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.

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.

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!

This Eastern Tiger Swallowtail has been hanging around here for about a month. My little 6 year old neighbor calls it the "Big yellow butterfly" she's tried to catch it but it's pretty elusive. I'm not sure what kind of bush it's sitting on, it was planted by the previous owners it has tiny pink flowers in the spring.

Heritage bloomed yesterday, Eden will go any day now. Something keeps nibbling off my Captain Sam buds but seems to be steering clear of Eden and Clotilde Soupert. Winchester Cathedral is still going strong despite being noshed on by rose slugs. Same with the Fairy blooming despite the rose slugs.

I finished planting the garden today. Starting seeds for the cukes and squash was a disaster. I dropped the tray and ended up with a lot of soil mixed with seeds. I have one questionable plant: cucumber, zucchini, yellow squash? I guess we'll have to wait and see. I decided to direct sow instead of buying plants. I also ds bush beans. The pole beans I planted last week are starting to poke throught the soil. The cosmos seeds I scattered around are also coming up.

Winter and Spring Battle it out

What a wild week! I had to go to Connecticut last week for work- rumor has it we had beautiful weather here while I was gone. I came back late Thursday night: the lawns had turned green and I saw my first Daffodil on Friday (4/3). Then the winds picked up the temperature dropped and on Saturday we had rain/sleet/snow and back again. Sunday was nice: sunny and in the 50's then the wind picked up and I woke up at 1:30am Monday morning and everything was covered in snow! We got about 2-3 inches, it snowed all day but it warmed up enough that it didn't stick to the roads and it kind of melted. Today it snowed a little bit but everything has melted.

The forsythia is about ready to bloom. Scilla siberica the little blue star-like flowers are blooming on people's lawns. I think they are beautiful- probably my favorite early spring flower. I have one in the side yard. I think he needs some friends! I potted up some more tomato seedlings today. I have 50+ and still potting. I have to take inventory of what I have and who wants what. 10 are going to my pottery instructor. I have his picked out already and put them in their own tray. I need to save some for my nieces and nephews and a coworker or two and my friend Patti in Ithaca. I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest. NOTE TO SELF: Tomatoes have an excellent germination rate- don't plant more than needed next year!

Pretty much everything I have started from seed has sprouted except the 4 o'clocks (old seed, not properly stored) and the cilantro (used seed from my kitchen cabinet-I thought I'd take as stab at it!) and my pepper "Cherneva chuska" or something like that. The pepper seed is new this year I'm not sure what's wrong with it-bad batch I guess. Jury is still out on the Shasta Daisy's (also old, not properly stored seed) and the cucumbers -that is also new seed maybe planted too deep? Not enough time on the heat mat?

I'm looking into winter sowing for next year. I am using every available flat surface and am running out of room. I won't even start about the heat mat and shop light rotation. I've read some forums where the people swear by wintersowing. I still have some more seed to start for this year, I wonder if it's too late to try it this year....

Above picture is Sedum "Autumn Joy" emerging. Picture was taken on 3/28

A flower!

Yay! My first flower of the season. Friday was a beautiful, sunny, warm day and the crocuses came out! Today was equally as nice, I dug up a quadrant of the garden and planted the peas. I really need to come up with a better plan for the pea fence, the one I have is chicken wire on two poles. It keeps trying to roll back up. It looks jacked up.

The seeds are coming along nicely. I potted up most of the tomatoes this week. I planted flax seeds (the ones that I grind up and put in my yogurt) they sprouted really quickly and seem to be chugging along. I'll start cucumbers and lettuce tomorrow.

I got some more roses with my birthday money. I got them from Countryside Roses: Ghislaine de Feligonde, Russelliana, Cornelia, Fantin Latour and climbing Clotilde Soupert. It really is a sickness, I have no idea where I'll put them! I have 9 others in the sunroom (from cuttings) I don't know where those are going either. I'm plotting out another bed on the Southeast side of the house by the gate. I think I'll put Ghislaine on the wall outside the sunroom.

I'm looking for a trenching iron, I have decided to go for Victorian trenches around the beds. I know it's a lot of work but I'm cheap and refuse to buy (1) plastic anything or (2) something else that grass will end up growing through the cracks. At my old house I used bricks and that pesky grass always got through. I have discovered it's hard to find a trenching iron around here. One with a Y or T handle would be nice, I have only been able to find one with a regular straight handle.

I went around the yard today and took tons of pictures of everything that is poking through the soil and budding out-it's very exciting! The delphinium that I thought Bodie clobbered last year is coming back up. So has a random poppy that I planted-it's blood red-it doesn't match anything else in the garden (I usually don't do reds) but I love deep red poppies and I had a heck of a time trying to find the right shade (I got it at Baker's Acres outside of Ithaca last July when I was down there for the rose class). Usually the reds have a orangey or magenta undertone. This one is supposed to have an almost bluish undertone. Fingers are crossed. My Thor rose is also a deep, deep red, I don't know where that one is going to go...

A Small Harvest

1 more crookneck yellow squash (total:3) 2 Amira hybrid cucumbers (total:3), 2 really small, red Serrano chiles (total: 12) and enough lettuce for 2 1/2 side salads (total: about 4 side salads). Everything tastes so good! The squash have been really tender, the cukes were AMAZING-refreshing and crisp. I haven't had the chiles yet. I'm thinking of putting them in an omlette tonight. The salad was very good: Black Seeded Simpson (bolted-I'm waiting to see what the flowers look like-probably not the best way to go but F-it), Red Fire- both bought from the nursery. The Red Fire is excellent and hasn't bolted-yay! Also Jericho, planted from seed, a romaine lettuce that I planted from seed, also tasty- hasn't bolted=BONUS!

Everything seems to be growing really slowly this year. I'm not sure why, we've had heat, sun and rain...my tomatoes are still green-Uggggghhhh! I have been torturing myself by reading about tomato taste testings on other blogs and forums. That's probably not helpful. I think the bunny delay really set me back. In the unplanted portion of my garden I found some tomato volunteers and potted them up out of curiosity. They obviously won't fruit before the first frost (mid October-ish) so the plan is to try to grow them in the sunroom and see if I can hand pollinate and have winter tomatoes. It probably won't work and if it does, they won't taste like real summer tomatoes -but what the heck?

Through the self imposed tomato taste test torture I have been exploring the different Heirloom tomato options-phew- There's a ton out there! I have been plotting next years garden. I'm obsessed with Goose Creek tomatoes but of course can't find seed in the US. I have 2 options: try to get seed from the UK and hope it doesn't get confistacted by "homeland security" or get a seedling sent from California. I really love starting things from seed. Who knew tomato seeds were a threat to national security???

The tomatoes I planted this year are as follows: Brandywine, Super Sioux, Green Zebra, Garden Peach, maybe a Consolato Genovese (extra seed-not impressed with the tomato last year), maybe a Sanibel Hybrid (free seed sample from Totally tomatoes), and maybe a San Marzano. I planted 2 cherry tomatoes- Jelly Bean and Peacevine. The maybe's are in there because once all the seedlings got confused I chucked all the seed packets into a box and I can't remember what I planted and what was hanging around from previous years. Duh! I need to be better behaved when I start my seeds! So next year I will LABEL my Plants, take NOTES about what I planted, start them EARLIER (so I can be eating tomatoes now instead of writing and reading about them!), and try some new colors and kinds. Garden Peach and Super Sioux are the only 2 new regular tomatoes this year. I've never grown cherry tomatoes for myself before so both kinds are new for me. I've never tried a dark tomato before-I'm definitely going for a black or purple tomato next year!

The Sound of Summer

I found this ugly little guy hanging out amongst the rose cuttings in the shade of the maple tree. It's a cicada, it's pretty big -a little bigger than my thumb. Everytime my husband hears one he says "sounds like summer!". They emit a kind of raspy sound when it's hot and humid. You can listen to cicada songs on wikipedia from all over the world but they don't really sound like the ones around here.


I was off from work last week (family in town). On Tuesday I worked for a long time in the garden and yard. I planted seeds of Swiss Chard, beets, turnips, rutabagas and NY head lettuce. I haven't grown any of these before so this is an experiment! I also weeded the heck out of the existing beds and put down newspaper and a layer of grass clippings on the paths. On Sunday I planted peas, beans, spinach, and 3 different kinds of lettuce: jericho, red deer tongue, bibb. Following Sally Cunningham's advice, I'm trying to extend the growing season here. I'm really curious to see how it works.


Harvested from the garden: 2 yellow crookneck squash, 9 serrano chile's (gave them to my BIL), 1 cucumber. Squash tasted great, cuke is in the fridge, we'll put it in a salad tomorrow night. I think things are going kind of slow, combination of the bunny delay and the weather. I've got a lot of green tomatoes but nothing ripe so far.