Garden Update: September

I haven't done a garden update in a while, but as summer winds down, it's time for a wrap-up!

In June I described the garden as "out of control." Ha ha!! I had no idea what was in store. My cantaloupe trellis quickly fell over from the weight, so the foreground of this picture is mostly cantaloupe vine. It yielded four fruits. Two were eaten by slugs before I could get to them, but the others were delicious, and I might still get one or two more. As for my heirloom watermelon, I finally got one fruit, but it started rotting while I waited for it to pull away from the vine. :( But that's improvement over last year! Maybe this summer wasn't quite hot enough for the watermelons.

My basil took off like a rocket! I need to start picking and drying it soon.

All the peppers did very well and are still bearing. The banana peppers were especially prolific. I've put chopped banana peppers in salads and stir-fries and even on sandwiches, but what else can you do with them?

Tomato Jungle! As the tomatoes grew to unprecedented heights, I threw in any support I could find and/or wedge between the plants (hence the big hook). My "front row" tomatoes - Roma, grape, and Mortgage Lifter - bore a lot of fruit, but I never got anything from the back row tomatoes. I guess the front plants cast too much shade. As you can see, they've spread forward onto the lawn and back onto the cucumber trellis and beyond. The current blooming area is on the far side of the chimney. !!!

My Garden Life Lesson of 2013 is the importance of preparing well for success, instead of assuming failure. Next year, I'm setting up full size cages and structures on planting day. No joke. If you're looking for advice on how to grow a garden like this, I only have two words for you: Wholly Cow.

Manure worth its weight in gold

Since the summer garden grew so well, I'm attempting to grow fall vegetables for the first time! I bought a small seed starting kit at Lowe's, and hopefully these seedlings will be ready at the same time space clears for them. Here's the progress after only a week.

Vertical rows left to right: green onions, spinach, mesclun salad mix, arugula, Swiss chard, and sugar snap peas. Exciting!

Home Life Lately 8/6

Here are some recent domestic goings-on:

 

Last weekend I finally cut scalloped shorts from some bootcut jeans I got at Goodwill! I measured the cutoff length against my favorite shorts, then used a scrapbooking border template to outline the scallop pattern in chalk. (I find chalk much easier to work with than a fabric pencil.) After cutting the shorts, I applied fray check to the edges as a finishing touch. I also wanted to stitch a hem for extra security, but my attempts to follow the scallop pattern with the sewing machine were disastrous. Thankfully it only took me one side to realize that it wasn't going to work, and I just ripped it out. Fun fact: I've probably ripped out and re-done 75% of the hems I've sewed up to this point.

I'm happy with the shorts, but if I had it to do over, I'd cut them a little longer. My favorite short shorts work because they're not fitted tightly to the leg. But jeans are, so now I have an unfortunate muffin-leg situation. I'll just have to remain standing when I wear these! :P

   

After months of waffling, I gave up on my shrilly wheezing Hoover vacuum and bought a Dyson Animal cordless stick vacuum. My friend Stacy loaned me hers for a test drive, and I fell in love. But the painful price tag still made me hesitate. Then Emily alerted me that Costco had them for $70 off, so she ordered one on my behalf and we're all living happily ever after. I love vacuuming any old way I want, instead of following a strict pattern dictated by how far the cord will stretch (and tripping over/re-extending the cord multiple times). I can take it anywhere, including out to the car, so I don't have to wrestle with those vacuums at car washes anymore. I can get under cabinets and tables and into tight spaces with no problem. And it's so quiet - I literally had to wear earplugs when using my Hoover, even though it was barely over a year old. This Dyson better have a longer track record! #firstworldproblems

   

I harvested my first eggplant last week! (At least two more will be ready soon.) The resulting Grilled Eggplant with Tomatoes and Feta was fantastic. All ingredients were homegrown except the cheese, and I felt like a pioneer. I also made Watermelon and Feta Salad for the first time (where has it been all my life??), so basically I'm going through feta cheese like Greece is about to fall off the map.

Garden Update - June

My vegetable garden is OUT OF CONTROL! Every evening, when I go out to look at it, I still feel stunned. I love to talk about my garden. A few of my co-workers are now calling me Farmer Brenda and asking when I'll be selling at the farmer's market. :) I haven't harvested anything yet, but it won't be long!

The tomato plants have continued to grow about a foot a week, but I think they're slowing down now with the arrival of the fruit! I have five plants. Roma, Mortgage Lifter and grape all have lots of green tomatoes now. Beefsteak looks strong but doesn't have any blooms yet. My Sweet 100 cherry, which is hidden in the back of the tomato section, is the only plant in the garden that hasn't thrived. I'm not sure if it's not getting enough light, or the other plants are taking its nutrients, or what, but it's not dead yet so I haven't given up on it.

Behind the tomatoes is the cucumber trellis, which the cucumbers have already taken over. This picture was taken last Friday, and since then I've had to start draping the vines over the top of the trellis. I may eventually have to cut them back because there's nowhere else for them to go!

On the left and we have assorted bell peppers and one banana pepper, in the middle are more peppers and an eggplant, and on the right are yellow squash and spaghetti squash, which are just as aggressive as the cucumbers. You can see the vine running up the side of the house. Off to the right I also have cilantro (which already bolted - boo), tarragon, basil, sage, dill, and oregano.

This was my first squash EVER! Every year, my squash plants bloom and have great foliage, then wither and die suddenly without producing a single fruit. So, even though a chipmunk came a few days later and stole this one off the vine, I've already declared success. Now a second squash has appeared and is already bigger than the first.

Here's the cantaloupe! No fruit yet, but the vines are loaded with blooms. I put up this trellis for them so they'd have their own area and not choke out other plants. Hopefully it'll hold up the heavy fruits. In front of the cantaloupe section is my heirloom watermelon vine, and a special mystery squash that was a gift from the owner of Bartlett Nursery. I'm really excited about the watermelon. The seeds were given to me by my sister's father-in-law.


Before this year, I had truly given up on ever having a successful garden. I wasn't going to stop gardening, but I had tried everything I could think of for five or six years, so I accepted my destiny of consistently mediocre harvests. But my dad never gave up and continued to help and encourage me. Now I have this amazing bounty. Hopefully there's a lesson there!

Craft and Garden Update

I've had a crafty few weeks. Here are some things I've made!

Because I seem to need front-door decor for every month of the year, I made this cute semi-patriotic wreath based on this tutorial. The wreath in the original post is burlap wrapped around a foam or straw core. However, on the day I made this, I didn't have time to go to multiple stores. So you're looking at a twig wreath form wrapped in burlap-look upholstery fabric from the Garden Ridge $1.50 remnant bin. I wrapped it around and secured it with hot glue. It's not as picture-perfect as the original, but it works for me!

If you just want to learn how to make the felt hydrangeas, that tutorial is here. Felt flowers have become my go-to. They aren't trying (and failing) to look like real flowers, and they're cute, cheap, and easy to make.

Since I got my sewing machine, most of my projects have proceeded as follows:

- Pin a bunch of tutorials for what I want to make
- Settle on one; buy and prepare supplies
- Read tutorial thoroughly and discover that it's too confusing or labor-intensive; try another
- Repeat several times
- Panic because I don't have adequate supplies for other tutorials
- Finally, choose whatever I can understand that won't require me to go back to the store

Making a new table runner for the console table in my living room was no different. I had pictured something more complicated, with a border, but ended up using this Simple Table Runner Tutorial from Cloud 9 Fabrics. It's a clean, basic reversible design – all you have to do is sew with wrong sides together, pull right side out, and topstitch it. Very manageable! Even so, it took me at least two hours to create this large rectangle. I'm ready for my McCall's Sewer of the Year award now.

My old table runner was brown, and too dark once I got hardwood floors. So it makes me happy to see this cheery design. The fabric is from the outdoor section at Hancock. I topstitched with blue thread to make it more interesting.

Finally, here are my tomatoes after TWO WEEKS:

Again: TWO WEEKS. I even checked the calendar to make sure it hadn't been longer since planting day… and it was a late planting at that. Wholly Cow indeed!! The tomatoes aren't the only plants taking off. I can practically see the cucumber vines growing, and something has shot up next to them that's not a cucumber. Possibly one of my watermelons from last year! It's all very exciting… for me and my dad.  :)  Looks like I need to learn to can for real!

My battle with birdseed-thieving squirrels has been well documented on this blog. Yesterday my dad provided me with a new weapon that may end the backyard war forever:

This feeder is weight calibrated for birds, so if squirrels land on the ledge, it closes. It has a secure top that even my dexterous local squirrels can't take off. I should have gotten one of these years ago, instead of spending literally hundreds of dollars (over time) on birdseed that never made it to the birds. Victory! (I hope.)

Planting Day 2013

My vegetable garden is finally in! Last year I planted on April 1, so it's safe to say that this was my latest planting ever. But thanks to the Endless Winter of 2013, I couldn't do it any earlier. It was worth waiting to make sure the plants got the best possible start.

I've had a vegetable garden for about six years. My first garden location was poorly chosen, so after a few years, I moved it to the sunny south side of the house. That helped, but not much. So last year, my dad MacGyvered a raised bed for me out of old planks from my shed, and we filled it with "pro mix" from the local nursery. It was my best harvest ever - the peppers and herbs did pretty well - but still below average. The cucumbers and squash died early, the tomatoes were few, and the watermelons never progressed beyond sprouts. My dad decided that more topsoil would do the trick. So last Saturday morning, he went back to Bartlett Nursery on my behalf. The owner said that what we really needed was some of the "private stock" he uses on his own plants. (I love local businesses!) So he loaded a bunch of swamp muck onto the trailer, and we made rows of it in the raised bed. My dad was downright gleeful. I hope this stuff lives up to both of our expectations. :)

I also have this secret weapon, which has apparently caused near-riots at the nursery:

I was advised to dig holes for the plants in the rows of muck, put a little Wholly Cow at the bottom of the holes, then put some around the plants once they're settled. So that's what I did. I'm optimistic!

Here's what I planted this year!

Six kinds of tomatoes - Roma, grape, Sweet 100 cherry, beefsteak, Better Boy, and Mortgage Lifter
Two kinds of cucumbers
Three kinds of bell peppers
Banana peppers
Spaghetti squash - I forgot that this is a winter squash. Why are they selling it now?? We'll see how it does.
Crookneck yellow squash
One eggplant
Cantaloupe - my first attempt at cantaloupe
Heirloom watermelon seeds - trying again with these

In addition to the existing oregano and tarragon, which came back strong (exciting!), I planted new basil, dill, sage, and cilantro. (A few shoots of cilantro have naturally popped up, but I need a backup in case they don't make it.) My flat-leaf parsley has already come back and bolted, so I cut it way back and then re-seeded around the base.

I couldn't find zucchini, and I forgot the jalapenos, so I left space to add those later.

Last year I tried a soaker hose, then switched to an oscillating sprinkler because the plants were drowning. Then they didn't get enough water. But according to the nursery guy, the soil should be more settled this year, causing soaker watering to work better. So I got a new hose (the old one cracked) and put it between the rows, not on top of the plants. This is supposed to be good for root expansion.

For the second year in a row, my watering timer has also cracked, so I'll have to get a new one of those too. Does anyone else have to replace this stuff every year? It gets expensive. A watering timer is totally worth it, though. I couldn't garden without one.

Stay tuned for garden progress updates!

Lessons From Roses

I'm very into my roses at the moment. They're putting on an unprecedented show! I have three rose bushes, and the one in the middle is a Don Juan climbing rose that needs reinforcement. I've tried several trellises and things, but they've all been unstable and couldn't bear the weight of the plant, especially during storms. Once the rose started to bloom and flop over this year, I was reduced to what I had on hand: a short, flimsy cucumber trellis and one of those stretchy cords with iron hooks at either end. It was not an effective or attractive setup. Last Saturday morning, struck by sudden inspiration, I bought an iron trellis – the kind with longer prongs on the bottom – and drilled holes in the wood border of the rose bed to drop it in. Of course, right as I was finishing the drilling and feeling proud of myself, the drill bit got stuck. My dad had to come remove it for me days later with a vise. But now the project is complete, and the rose bush is securely tied up and looks beautiful! This problem had bothered me for years, so I'm really happy to have it taken care of.

The life of a rose bush has a nice, predictable rhythm. First you see the red leaves of new growth. Then the roses bloom. Then they fade, and the leaves and stems grow again. Then new buds set, and new roses arrive. But the plant takes a rest between bloomings, and it makes the roses more beautiful. I need to learn from that. I continue to struggle big-time with resting and recharging. Over the past year or two, I've made several good attempts at stepping back and learning to say no, but I keep ending up back in this overextended, stressed-out place. I hate missing out on any activities or invitations, and I hate accepting my limitations, but I'm headed for some spectacular crash and burn unless I figure out a real solution.

 

One thing I really need to get back to is at least attempting to keep a Sabbath. Without realizing it, I became one of those people who "can't afford to rest" on Sunday. Then I wonder why I feel strung out constantly. It's a commandment for a reason. Stopping when the rest of the world keeps going is hard, but that's no excuse.

 

Anyway. Thoughts on a Wednesday.

Roses In Bloom

My roses are thriving in the cooler weather! I go out to admire and smell them every day. I recently took some Lisa Frank-esque photos of them after a rain. (These are some of the last pictures I have from my lost camera.)

(macro fail)

Happy weekend!

Midsummer Garden Update

As expected, this year's garden is outperforming all of my past gardens, but I haven't quite had the crazy yield I hoped for. My dad's three tomato plants (one of which was a volunteer), right in the ground, are a thicket of branches and as tall as I am. He can barely keep up with the harvest. My tomato plants, fussed over in a raised bed full of specially mixed soil, look like this:

I've tried different watering methods and schedules, but nothing has helped. At this point I'm using an oscillating sprinker set for about 30 minutes a day. The tomatoes I do have are delicious though, and ripening at a good pace. I have cherry and grape tomatoes for salads, and regular ones for sandwiches and sauces. It's not like I need a bushel a week anyway. I'm only one person.

The cucumbers are just starting to climb and bloom. I like how sneaky cucumbers are. You don't even know you have any, and then you notice the trellis is sagging, move a leaf aside, and there they are! My bell peppers and jalapenos are also hitting their stride now. The peppers aren't as big as the ones from a store, but they're very flavorful.

This is the first year I've put herbs in the garden instead of in pots, and the space has been great for them. By this point in the summer, they've usually run their course and I have to get new plants, but these have room to expand and multiply. Definitely the way to go.

The zucchini and yellow squash have long since shriveled and died with no warning. I've never had any other result with squash. Maybe they just don't like me.

The eggplant is the surprise performer of the year. It's really thriving. Eggplant parmesan, here I come!

To use up some of my dad's surplus tomatoes, I made a batch of tomato sauce from this Smitten Kitchen recipe (SK has never steered me wrong). It was pretty easy to do, and I ended up with SIX half pint jars full. I didn't preserve it, just put it in jars. I also eyeballed everything and didn't weigh the tomatoes, but next time I'll add less onion, carrot, and garlic, because the sauce turned out pretty orange. It's still tasty though.

Nature Girl

So a chipmunk has taken up permanent residence under my back step. I call him Theodore. I've seen him playing with another chipmunk on several occasions, but I can't tell if that one also lives here or is just visiting. Anyway, Theodore has become very bold and spends most of his time on the back patio or sitting right on the step. This keeps my cats entertained for hours.

I also noticed this tiny path that's been worn from my shed to my bird feeder. Maybe the other chipmunk, or the squirrels, are living under there. (The squirrel birdseed war rages on.)

Everything is blooming in my yard right now - I want to be out there all the time!

This week I finished my annuals planting. I always put geraniums in a planter on the back patio, but I couldn't resist adding these "Lemon Zest" petunias. I saw them at Lowe's a few weeks ago and was still thinking about them. They're so cheery!

I had to plant a pot of mint for summer beverages. :)

The front planter is complete - I went with caladiums and a whole flat of multicolored impatiens. It's going to look great!

The first of the lilies! These are Asiatic lilies that I planted last spring, but my tiger lilies from the fall planting are coming up too. I can't wait for those to bloom.

Happy holiday weekend!

Garden Update

So here's what my garden looked like when I planted it on April 1:

And here it is a mere five weeks later:

So take note: raised beds make ALL the difference! I wish I hadn't wasted so many years struggling with our heavy clay soil, when all I needed was a soaker hose, some old planks, and a few truckloads of Pro Mix.

Most of the tomato plants flowered weeks ago (Better Boy was the first), and tiny tomatoes are already growing! My pepper plants are also loaded with flowers. The squash and cucumbers haven't done much yet, but they're hot-weather plants anyway. (Not that it hasn't been hot - it was in the 90s on Sunday.) If this is any indication of the harvest to come, I need to learn how to can for real!

I also planted some Moon and Stars watermelon seeds last weekend. As you can see in the first photo, they've already sprouted and are almost ready to thin out! This is my first time growing watermelons, so I'm excited that they're doing so well.

I planted this gardenia bush two years ago, the same week my ex left me. Despite my best efforts (including digging it up and re-planting with better drainage), it's never blossomed. But a few days ago, I opened the blinds and saw two beautiful gardenias, with more emerging! I'm taking it as a good omen. When I mentioned this on my non-public blog, a friend said it reminded her of Valancy's rosebush in one of my all-time favorite books, The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery*. So now I feel even more hopeful about it. I'M READY TO BLOOM.


* = You can read it online for free here!