Early Spring Blooms
So you already know that the daffodils have arrived, but what, do you ask, are the other early spring blooms in my garden?
The pristine primrose — seriously, they look fake, right?
Pretty purple flowers from the ground cover that I’m still working on finding the name for (please ignore the leaves, this was taken pre-spring clean up)
Flowering Forsythia
And newest addition – Mini Daffodils of my very own!
Now I need to find a good spot to plant them!
I’ve also been falling in love with the the trees around town: flowering dogwoods and red maple trees, and an interesting, almost sprawling tree that has gorgeous pink flowers. After a quick search, the really cool one I think is a crabapple tree. I’m not a fan of having fruit trees in the yard because my dog will eat them and get sick. However, I learned there are hybrids available that don’t produce fruit. I’m considering either a hybrid crabapple or red maple to replace one of our old, dying trees in our front yard. I’ll continue to research and maybe next year we’ll get to it.
March 30, 2012
· 
Sheryl · 
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Tags: Flowers, Spring · Posted in: Flowers
Accidental Pruning: Hydrangea
My husband was cleaning up the yard the other day, and thought he’d help out with some of the gardening tasks. He accidentally pruned back my hydrangea thinking they were peonies. In case anyone is interested, peonies do not get pruned in the spring either, they get cut down to the ground in the fall. Thankfully, he didn’t actually cut the hydrangea to the ground.
I read last year that you really shouldn’t prune hydrangea — so I’m a little worried! Full disclosure: I was pretty mad at first, but I know he was only trying to help. I especially LOVE my hydrangea because they are actually very blue (there is good aluminum in our soil apparently).
I will post an update when it flowers — there are still buds left, so hopefully it will be OK!
The Aftermath...
March 27, 2012
· Sheryl · No Comments
Tags: Flowers, Hydrangea · Posted in: Flowers
Garden Pizza
After work Friday, there was a few more hours of sunlight to clean up some of the yard, before anticipated rain this weekend (there were a few drops, but I wouldn’t classify it as rain).
Between cutting away dead oregano, clearing out the dead basil, and pulling up onion grass, my trusty garden gloves smelled like a pizza.
I’m not sure if that’s gross or delicious.
March 26, 2012
· Sheryl · No Comments
Tags: Plants · Posted in: Herbs
Book Worm
My mom pulled this brand new book out this weekend to look up something we were talking about. After learning she actually had it for 5 years, and barely looked at it, when she asked if I wanted it, I responded with an enthusiastic, “YES!”
SWEET! Looking forward to do a bit of light reading this weekend.
March 23, 2012
· Sheryl · No Comments
Tags: Plants · Posted in: Flowers, Herbs, Indoor Garden, Produce
Community Garden – Lessons Learned Y2 (2011)
Just like the first year, I also followed up with a post on Facebook for our second year in the community garden. See below.
Posted on August 19, 2011:
I know we aren’t quite ready to say goodbye to the garden yet this year, but I thought I’d still summarize the things we learned so far:
- Give Yellow Squash & Zucchini as much space as possible, we thought we learned from last year, but it still wasn’t enough. Next year, they get their own plot completely, so they don’t overshadow anything else.
- Bush beans grow just fine from seeds, but you have to space plantings, because they eventually just poop out from exhaustion.
- Snap peas really need a good support system to grow, a cheap plastic fence won’t cut it.
- Tumbling Tom tomatoes grow kind of like a bush on the ground — they aren’t that tasty, and are a pain in the neck to maintain.
- If someone grew acorn squash before you, and some of the seeds got in the ground, you’ll get an acorn squash plant (this was a pretty neat surprise)
- Even really tall tomato cages are not enough, you need cages, plus stakes, and then maybe they won’t fall over.
- Weedblock doesn’t stop this insane weed that travels along the ground, and sprouts roots as it goes.
- Arugula grows like a weed, which I thought was fine because it’s usually delicious, but once it gets really hot out, it gets really bitter. We are going to try to plant a fall batch.
- Machete + hose = leaking hose
A summary of the crops:
- Zucchini/ Yellow Squashes – By far the best crop, we ate a ton, gave some away, and we have a lot frozen for use in veggie lasagna or zucchini bread later
- Tomatoes — Still need to do better with these. I think they need more space, and definitely need more support. More research.
- String Beans — Awesome, so easy to grow, and so many string beans
- Snap Peas – Good, just gotta get better support for next year, and these also could use staggered planting, too.
- Mesclun Mix – Pretty darn good, except for the arugula problem above
- Carrots – Still TBD, but we did thin them this year, so we are optimistic
- Collard Greens (randomly acquired from an old man with an extra seedling) – Great, low maintenance, and pretty tasty, too.
- Peppers (bell, poblano, jalapeno, mucho nacho)Â - So far, not great, but there are still some a-comin.
- Ichiban Eggplant – This did ok, didn’t yield quite as many as I’d hoped and had some issues with ants, will try again though
- Celery – Worked out good for our purposes -it was nice to just break off a few stalks when you wanted tuna or chicken salad
- Cucumbers – definitely an improvement from last year, but 1 of 2 plants died early on so didn’t get as many as I hoped.
- Asparagus (randomly acquired from our garden neighbor) – Epic Fail. I think the transplantation was just too much.
- Watermelon / Cantaloupe – Epic Fail. I think only because they were next to the squash and had no sunlight. We’ll try again.
- Scallions – Epic Fail. Didn’t even pop out from seeds.
- Acorn Squash – Surprise bonus, popped up from last year’s leftovers. Not ready to harvest yet, lets see how they taste.
At home in pots on the deck, I planted parsely (flat & curly), cilantro, summer savory, thyme, oregano, basil, rosemary, tarragon, dill, echinacea, and sage. Everything did great except for the dill and echinacea, which was eaten (not by us), and the rosemary, which (i think) is just a slow grower.
In the process of reading about additional methods to preserving herbs for winter months. Next year I’d like to try sunflowers and maybe corn. Overall, this year was much more successful than last year, and we actually ate most of the good stuff we produced (though some went to waste, we could still do better with that). I’m pleased.
UPDATE: Fall batch of Mesclun mix was successful, up to the freak Halloween snowstorm of 2011. Carrots came out deformed again– still not sure what happened. Acorn squash didn’t really ripen to a good eating status, the vine was damaged and I don’t think it got to its full potential. Also, peppers didn’t end up great, and when we cleaned up the plants, we found their roots were still confined to their peat pots so we are going to try removing them completely to see if they do better. Also, we ended up with an elongated pumpkin that we originally thought was just a vine for the acorn squash. We used the pumpkin as a decoration during the fall months and kept some seeds to try to grow one on purpose this year.
March 22, 2012
· Sheryl · No Comments
Tags: Community Garden · Posted in: Community Garden, Produce
Find in Mom’s Garden
The beautiful weather (AGAIN!) this weekend resulted in spending some time in the backyard at my parent’s house, and I saw the most adorable flowers: Mini Daffodils!
How cute are these? I totally didn’t know they came in miniature size.
Another interesting fact, that I was not aware of (but makes sense, since the deer actually stay away from these), is that daffodils are poisonous, and you should make sure to wash your hands after handling them.
March 21, 2012
· Sheryl · No Comments
Tags: Daffodils · Posted in: Flowers
Introducing the Community Garden – Year 2 (2011)
So you saw our lessons learned for 2010, and we actually remembered to apply most of those! The next year, 2011, we had proven ourselves at the garden, and we were upgraded to a full plot, more than twice the size of the first year (25′x35′). This is a nice section of land, lots of sun, and only bordering 1 other plot.
The plot when we first got it
Fence is up!
Weed Block Down!
All Done!
We worked REALLY hard to transform the plot into a good, safe planting space. Stay tuned for lessons learned. Can’t wait for our third year at the garden!
March 20, 2012
· Sheryl · No Comments
Tags: Community Garden · Posted in: Community Garden
Plant that seed!
I found this great website that sells every seed imaginable. After being limited to the Home Depot selection, this seemed like a dream come true.
March 16, 2012
· Sheryl · No Comments
Tags: Seeds, Spring · Posted in: Flowers, Herbs, Indoor Garden, Produce
Community Garden – Lessons Learned Y1 (2010)
While I continue to track down the pictures from Year 2 community garden, and it hangs in my draft posts, I wanted to share my lessons learned from the first year that I posted on Facebook in 2010. Since not everyone I know is on Facebook, and the Notes section is not well advertised on my wall for those who are friends with me, I am re-using, word for word, so that it can be read it context of a first time gardener.
Posted Sept. 4, 2010:
- Things will die if you don’t water them.Â
- Zucchini & Yellow squash plants are really small when you get them, but grow up to be huge. Give them plenty of space.
- Sowing carrot seeds really do require thinning them, otherwise your carrots turn out mutant like / stunted
- Cucumbers get this thing called “blite” that is really gross, and can spread to other plants – need to figure out how to prevent this
- Tomato plants grow up to be pretty tall — invest money in the tallest cages
- Onions & Garlic are kinda hard to grow — need to figure out what went wrong, perhaps it was the soil, or the failure to keep weeds at bay
- Miracle Grow really does work miracles — we should have started that from the beginning
- Deer will eat anything that won’t kill them that they can get to — invest in taller fences
- Leave enough space between yours and your neighbors plot; if their weeds grow over, they won’t strangle your plants.
- You have to keep replanting dill to have a continuous supply
- Weed block works really well — need to figure out how to utilize that more.
Overall success with tomatoes, zucchini, string beans, yellow squash, peppers (jalepeno & yellow bells), basil, thyme & oregano
Going to try to do better – onions, garlic, brussel sprouts, strawberries, mesclun, regular cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, and carrotsÂ
March 15, 2012
· Sheryl · No Comments
Tags: Community Garden · Posted in: Community Garden
Transplantation Station
I took advantage of the amazing weather this weekend, and did some transplanting. The two Sure Thing squashes were moved (they really should have been done last weekend, but I didn’t get to it – their roots floweth over), 6 Roma tomato plants were moved, and one of the basil plants. They are all doing OK after the transplant. The marigolds, petunias, rosemary, and the rest of the basil can afford to get a little bit bigger.
Before
After
I also planted 2 new container of chives (1 garlic chive, 1 regular chive) because they are just so darn delicious, and I don’t think you can ever have enough. Also, I started 4 mammoth sunflowers directly in the terracotta pots, because they grow quick. I might get a few started in a few weeks, because I’m hoping to stagger them a bit.
Chives
Sunflowers
I kept all of them outside on Saturday to soak up some sun, but now they are staying in the warm and sunny porch till threat of frost passes.
March 13, 2012
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Posted in: Gardening Supplies