April in the Garden

First iris to bloom in the yard

I love this time of year, when some of my favorite flowers are blooming, iris, lilacs, roses, apple trees... It seems the garden is bursting at the seams these days!

I have so many old bearded iris in the yard, these plain white ones and some plain dark purples are the early bloomers; later there will be a tall yellow and a two toned purple and lavender.

lilacs in bloom

I love my lilac bush, it smells heavenly. The scent of iris and lilacs reminds me of when I was a kid and mom would put vases of them around the house.

apple blossoms

While that late snow browned the edges of some of the petals, the apple blossoms seem to be ok.

the terrace garden

On the hillside terrace garden the poppies, cilantro and wild flowers are getting a good start.

patio garden, west side of house

The patio still needs some cleaning up.

Princepe Borghese

But the Princepe Borhese tomatos are blooming.

Sweet Magnolia, a purple snow pea

Between the crazy weather and some rabbits, there are only a couple of Sweet Magnolia plants left, but they are making peas.

Sweet Magnolia pea blossom

And their flowers are pretty too!

Bleushokker pea blossom

There are only a couple of Bleushokker peas left too. They were in the coldest spot in the back garden and the Dec. snows did most of them in. They do have pretty flowers and they are the yummiest soup pea ever!

weedy spot in the back garden

I tried to get this silly picture to be vertical, but Blogger doesn't want to do it so it's sideways. This is a corner of the back garden, on the east end. This is a narrow trellis bed where I had planted Sugar Snap peas. there were only a couple of plants left in there and they were pretty sad looking with the crazy weather we've had this year, so I pulled them out along with all the weeds and fed them to the chickens.

Most of the weeds are gone.

Most of the weeds are gone now. I will probably plant either beans or cukes here, haven't made up my mind which one. On the right of this picture you can see the Mammoth Melting Sugar peas, which just started producing. More about those on Harvest Monday!

brassicas

This is one of the two brassica beds. on the right side is the purple sprouting broccoli, in the center are the Romanesco and on the left are either De Ciccio or Waltham, the tags got lost so I'm not sure which. I weeded out all the hen bit and discovered the bed was pretty dry; perhaps that's why they haven't done as well as they should have. Either that or I'll blame it on poor soil, late planting and crazy weather! Behind this bed is the one with the Mammoth Melting Sugar peas and behind that, the trellis bed that I weeded out.

Red Pontiac potaoes

The Red Pontiac potatoes that I planted in January are sprouting up and looking good. Some of them were just breaking ground when the snow came a couple of weeks ago; I just piled a little dirt over their tops and they didn't get frost bite.

Cecile Brunner Rose

The Cecile Brunner climbing rose that I planted a few years ago has grown quite large. I spotted the first blossom this after, after catching a whiff of it as I walked by. While the blossoms are very small, they are very fragrant. I hate that modern roses have so little scent and refuse to buy them. I want roses to smell, what use is pretty if there is no fragrance?

bolting celery

In the greenhouse the celery is bolting. The cilantro is already there. I let it bloom all over because it's small fine flowers are good for the beneficial insects.

Cilantro/coriander blooming

snapdragon

The snapdragons are blooming in their wall pots. The ones I planted around the yard are a bit behind since the air and soil outside are cooler.

tomato plants on the shelves, peas in the background

The greenhouse shelves are loaded with plants; more small fruited tomatoes, Snow White, Currant, Princepe Borghese.

baby tomato plants

The large fruited tomatoes were started later and so are smaller; Amish Paste, Italian Heirloom, Black from Tula.

basil seedlings

Lots of Classic Italian and Lime Basil seedlings.

green strawberry

There are some green strawberries in the greenhouse bed.

old seeds sprout!

The greatest thing though, is those Hale's Best Jumbo cantaloupe seeds that I saved in 2003 had almost 100% germination in the greenhouse under their cute little Victorian cloche!

Chickens!

And here are all the chickens, my four hens and my young Buff Orpington rooster, standing tall in the center. He isn't crowing yet but I have seen him getting after the hens, so I think I'll set aside some money next month for an incubator. I'd like to hatch small lots of chicks at a time for meat.


These chickens are not as tame as my previous ones. My other chickens I raised from chicks when my grand daughters were with me all the time and the girls were always petting and playing with them so they were very tame. These were in a large pen with about 50 others and while not exactly wild they don't come sit in your lap either! In fact they are just now getting the idea that when I come up to the fence and call them they should come because it means I have a treat, either scraps, weeds or worms.

Planting Beans, Potatoes, & the Great Garden Cleanup June 19, 2011

Planting Beans, Potatoes, & the Great Garden Cleanup

June 19, 2011 at 1:52 pm

Well I have been working on the yard and garden at least 15 minutes every day. Some days it’s mostly watering things and pulling a few weeds. At other times I’ve actually spent the whole time on pulling weeds and picking up trash. I worked in and around the greenhouse the other day. You can see before pictures in my post on May 30, 2011 
This photo is after just a couple of 15 minute sessions. I have a piece of black shade cloth over the green house frame to help shade my bedroom window until the morning glories take over the job.


The potatoes planted recently have mostly sprouted so I have begun mulching the open spaces between them. Not every piece planted has sprouted yet, which is ok, they should all make an appearance eventually.
I just try not to put a lot of mulch over the ones that haven’t come up yet.
Since I’m going on vacation in August & September I’m trying hard not to plant too much stuff that will need a lot of attention. But I did decided to plant some Apache Purple Pod beans. These make nice green beans, shelly beans and dried beans.
First I dug a good size trench next to the trellis and watered it well. The ground is very very dry and I’m trying to get moisture to the root zone.
After the water soaked in I made the trench even deeper and set out the bean seeds.
I then watered them in and covered them with about an inch of soil by directing the water to the side of the trench so the soil would wash down over the seeds. I then used  old screens to cover them to try and protect them as best I can from the birds. Right now the desert is very dry and the birds will dig up and eat any little green sprout they can find. June is a very difficult month to start any kind of seeds directly in the garden for that reason.

Herbs & Flowers June 5, 2011

Herbs & Flowers

June 5, 2011 at 2:36 am

I bought a few herb and flower plants last night. Not much selection locally this time of year but that is ok. I am really trying to keep myself reined in as I will be gone three weeks in Aug & Sep and that is a hard time in a big garden. So trying to keep things small and manageable so who ever I rope into garden sitting & bunny tending isn’t overwhelmed.
This morning I planted most of the plants into their pots. I also did a quick tidy up around the front steps where they will live. This spot gets plenty of early morning sun and a bit of late afternoon shade; perfect for so many things in the desert.

Front steps

a yellow daylily and some lobelia

Resurrection; bringing the dead back to life May 30, 2011

Resurrection; bringing the dead back to life

May 30, 2011 at 6:56 pm

Well folks as you can see I haven’t been too active here for a long time. I’m hoping to change all that now. At the moment the garden is quite dead but I am working on bringing it back to life. Just got side tracked down a byway on life’s hiway.
So here is what a section of the back yard looked like before:




And then after I did 15 minutes of work. Yes in just 15 minutes I picked up a bag of trash and pulled quite a big pile of weeds.




I’m going to try and work at least 15 minutes in the garden every day. I’m missing having my hands in the dirt.

Season Review October 31, 2009

Season Review

October 31, 2009 at 2:49 pm

Well since summer seems to be gone, I thought it would be a good idea to think about this past year and make some notes for next year.
It seems that last spring I could have planted more lettuce, radishes, beets & carrots later in the season. This would have helped with the gap in late May. While the kids enjoyed the baby corn, it seems they really wanted regular fresh corn.
I definately need to plant more melons. Plant less small tomatoes and a lot more large ones.  Give the large tomatoes more space, they probably need a good 24 inches each. I only had about 2 doz large tomatoes, could probably use upwards of 75-100. It takes a lot to make sauce, ketchup and other tomato based things.
Twenty to thirty row feet of snap and snow peas are probably enough, since I don’t like the way they are when you freeze them. But we could use 50 or more row feet of shelling peas for freezing little green peas and probably 25 feet or so of the Blueshokker soup peas.
Since the Lima beans didn’t set pods until late September, they could probably go in a lot later than they did.
I need more bird protection, especially in the summer and fall. Not only did I lose a lot of seedlings to the birds, but also a lot of sunflower and popping sorghum seeds.
I need more rat/squirrel/rabbit  control, they got some melons, tomatoes, squash and other things.
I want more peppers of all types. The amount of squash was fine, as we don’t eat much, especially of the summer types.
We would probably eat more spinach type greens, but mustard and turnip greens were a bust at the table.
We could probably eat more dry beans. The amount of green beans might have been too much, they weren’t a big thrill for the kids so I anticipate the 21 pints I canned to be more than enough. Though I will plant less yard long beans and more Kentucky Wonders.
We could use a lot more strawberry plants. Nobody likes Huckleberries, so I will just invest in more blueberry bushes.
We needed a lot more cucumbers. So this year watch out for the aphids and try to get rid of them ASAP.
I really need to work on the succession plantings. Not keeping up lead to a lot of gaps this year.

In the Garden October 21, 2009

In the Garden

October 21, 2009 at 3:39 am

The garden continues to produce, though at a slower rate than before. The summer crops are winding down, but the fall and winter crops are a little slow taking off. It doesn’t help that a flock of quail helped themselves to the radishes and lettuce seedlings.
Here are the King of the Garden Limas, finally! I picked 1 1/2 pounds the other day, which shelled out to about a quart of beans, cooked them up with bacon & onion, delish! Even Liberty liked them.
Here a Trombocino squash {seeds available from www.freedomseeds.com} hides in the Red Currant tomato
The bed at the bottom of the picture has baby carrots, the one farther away, Golden Globe turnips and parsnips. The bigger green plants are hollyhocks.
Broccoli and cauliflower seedlings wait in the wings.
Kabocha squash volunteers have run over quite a bit of the garden. The one in the front isn’t quite ready to pick. The ones in the back weighed 7 & 10 pounds each. The other one is twice as big, can’t wait to see how much it weighs.
Lovely Hopi purple pod beans. These are yummy as fresh or dried shellies.

HOME GROWN FOOD SECURITY October 3, 2009

HOME GROWN FOOD SECURITY

October 3, 2009 at 2:57 pm

Some of my family & friends do not understand my passion for my garden and canning and preserving the food I grow. To me this is my own form of  Social Security. If things go to pot me and mine will be provided for. If, when I retire, the system doesn’t give me enough money to live on, I will be fine, because I have taken on the responsibility of providing for myself.  Some object that it is cheaper to buy things at the store. That could be, in some cases, modern agriculture and mass production have given us cheap food and goods. However, cheaper is not necessarily better. Some of these systems are actually making us sick! Look at Mad Cow disease, swine flu, bird flu. There is evidence that genetically modified foods are very bad for us [and, if given a choice between natural and GM grain, animals will eat the first and refuse the second! Lets be as smart as the animals!] Besides all these reasons, I enjoy what I do. It gives me a great sense of pride and accomplishment to look at the shelves in my kitchen, bursting with food I put there myself. Besides which, there are many things I can make at home that you cannot possibly buy at any price.
Bean soup, potatoe soup, dilly beans, green beans, pickled peppers, tomato sauce, pickled eggs… there’s more you can’t see, blueberries, apple sauce, jams, jellies, pickles, sauces, marinades. This year not everything was grown at home. I took advantage of terrific sales and the farmer’s market. But next year most of the cupboards will be filled with home grown goodness.  Also not in this picture are the things that I’ve dried, plums, apples, raisins, tomatoes, jerky, herbs for seasoning and tea.

It’s a Jungle Out There September 6, 2009

It’s a Jungle Out There

September 6, 2009 at 3:48 pm

Well, here’s a few pics from around the yard to catch up since I missed so much of August.
Heavenly Blue morning glories cover an arch by the front gate.
The small sunflowers are still blooming. They attract a lot of butterflies and bees of all kinds.
One of the surviving Heritage raspberries has put on a few fruits.
The Moon & Stars watermelon is going strong, tho no fruit yet.
Elephant Ears & Canna lily
The Jicama are going strong, just hope they are making nice big roots!
Can’t hardly walk beside the house for all the plants out there.
Delicata squash almost ready to pick.
The eggplants in pots on the patio are doing very well.
A couple of Rio Grande pepper plants loaded with fruit.
The back garden. The two empy beds in the middle are for carrots and parsnips.
Kentucky Wonder green beans cover a 5′ wire cage. So far it’s been so hot they haven’t set any beans, but I found one yesterday so we should have lots of them soon.
Apache Purple pod beans cover part of the greenhouse. They are just beginning to bloom.
Cucumbers & beans. I don’t think we’ll get many more cukes tho, they are severly infested with aphids. I think I should probably just pull them out.
Four o’clocks bloom by the front gate.
16 baby artichoke plants in their pots. Just not sure where I’m going to plant them!
The 11′ Lima beans, which still have yeilded no beans.

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Tally HO!

September 5, 2009 at 4:05 pm (corn, cucumber, food, freedom, gardening, grow your own food, self sufficiency) · Edit

All right, I’ve gotten a bit behind posting here, just soooo much going on in Aug! The grand kids went back to school and so did their mom, so we have children 7 days a week now. But the numbers are in for August; 100 eggs and 79.5 pounds of produce.
Heavenly Blue morning glories cover part of the greenhouse. You can just see one of the Kabocha squash in the leaves at the lower left.
Here  you can see that corner of the greenhouse on the right, then the baby corn, the row of paste tomatoes and on the left some cucumbers and an apple tree still in it’s pot.
Yesterday and again today it is raining. Actually when I took this pic through the front door it was also hailing. We got .4″ of rain yesterday and it is very dark and rainy again today. We were going to go to the lizard walk at the arboretum today, but don’t think that is going to happen. This rain looks like it might hang out all day. It is 9 AM and it is as dark outside as if the sun were nearly down! And I’m loving it and so it the garden.