty

So far, the layers are: homemade compost, wood ashes, leaves, newspaper, peat, mushroom compost, peat, composted manure, peat. Then I added more leaves yesterday, to keep the peat from blowing away. The beds seem "peat heavy" right now, because 3 cu. ft. of baled peat fluffs quite a bit when released from its packaging. But I anticipate adding no more peat to each bed. Instead, as these layers settle and become food for worms, more layers will be added, of grass clippings, leaves, manure, and homemade compost. That should do it - in theory, at least.

More fill!

We filled four of the eight beds. Hopefully, this weekend we will do four more. Then, at some point, I will need to mix up batches for the potato grow bags, sooner for the Irish potatoes and later for the sweet potatoes.

Speaking of sweet potatoes, my attempt to grow slips is a big FAIL so far. I am trying again, with a less wizened-looking potato this time. Also, I moved them out from under the grow lights. Does light hinder root development? Must research.

Still windy but warmer

This afternoon I worked in the yard a bit, spreading wood ashes in the new raised beds and topping them off with leaves from last fall, and I had to abandon the scarf, jacket, and cap I started with. Tomorrow is supposed to be still sunny and warmer yet, but then the rains will return.

No daffodils blooming, but the garlic is making its appearance after its long winter's nap. As you may recall, this is experiment number one with square foot gardening.

I planted four varieties altogether.

The Onondaga viburnum was not looking too healthy last summer, and over the winter it gave up the ghost.

This photo is not b&w - this is what late winter looks like in Indiana.

I'm not too sad because, although the blossoms were beautifully complex, this shrub was bred not to fruit, something the nurseryman forgot to tell me even though I told him I was creating a backyard habitat. Of the three viburnums he sold me, one variety does not fruit at all and one does but only with the appropriate Dentatum cousin to cross-pollinate with. Only the Blackhaw is reliably fruitful all on its lonesome. Lesson learned - it pays to do one's homework.

Blow me down

The wind continues, but fortunately no tornadoes in this part of the state. Even though I did not even lose power, my Internet went out (horrors!) Frontier tech support talked me through resetting the battery-backed up wall unit, which comically disconnected us. But the solution worked (obviously).

Backyard drama frequently includes this Cooper's hawk. I assume there is either a sparrow or a rabbit in that brush pile.

Coming in for a landing

Anybody home?

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

Grackles arrived on February 26, a robin on the 28th, and a blue bird in that time frame as well.

Angry yellow eyes

When I see finch feeders in catalogs with 20 perches and a bird on each perch, I assume the photos have been digitally altered, but maybe I shouldn't.

Just starting to turn yellow

On the plant front, I repotted the Meyer lemon, the onions continue to grow under lights, and the rosemary cuttings are rooting, but the sweet potatoes are just sitting there. If something doesn't happen soon, I will need to order some slips.

Out like a lion?

I am fond of saying that February is the longest month of the year. Today the end of February is behaving more like the beginning of March, but with gray skies instead of scudding clouds in a sea of blue. The birds that I feed seem hungrier than usual - maybe the winter stores in the wild now have empty shelves. And those birds have started singing again. Bird song is one of those things you don't notice has been absent until it returns.

Even though it is not yet March, I decided to go ahead and try producing sweet potato slips. I did the usual - took a long, skinny sweet potato and broke it in half, poked three toothpicks into each at its new midsection, and settled each sweet potato butt into a cup of water.

No roots on the rosemary cuttings yet.

The reseeding of the onions is showing results. In fact, stirring the tops of the cells without sprouts caused some of the previously planted seeds to pop, so I may end up with more than 144 plants. That's okay - scallions!

Cooking orgy

Yesterday I spent the bulk of the day on my feet in the kitchen, cooking up a storm:

Queso blanco cheese - recipe here - If you want to try making cheese, this is about as simple as it gets. All it takes is milk and vinegar. Although the recipe uses 1/4 c. of vinegar, I needed closer to 1/2 c. (and I used white distilled). I also let the milk get a little too hot, so the cheese has that cooked milk smell even though it tastes great.

Pioneer bread - I have made this before, recipe from The Bread Book by Linda Collister and Anthony Blake (sadly out of print). I did not have sunflower seeds, though, which while not crucial to producing a great bread, is a nice addition. Also, for liquid, I used the whey from the queso blanco.

Chili - For a change, I used dried beans, soaking the kidney beans overnight, then cooking them with four gloves of garlic and two teaspoons of epazote, an herb that reduces the musicality of beans. I also used up four pints of tomato juice from the freezer.

Baked apples - The recipe I use is from Student's Vegetarian Cookbook by Carole Raymond. Patrick brought ice cream to accompany the apples, but we were so full from the chili, bread, and cheese that we could not eat dessert.

Re gardening, I replanted some onion seeds in the cells where germination failed - still striving for a full square foot garden bed of 144 onions. I also snipped some new growth off the indoor rosemary plant, to try rooting cuttings. My big plant has become so rangy that I plan to severely prune it this summer, but I want some backup plants in case I accidentally kill it.

Little surprises

The onion seeds are germinating. I have been gardening off and on (mostly on) for almost 40 years, and I am still a bit surprised when seeds I plant actually sprout. It's a little miracle that I can't take for granted.

The one and only butternut squash to come out of my garden last summer was eaten last night. I plucked it from the vine way back when, even though it did not look quite ready, because I feared a frost that night. Then I left it to sit on the counter until it turned a nice buff color. The surprise came when I tried to peel it. Ordinarily, I do not peel butternut squash - it is just too difficult. But the recipe I was following demanded raw chunks of butternut squash, so peel I did. And the peel was so thin and tender I was able to accomplish this task with a carrot peeler, little effort required. Is all homegrown squash this easy to peel? I just could not believe it.

Tonight I consumed the second and final Meyer lemon. Like the squash, I had picked it a while ago and left it on the counter. Mid-February and - surprise! - it was still fresh as a daisy. It joined some of my homemade grenadine in a tequila sunrise. Okay, TWO tequila sunrises - it was a bad day at work. No surprise there!

And so it begins

Friday I was playing in the compost piles. Saturday I awoke to this:

A good portion of that wet sloppy snow is gone, but I'm sure the weather gods can stir up more if they so desire.

To combat all that winterness outside, I started onion plants inside.

I have not grown onions from seed for ages, so this will be an experiment. The reason for turning to seed is I have been unhappy with the selection of onion sets and unhappy with the results from the past few years. Of course, as soon as I ordered seeds for a variety called Copra, I received a seed catalog with an improved Copra called Cortland. *sigh*

Anyway, expecting to plant one square foot garden bed entirely with onions, I planted 144 seeds. (Nine plants per square foot times 16 square feet = 144, right?) The plan is to get them into the ground around April 1.

Proof

Here is evidence of the daffodils:

And some fungus under the forsythia:

Otherwise, the yard is still very dormant today. I dug around in the big compost piles, sifting some and turning most of the rest. What compost I did manage to glean went into the new raised beds.

I'm on the fence re square foot gardening "by the book". One is supposed to mix one's own potting soil, using peat moss, blended compost, and vermiculite. Finding vermiculite in anything other than small bags is difficult, and it is surprisingly expensive. I found some online at a better price, the the shipping was more than the vermiculite cost. Vermiculite is sometimes used as insulation (Menards carries it), but it is not clear to me if that is suitable for horticultural use. And then the amount of homemade potting soil needed to fill even one bed is a bit daunting to my pocketbook.

And yet, my soil is heavy clay, I have a major weed problem, and it would be wonderful to garden with something light and fluffy and at least initially weedfree, so the one-time expense seems worth it. I have a feeling I will probably mix square foot gardening with lasagna gardening, layering in newspaper, leaves, manure, etc. and topping it all with the special mix. Or I will make one or more batches but limit its use to the grow sacks, which at the end of the season can be dumped into the raised beds. Or...?

Zoned out

According to the new USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, I am now in zone 6a instead of 5b, but just barely. I'm not surprised, based on my experience the past few years with frost dates in both spring and fall. So I am going to be bolder about gardening earlier this year. In fact, I can hardly wait.

Yesterday I noticed daffodils poking through the ground on the south side of the West Wing. Crazy!