Joanna 的个人资料Gluten Free Garden Girl!照片日志列表更多  |  工具 帮助 |
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4月11日 Progress udpateThe snow didn't cause any damage at all!! I have pictures to show for it.  Spinach seedlings  The peas came up today.  I have no idea what these are. They are growing where the borage was last year. I have hopes!!  The tall lilly that Vijay gave me last year is emerging.  This is how I'm keeping my kiwi safe. It's an inside out purina cat food bag over a small tomato cage  Hops, very young hops. Reemerging after a winter of cold.  The same daffodils that were covered in snow only a few days ago.  The buds on the black currant were not damaged by the snow, either.  I happen to really like the way the carpet phlox looks up close before the bloom.  My asparagus plot. I'm hoping that my decision to add a couple more inches of covering before the growth started isn't a detriment to the plants. No sign of life above my new soil level, just yet. 4月7日 Snow in the morning It is mornings like this that make me want to put in a blog about how I've been keeping my gardening information organized.     4月6日 Back for spring 2009 Amaranth seeds overwinter, which is kind of ironic because I decided I didn't want to grow them again this year. Since they are supposed to be native to Mexico I didn't think they would come back up. Oh well, they're pretty, anyways.  Asparagus is so cute! And I put another 2 inches of soil down over these.  I no longer remember which are the June bearing and which are ever bearing. I guess I'll find out. Ok, so I'm back after a long winter off. I can't remember what caused me to stop blogging my garden, but I'm quite certain it had a lot to do with my getting a job. I was on unemployment when I discovered all this blogging stuff. So I'm very excited to be back in someone's employ, with health benefits and all that wonderful stuff! And in October of 2008 I discovered that I'm Celiac. That means I can't have Wheat, Barley, or Rye, and Oats are questionable. This is a major change to the diet, but it's a good thing because now I'm no longer swollen and severely distended in my abdominal region. I'm likely to occasionally blog about food I can eat, and also likely to start experimenting with growing non-traditional grains. So, let the growing season begin!!! I planted peas and spinach on St. Patty's, on the cool plot behind the porch. The spinach came up, but the peas not yet. Currently I have peas soaking and I'm waiting for them to sprout this time then I'm going to plant them in the sun-drenched spot by the stairs into the neighbor's yard. Oh, yeah, I did finish those stairs I mentioned way back in June. I also planted some brassicas in that fenced area. Brussel sprouts (managed to over-winter one brussel) kholrabhi, and brocoli. Plus some turnips in there for good measure. I need to plant carrots again, too. But I lost my light before I got to those yesterday. I really wanted to order an apple tree this year, I want a "little big" in the variety Goldrush. It's a promising variety, supposed to be the longest keeper of all. But I missed the window of opportunity on the half off deals, so I'm gona have to wait. Bummer. But I'm such a sucker for those 25 off a purchase of 50 coupons that come in the mail! The hardy issai kiwi - which is self pollinating - acutally it's seedless polythenocarpic, and thus it doesn't do pollination - it survived the winter! Hooray. It was just a spindly stick in the windy cold. I took the bags from my cat's food and put them over tomato stands to protect it, but with the tops open to avoid over heating. It worked for the kiwi, but not for the Rosemary. I'm thinking to try rosemary in the cold frame this year. But I still need to finish the cover on the cold frame. Otherwise it's a completed structure. I'm also really wanting rubarb this year, and I'm thinking to try some french sorrel. And I'm still pondering away at my options for what would basically amount to a large scale cold frame, with a door and tall enough to stand up in, and with cloth walls. Just something to extend the seasons around here. I'm still pondering designs. And I'm also still pondering chickens for farther down the road. I love the idea. My best friend bought me a canary for Yule. So I'm getting used to the needs of birds, thier temperments and other necessary elements of care, by looking after this adorable little singing canary. I'm pretty well set in my mind that I'm not getting chickens while I still have cats. It's just too much to keep after. Especially with the prospect of returning to school in the near future. I'm thinking to go back to school for statistics. Because my job will cover it! I also discovered that the conservatory offers a master gardener course every year for $200. That's a very viable option for me. I'd really like to have a cerficiation behind my name for the gardens. 7月10日 Cabbage Rot procedure
This is the situation that I noticed two days ago. The head of this cabbage is just filled up with caterpillars and eggs.
And so, before it gets any worse, starts to rot, or infects any of the other cabbages in this row, I prepair to take drastic measures.
First I cut off all the peripheral leaves
I place these leaves in the basket that I brought out. This green gooey spot indicated that it was time to stop picking leaves.
I then cut the head off the stalk of the cabbage. Do not worry, this will grow "cabbage-lets" all the way until it freezes. I found that out last year when I left the stalks in after harvesting the ripe heads.
I would love to show you the rot and discusing infestation inside the cabbage head I cut off, but that would spread the eggs and caterpillars around, and promote disease in the garden. Instead, I just put the cabbage head right into a bucket of water and put a brick on top of it to make sure not portion of it stays above water. I will leave it in the bucket somewhere out of the way for at least a week to make sure all the eggs and caterpillars are completely dead and can not hatch to cause problems for the remaining cabbages in my garden.
The leaves I cut off the plant come inside, are rinsed off with hot water, and rubbed clean, then cut into squares and bagged for freezing.
A 1 gallon bag full of the produce of a diseased plant. Acting sooner rather than later alows me to still get healthful food from the plant, and continue to harvest healthy produce through the end of the year. 7月8日 PICTURES ARE BACKSo! I have this friend that totally lent me a camera so I can start documenting things again. Guess what, I'm so excited that you get a...
PHOTO DUMP!!
I'm going to come back to this as I have time and put descriptives for each. *song* Gimme just a littlemore time! */song*
OK, now I'm baking a cake, so I totally have time now. Here goes...
The large leaves are the amarynth. These will be my grains, if all goes well!
Hey, asparagus is really neat looking.
hand full of harvested basil.
Beans growing up a "recycled" (really a mouse ate my tent) tent frame. Carrots and banana peppers behind, plus parsley growing in a "raised bed" old tire.
Well, big floppy leaves are not a good sign.
See? Bugs. Lost of eggs and caterpillars for the cabbage white.
Drastic measures are necessary in the very near future.
Here's a healty medum one.
And the same one without my hand in the shot.
Here's a healthy large one.
There's the whole bed of them. The unhealthy one is the one in the front on the right.
Here's the ones in the back yard that have newspaper mulch under them. They have healthier peripheral leaves than the ones without the mulch.
OK, I love this sequence:
#1 - grasp
#2 - Pull
#3 - TA-DA!!
The funniest and saddest part of this is that I actually LOST this carrot. I set it down without noticing, somewhere out there in the garden. YESTERDAY. What a sad thing. That one veggie is half a meal. Two of those and I'm full.
I know, if you're not a gardener, you won't believe me. This is cleome. Not even a distant relative of the plant which made the leaf pattern famous.
Aw, that cucumber is on the ground.
These ones are not on the ground.
Look at how huge the jarusalem artichokes got! They really aren't a privacy screen, though. They keep falling over and going crash.
I ATE the one on the left. Yummy! (paradise island cos)
A whole row of paradise island cos, with the oats that sprouted from the horse manure my friend gave me.
mystery shrooms, yet again. There seems to be a different species for every week!
Varigated nasturnums.
Close up of my banana peppers. WOW are these sweet as candy once they go red ripe.
The newspaper mulch DOES look silly, I am not arguing at all with that. But I am not allergic to it and it does a great job of stopping the weeds.
arial view, sort of.
I put these babies in the ground only two days before this shot was taken!
Here's a close up of a brandy new radish seedling.
First lectuce to bolt. This kind is really bitter compaired to the paradise island cos my friend gave me seeds for.
In all of that is a saskatoon bush youngling. It gave me a cluster of fruit its very first year. They both seem to like being surrounded by the volunteer tomatoes and whatnot, so I'm leaving them as is and keeping a close eye on thier progress.
These are brandywine tomatoes. Notice the difference here and the next shots for fruit production. Two weeks, and paranoid protection really makes a difference. The plant below had a round plastic pan proped over a 3 gal jug of water, and at night I put a 55 gal white plastic barrel over the whole deal. Here you see the outcome:
Yummy darlings! These are heirloom yellow pear tomatos.
Tomato row, my it's going nuts.
Daylilly in the Wormwood hedge. Look at how cute that is! Now I'm going to have to do that on purpose.
And again the wormwood. They are really true privacy hedges now. I'm trying to extend the hedge across my back yard. They have done wonders for detering the bugs from my roses when I put a branch at the base of the plant, the branches make great mulch, that also chases the bad bugs, you can lay branches across your compost and it keeps the wilder creatures from digging in it most of the time, and as an added bonus, in tea it has a mild euphoric effect, and in lower doses can aide stomach pain. Once mature, they seed with some ease, but not in too much density. I get about ten new seedlings a year in various places around the yard. 7月5日 Second swing planting seedsToday I planted a seed mix of:
carrots
radishes (2 packs, jumbo red and hierloom chinese type called watermellon radish)
I've read good things about mixing a 2-1 ratio of radish and carrot seeds because the carrot seeds are very small, and slow to sprout, so the radish seeds serve to thin the distribution of carrot seeds, and to mark the rows. I understand from what I read that the radish are ready to pick before they even interfere with the carrots. Carrots are very VERY slow to germinate. Radishes are very fast. I am so much enjoying having carrots in the ground that I need more of them.
I placed a screen over the planting area to protect the sprouting seeds from the voracious birds.
Over the next few day I would like to try to get some second swing plantings in. I purchased seeds for kolrhabi, broccoli and brussel sprouts. This should be about the right time to plant fall crops, but I'm really not sure since I've never tried to plant for an additional fall crop before. It's a good time to get seeds, anyways, since they are all 40% off starting on the fourth of july weekend.
I also picked up some seeds for oriental poppies, and for white swan echenacea (cone flower) for my flower plot.
Two of my sunflowers are blooming. 6月26日 Cucmber developmentMy cucumber fruits are about four inches long. I should have cucumbers in a few days, maybe next week, I would think! 6月25日 Garden status - rasperries and echinaceaYesterday my first Echinacea flower went into full bloom, and the Raspberries are in full fruiting now.
Also, I am thinning the carrots in a slow manner to allow getting more produce from the thinning process, and those carrots are now about as big as my pinky, and meaty delicious.
I've been coming home extra tired the last few days. Not sure why. Maybe some extra protien would help. 6月21日 Garden to do's updateI finished # 2 and 3 three below, and I have a headache because I am not used to being able to put my hair up in a pony tail. It is getting longer, but still the pony tail doesn't quite hold all the hair up.
Sorry, but that's all I have time for saying right now. ^_^
Oh, yeah, except that a friend did take some pictures of my garden yesterday, and will send me some of said photos, so I am happy to say there might be a couple pictures to show in the near future. 6月17日 Asparagus weedingWell, it turns out that I value my yard being private to the point that I will sacrifice valuable square footage to create shelter from the views of the nieghbors. My hedge of choice is wormwood. The back yard is mostly surrounded by it. I am verymuch considering completing the surround. The jarusalem artichoke were intended to act as privacy barriers, however they do not gain thier full stature quickly enough to be privacy screens. Thusly I am considering others that may act in thier stead. Actually, the saskatoons will probably do that job rather nicely in a few years, so I should just stop worrying about it and wait. What a novel idea.
Today I weeded the asparagus patch very thoroughly, lent the rototiller to James with no urgency for getting it back. My small spaces are not rototiller friendly anymore, so I don't much use it. This year it's going to much better use in the hands of various others. I spread some more mulch, I need to put a sub-path between the saskatoon tree-lets if I'm to be able to weed and access that area with any amount of convenience in the near future. I put some chip mulch over the front edge of the car-side garden plot, and the pile that is living where I usually park is very likely soon to be gone.
To do:
1. Put path between saskatoons
2. extend rock path next to the bench arbor
3. kill the emergent poisin ivy shrub on the cliff egde path
4. set the stairs up the side yard slope and double dig the blanched area
5. Get the scrap lumber I need from dad's to install an english ivy barrier between my yard and John's
So, that's the short list. There are things I'm missing, I know it. But it's a start.
A long-term goal for the next year or two is to create a "weeding free" garden. Let me explain, because I know you say "that's impossible" and you are correct, but an alternative term would be all together too long and descriptive for conveince. I would like to grow a living mulch over most surfaces of my garden. The areas that I spend the most time weeding are the less established plots. Isn't that true for you, too? Example, the strawberry patch has filled in, this year I've pulled a total of maybe 15 weeds from that 36 square feet. Other, less established areas require hours of weeding, and take up the majority of my time. So there's ground cover, but I wish to take it a step further. I am planning to slowly create areas of ground cover that have bottomless gallon+ pots pressed in, where the ground cover can be trimmed back so as not to climb in. These spaces will be where the produce plants go. I am trying this on a small scale with squash this year in the retainer wall. If it works, then I am really on to something. If not, it will have been worth trying, and I'll have lots of groundcover plants to divide and sell. It's kind of win-win. 6月16日 Irises + humidity = badA note for reference for anyone who lives in a humid climate and is considering "everblooming" irses. Don't bother. The humidity causes the petals to adhere to one another before blooming, and the partially opened bud simply rots instead of opening. Just thought I'd point that out. The last two weeks worth of "reblooming" blue irises that started later than the rest were a complete bust for blooming. I got two blooms, then the himidity set in and the rest were victim to the muggy weather. I will have to watch if the later bloom is a function of this cultivar. It is possible it just decided to start later than the others due to transplant shock.
Note to self: check on this next year. Raining on a Sunny Day!That is exactly what it did today. It rained while the sun was shining. Quite incredible.
My Stella-de-oro lillies bloomed today. I always call them Pack-a-Dilly Lillies, and I have no idea why. For the longest time I did not know the real name and evenutally I had to look it up. It's a great name, though, and I will always keep it. It's probably something I picked up as a little girl.
I also moved some stones today to correct the placement of the mow path between my neighbor's yard and my garden. The jerusalem artichoke is about waist high, and I weeded it again today. They are next to the mow path, by the way.
Yesterday I spread a few new seeds in the lettuce bed with hopes to continue the romaine harvest all through the year.
Mulching with newspaper held down with medium sized stones from around the garden is working out really well. It looks a little silly, but so do weeds, so I'll take it. I did an experiment with fertilizer and mulch. On the house-side of the pepper patch I just put down the newspaper mulch, on the street-side of the pepper patch I sprinkled a little organic slow release fertilizer before putting down the mulch. I place the newspaper about 1 folded section thick at a time. So section A is folded in the square such as you would see it sitting on the coffee table. Then a rock or two is placed on it to hold it down. I'm figuring to leave the newspaper down all into the winter to discourage seeds, then I'll just dig it in since it will be rather well deteriorated by then.
As previously noted, the camera is quit, so for now there are not photos of garden progress. I am saddened by this, however this soon will change. Patients, please. 6月14日 Nice rainy dayIt's the kind of rainy day where you spend part of it getting rained on, and enjoy the whole bit.
I'm afraid we will be short on pictures here for at least a little while since my camera has decided to keep my camera card, and the UBS port has never worked right. My friend has taken the camera and is going to try to get it out. I asked for a new camera for my birthday, which is less than a month away.
So, my garden performed a miracle today... the tenth one of ten asparagus roots I bought that were all dried out in the bag sprouted today!!! 100% germination on something I thought I'd be lucky to get even 20-30%! Of course, I will need to treat these as first year roots instead of two year since only a small portion of the buds on each remained viable. Now it is time to start mulching them in, definitely. I started with very thick newspaper for weed barrier between each, and on the sides. Peat moss will cover it next.
My Amarynth sprouted. I have high hopes of growing my own grain this year, though it will certainly be challenging, I'm sure. Still, it is very exciting. I did find a company that sells hand crank grain mills, one is as low as $40, so if the grain harvest is a sucess, then I will be purchasing that. I read that you should grind the grain per serving because it keeps better in whole grain form.
The red finch pair that showed up a couple days ago brought the whole family to the bird feeder today. It is so cute and exciting. 6月8日 Summer comes suddenlyLast week we had highs in the sixtys and seventies. This week our highs are in the mid ninetys. I recall it doing this last year, as well. It is quite alot to adjust to. I got next to nothing done this weekend, or at least it sure feels that way. I did get several fans scrubbed out and installed, and my dad came over and helped me put in the AC in my bedroom. Dispite my allergy shots, I am once again completely miserable this season, and I developed a very nasty nose bleed from blowing my nose so much the past few days. I think I will be taking it a little bit easy over the next few days. Weeding and watering will be about the extent of it.
Turns out I probably can't mulch with grass clippings because I have a severe reaction to the mold that grows on decomposing grass.
I will need to inform my neighbor of this so he will not be giving me grass clippings anymore. I guess I'll just have to be mulching with more horse manure from my friend's farm. In the meantime, well, I'll just suffer intill I can cover the grass clippings over with something else. I will post the question of mulching in my question photo database. If anyone reading this has a tried and true mulching method, please comment with it so I can find something I'm not allergic to. The newspaper will work for now, in the meantime.
I have great asparagus news. All of the asparagus I planted has now sprouted!!! This is quite incredible since I got the purple passion asparagus plants from Walmart and the roots were all dried out. I guess now that they are all sprouting I should be able to start back filling the trench pretty soon. 6月2日 Garden Growth photosWell, I didn't get a whole lot done this weekend because I went to moraine state park and biked Sunday, and Saturday I did ALOT of laundry, and cleaned the house, which really needs it of course because I'm a gardener. So instead of progress updates, I'll give you pictures of the current stages of growth here in the outdoors in Pittsburgh.
It's that yummy sweet time of year! Look, strawberries!
Still a small harvest. I usually don't have left overs.
I started a new patch up on the retainer wall, in a few years it will be going nuts, too.
Here is a row of cabbage. I planted nasturnums this year around them (still in tiny seedling form) to deter the caterpillars.
Here is a row of tomatoes with a cabbage in front. There are still a couple stray jugs there because my storage on them is maxed out at the moment and they at least don't blow away inside the little fenced section.
Here we have baby carrots coming up and greening out.
The lettuce is getting big enough to eat. I had a dainty salad today with the larger leaves that were there.
The house leeks, also known as chicks 'n hens, are at thier most colorful.
And the banana peppers are doing great. All the juice jugs came off on Friday and only one was lost, because it over heated. I could have stood to take the jugs off a few days earlier. 17 out of 18 are some great odds for early planting! Also, I put grass clippings from my neighbor on top of them. So everybody is doing great here! Hooray!! 5月20日 Yesterday's Garden PhotosHere is what's going on in my yard as of yesterday...
The purple passion asparagus is doing well in its first year. In keeping with the rules of the plant, there is no harvest this year, and they are looking pretty and ferny.
The comfrey is in bloom and looking rather stately. It is invasive so I keep in the small area of my garden that is completely surrounded by sidewalk. It speeds up composting, adds nitrogen to soil and increases the rate of healing for any injuries.
Here inside my small fenced in area we have red cabbages (variety Ruby) and cucumbers (burpless). The cucumbers will climb the north facing side of the fence. Out of view, but also inside the fence are the tomatoes.
The elders are very happy, and budding. After almost five years right up against the fence, they finally decided that it was safe to pass under the fence. Funny friends.
Today I finally decided, based on research, which green growing things were weeds, and which were the Sunchokes. This patch of earth is looking much better for it.
Out for the benefit of the sun, rain (and lots of it recently) and wind, we have the dynamic duo of lemon verbena and stevia "sweet leaf" on the patio.
Squash is back in my garden after a two year vacation. I hope the squash bug is gone, but only time will tell. Varieties this year are Bon Bon Hybrid, Vegitable Spaghetti and Trombolino.
The strawberries responded well to thinning, airation and fertilizer this year. I already have small green friuts. Even the new addion of everbearing berries are starting to show production! This is my first year starting this great freezing green from seed. Dispite thinly sowing with year old seeds, they still came up in abundance. This little friend made the move to less cramped quarters today. Red and Green Romaine are under screen and wire mesh frames. The red romaine volunteered and I am so glad because it is delicious. I had a very dainty salad today from this bunch. 5月17日 Freedom Gardens RevolutionI am a freedom gardener and you can be too! I am very excited to find like minded people speaking out about thier beliefs for a better tomorrow. |
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