organic a natural home
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garden journal ARCHIVEWow! that's a big pile of ...November 20, 2001 Walked out in the yard early yesterday morning with my giant German Shepherd dog Tomo at my side. He's a big, big guy. There is nothing little about him. It was a cool morning, maybe 50 degrees, I had a nice mug of hot coffee, the sun was breaking through the November sky... just a great day to be alive. Everything seemed right with the world. The war in Afghanistan felt far, far away, the sputtering economy seemed more a headline than a happening... when all of a sudden I took a step and found myself standing in a huge, steaming pile of... well, organic matter, shall we say. I stared down at the pile surrounding my feet and couldn't help but admire the sheer size of it. Maybe its a guy thing but I thought to myself, "Wow, that's one BIG pile of ..." well, you get the picture. Its rich dark brown color was something to behold and soon I was enveloped in its heady organic aroma. I stood and contemplated that pile for some time and then I did what most anyone who found themself in that position would do. I got my fork and dug right in. It took me about half an hour to finish, because as I said this pile was BIG but I felt a deep satisfaction when I was done... ...moving that compost from one bin to the next. Yep the compost pile is a thing of beauty right now. ;) It's going at well over a hundred degrees, its full of worms and we have all the neighbors collecting leaves for us. Dave from across the street brought over about a yard and a half of walnut and maple leaves just yesterday. The Halloween pumpkins are completely gone already and we can't seem to add material fast enough. Those little microorganisms are going to town. It is indeed the Year of the Compost Pile. We've finished harvesting the pecans and it looks like our biggest year ever. I heard on the news that there is a bumper crop of pecans this year and judging by our harvest, its true. We're getting good yields of bok choy, mustard greens and lettuce and have planted more radishes, cabbage, fennel and garlic. We have over 250 head of garlic in the ground now. The snow peas are about a foot high and we have a good 25-30 strong plants that managed to survive the ravaging chickadees. For being such cute little guys those chickadees do some serious damage to peas. We finally took out the last jalapeno pepper plants and the anaheims too. The garden has taken on the look of winter but its still surprisingly lush. The kiwis and strawberries are spreading like crazy and we should get fruit on both next year. Our friend Catherine (who gave us many, many seeds last year) has given us a wonderful tool shed that she and Michael were going to get rid of. We're in the process of refurbishing and painting it. When we're done, it will go right next to the composter and we'll finally have a convenient place to store our growing collection of tools. Thanks so much Catherine. — Dave shelter from the stormOctober 24, 2001 Its been a tumultuous month. Not in the garden... in life. So much going on... it makes me appreciate the quiet solitude, the hard work, the first appearance of the garlic shoots, the organic fragrance of rich compost... everything about our garden, much, much more. It really is a kind of paradise for us. The garlic is coming up right now. There are new shoots everyday. It's strange to me that they don't all come up at once because they were all planted the same day... but for some reason they just don't. The first shoots emerged more than two weeks ago and are a good 6 inches high already. The garlic is now about 65% sprouted. This gradual sprouting kind of freaked me out last year when some of the plants emerged more than 2 MONTHS after the first but I'm OK with it now. I did notice however that the cloves that we grew ourselves and then planted this year were the first to come up by at least three days. So we will definitely save more of our own to plant next year. They just seem more robust then the seed garlic from the nursery. Our Chioggia Italian beets came up fabulously and then were destroyed by birds. Only a few plants survived. The little finches (I think they're finches) love beet seedlings. One day the beet bed was full the next it was simply shredded and the few remaining leaves were all badly damaged with perfect v-shaped cuts all around. Many of the seedlings were uprooted completely. I replanted the beets and then covered the bed with a chickenwire screen. That should do the trick. Some other plants suffered bird damage too. Half the fennel, most of the carrots and nearly all of Diana's sweetpeas are gone and the snow peas have significant damage also. Last year we got around the bird problem with the snow peas by simply planting so many seeds that the birds just couldn't eat them all. That strategy eventually worked because after the plants get about 6 inches tall the birds leave them alone. Unfortunately fennel, carrots and sweetpeas seem to be more tender and they're basically gone. I replanted all three this week. Elsewhere in the garden... the mustard greens and bok choi are doing great and we've thinned both of them twice already. We've started harvesting radishes and lettuce and should have salads all winter. Eggplant just keeps on coming (we had some for dinner tonight) as do the jalapenos. Cabbage plants are about 3-4 inches tall and looking pretty good. They suffered some bird damage too but seem to be surviving. I'm hoping for cabbage by St. Patty's Day. The strawberry plants and kiwis are growing like weeds. We should have fruit on both next year. Diana's herbs and flowers look amazing. We have morninglories blooming everywhere, her sunflowers are 4 feet tall and getting ready to open, there's 3-4 kinds of lavender blooming... parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme... its all good. Yep, the garden is our paradise. — Dave and now for some good newsSeptember 26, 2001 Autumn has arrived! The Autumnal Equinox occurred here in California on September 22nd and despite our fairly warm days, there is a distinct chilly edge in the air. Leaves have started to fall and the focus of the garden is shifting. In a typical year I might be little melancholy at the arrival of fall but this year I'm happy to welcome her. Our disappointing summer is giving way to a new optimism for the winter growing season. I think in light of the recent events we can all use a little optimism. I used to see winter as a quiet time in the garden but Diana has taught me that the winter can be just as busy as summer, if not more. Composting is well underway. We're turning the piles every two weeks and already the bacteria are hard at work. By the time the bulk of the leaves arrive we should have plenty of hungry microorganisms ready to work and propagate. Not only are we preparing for next spring but we are also planting at full speed. The past three weeks have been spent preparing the beds for planting and lots of seeds went in last weekend. Lettuce, bok choi, mustard greens, beets, snow peas and sweetpeas (Di needs her flowers) were all sown on Sunday. Incredibly, the lettuce and beets have ALREADY sprouted! We got .33 inches of rain Monday afternoon and evening, the first of the season, and that fortuitous soaking combined with warm nights and mild days made our seeds bust out! The lettuce actually sprouted YESTERDAY, a mere 48 hours after they were sown! Amazing! The first seedlings were not supposed to break ground for at least another 2-5 days. The whole garden is surprisingly green right now. Morning glories and nasturtiums are growing everywhere and there are several sunflowers nearing two feet tall. All of these self-seeded from the plants we had earlier this year. Now these are the kind of weeds I can live with. This weekend we will plant the garlic, onions, shallots, carrots, radishes, cabbage and this year's experiment... fennel. We tried eating fennel for the first time this year and really enjoyed it. We ate it raw in salads, stir-fried it, and roasted it on the BBQ in shish kabobs. It's taste is hard to describe, and a little goes a long way but its a nice addition to a lot of dishes. And they're kind of neat looking too. We'll see how they do. We'll be planting more hardneck garlics this year. They grew very, very well last year even though they're not supposed to here in California. We love their intense flavor, their beautiful curly flower stalks and their semi-exotic scarcity in the markets. Considering how much fresh garlic we eat, we definitely should suffer no circulatory ailments in our house. =) year of the compost pileAugust 26, 2001 We took out the remaining corn stalks and most of the tomatoes and okra. Fall is coming and we're getting ready. 2002 will be the year of the compost pile. Sounds weird I know, but last year we didn't have enough and we ran out. That is not going to happen next year. One of the three bins in the composter is already full and I've asked the neighbors for their 'soon to be falling' leaves which they are more than happy to be rid of. I'll ask Rick and Kathy for some horse manure and Brian and Greg for some chicken manure. Now there's an odd couple of requests. "Hey guys can I have a couple wheelbarrows of your horse and chicken shit? Who's going to say no to that? About the only things left in the garden now are Di's flowers, some swiss chard, a few tomatoes, some eggplant (which oddly seem to be experiencing a late summer resurgence) and the herbs. There are morning glories and nasturtiums sprouting all over the garden like weeds, and even some sunflowers too. It's great, those are the kinds of weeds I can live with. I'm hoping maybe they will outcompete the regular weeds. Di has taught me to recognize the seedlings when they're still very small so I won't pull them. It's pretty convenient to be married to a horticulturist when you're a gardener. Activity in the garden never ceases even as the main season winds down. We spent the weekend preparing some beds for peas and lettuce. Those will go in the ground in September along with celantro, and then the garlic and onions at the end of October. Because of our success with growing hardneck garlic last year (german red, spanish red and korean red), we will be concentrating on those varieties with less emphasis on softnecks. The hardnecks are very interesting and difficult to find in the market compared to the more available softnecks. The flavors seem quite intense and the heads are just so darn beautiful. Because of our difficulties with the tomatoes this year we will be trying out some underground watering bottles next year. You simply bury a large plastic bottle with a few nail holes in the bottom of it near your tomato plants then instead of watering the surface ground you fill the bottle and the water gradually seeps out of it right near the roots of the plants. More water-wise and supposedly a very effective way to water tomatoes because you know fairly precisely how much water each plant gets. That is normally difficult to gauge with surface watering. Also you can add some organic feed to the water with very little waste. We'll see how it works. The days are definitely getting shorter and the sun is moving noticeably northward so fall can't be far off. I hate to see the summer ending but I'm ready to say goodbye to a rather disappointing growing season. this fall and winter we will work very hard to get the soil in great shape and hope for more normal weather next year. Viva La Composte! winding down earlyAugust 17, 2001 The garden is winding down early this year. The plants have that tired look and many of them are bolting early. Tomato harvest is already tapering off compared to last year when it ran deep into September. It has to be the unusually mild summer we've had. It's mid-August and the nights are still going down into the 50s. Our crops just don't like that. I'm not even sure we've had 7 days over 100 degrees yet this year. In 1988 we had 41 century-mark days. We've downgraded our crop estimates yet again, now from "below average" we've dropped to "disappointing". Cucumbers won't ripen. Tassles on the corn developed long before the ears got to half their normal size. Pumpkins are undersized. Eggplant are getting rounder and rounder which usually indicates the plants are getting old. The okra harvest was OK but definitely below normal and the plants are not flowering much anymore. A nice surprise this year however has been the pomegranite tree. It has grown incredibly from a little stick last year to a thriving branching beast. It has at least 5 fruits on it and we're actively trying to shape it. We were not expecting any fruit at all until at least next year. A pleasant surprise. Time to order next years seed and get the cover crops ready to go. Peas and lettuce will probably go in next month and garlic and onions the month after that. Also we will concentrate on making LOTS of compost this year. Last fall we didn't collect enough leaves and we ran out of compost. That won't happen this year because I'm going leaf hunting. I'm going to get leaves from all the neighbors and some manure from Rick and Kathy's livestock. We already have a lot of organic matter and once we take out the remaining crops we'll have a good start. It's been a learning year. Weird weather, wicked aphids, disappointing yields but still it's been grand. We love our garden strange daysJuly 24, 2001 The average high temperature last week was 84. This is Carmichael for goodness sake! It's supposed to be 100 degrees everyday in July! Nights are getting down into the high 50s. We haven't hit 100 degrees since July 7. It's very pleasant weather but I want my crops! Our poor garden doesn't know whether to grow or hibernate. Every gardener I know says harvests are down for nearly everything except hot peppers like jalapenos. But even then, because the weather is so cool, the peppers have very little fire. It's been a strange year, rather disappointing. We've downgraded our crop estimates yet again from "good year" to "below average". There is an outbreak of tomato blight in the central valley this year. The leaves on everyones tomatoes are drying up. Oddly enough the plants are still covered with fruit. We may need to hold off planting tomatoes for a year to cleanse the soil. That's a very sad notion. The okra harvest is in full swing and the first set of corn is nearly ready. Even the corn seems less sweet than last year. Not enough heat. Corn doesn't like cool nights. Cucumber harvest is slow. Eggplant is about normal. Hot peppers are very productive but not hot. Other peppers like anaheims and bells are very slow. The pepper plants barely grow at all without hot days. Even squash and zucchini production is slow, which as anyone who has ever grown squash knows... thats weird. The one shining bright spot in the garden is the strawberry patch. The strawberries are sending out runners in every direction and the patch is getting quite full. Next year should be outstanding for berries. Oh and of course Di's flowers... they are busting out all over. The morning glories are covering two fences, the cosmos are finally budding, the sunflowers have heads more than a foot across... the garden is simply full of flowers. We've started planning for next year and will begin ordering our seed garlic and onions soon. Also we're beginning to look at different cover crops to try this winter. We'll plant our usual winter lettuce and snow peas but I might try some hairy vetch and other covers to see how they do. The garden is a continual work in progress... a series of successes and setbacks but we love it and its very rewarding. expanding the harvestJune 25, 2001 The harvest is gradually expanding. Okra is a steady daily item. Tomatoes are slowly ripening. Eggplant are nearly daily picks. But despite the great weather we've been having there has been no onslaught of produce. We're hopeful, but we've downgraded our "bumper-crop" optimism from earlier in the season to "good-year" level. The asparagus bean vines are well beyond 7 feet tall and have finally begun to flower. The blossoms are very large, light purple things and are becoming plentiful. One of the tomato plants (the green zebra) may have contracted blight and as a precaution we're going to remove it. Unfortunate because it is loaded with immature fruit right now. I think I'll try pickling them because they're small and very very firm, perfect for pickling. Luckily the green zebra plant is isolated from the other tomatoes. We removed one of the pickling cucumber plants because it was beginning to compete with the Armenian cukes and the Armenians taste much better. The pickling cucumbers have been a strange disappointment. Generally they are sweet and crisp but this crop is remarkably bitter. We have not been able to eat any of them. We haven't given up on them entirely yet, but we're close. Luckily the Armenians are delicious and plentiful! The greens are doing great. Bok choi, mustard, Swiss chard all are very productive now. The first set of corn is showing tassles and ear buds. The late sets of tomatoes look very, very good so hopefully we will have a good crop of fall tomatoes. Another slight disappointment has been the zucchini and summer squashes. We planted them outside the fence this year in relatively unamended soil. What a difference a wheelbarrow of compost makes. Compared to the plants growing in soil we've heavily enriched with compost for three years, the plants outside the fence are struggling. The unamended soil doesn't seem to hold moisture well at all and the plants get dry very quickly. Visually the garden looks fantastic. Di's flowers in and around the vegetables are simply outstanding and my clear favorites are the purple morning glories which blanket the fence. The color is incredible and the fact they were Di's Grandmother's favorites makes them that much more special. We definitely will have more of those next year. The giant sunflowers are certainly the most eyecatching overall and they are just now starting to open. The garden is awash in color like never before and I believe they are helping significantly with pest control. Our pest problems, particularly aphids which love okra, are much less this year with brightly blooming marigolds all about. The small number of aphids may be partially due to the fact we've also stopped controlling ants which Di told me prey on aphids and won't bother my plants at all. At any rate pest damage seems less this year. Oh almost forgot! The strawberries! The strawberries are doing great. All 19 transplants survived even though we had to transplant them during a very hot week. Amost all are sending out runners and many of the runners have already rooted. We're getting a few berries a day but you have pick them quick before the birds get them. Nothing beats a nice sweet berry straight off the vine. keeping busyJune 8, 2001 It's been a very busy two weeks. Most notably we lost a large portion of the softneck garlic crop. It seems that we may have harvested the softnecks 2-3 weeks late and many of them got overgrown. The heads were absolutely spectacular when we unearthed them but as they dried down they began to split open indicating that there were not enough leaves left to make sufficent skins. As the heads split open a brown mold developed which discolored nearly all the softnecks. We ended up with only about 15 heads out of 120. A big disappointment after all the work we did but a good lesson learned for next year. We'll start pulling test heads at the end of April next year or even perhaps as early as April 15. Interestingly our garlic harvest was saved by the hardnecks, the Korean, German and Spanish red hardnecks look grand. We've already been eating the Koreans which we harvested first and the flavor is outstanding. The cloves are very symmetrical and a gorgeous purple-red color. Hardnecks are not supposed to grow well in California because of our mild winters but ours did very, very well. Supposedly the shelf life of hardnecks is shorter than softnecks but we left the flower stalks on until harvest which should make them last longer. We harvested the red onions last weekend. The size varies quite a bit from hamburger size to tennis ball size and I couldn't discern any pattern or apparent reason for the differences. Next year we will grow yellow onions instead of red. We also did the last of the big plantings for the season last weekend. A final third set of corn went in and it's sprouting already. We transplanted Clemson spineless okra starts into the vacated onion bed and more tomatoes into the open beet bed. We now have a total of 10 tomato plants. The beefsteaks (Big Pick) are about half a pound now and starting to blush yellow. The plant itself is more than 5 feet tall. The Better Boys, Mr. Stripeys and Green Zebras all are covered with fruits. All of our new tomatoes were volunteer plants so we are unsure of the varieties but two appear to be heirloom Brandywines, one looks like a Green Zebra and two others we have no idea, it'll be a surprise! We planted more celantro and another set of green onions. One current set of celantro is bolting and another is about 3 inches high. It seems if we plant onions and celantro every 3 weeks we have a continuous supply. We enjoyed our first eggplant and zucchini of the year this week, and also bok choi, mustard greens, swiss chard and osaka purple mustard greens. We stir fry the greens all together with a few cloves of garlic and it makes a beautiful and delicious "hot salad". The harvest is beginning! The crop list now looks like this... On the flower front, Diana has planted the empty garlic bed, 64 square feet, entirely with flowers. They are already sprouting all over. From Coneflowers to Nasturtiums. It should be spectacular. Several of Di's sunflower plants are three feet high already with leaves bigger than dinner plates and her morning glory vines are spreading all over the fence. This time of year is absolutely the best. The garden changes every single day. The weeds are all under control. We water, feed, sit back and watch it grow. Then we eat! Garlic!May 29, 2001 Most of the garlic is in! We harvested the Italian Red, Inchelium Red and Elephant garlics last weekand the Korean reds yesterday. They look terrific. About 120 heads total. The whole yard smells of fresh garlic. We made bundles of 13 heads and hung them under the patio roof with hemp twine. They are hardening off nicely and we should be able to start braiding the softnecks next week. Only the German Reds and Spanish Reds are still in the ground. They seem to be a little slower as their flower stalks have only just started to curl. Diana has been working very diligently on the areas surrounding the beds. We have a wide array of perennial flowers in and around the garden now as companion plants to help deter pests. Marigolds, cosmos, morning glorys and many and varied herbs. It may be working too. Pests have been pretty light this year so far. We had some white flies for awhile but some ivory soap in water took care of that. The mustard greens, bok choi, Swiss chard, asparagus beans and new green onion sets are all doing fine in fact we're already harvesting green onions and will begin thinning the greens this week. We planted more lettuce, celantro and onions too. We will continue to plant celantro and onions every few weeks to ensure a continuous supply. The hard neck garlics have developed their characteristic curled flower stalks. They look just great and the ground around the garlic plants is beginning to raise up and crack just like last year when the cloves started forming... a very encouraging sight. The garlic stalks also are beginning to narrow, another sign the cloves are shaping up. We'll probably begin reducing water soon. Speaking of alliums... the onions and shallots are also beginning to bulb. We had to pull an onion because of bad placement and it was the size of a tennis ball. We transplanted some volunteer tomatoes into some open beds and they are flourishing. Also we added some Clemson spineless okra to the Cajun Delights already in progress. The arugula will be taken out this week and will be replaced with some red leaf lettuce. We just can't eat arugula. It has such a strong flavor that it overwhelms a salad. It's got a wonderful meaty texture but the flavor is too much. Oh! Almost forgot... the strawberries are all doing fine. They are covered with new leaves and are looking great. We were pretty worried for a while because they looked very heat stressed after the transplant but Di saved 'em as she usually does and they're doing fine. mmm... can't wait for fresh strawberries. The heat is on!May 18, 2001 Wow more than two weeks since we updated the journal. Which is not to say that things in the garden have not been happening! The new organic corn is up. Germination rate was a little disappointing but we planted enough overage to fill the bed. We planted another set of corn last Sunday. We did this a bit more densely to ensure good coverage. Diana has been working very diligently on the areas surrounding the beds. We have a wide array of perennial flowers in and around the garden now as companion plants to help deter pests. Marigolds, cosmos, morning glorys and many and varied herbs. It may be working too. Pests have been pretty light this year so far. We had some white flies for awhile but some ivory soap in water took care of that. The mustard greens, bok choi, Swiss chard, asparagus beans and new green onion sets are all doing fine in fact we're already harvesting green onions and will begin thinning the greens this week. We planted more lettuce, celantro and onions too. We will continue to plant celantro and onions every few weeks to ensure a continuous supply. The hard neck garlics have developed their characteristic curled flower stalks. They look just great and the ground around the garlic plants is beginning to raise up and crack just like last year when the cloves started forming... a very encouraging sight. The garlic stalks also are beginning to narrow, another sign the cloves are shaping up. We'll probably begin reducing water soon. Speaking of alliums... the onions and shallots are also beginning to bulb. We had to pull an onion because of bad placement and it was the size of a tennis ball. We transplanted some volunteer tomatoes into some open beds and they are flourishing. Also we added some Clemson spineless okra to the Cajun Delights already in progress. The arugula will be taken out this week and will be replaced with some red leaf lettuce. We just can't eat arugula. It has such a strong flavor that it overwhelms a salad. It's got a wonderful meaty texture but the flavor is too much. Oh! Almost forgot... the strawberries are all doing fine. They are covered with new leaves and are looking great. We were pretty worried for a while because they looked very heat stressed after the transplant but Di saved 'em as she usually does and they're doing fine. mmm... can't wait for fresh strawberries. I love spring!April 30, 2001 In response to our concerns about genetically engineered corn we decided to dig up the corn seedlings and replant with organic (non-GMO) seed. This was a bit of a setback but one we felt was worthwhile. So two weeks of growth was lost but now we feel much better about our corn crop. The organic seed looks less uniform than the non-organic but frankly, that is rather reassuring. The warm soil will probably give us faster germination anyway, so we are not concerned about the lost two weeks. Saturday was a busy day. We dug and prepared a new 36x2 bed for strawberries along the garden fence. Jim & Jack gave us some berry pants that they got from Don & Mimi. The plants have been in Carmichael for more than three years now and are very adapted to the area. We had to transplant them on a rather warm day so they got a bit stressed but they were looking much better this morning. We should have a productive 'hedge' of strawberries in just a few weeks. Along with the new corn and strawberries, we also planted beets, mustard greens, bok choi, Swiss chard, asparagus beans and some new green onion sets. Diana also put in some more marigolds for natural pest control. They add a very nice splash of color here and there also. Growth throughout the garden is continuing at a steady, strong pace. Peppers seem a little slow but tomatoes and eggplants are flourishing, as are all the herbs. Okra, pumpkins, summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, garlic, shallots are all looking great. We spotted some white flies on one of the pumpkins and so Di will hit them with some soapy water today. This week we will start some tomato seed to get them ready for when we harvest the garlic. The garlic should be ready in about two months so we should have some strong tomato seedlings by then. I may also start some more okra to replace the onions. You can never have too much okra! harvest of hopeApril 25, 2001 I watched the PBS Special "Harvest of Fear" on NOVA last night. It was all about genetic-tampering in foods. Osten was complaining the other day that there's never any scary shows on TV. He was wrong. This was the scariest thing I've seen in a long, long time. Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) are far more prevalent in our foods then I ever feared and they've been there for the past 5 years. My fear now, is that seeds I've planted that are not specifically labelled as GM-free, may not be. Much of the seed I've used is organically produced which gives me some level of confidence but some are not or at least are not labelled that way. This is an unpleasant development. Obivously more time, effort and expense will be needed in the future to ensure the seed we plant is not genetically-modified. We can at least be glad our crops are grown without any chemical fertilizers or pesticides. With that unpleasantness out in the open, celebrating the garden is a bit more difficult, but now it is even more important. Diana and I are entertaining the idea of converting still more of our yard to organic food production. The less we need to rely on commercial food producers, the better off we'll be. Since our farming is motivated by the pursuit of health rather than the pursuit of profit our only goal will be to produce the healthiest food possible. Garden activity is continuing at a steady pace. Corn seedlings showed their little heads yesterday afternoon (seven days after sowing) and Diana pulled up half the snow pea plants. They are hanging on the composter so the big seed pods we left on the vines will dry. The snow peas will be replaced with various greens... mustard greens, bok choi, spinach and collard greens. Asparagus (yard-long) beans will be sown this weekend. Okra seedlings are showing secondary leaves, as are all the cucumbers. White summer squash and Fordhook zucchini seedlings transplanted without any problems and are growing rapidly. Diana "popped the tops" on the red onions today to help encourage bulb growth and we'll do the same for the shallots. The new crop of lettuce is growing nicely. The row nearest the north edge of the bed is experiencing some slug damage so I'm spreading some clay to block their path. Powdered clay on the walks is too dry and they can't move across it without drying up. A simple, organic barrier to a slimy pest. Diana solved our chickadee problem (they were nibbling on our tender seedlings) by hanging old CDs in and around the garden. The moving lights drive the birds crazy and we haven't had any damage since. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Another great organic solution to two problems... plastic waste and pesky birds. Di also transplanted the irises that Marie gave us. 15 beautiful plants beside the gardengate. The garden is our paradise. We sit out on our double bench in the evenings now and just relax out there. The neighbors must think we're nuts. nights are warming and everything is growing rapidly againApril 19, 2001 Lettuce planted only three days ago have already sprouted! The cucumbers seem to have survived their transplant with no ill effects and all are showing secondary leaves. Diana is going to harvest the remaining beet crop today and so we may plant the okra this afternoon. Corn went in April 17 but Tomo took a romp through that bed. Hmm... not very happy about that. The Osaka purple mustard greens are already bolting and we have yet to harvest... in retrospect I think we should have been harvesting them much smaller. Regular mustard greens are so tall that I expected the same with the Osaka Purples... this appears to be incorrect. planting continues apaceApril 16, 2001 The warm weather has returned and we are planting at full speed. We had a couple weeks of cool nights with temperatures in the high 30s which stalled the explosive growth of a few weeks ago but night-time temperatures are approaching the 50s now and we're back on track. Pumpkins and kiwis sustained minor frost damage during the cold nights but both seem to have recovered nicely. Over the Easter weekend, Japanese eggplant, Armenian cucumber, pickling cucumber and Thai pepper seedlings went in the ground along with a new planting of lettuce and more cilantro. Corn seed and okra seedlings will be planted this evening. We are using the last of our Cajun Delight Okra seed which we have been unable to find in the stores so we will be growing some seed pods this year. Cajun Delight seem much more tender than Clemson spineless with deeper green pods and less-pronounced ridges, but they are also somewhat less productive so we are planting 5 plants instead of 3. Many of the alliums are sprouting flower stalks now. Chives, shallots, red onions, and the magnificent Iriguchi garlic. Iriguchi garlic is a volunteer strain that came up this year possibly from last years Italian reds. It seems to be on a very different schedule than the cloves we planted from the Garlic Store. The initial growth was tremendous and has not let up at all. The two plants that remain are HUGE with 2.5 inch diameter stalks and they dwarf even the elephant garlics. If these prove to be good tasting we definitely plan to develope the strain, as the plants are incredible. If the clove heads are proportionate to the stalks, they will be giants. We harvested some beets yesterday and roasted them on the bar-b-que. Delicious! Even the kids loved them, so another crop will go in this week. Beets have a fairly pungent smell and the juice stains everything but they are absolutely scrumptious and you can eat the tops too. The tops are terrific in stir-fry and add a great splash of color. Snow pea harvesting is continuing also. We are still getting about a gallon of peas a week and the cool weather definitely helped. The pea plants are not showing any signs of heat stress yet although the flower numbers are beginning to decline. We finished laying in pavers in front of the composter and fixed a few sunken areas around the drain. Diana made two rock gardens for me which are a very useful addition because now I have two convenient rock dumps that are out of the way, yet easily accessible and they add a nice aesthetic trim to the composter. Overall, the garden looks grand. Di also added some more cocoa mulch all around which conserves a great deal of water and smells terrific. We are planning on planting the Fordhook zucchini and white summer squash outside the fence on mounds this year because of their sheer size. Last year they completely overwhelmed their 6' x 6' beds. Hopefully they will survive Tomo's big feet and puppy's curiosity. inspirationMarch 1, 2001 One of the best things Diana has taught me is gardening. She has given me a new appreciation for growing things, especially vegetables. It seems to me she can grow anything. She'll cut a twig or stick off of something and a few months later it's growing in our yard covered with blossoms. When we first moved into the house she bought all kinds of perennials and I must admit I was a little surprised at the cost but now that those same perennials have come up for three straight years and have looked ever more beautiful each time, I can now appreciate the initial investment. But I like to grow things I can eat! The kitchen garden page will chronicle our ever changing vegetable garden. The first couple years I pretty much just did whatever Di told me to do out there. Plant this now, put those in that bed, water these twice a week but those only once... and we were gratifyingly successful. But I've been a good student and now help plan every aspect of the garden and it is flourishing. We have crops going all year-round, an 8-cubic-yard 3-bin composter, 11 raised beds with over 400 square feet of plantable area, and rarely if ever buy any produce from the market from May through October. We grow everything from garlic to okra and with spring just around the corner we are definitely gearing up for the main season. |
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