May Day

I spent a few hours today replanting lettuce & arugula from thinnings. I'm planting them in places where beans, tomatoes, etc. will go.  I'll pull them out when I need the space. We had a ton of rain the past day and a half, the bed drained nicely.  The soil is pretty good, not too many clumps of clay to break up.  I noticed a lot of things that looked like seedlings coming up I think it's from the soil I had delivered. I noticed two marigold seedlings so I kept them. Pretty much everything else got pulled out or turned over.

I also finished making all the plant markers for the sunny bed. We have a slate patio & chunks of slate always cleave off during the winter so I break them up and write plant names on them with a paint pen.

I have all the materials for the shade bed ordered & ready to pick up at Home Depot. Steve's truck is at the dealership for maintenance so I have to wait to get it. Hopefully this afternoon we can go (I'd rather not go on a Saturday morning) we're supposed to have a few days of nice weather so I'd like to get started on it.  I think I worked out the bed scheme. It's hard not being able to go to the store & make notes. I'm not redoing the sunny bed design.  I don't like the wood and how it's holding together. We don't have access to redwood or cedar here so I used untreated fir. For the new bed I'm used galvanized corrugated sheet metal (for roofing) & building a pressure treated wood frame around it like this person:
how to: galvanized garden beds

I'm also putting trellises and hoops for a low tunnel on the bed at the same time so there were a lot of notes & calculations. (Lord help me!)

The weather in April was cooler & wetter than normal. I'm hoping it warms up a little & doesn't go straight to '80's. Fingers crossed.

Gah!

I woke up this morning: 26'F with "real feel" 19'F. Flurries all day. Normally I don't get sick of winter. I'm officially sick of winter. It's pretty though....

Dare alla Luce

Dare alla luce- to give to the light, to give birth.

Day 33 of quarantine

The store bought ginger I buried in a to-go soup container on 3/25 poked through last night. That's exciting.

Peas are coming up, I see signs of a fava bean coming up. Lettuce, arugula, chard, kale. The winter sown jugs are also starting to come to life- calendula, more lettuce, kale, one sunflower...

Tomatoes are coming along. The ones I planted in the dixie cups are doing quite well (the ones that came up-the seed was like 10 years old). The ones in the milk jug are leggy (same with the tomatillos & ground cherries). I waited too long to cut the top off. I'm trying to work it out with a fan & I'll bury them deep when transplanted. I'm out of practice.

The cucumbers, squash & melon are coming along nicely.  I biffed one of the Thelma Sanders squashes & pinched the stem by accident. I'm not sure it's going to make it so I planted another Thelma seed.

I pulled out the pots yesterday, I need to wash & sanitize them to get them ready for potting up.

It got down to 25'F last night. I brought in the basil & thyme plants that I bought at the grocery store (out of desperation) & re-potted. They seem quite happy. I covered up the rest of the pots on the deck with an old bed sheet. Everything seems to have survived.

DH gave the thumbs up for another raised bed along the south side of the deck. It will be shaded by a silver maple so I've compiled a list of what should be able to grow there-it was surprisingly quite extensive. He wants to wait until May to construct it (hoping that we'll be far enough along on the downside of the virus curve by then-fingers crossed).

I have mapped out the deck/patio/flower bed area on graph paper and am plotting to put in more raised beds there. I have only casually mentioned it as a long term aspiration to DH. I have planted the seed...

Ticks are a problem around here, I have been doing research for non-chemical controls...chickens.  I didn't even mention it to DH. We can have them here with a permit from the town, I'm not sure how it would work with the dogs, they have a very high prey drive but are well behaved. We couldn't have free range (hawks & other birds of prey would be a major issue in addition to the dogs) but maybe a large run & a chicken tractor would work. My neighbors across the street were quite excited when I told them the town allows chickens now so they are thinking about it. He's a grown up Iowa farm boy so he knows what he's doing.

I've been reacquainting myself with seed companies. It's been a few years since I have ordered seed. Most of the stuff I started this year was from saved seeds & I hit up the seed rack at the local garden store back in late February/early March for the leafy-lettucy things. I did a small order from Harris Seed (local) before things got too crazy virus-wise (melon, cucumber & winter squash). I wanted to support a local business but they didn't have much I was interested in. Crosman is also local, they've been around forever & their prices can't be beat. I need to order from them too, they are very old school & don't have anything too fancy but at least I know the stuff they sell will grow here.

I was looking around on the internet for a place to buy the Pellegrini bean & came across Great Lakes Staple Seeds. They've got a lot of good stuff. Unfortunately they aren't shipping right now because they are a two person operation and one person is helping to make ventilators with GM. So I have book marked them for the future & I looked at their reference/recommendation guide for other small seed companies & I found Fruition Seed from the Finger Lakes (!!!!!!). Swoon. I'm in love.  Local, Organic, and a lot of fancy, interesting stuff.  They didn't have the Pellegrini bean but they do have the Haudenosaunee Skunk Dry Pole Bean (!) a pre-Colombian heirloom from the indigenous people of our region. I ordered it along with a bunch of other stuff that I probably don't need. I couldn't help myself.  My pepper seeds haven't germinated (because they are older than dirt) so I will probably order pepper seedlings from them.

Dusting off the old blog...

Corona Virus Quarantine day 17

Welp....here we are. Bizzaro land. The last day in the office for DH was Friday, March 13 (he's been working at home since). We're honoring the quarantine request of Gov. Cuomo by social distancing & only going out when necessary: Grocery store, once to the hardware store and we walk the dogs twice a day in the neighborhood. Not much to do...might as well garden & blog.

I haven't been gardening much in the past few years. The trees grew too tall & shaded my old plot. Last year we took the fence out & I did a lot of container gardening on the deck & patio. A neighbor had cleaned out her garage & was selling huge ceramic pots for $1 each so I scrounged around for cash & bought 15 or so. Score!

This year for my birthday DH got me wood & dirt. He knows how to make a girl happy.  I designed & threw up a raised bed in 2 days. It was a lot of work. DH supplied the muscle. It's 16'x4'x20"- long & skinny. My one trip to the hardware store was for wood & screws. I called the local nursery & they delivered topsoil & leaf/mushroom compost.  I scrounged around in the garage & found my old pea fence & gardening bag with twine. I spaced finishing nails out every 12" & made squarefoot gardening squares with the twine & put up the pea fence.

The new bed.  You can still see the outline of the old bed up in the top left corner. (We're looking E/SE).  The flower bed is the blob in the lower left corner & the circle on the right is the peony bed that needs to be fenced or moved because it always gets clobbered by the dogs.

I have seeds of all different ages. Some of my tomato seeds are really old- I soaked those in bleach solution for 30 minutes before planting-some in the flats, some in little dixie cups, some in a milk jug.   I got out my heat mats, grow lights & seedling flats & got things started. It's a lot harder than I remember. I'm having damping off & leggy seedling issues. I found a bunch of milk cartons in the garage so I'm starting some seeds by the winter sowing method. Fingers crossed.

This is the current starting line up*
*subject to change

Started outside in the garden:
Peas
Fava Beans
Rapini
Carrot
Swiss Chard
Kale
Arugula
Lettuces:

Winter sowing:
Borage
Sunflower
Calendula
Marigold
Zinnia
Parsley
Cilantro
Mentuccia Romana
Shiso
Arugula
Rapini
Kale
Roman Chamomile

Starting inside seedling flat & heat mat:
Tuscan Kale
Basil
Corriander
Lettuce-I think this might be a bad idea
Tomatoes: Black from Tula, Champagne Cherry, Black Cherry, Stupice, Matt's Wild Cherry, Cowlick's Brandywine, JD's Special C-Tex, Tigerella.

Also: DeMilpa Tomatillo & Molly's Ground Cherry

Starting inside Dixie cups & heat mat:
Zucchini: cocozelle & Striato di Napoli
Cucumber
Squash: Thelma Saunders & Buttercup
Melon: Sugarcube
Tomatoes: Champagne Cherry, Matt's Wild Cherry, Black Cherry, Tigerella, Green Zebra, Black Zebra, Ruby's German Green, Black Krim, Purple Dog Creek, Earl's Faux

Starting in a milk jug on a heat mat (I'll pulling out all the stops):
Tomatoes: Champagne Cherry, Matt's Wild Cherry, Black Cherry, Tigerella, Green Zebra, Ruby's German Green, Black Krim, Purple Dog Creek, Earl's Faux

Yes, that's a lot of tomatoes. but since the seeds are between 6-10 years old I'll be lucky if a few of them germinate. If, by crazy luck, I have more than I need I'll put them by the curb & give them away for free to a good home.

Oh! I saw my first daffodils this morning. Things are looking up!

When I'm not gardening....

...I make stuff.  I haven't found a place to fire my pottery so I decided to take up the "fiber arts" about a year ago. It began with felting. I started a new job where I had to dress like a grown up so I bought some clothes and decided I needed to accessorize to make the outfits go further. Accessories are expensive! Felt is pretty but expensive. So I figured out via YouTube and books how to make felted things- mainly scarves. Above is a washed-out picture of a scarf I made with some silk bits (orange) and purple, green and orangey-tan wool. I really like felting but it's not something you can pick up here and there when you've got a free minute. It's a process. So....felting progressed to crocheting. I learned to crochet from my mom & grandmother when I was a kid but I had never made anything. I started fiddling with it last fall and was encoraged by a coworker to keep at it. Through the miracle of YouTube I got the hang of it and quickly progressed from scarves to blankets:

I made a bunch of blankets last spring and over the summer. I eventually put the blanket/afghan projects away for two reasons: it's too freakin' hot! and I caught wind of some summer yarn sales. I bought some   A LOT very pretty yarn (not blanket appropriate) and  I started making shawls. Why shawls?  because the AC is on full blast at the office and I had a lot of shawl appropriate yarn:

Next on my agenda is knitting. I have no idea how to knit. My grandmother tried to teach me when I was a kid but it was a disaster. I tried on my own (with YouTube of course) a few weeks ago and got very frustrated very quickly. I'm ready to try again. I was talking to my cousin this weekend and  she told me about a knitting group that meets on Mondays- all skill levels, she said it would be a great place for me to learn ( and keep her company).  She's encouraging me to learn to knit in the Continental fashion. I did a little research and it sounds like a good idea. She learned to knit Un-Continential (?) as a kid then learned Continental when she lived in Denmark. The word on the street is she's a fast knitter and pretty darned good at it. Soooo....my job this week is going to be to get some 6,7 or 8 knitting needles (hello Craft Thrift Store: all needles = $1), a ball of light colored, 4 ply yarn (I'm sure I've got something kicking around the house) and any illustrated "How to Knit" book.

Argiope aurantia

The garden was pretty much a bust this year. I scorched 90% of my tomato seedlings by accident while hardening off. The only ones to survive were the smaller ones I had planted in containers and wrapped in floating row cover:
Black Cherry, Tigerella, Matt's Wild Cherry, Coyote and/or Champagne Cherry. I ended up buying tomato and pepper plants from a nursery. I think they were traumatized from spending the hot spring in a green house. The tomatoes aren't producing at all and the peppers are pathetic. Except the Hungarian Hot Wax. They are going nuts. Serrano and Anaheim? Not so much.

It was a scorcher this summer, DH was strangely obsessed with watering the garden but the output didn't keep up with his input. Bunnies appreciated the exra water and ate the beans, edamame, peas, lettuce, chard and kale before we did.  The cucumbers did really well- Marketmore and a long, spiney Japanese variety- nice and crunchy. I'm giving them away at work, co-workers run like hell when they see me.  Zucchini are doing ok I think I was struck by the dreaded SVB but I ignored it and the plants seemed to recover. Interesting.  I planted 2 melons: supposedly a cantaloupe and a honey dew. I've got 1 melon on each vine and they look exactly the same. Not like a cantaloup or a honeydew - weird shaped greyish green things

I haven't done much with the flower beds this year. We had work done on the house and the back bed got trampled by the workers. I did rescue an oakleaf (or laceleaf- can't remember) hydrangea from someone's curbside. I dragged it home and planted it. I think it will make it.  The front bed by the mail box is pretty much on auto pilot.  I have to pull out the fennel and parsley (in their 2nd year and petering out) and replace them with something.  I also have to dig out the Spiderwort. I'm over it.

DH and I are going to start planning a new veg garden location (the current location doesn't get enough sun and is in the way of the new hockey rink). I say "we" as in the male interpretation of "we". Meaning: I will to dig out some graph paper and start plotting the whole battle plan.  I will figure out how to make the raised beds and a fence, get the lumber and cram it in my Civic. Bring it all home, borrow my brothers saw, try not to lose a limb while taking a day (or three) off of work to get it done and not have it look all jacked up. I will come up with a plan to get the new beds filled with soil. I will start the seeds and harden them off (hopefully with more sucess than this year). I'll figure out a way to get a bale of straw in the Civic. I'll get everything built, filled, planted and DH will water and eat. Teamwork. That's what it's all about.

The little lady in the picture is Argiope aurantia or black and yellow garden spider. Quite lethal looking (DH wanted to kill it immediately) but lethal only to things like mosquitoes and wasps and such. She lives by my mailbox and scares the neighborhood kids.

White Admiral!

When Iris Eyes are Smiling....

...Cheesey? Yes, but aren't they pretty?

PS: Hummingbirds have arrived! They showed up on Thursday!

Butterflies!

Saw my first Tiger Swallowtail in the yard today! This is a picture from last year. I need to get a lantana or something to tide them over until more stuff starts blooming...

...And They're Off!

I started the tomato, tomatillo, ground cherry and some pepper seeds last weekend (President's Weekend). Some of the tomatoes are up! Black Cherry, Cowlick's Brandywine, Aunt Ruby's German Green, and Pruden's Purple have poked their little green heads out of the soil. I started everything in newspaper pots with seet starting soil- 9 rows of 5. I made a map of the tray and as they come up I'm moving the little pots (very gently!) into a 2nd tray and I'm starting a new map. The pots are fragile as they have absorbed some of the water and have kind of stuck together. The 2nd tray is put under a shop light. I have the timer set to go on at 7am and go off at 9:30pm. I might adjust the time, I can't remember how long I'm supposed to keep the light on. I also have a fan in the room, I haven't turned it on yet but I probably will before too long to keep the air moving in the room.

I think I'm going to start my Romanesco broccoli today. I tried it last year but just got leaves then it bolted. I'll try again. I think maybe last year I started it too late and it bolted in the heat before it could head. I have some old Organic Gardening magizines from the late 70's that give month by month tips on when to start seeds/garden chores. I'll check to see what I should be doing for February.

The picture above is one of my favorites from last year's garden. It's a new leaf from a lemon cucumber plant in my garden. I fiddled with the settings of the camera for about a week until I was able to get really good macro pictures. Each picture takes up a ton of space on the camera but the pictures come out really crisp and with a lot of detail.

Seed time

I ordered my seeds today. I feel that it's a bit late but it took me this long to get my act together. I have a lot of saved/leftover seeds but I still ordered over $50 worth-sheesh! They are getting more and more expensive! Victory Seeds has very reasonable prices and they have signed the sustainable seed pledge (which is cool). I also ordered from John Sheepers seeds (also signed the sustainable seed pledge)- more expensive but they have the wacky stuff I'm looking for. I also plan on starting my tomatoes and peppers this weekend.

The weather is absolutely horrendous. It was snowing so hard today I couldn't see the neighbors house across the street for over 2 hours. It's been snowing all day. If it clears up I'll make a dash to the store to get seed starting soil and run some other errands. It was -3'f yesterday morning. I think I *may* start seeing the light at the end of the long winter tunnel this week. It's supposed to warm up to the 40's for a day or two. It will be a good 2 months before it will be Spring-like but above freezing will be a nice change.

The picture above is from my trip to the Cornell Plantations back in August. Trycyrtis Formosana-Variegated Toad Lily

End of the Season

We've had some uncharictaristically warm weather the past few days/weeks. Frost at night and in the 50's and 60's during the day. We got to 64'F yesterday. I took the opportunity to move some things around. I planted some Crocosmia Lucifer (that I had in a pot all summer) in the front garden by the lavender. I'm hoping the lavender will survive the winter- I started it from seed (wintersown) and it did really well- smells awesome! I moved Hippolyte (rose) from a weird spot in a corner of the fence to behind the mailbox. I hope it makes it. I kind of accidentally butchered it with the spade while I was digging it up. I put a raspberry bush where Hippolyte used to be. I have another raspberry bush in a pot -it's starting to rain so it might have to stay in the pot.

I dug up the dahlia's and the oriental lillies last weekend and let them dry out over the week. I dug up the lillies because the moles or other rodents like to eat them all in the winter and I can't get them to come up year after year. I cut the stalks off and knocked off the dirt, wrapped them in damp paper towels and put them in a damp burlap bag in the veg drawer of the fridge. I hope it works. I had a gorgeous pale, pale pink lily this year that I'd like to have again next year (see pic). I knocked off the excess dirt on my dahlias and put them in paper bags with pearlite- watered them all down and put them in a cardboard box and put them in the basement. I didn't divide them because I couldn't find any eyes. I'll wait until spring and hope I see some- if they survive. I'm kind of flying blind.

I did end up getting late blight on my tomatoes but not until late, late in the season. Like October, so I'm not complaining. I have the last of the tomatoes in the kitchen. They should be finishing up this week. The ones with the blight are rotting as they ripen so I'm pitching a lot of them out. I pulled up all of the tomato plants and put them in black trashbags- going in the dumpster.

Last weekend I finally got around to planting chard, kale, spinach and lettuce in pots on the deck. I have no idea if it will work. My aunt says they grow lettuce year round (in Zone 5) but I think she does it on her covered porch. I think I can jury rig some kind of clear plastic cover over the pots on the deck if it starts to look promising.

Some notes for next year: Either start the summer squash late (ie: end of June) or start a 2nd planting at the end of June in an attempt to foil the SVB. They got me again this year. I heard there are SVB resistant types but I love cocozelle. I don't see the point in planting zucchini if you can't get the kind you want. Every other gardener has zucchini coming out their ears, I don't know why I don't! I might also try clipping the blossoms off until after July 4, I've read that the SVB moth(?) hones in on the yellow.

I'm not doing eggplant again. I tried them in containers this year. I got a few tiny ones but it's really not worth the effort. I'm also not doing winter squash. Takes up too much space. I do plan on doing more tomatillo plants. I did 2 this year. I'm thinking a minimum of 6 next year. Tomatillos seem to be determinate so they came all at once, I put them in the freezer and had good luck using them frozen. I just didn't have enough to last me past October!

The butterfly feeder is going up again. That was very successful even though I started it so late in the season. I'm also focusing on butterfly host and feeder plants in the front garden next season. I started some butterfly bushes from cuttings this year so I'll plunk those out there either this fall or in the spring (over winter them in the sunroom).

I need more blues/ purples and less pinks in the flower bed on the southside. It was so pink this year I found it hard to look at. It was pretty ugly! I planted a balloon flower over there, I saved some seeds so I'll try to get some more of that. It seems to be a pretty good foil for the pinks.

Less tomatoes next year! As far as the small tomatoes go. I'll stick with Black Cherry, Matt's Wild Cherry and either Coyote or Champagne Cherry. For a GWR I'm going with Aunt Ruby's German Green. Pruden's Purple and Black from Tula are coming back. I think I'll give Black Krim a rest. Absinthe is going to have to go, it was prolific but they didn't seem to ripen very well, they'd go bad almost immediately. I'll probably do Dr Wyche's Yellow, Goose Creek, Berkeley Tie Die and KBX again. I need to really pare it down this year. I did can some but the main problem was the lack of really good tomato growing space. A lot of varieties didn't get a fair shot. I'd like to give Indian Stripe and JD's Special C-Tex a better spot.

The SWC experiment went really well. I plan on making at least 2 more next year. The worm experiment is going well too. I moved the worms into the garage this week. I set container #2 on top of container #1 (full of poop) about a month ago and the worms are starting to migrate up looking for food. I'll have to monitor the temps in the garage and will have to move them into the basement if it gets too cold. My Ruth Stout experiment went really well. It was less work putting the garden in in the Spring and the plants seemed happy this year, I need to put something on the paths next year, that's where the weeds came up. Maybe mulch or something. I didn't shred the leaves I put on the garden this year. Let's see if that works. If it doesn't I'm screwed because there's a lot of leaves out there!The compost tea experiment went really well. For the most part the plants seemed very healthy and prolific this year.

I did have a problem with cucumber beetles for the first time this year. I'm on the fence about planting cucumbers again next year- I ended up with a powdery mildew problem. If I do plant cucumbers I'll go with the lemon cukes- cute and taste great! No more Armenian cucumbers- I've tried and failed 3 years in a row.

As usual I need to keep up better with my mulching and weeding. I definitely need to get mulch for the front beds near the house. They looked BAD this year. I got a lot of compliments on the mailbox garden and a few requests to enlarge it. I'm going to try to convince the better half to move my lilac bushes to a spot along the driveway then maybe I can extend the mailbox bed eastward toward the house to encorporate the lilacs and then add some more plants on the south side.

I took pictures of the beds this year and made notes of where to move things and what to dig up. I need some kind of plan and need to stick to it. Some of the beds look a little schitzo. So that will be #1 goal for next year: Garden design like a sane person.

Goal #2: More butterflies. I have butterfly garden seeds in the fridge from monarch watch, I need to study up on what's native and what I need to plant to attract them and keep them hanging around. It's tough when the neighbors use pesticides.

Goal #3: Visit more professional gardens next year: The Plantations at Cornell, Sonnenberg Gardens, ect. Less time puttering and more constructive use of time.

Goal #4 for next year: Try to mae a cloning machine (ala 7th street cottage). This isn't a major goal but it sounds like a cool thing to try if I can do it cheaply.

A good day and a bad day for butterflies

I have been reading up lately on Butterfly Feeders. There are tons of recipes out there on the web- concoctions of fruit, beer and yeast. I was on Garden Web (butterfly forum)yesterday and someone posted a picture of a plate with rotting fruit and a ton of butterflies. I figured I'd give it a shot. It works! 36 hours after putting out a frozen banana (the brown slug looking thing in the picture) and a few plums that are past their prime I was visted by a Red Admiral- Woo Hoo!

On a sad note- I went out to the back 40 today to see what the dogs were barking at (I never found out) on my way back I peeked in the back square of the veg garden and saw a Spicebush Swallowtail hanging out on the ground near my volunteer Nicotania. I ran back to the house and got my camera and got some good pictures of it before it realized I was there and it crawled under some leaves. We left for a few hours and came back and I checked just to see if it was still there. It was but it hadn't moved. So I went into the garden to see if it would move when I got close. Nope. I got a stick and wiggled some of the leaves above it. Nothing. I think it died :( I'm totally bummed.

I was also visited this week by a White Admiral (who had seen better days) and a Silver Spotted Skipper as well as the Monarch and Tiger Swallowtail and a couple of Hummingbirds. If I could figure out how to post more than one photo per post I'd add some pictures.

On another happy note: No sight of the dreaded late blight. I checked the late blight map a few weeks ago and it showd that a house in my neighborhood was reporting spores. I walked past the house- no garden, no pots of tomatoes. Just an overgrown bed with a badly pruned lilac. I wonder where they get their info.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20100807/NEWS01/8070314/Late-blight-threatens-local-tomatoes--potatoes&referrer=NEWSFRONTCAROUSEL

$#&@%!

I love winter sowing but I don't love mislabled seeds! What I thought was catmint...definitely not catmint...maybe annual blue salvia. An annual, not a perennial, deep green foliage not fuzzy gray-green foliage. What was supposed to be forget me nots is possibly false forget me nots (Siberian Bugloss). They bloom in the summer, not the spring. 2 ft tall not 6 inches. The creeping thyme that I planted between the pavers of the slate patio was mostly weed seeds and a little bit of herbaceous upright thyme. It was the seeds that were mislabled not an error on my part. I didn't even know what Siberian Bugloss was until today. I certainly didn't buy seeds for it. I always thought that blue salvia was the perennial I have in the back garden. I'll have to make note of where I got these seeds so I don't get any more from the same source. Sad thing is I know they came from 3 different places. The Siberian bugloss came from one of the big box stores (impulse buy), the thyme came from a "cheap" seed source (duh!) I guess I got what I paid for. I don't remember where the blue annual salvia came from. I have it written down somewhere.

So the front garden is looking a little schitzo. I have a gaping hole where the zucchini was. I had to rip out the buttercup squash today too. It seems to be rooted in several places so I cut it off and inspected for SVB and left the part that looks semi-promising. It's getting all wilty right now in the scorching sun. I pulled out the bachelor buttons. They were all dried out and brown. I don't know if it was the heat or if they got peed on by dogs. I'm sad about the bachelor buttons. They were really pretty. I hit some garden sales this week. I stopped at Squire Gardens on the way back from Syracuse one day. $6 perennials. I got 3- a balloon flower for the too pink south bed (it's a nice bright blue), catmint (since the stuff from seed didn't work out), and a yellow coreopsis. They don't take plastic which is a bummer and it's a little crazy out back but if you know what you are looking for and how to recognize it there are some good deals to be had. I should have picked up a $10 buddleia to fill in the gaping zucchini hole. I figured there would be similar prices around here. Wrong.

At Lucas Greenhouse today for $10 (total)I got- a burgundy scabiosa (for $1!), An ornamental grass, Kangaroo Paw (tender perennial will try to carry through the winter indoors), and a Rex Begonia (for inside the house). I looked for a butterfly bush but they did't have any. They had some other nice things and their prices are great. I'm pretty sure they grow all their own stuff or it's locally grown -bonus!

Finally I went to Wayside. Very nice, big place but a little expensive and commercial, their plants look really healthy though. I did get a good deal on some coleus a few weeks back and I got a new plant stand for $20 (50% off). I was looking for a butterfly bush (still) and a Joe Pye Weed (none at Lucas and Squire was sold out or I couldn't find it). Well I found the butterfly bushes- $30 each! They were in (I think) 3 gal containers- so they were good sized plants but geeeze! That's a lot of cash! Needless to say I passed them up. I found some Joe Pye Weed they had a lot of that "Little Joe" it's like a mini or something. Some of the flowers looked pink, some white. I hope end up liking it. I wanted the bigger kind with the purply veined stalks and the pinky-mauve flowers but I haven't had a lot of luck finding it this year. The prices ranged from $9-$13 depending upon the pot size. I got the $10 one - not a great deal but I was tired of looking.

I'm here for the tomatoes

First BLT on Saturday- Stupice and home grown lettuce (on a home made plate). I had to skimp on the mayo because it was the end of the jar. It was still a really good sandwich. So far I've had production from Champagne Cherry, Coyote, Stupice, Peacevine and Matts Wild Cherry. I have picked 2 Black Cherry, and 2 Red Zebra one should be ready later today or tomorrow and the first beefsteak Berkeley Tie Die Pink. It's catfaced and only ripening on one side. Hopefully it will be ready later this week.

I had to pull out one of the Cocozelle zucchini because of SVB. I have 1 Cocozelle, 1 crook neck yellow and 1 golden bush left. The golden bush is the only one to have not produced yet.

Attack of the SVB!!!

The bastards got me! I dug out 2 from Golden Bush yesterday. Then I found a wilty leaf today so I cut it off and found another. Upon investigation I found the beginings of sawdust on the base so I slit the base and there were a few in there. I pulled the whole plant out. 1 Golden Bush is left. Black Beauty main stem was all chewed up so I yanked it out too, I tried to dig the buggers out but the stem was mincemeat by the time I was done. No Black Beauty left. I found one in a stem of Cocozelle just about to bore into the main stem, I pulled the little bastard out. I didn't pull the Cocozelle. I didn't have the heart. The Yellow Crookneck is the only summer squash that I haven't noticed anything on. I found a couple in one of the Buttercup and pulled them out. I hope that's it. It's really hard to tell, I've been checking them everyday but today I noticed how tiny they can be. Smaller than an inchworm. I think next year I will clip off the blooms until July 1 in an effort of faking out the sob's and start a 2nd set of squash around the 3rd week of June to replace any that I need to pull.

On a lighter note I had 2 Tiger Swallowtails and a Red Admiral in the garden at the same time today. I was very excited.

First ripe tomato!!!

Woo Hoo! Champagne Cherry is the first to ripen of the year. It's a very small (currant?) yellow/white cherry. I got 4-DH and I ate the first 2 so fast I didn't have a chance to take a picture. I got a picture of the 2nd 2, I did weigh them all. They came in at 0.1 oz each (one was slightly less than 0.1 oz it bounced betweeon 0.1 and 0.0 on the digital scale). Tasted great! Very tomatoey, tart-ish. I think Peacevine might be the next one to come in. Green Grape is also a contender- it has bounced back nicely a week after some compost/alfalfa tea. The fungus humungous seems to be subsiding. Coyote tomatoes are still green and hard. Bad news on the front garden: the deer have discovered it. I noticed on Wednesday night that something had chomped back the Squash that ate Cleveland- cool. Then I noticed something had pruned my tomatoes. The giant Pruden's Purple, BTD Pink and Black Krim fruits were intact. I can't remember if I checked out Absinthe or not. Today I noticed that all of my Absinthe tomatoes are gone! I'm not sure if they've only been by once (and I missed the absence of Absinthe) or if they've been by a couple of times. I hung up knee-hi panty hose stuffed with dog hair and peed on (what won't I do to save the tomatoes?) on Thursday night. I'm hoping they haven't been back since then. I'm going to put out Dial soap and aluminum pie pans today. Maybe that will help too.

On a sort of related note (the tie-in would be garden pests). I found the first squash vine borer grub today. My crook necked sqash had a droopy leaf this morning so I cut it off where the stem met the base and notice the little bastard poking his head out of the cut side- it was literally minutes from boring into the main stem! I took the leaf into the house cut up the slit and washed the bugger down the garbage disposal. I think I'll go out tonight with a flashlight. I have heard that if you shine a flashlight on the stem you can see them in there and should poke them with a needle to kill them with minimal damage to the plant. Sounds like a plan to me.

I feel I have short changed the cucumbers. Yes, they are coming in too. I picked the first lemon cuke yesterday and gave it to my in-laws with a cocozelle and the first black beauty squash. I picked the second one today. I haven't tried it yet. Looks nice. I'd post a picture but I don't want to detract from the glory of my tomatoes!

Cocozelle

Mmmmm...Harvested the first squash of the season this week. Cocozelle is by far the earliest of the 4 I planted. It looks like Black Beauty will have one ready in the next few days. I love the creamy-nutty flavor of Cocozelle. It's earned a permenant space in the garden. The first one was sauteed with peppers and onions, the second 2 were shredded to make squash fritters. Cocozelle is located in the front yard garden, the other types are in the back garden where there is less direct sun. The back garden is having issues with striped cucumber beetles. I've never had them before but I've got them in spades this year. I'm hand picking them and throwing them in a jar of soapy water. I've only found one in the front garden.

The front garden has a decent sized lemon cuke and something else, it may be a buttercup squash. The tower o'cucurbits is a big hulking mass threatening to take over the neighborhood. I have to go out daily to rescue the bachelors buttons and cosmos from being taken down. Rampicante is the only word in my vocabulary that comes close to describing what's going on out there! I need a bigger trellis and fewer plants next year.

We're going through a heat wave right now. It hasn't rained in over a week and the temps are up in the 90's with high humidity. I watered both gardens yesterday morning, the first time all season for the back garden (I watered the front garden when I first planted it). I'm trying to keep the containers watered, I'm thinking of moving them into a shadier location. The SWC are looking great. I will definitely make 2-3 more for next year for the tomatoes and put the peppers, eggplants and tomatillos in the regular containers. I harvested my first jalepeno yesterday. It was a nice hot. Not crazy hot but gave a little heat to my pineapple salsa.

Tomatilloes are going gangbusters, I'm really excited for some salsa verde. Pepper plants are doing well. Hungarian Hot Wax and Jalepeno have good sized peppers on them (I harvested 2 HHW about 2 weeks ago- it was too early they didn't taste good- no heat at all). The Arugaman's eggplant has blossoms on it and has set a fruit or two.

Tomato Update

Tomatoes are coming along nicely. All of the cherries are throwing out branches of fruit- nothing ripe yet but I'm hopeful. Green Grape is looking kind of straggly and appears to have some kind of funk but it's not spreading to the other tomatoes so I won't pull it out yet. Prudens Purple has a nice sized fruit on it. Others that have substantial fruit (golf ball-ish size) are Black from Tula, Berkeley Tie Dye Pink, Stupice and Red Zebra. Not as far along but still with marble sized fruits is Absinthe, Goose Creek, Brandywine, Cowlicks, JD's Special C-Tex, Set fruit this week: Green Zebra, Sweet Carneros, Kelloggs Breakfast, Box Car Willie, Indian Stripe, Cherokee Purple, Purple Dog Creek, Aunt Ruby's German Green. Flowering but not fruiting yet is Hillbilly, Black Zebra, Dr Wyche, William's Striped, Black Mtn Pink, Super Sioux, Golden Queen.