Jun 30 Update – part Two

Echinacea Bravado

I transplanted this Echinacea Bravado from a front bed to a much sunnier location in the backyard and it is clearly stressed. I have to water it almost daily to keep it looking like it could make it. These things are drought tolerant once they are established. It ust needs to be babied right now. On a positive note, it is sending up flower buds, so there is hope yet.

Salvia East Friesland cuttings

These are one of my attempts to practice propagation. Stem cuttings of Salvia East Friesland. The test to see if they are ‘taking’ is to gently pull on the leaves, if there is some resistance then they are rooting. I am happy to report that all six have rooted and since they have been in a plastic bag for three weeks, today they are getting a few hours of sun to harden them off.

Salvia Coral Nymph

Another salvia, this one is an annual, is sending up new stems that will have coral colored trumpet-like flowers running the length of the stems.

Eversweet

Strawberry Eversweet is beginning to produce some berries. Since this is the first year for these plants I think I’ll let the birds have them. It is good to see them finally start doing their job.

Pumpkin Orange Smoothie

Can’t wait for these 8 pound pie pumpkins. Some say they are the best for pies. Cute as a button.

Eggplant Ichiban

For those of us who like eggplant this one has a really nice flavor.

Pepper Golden Bell

My peppers are re-growing their lower leaves after being eaten by something earlier this year. Never did find out what it was.

Raspberry Heritage

The raspberries were transplanted into a raised bed in May of last year because they were spreading under the fence into the neighbors yard. Hey, free raspberries, what’s not to love? Anyway I moved five of the best plants in this 8’x4’ bed – may not be big enough – and they are absolutely flourishing. Last week I saw this wilted stem and got worried it was verticillium wilt – a soil borne fungus. I will need to watch it further before doing anything drastic.

Hydrangea Annabelle

This is one blossom I cannot wait to see. It will be the first for this plant. It was planted here October 26, 2007 from a 4” pot. Long time coming.

Hosta Piedmont Gold

Seemingly unaffected by the cooler than normal weather that the rest of the garden felt this guy is blooming right on time.

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June 30 Update

TOMATOES

Cherokee Purple getting some support

Tied up the Tomato Cherokee Purple in bed V1. The poor thing didn’t even know it had a huge cage to climb up in. To give it some direction, namely ‘UP’, I used jute twine tied off at one leg and then tied to the opposite leg diagonally.

Cherokee Purple tied with jute for support

 Then came back on the other side of the plant. Then repeated it using the other two legs. It looks like the plant is confused but I’m hoping the sun will help ‘straighten it out’. I’ll repeat this tying up about every 15-18” as it grows.

 

Juliet grape tomato 1st of the year

 First tomato of the year. Juliet grape is a very prolific producer. The plant will get very large and bushy If left unchecked as I usually do. This year I plan, as I do at the start of every year, to keep its size in check. It usually gets its own 4’x4’ bed, this year it is sharing an 8’x4’ with the Cherokee so it simply MUST behave.

 

GARDEN BED NAMES

I think I’m finally getting to the point, after six years here, where I can begin to better identify my garden beds. When we first moved in to this house in 2004 I was so excited to finally have a place where we could settle for more than just a few years that I went a little ‘random’ as to where I planted things. My main plan was to just get them in the ground and find out what makes it here. Some have survived, others have not.

Now that we are setting down roots as deep as the plants we are growing, I’m beginning to get the urge to move away from my previous random plantings and create beds like ‘Butterfly Garden’ and ‘Hummingbird Garden’ and ‘Cut Flower Garden’, etc.

In the backyard, I have eight clearly defined beds, not counting the raised beds for edibles. In the past I have very originally referred to them as B1, B2, B3, and so on because they are in the backyard. Yes, before you ask the beds in the front yard are labeled F1, F2, F3, and so on. Not very insightful labels by anyone’s measure but in my head each bed had a specific ‘calling’, even if I couldn’t put into words what it was. Now, I’m beginning to see the plan more clearly and have decided on the following ‘themes’:

• B1 will now be known as ‘Deck Side Garden’. How’s that for a descriptive name? Bet you can guess where its located.
• B2 is now the Hummingbird Garden;
• B3 the Bird Garden;
• B4 is simply the Garage Shed;
• B5 the Herb Garden
• B6 has yet to be built much less named
• B7 Butterfly Garden
• B8 another as yet built garden
• B9 the Vine Garden because it runs along a fence, very handy for vines and such
• B10 will be the Cut Flower or Fragrance Garden

I have been building lists of what plants are suitable for each garden, such as what attracts butterflies, and I have also been able to track what plants can survive in our climate. Keeping track of the performance of my plantings has been time consuming but rewarding. I have found that gardening affords as much pleasure in the journey as it does in the destination. Hopefully, all of this hard work will soon pay off and my landscape won’t look so random.

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Updates and Plans

The Veronica Red Fox finally bloomed. There is a lot of grass growing throughout this bed. This has created more work for me than weeds. It's difficult to pull grass out by the roots when they grow in stubborn clay. It's a constant struggle.

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current irrigation system

So many projects on my list, it’s tough to decide where to start. This morning, as I climbed out of bed, way too early I might add, the first thing on my mind was to work some more on the irrigation system. My current irrigation ‘system’ consists of two faucets running directly from the city’s irrigation canal system. From those two faucets I have a garden hose attached to a twenty foot long pvc pipe with an irrigation sprinkler head attached to each end. Nothing fancy but it gets the job done. Still, dragging this thing around the yard is getting old.

timer and two gates

The only thing automatic about it is a timer set to run for one hour (or whatever limit I tell it) whenever I decide to turn it on.

A week ago I decided that six years of dragging this thing around was enough. It would be easy to rent a trench digger but being frugal – okay cheap – I am digging trenches as I need them. The first part of my new irrigation system is to run a main water line to several positions around the entire yard from where will run drip irrigation and soaker hoses. No more overhead watering, yeah! No more dragging the DIY portable irrigation system around, yeah!

I had already connected pipe and ran it the length of the west fence and buried it. This photo shows grass clippings I have been saving along the fence for a couple of years now in hopes of protecting the pipe from the weather so I would not have to bury it. But in the end I decided to bury it anyway.

This will connect to another faucet at the garden shed. I cannot hook it up yet until I get to the end of the whole thing, i.e., all faucets must be on line before I tap into the currently working system. As I was burying the pipe that will connect the working faucet to the rest of the yard I got the bright idea to expand the Deck Side Garden across the two gates (shown in the photo above) and permanently anchor the largest of the two gates. That gate never gets used except to mow the grass under it so it was a very easy decision to lock it down and turn the grassy area into another garden bed, namely an extention of the existing neighboring bed. Any time I can cut down on grass to cut I am all for it.

Why not put a gravel and stepping stone path under the working gate? Sure, why not indeed. So that is just what I did today. Shown here is as far as I got today. I really can't complete the stepping stones until the pipe is hooked up to this faucet and then buried.

The thermometer hit 93 and the call of a couple of fans and the tall cold glass of iced tea won me over. I’ll finish tomorrow morning. Or maybe the next day.

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Playing with Picasa

Picasa Collage feature

Just some random photos from a few beds to see how a collage would look. Looks pretty good I think.

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Garlic and Early Stardrift

In November 2008, I planted 9 cloves of garlic divided among six locations around the roses in order to help keep aphids away. Today, I pulled up 19 garlic heads ranging in size from a quarter to golf ball.

I think planting the garlic might have worked because I seem to remember having more of a problem with aphids before planting it. But I guess there’s no real way to determine if I would have had more had I not planted the garlic.

After cleaning them I researched how to braid them and did a thoroughly sloppy version of a braid but they are braided and are now hanging in the garage shed for the next two weeks where I hope they will cure sufficiently enough that I can use them.

I also dug up a bunch of Early Stardrift aka Striped Squill, because they did not bloom very well this year, a sure sign of over-crowding. Boy, were they ever over-crowded. In November 2006, I planted 10 bulbs in front of a couple of roses bushes, they were spread out pretty thin but I knew they would multiply and fill in. They have spread out to fill-in a space 40” long and 8-10” wide. This batch in the photo is from one clump about 12” across. There must be over 100 bulblets in here. Now I need to decide where to replant them and all the others that will be dug up.

I love getting new bulbs to spread around.

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