Monday update

Here are the latest pictures around my suburban homestead. The completed garden expansion with the old wooden ladder I use as a cucumber trellis. Then the beans before and after putting them in the ground (count, there are 47 plants, with 4 plants in each 1 square foot). I spent about an hour transplanting all of the beans, with the Blue Lake closest to the fence and the Tendercrop closest to the center. And last, but not least, stupid kitties in their new cathouse.

Beans are in

Yesterday I planted all of the bean plants. Blue Lakes are up against the fence and Tendercrops are closer to the center of the garden. I'll have to plant the tomatoes at the opposite side, so they do not overshade the beans. Something of medium height will go in between - perhaps squash or the basil. We shall see chickie...

I'll post pictures an a bean plant count tomorrow.

just pictures

Greenbeans (minus 1 that some soon-to-be-dead-slug ate), my Sungold and Bloody Butchers transplanted, my Odoriko transplanted, and my volunteer mater (remember from February 1st?)

mo 'maters

My mater seedlings from the seed bank were not sprouting in two weeks like they should have. I brought them in the house to sit in the windowsill, which worked quite well for my Sungold seedlings. After a few days of regular water and afternoon sunshine, plus a bit more warmth during the night, I finally got a sprout on Saturday. It was the West Virginia Aker's that came up first. The next day, I had sprouts in all 4 of the pots, so I was now blessed with Boxcar Willie, Campbell's 1943 and Sheyenne. I put them outside where it promised to be sunny and hot all day, and warm all night. I left them on the sidewalk all night to absorb it's heat and left them outside again today, and provided a little water to make it through the heat today. They are quite small and don't look very hardy to begin with, so I don't want to fry them on their 2nd day outside.

My Sungolds, Bloody Butchers, and Odorikos were all planted out into plastic cups and experienced no transplant shock. They are all quite happy and I took 1 of each to Gilroy, to their new home for the season. Hopefully I will have a few to give away for Earth Day later this week.

Beans beans beans

Here are the bean pictures I took yesterday (current count: 50). Within each 4 inch pot, I planted 4 bean seeds (1 in each corner). Now, keep in mind that I haven't planted a bean seed since kindergarten or first grade. I was the kid that always killed mine with kindness, so bean plants and I.. well, we haven't gotten along so well. Some 30+ years later, I'm trying again. This time, in hopes of 1) keeping the bean plants alive (they look pretty happy, yes?) and 2) actually getting some beans to eat. :)

Also below are my tomato seedlings - Bloody Butchers on the left (from 2003 seeds, thank you very much) and Odoriko's on the right. Yes, they are squished and yes, they need transplanting. For lack of anything to transplant them into, it hasn't been done. However, this morning I stopped at the grocery store and picked up 30 plastic cups in which to transplant my tomato seeds. I'm hoping they recover and grow enough in the next week to bring them into work and give them away for Earth Day. Happy Gardening!!

April 14th

A Tuesday. I must say that I'm quite surprised that the weather is not warmer than it is. We are still getting typical low 60's during the days, and low to mid 40's at night. The way the rest of the seasons were coming in 3-4 weeks early for the past year, I thought for sure warm weather would come in with the very beginnings of Spring if not sooner. Granted, I like cool weather and I am a *big* fan of rain, but my summer crops are not so happy with lower temperatures and therefore, I'd like a little more warmth please, Mother Nature. K? Thanks!

Meanwhile, my green beans are sprouting like crazy! Some of them have not broken ground, but they are under there as my pots have little dirt tents in them where the sprouts are vigorously pushing up from below. I haven't counted how many there are since last week when I counted 35-ish, but there are more now and they are happy with real leaves. I'll try to remember to take pictures tomorrow.

Something is eating my plants - and I'm not happy. My rosebush finally bloomed and it's brought along too many aphids. I found my pepper seedling from the plant sale looked a bit peaked the other day and when I checked - aphids. There was one lone ladybug in my grass - I left her be since she was near the rosebush and probably full from feeding. I need to figure a way to attract more and help eat them all that aren't effected by the Neem oil I sprayed. And as much as I hate snail bait, I may need to pick some up for my slugs. My backyard has been bare of slugs & snails for the past 2+ years but with the vegetation picking up slowly but surely, slugs have increased and snails moved into my geraniums out front. I have a mad hatred for snails, and slugs are just sneaky no-shell wearing versions of snails.

Exhaustion does *really* weird stuff to your brain

Example: tiny, short, itty bitty online chat I had with my BFF today:

her: im a rebel... without a clue

me: i'll buy you one. a clue, that is.
me: course, in actuality, i just may find a leftover clue lying in the street, pick it up, spit on it and wipe it on my pants to clean it up a bit - then send it to you and TELL you that I bought it for you, but, you know....

(I need some quality sleep - and a few days to enjoy life instead of considering deadlines, midterms, class projects, due dates, work to-do lists...)

TGIF

I mean, really, TGIF. This week has gone by SO slowly and mere words cannot express how happy I am that it is almost over. My studying for chemistry is done (pray I did well on my midterm last night, would ya, please?) and I can breathe. I got the tarp full of weeds to the street before the compost/garbage man came along to scoop it up so I don't have to look at that sitting in my backyard another week (yay!) My Honey is off work today so hopefully he will relax and enjoy a quiet house all to himself, and maybe he'll even vacuum and wash those dishes in the sink. hmmmmm....

I may have neglected to mention that my nasturtiams are LOVELY this year! They are hardy and blooming - mostly a vibrant red but there a few that are less than stellar that catch my eye. I have a few baby nasturtiams growing here and there closeby and would love if that area just filled in with them, but I don't think that will happen soon. We have a pretty good bird population close to that side of the house and I'm sure they pick out those big seeds, but that's okay too. I just wish they'd even things out and eat the ants that are torturing my Bird of Paradise.

This weekend I plan on planting the squash *in* the garden. I have a few plastic 1 gallon milk jugs to place over them at night, but they are just *too* big for their seedling pots and growing too fast to bother transplanting them into something bigger. So, into the ground you go! I may do the cucumbers this weekend also, or let them chill in their 4" pots I put them in 2 weeks ago. They could probably use more 'establishing' time. The basil is doing well. I'd like the stems to firm up a bit and grow a bit faster, but there's only so much I can do since I'm at work all day. No beans sighted yet. My tomatoes are starting to reach for the sky and do you remember my volunteer tomato that I found growing on February 2nd? Well, you'd barely recognize her anymore! I'll post an updated picture of her tomorrow.

Happy Good Friday!
Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. Luke 23:46

go go gopher killlller

It's that time of year again - me vs the gopher. They come during the winter but they're too small to catch - the tunnels they did are not wide enough for my trap. So I wait til the mounds are bigger, meaning the tunnels are bigger, and not long before I plant my veggies seedlings in the ground.

The past 2 months s/he has been focused on destroying our front lawn, to the point of collapsing the yard when we go out to stomp down the mounds. Sometime last night or this morning, they moved to the backyard, signaling that it was time to get out the trap! It's a little rusty since last season, so I cleaned it off with some steel wool and oiled it up with a little olive oil so as to not yuck it up. I think of the gophers suspect something, they bury the trap instead of trying to push it out, and pushing it out is what sets it off and kills them. I got my hand trowel, my super long screwdriver and tested each new mound in the backyard til I found that that seemed properly connected to a tunnel. Dig out that mound, get a good length down in the ground, and set my trap inside. Now it's wait, and watch.... wait n watch... Either later today or tomorrow morning, my trap should be wrapped around the neck of one sorry gopher. Then we will water down the old mounds and wait to see if new ones pop up, signifying more gophers to bait and trap. punx...

TGIF

No, really - even though I only worked in the office 2 days this week (I was on vaca the first 3 days) I'm so ready for the weekend already. Tomorrow is the Master Gardeners tomato and pepper sale and I'll be there early. I need to recheck their list of peppers so I know what I'm getting when I go in. Looking for bell pepper type plants so I'm not paying $3 a pepper at the store. I realized that they can be precut and frozen fo ruse throughout the year (duh!) so that's my plan and that's my goal.

Last night I planted, in 4 inch pots, 4 of the 6 types of tomato seeds I received from my forum's seed bank (thank you, J, Seed Goddess!) Aker's West Virginia, Box Car Willie, Campbell's 1943 and a special tomato that needs growing out so we can re-establish the seed bank. I'll keep posting updates as they come. Oh, and my dill needs a place to live - though the seedlings are small, their true leaves are popping out and I need to lookup what conditions they like so I can determine where in my backyard to plant them. hmmmmm...

PS

Did I mention that while visiting family up north, my Auntie got me hooked on homegrown beans? After taking one bite, I'm thinking, "What am I thinking? Buying canned beans? These are deLICious!" She says she grows Blue Lake, which would make sense because the little beans inside are blue-ish. I asked the hows and whys of her planting, harvesting, cooking, freezing methods and the next day at breakfast (yes, she cooked me breakfast every morning, I LOVE her!) she gave me a bag of beans and said that is what she planted. But.... these aren't Blue Lake beans.. ?? I found my way to the local garden store and picked up 5 bags of Blue Lake bean seeds. One bag I gave to Auntie and the other 4 I brought home, with her 1 bag of Tendercrop. I planted them on Tuesday, in 4 in pots, 4 beans per pot. I wondered if I would be able to tell the difference and the seeds informed me I would. While the Tendecrop seeds were brown and mottled/striped, the Blue Lake seeds were.. white! So, we shall see which come up first, any differences between the two, and see how they harvest and taste. I'm sure by the time harvest comes around, I'll be able to tell if the blue beans were Blue Lake, or Tendercrop. I'm SO excited!

It's been a while, eh?

Yea, I took a vacation, and a trip north to visit family and take care of some business. I came back to find that my other half did not care for my seedlings quite as I would have, and I lost a tomato seedling or two. Here's what I have going on: The garden expansion is expanding. I turned as much as I could and then couldn't turn no more! I covered the area with manure and tonight, I will cover with wet newspaper to limit weed growth and then cover those with bark mulch. The difference between the earth of the expansion and the earth of the garden right next to it is like night and day. The expansion is hard, packed, dead - nothing lives in that section except some weeds a a few bermuda grass, plus a grub or two. The original garden plot is FULL of life - worms, rolly polly potato bugs, and the ground is soft soft soft! The soil is black, the beneficial bugs are happy. There are no grubs in the original garden plot. I have done well, and am satisfied with that portion. Hopefully, this new section will pep up quickly and take notice, producing me some fine foods this summer.

I took two days to work on the garden expansion and transplant some of the seedlings. I got the basil and cukes moved to 4 inch pots. The squash are plenty big enough to go directly in the ground so I'll do that this weekend. No point in transplanting them twice, I just need to plan out my garden and pick a good spot for them. Plus, I need some cans to place around them in the garden, so I can put copper tape to keep the slugs from devouring them while they are too small to fight back. haha!

The spinach is doing well, and the tomato seeds are still quite small so I left them be in their seedling pots. The 2nd to the last image is my mystery sprouts. I thought they might be arugula but in looking at other arugula seeds online, they don't look the same. I continue to play the waiting game to determine what they are.