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May 30, 2006
Harvest!
OK, so far we got two radishes and 8 leaves of spinach. Not quite a salad, but it's a start! And after the setbacks we've had, I'm not complaining.
Posted by DJSueellen at 09:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 29, 2006
A Killing Frost
Remember when I said that at Memorial Day weekend, almost all danger of frost has passed? We had a killing frost last night. Even with buckets over my tomato and pepper plants, they didn't survive. The broccoli and cauliflower got damaged. As you can see, though, the onion plant in the middle is doing fine. So are the radishes, cabbages, and (oddly enough) strawberries.
We've heard that a lot of people lost much more than we did, so I guess we were lucky.
Posted by DJSueellen at 02:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Ford Cuts the Mustard
Tansy mustard, that is. Descurainia pinnata. A fairly useless plant, poisonous to cows. Worse, it is home to chinch bugs, those lovely little critters that migrated last year. They don't bite, and they're only marginally dangerous to the garden. But when a million of them invade your house... Well, we don't want that again.
Mustard loves wet years. Last year was very wet, and this year was moderately wet. So we had mustard growing all over the place. Had being the operative word.
Posted by DJSueellen at 01:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
This rotary cutter attachment is more than just a glorified riding mower. It'll cut about anything, up to an inch thick. It's done a fabulous job on the fields of mustard!
Posted by DJSueellen at 01:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 28, 2006
Hopi Amaranth
I misread the seed packet and thought it said the plants would be 6-8 inches tall. Actually, it said the 'spikes' would be that long, with the plant itself being 5-6 tall! Regardless, they are thriving now in the back yard
"Hopi Amaranth is a strikingly tall plant with deep burgundy flower heads. Young leaves are high in vitamin C, carotene, iron, calcium and niacin and may be eaten in salads or steamed as a vegetable. The tiny black seeds are 16-18% protein and may be ground into a gluten-free flour or added to livestock feed. The Hopis use the flowers to color their ceremonial cornbread. The flowers are also used to dye fabric. Harvest leaves as you would lettuce, and flowers when they are at their peak of color. Harvest seed heads as their color fades. Hang them upside down over a clean sheet until completely dry. "
Posted by Bob at 07:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 27, 2006
More cactus flowers
Posted by Bob at 12:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 25, 2006
Latrodectus hesperus alert!
Glossy, gorgeous, and quite frightening when three of them crawled out of the compost containers when I rearranged them this morning.
We bought the compost containers - two revolving types and one a plain bin with a door at the bottom, both made of black plastic -- last year. We found through experimentation that it is cheaper, faster, and better to use a circle of laminated chicken wire about 4' high by 3' in diameter. It is easier to monitor the ingredients, the speed of composting, and turn the results.
Posted by Sue at 11:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Miniature Peas :-(
The peas were planted April 10, and are still barely 3 inches tall. I don't know why. Do you?
Posted by DJSueellen at 07:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Cabbages :-)
The cabbages are beginning to head.
Posted by DJSueellen at 07:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Utah Update: Planting Weekend
Tomorrow begins Memorial Day Weekend-- traditional planting weekend for summer crops up here, when (almost) all danger of frost has passed. Here you can see the status of our spring crops. They still need another 2 weeks. Oh, well. I plan to plant the summer crop seeds around the spring crops, figuring it'll be two weeks before the new plants come up...
Posted by DJSueellen at 07:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 23, 2006
What's for dinner?
Artichokes, strawberries, blueberries, lemon, potatoes & eggs.
The majority from our garden.
Posted by Sue at 07:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 22, 2006
Buried clay pot irrigation
"Buried clay pot irrigation uses a buried, unglazed clay pot filled with water to provide controlled irrigation to plants grown near it. A standard red clay pot with the hole plugged works fine. The seedling or seed should be placed in the area wetted by the pot. The water seeps out through the clay wall at a rate that is influenced by the plant's water use. This leads to very high efficiency--much better than drip irrigation and as much as ten times more efficient than conventional surface irrigation."
We'll be trying this soon and will report back. This method of irrigation has been around for thousands of years.
Posted by Bob at 07:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 20, 2006
Rationalization: Fun and Easy for the Whole Family!
The 99 Cent Store Rose Forest
Pair of Ferragamo Shoes: $411
This weekend's Huntington Plant Sale - prospective outlay: $200
Cost of 99 Cent Store rose binge: $50
See?
Posted by Sue at 07:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 19, 2006
Cactus flower
From the garden. Cactus are quite amazing. The flowers don't seem like they could possibly be blooming from the cactus, but they are.
Posted by Bob at 05:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 17, 2006
Ford to the Rescue
The local Conservation District here offers cheap saplings each year for trees and shrubs. The idea is to use them as windbreaks. Utah loses tons of topsoil every year because of its high winds and dry conditions. So the State hopes that by offering cheap trees, it can help prevent erosion. Being a New England Yankee to my bones, I know a good thing when I see one. I ordered 50.
Last year I got 40 trees, and dug all the holes by hand. It took me over a week to dig 40 holes and plant 40 trees. I didn’t know then about treating the soil, and about half of the trees died (ten of them within two weeks of planting). This year, I tried to learn from my experience.
The first thing I did was buy a 1950 Ford 8N tractor and a post hole digger. The first afternoon out, it dug 30 holes in 20 minutes—a vast improvement over digging by hand. Then I added soil conditioners to the underlying dirt, and mixed the fill dirt with garden soil and peat. Each tree gets an enclosure of 14-gauge wire, 36 inches tall, so the rabbits can’t eat them. I also tried to leave a rim around the hole, so each week I can pour a couple of gallons of water per tree, and it will have time to soak in rather than running off and watering the weeds.
Time will tell whether this will solve last year’s problems—but all of the trees & shrubs are getting leaves, so that’s a good sign.
Posted by DJSueellen at 10:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 16, 2006
Twelve-Gauge Gardening
Some may find this piece offensive. To them, I apologize. But, as a friend of mine told me, “You’re in the country now. If you want your land, you’ve got to claim it.”
Rabbits have been the scourge of our garden. The photo shows what was a plum tree last year. This year, it’s kindling, thanks to rabbits chewing off the bark. I’ve tried fences and cages, stinky coleus, and even an ultrasonic rabbit repeller. But if I keep them out of the garden, they move on to the trees, or the lawn, or the tulips. The fact of the matter is, there are just too many rabbits. Coyotes and foxes have been hunted out of the area. The two pairs of well-fed bald eagles headed north for the summer. Without predators, the rabbits have been having a population explosion. Nature is out of balance, and we have to deal with that fact.
As a pacifist and former vegetarian, I have been reluctant to use violence to reduce the population. But enough is enough. When three friends volunteered to address the problem for me, I agreed. Suellen was OK with it as long as they cleaned up their mess. One of them, who brought an AK-47 to the task, said if they did it right there wouldn’t be much mess. Other gardening implements included a 12-gauge shotgun and a .45 automatic.
Yesterday morning, my friends walked our 20 acres and made a measurable reduction in the rabbit population. Of course, I also saw a couple of crafty old jackrabbits sneak around behind the humans, and live to reproduce another day. As the junk food commercial says, “Don’t worry, we’ll make more.” But for now, there are fewer rabbits competing for the tender morsels in our yard.
Posted by DJSueellen at 02:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 15, 2006
A New Hope...
Over the winter, Suellen bought us a couple of books on gardening. “You should read these,” she said. I agreed, and promptly went back to splitting wood and doing tax returns. It’s hard to think about gardening when there’s a foot of snow on the ground. But as the days warmed, I decided to take a look. The two books were Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening and Christopher Bird’s Cubed Foot Gardening. I was instantly on the road to enlightenment.
When spring began to show its face, I got some old 2 x 10s and made 4 x 4 foot boxes. I tilled the underlying soil, adding gypsum to help break up the clay and lower the ph. Then I put down the boxes and filled them with a mixture of garden soil (from Walmart), peat moss (from Cal Ranch—my favorite store), and last year’s cow manure (from my friend’s ranch). I positioned sprinklers on each box to make watering easy. Then, last but not least, I stapled chicken wire to the outside of the boxes to keep the #@&%$ rabbits out.
Days here get warm about February, but nights remain cold well into May. In the first week of April, I optimistically planted a “spring” crop of cabbages, peas, spinach, radishes, and onions, but despite the warm days, nothing came up until May. Memorial Day Weekend is the traditional planting time for summer crops, so I sure hope something gets ripe before then!
Posted by DJSueellen at 08:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 14, 2006
Joshua Tree National Park
Sue and I spent the weekend camping in Joshua Tree National Park with friends. Those are Joshua Trees - however they actually are members of the tulip family! I've posted several more photos, Sue will fill in the botanical details in the next day or so.
Many more photos on Flickr
Posted by Bob at 05:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Amazing shoot
This was taken at Hanna's Nursery Gardens in Joshua Tree. The spike is 8 feet tall and grew in just two weeks. Wish we could have been there to see it bloom.
Posted by Bob at 05:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Rattlesnake Bush
This plant is maybe 1/4" tall. Yes, 1/4 of an inch.
Posted by Bob at 05:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Paperbag bush
The little 'paperbags' contain seeds, that's how the plant propagates.
Posted by Bob at 05:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Datura
Datura. Highly hallucinogenic. Even touching the leaves can do it. Can also be poisonous or fatal. Blooms at night.
Posted by Bob at 05:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Rabbits Ate My Compost!
Suellen & I moved to Utah two winters ago, so last summer was the first chance we'd had to plant a real garden. We were excited. I mean, we've got 20 acres, and a fenced garden plot 40 x 100 feet. The previous owners had conditioned the soil (they told us, with a certain amount of hyperbole). We'd plant our seeds, throw out some fertilizer, and watch it grow. Right?
Of course it wasn't that easy. Our soil is heavy clay with poor drainage. Some of our seeds didn't come up (carrots, watermelon), and others died of root rot (cantaloupe, tomatoes). Some died when the chinch bugs migrated (peas). But the scourge of our garden turned out to be rabbits. Everything that grew, they ate. Cabbage, squash, corn, beans, cucumbers. Tulips. Fruit trees. If it grew, they ate it. We tried chicken wire, but they dug under it. We tried stinky rabbit-repelling plants-- the rabbits ate them.
At the end of the growing season, discouraged and demoralized, I strongly thought about moving back to the city. Country life clearly was not for me. Then came snow, and with it a respite and the longing for the next spring. Then one day I stepped outside my door and saw, across 18 inches of snowcover, three rabbits devouring my compost pile.
That was the last straw. This year, I decided, we would need to do something different...
Posted by DJSueellen at 03:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 13, 2006
The potting table
Lots here. Tomatoes, peppers, purple amaranth, hummingbird sage, and a few mystery pots - no matter how carefully I label them, a few always end up as unknowns.
Posted by Bob at 06:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 12, 2006
Society Garlic
Society Garlic, which isn't actually a garlic but certainly has the same aroma, is reputed to keep aphids and other insects away. It appears to work for us, so we plant it near vegetables and roses.
"Garlic has a long folk tradition as an insect and pest repellent used to combat aphids, white flies, spiders and other pests, but garlic's insect repellent abilities are more than just folklore. Diallyl disulfide and diallyl trisulfide, two compounds in garlic oil, are insecticidal. In scientific studies, garlic has successfully destroyed mosquito larvae and certain species of ticks, and has repelled mosquitoes, black flies, fruit flies, and fleas."
Posted by Bob at 12:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 10, 2006
Square Foot Gardening
Don't make the mistake of buying the first square foot gardening book -- Mel Bartholomew states its "obsolete" in his "All New Square Foot Gardening". (Why is the first still sold in bookstores, then?)
Mel's a great process engineer, and it shows. We've tested a few of his methods and, thus far, they work well.
Making Mel's Mix by blending it with a tarp, for example, took only a minute or so, saving us quite a lot of shoveling.
The grid system is great (we use twine to mark the grids; Mel recommends lath -- but we have a lot of twine and no lath at hand). We use small painted rocks to mark empty grids.
Much less water, much more garden in much less space, attractive and weed free, and no damned digging -- what's not to like?
Top 2 rows: carrots in the first grid, then different kinds of fingerling potatoes
3rd row: younger carrots, radishes and lettuce not sprouted yet
4th row: sprouting carrots, 2 blank grids
Posted by Sue at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)
Composting
How can coffee grounds, banana peels, and grass cutting turn into fertile dirt? I knew it to be true, but still, couldn't quite comprehend the process.
Well, it does. Sue has morphed into the Queen of Compost, and the compost piles are turning out a steady amount of dirt that the plants and seedlings thrive in.
We have a couple of spinning composters, however Sue has found that creating a circular wire mesh container, then turning it every couple of weeks works best. In fact, most anything kind of debris like that if left in a pile for six months will turn into dirt. Same with horse poo, and we've found a source for that here in L.A just 20 minutes away. The bottom of their five foot high pile of poo is, in fact, dirt. Amazingly nutritious dirt. Tomatoes love it.
All manner of little bugs live in the compost piles, eating it, breaking it down. The soil in our garden area is filled with earthworms, a sure sign that the soil is quality.
After the sunflowers bloom, then die, we will have large amounts of new compost material, and the process continues.
Posted by Bob at 12:17 AM | Comments (0)
May 09, 2006
And after an exhausting night....
... of snoozing in the house, Romeo curls up on a comfortable mulch for a nice nap in the garden.
Hard life.
Posted by Sue at 10:17 PM | Comments (0)
Another photo of our favorite turtle
Malo, the flesh-eating turtle from Hell, dreams of baby carrots and fingers. Last week, one of the cats hopped in the pen with Malo, and was peacefully snoozing. He was about 6 inches from her and closing in when we shooed her out. Would he have bitten her? He bit Sue once. Turtle bites hurt. A lot.
When he was much smaller and lived inside, Sue came home one day to find he'd escaped from his cage. The cats were cowering in the living room. She found Malo under the bed with a tuft of cat hair in his mouth.
Posted by Bob at 01:00 AM | Comments (0)
May 08, 2006
Succulent flowers
Not sure what species this is, It puts out flowers like these year round.
Posted by Bob at 08:11 AM | Comments (0)
May 07, 2006
Comments
Whoops, we've been slow in posting comments left here (comments are moderated to avoid spam.) We'll be checking the site at least once a day for new comments, so they'll get posted much faster now.
Posted by Bob at 02:23 PM | Comments (0)
Earth Box tomatoes
We're using Earth Boxes again this year, these have four species of tomatoes in them. They were in the backyard in full sun last year, now they're on the patio. This is so we can shield from the blast furnance San Fernando Valley sun of August and September. They stopped producing during that period last year. Also, having them on the patio may help protect them from become ant sanctuaries, like one did last year.
Although the instructions say two tomatoes per Earth Box, when I emptied them out last year, it was all root, with practically no soil left. Hmmm.
Posted by Bob at 02:19 PM | Comments (0)
May 06, 2006
Barrel cactus flowers
Posted by Bob at 06:03 PM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2006
Sunflower watch
Posted by Bob at 03:56 PM | Comments (0)
May 04, 2006
Downtown Tomatoes Revitalization Project
Who knows how long the fruit has been hanging on the nagami-type kumquat tree growing by the back gate? I stripped the tree. Cut out the dead wood. Gave it a lollypop-style cut -- trimmed back to a more-or-less rounded shape. Cut off the protruding remnants of earlier tree surgeries. Whacked out the below-graft shoots. Washed off the dust & bugs. Pounded in three Miracle Gro "Fruit & Citrus" fertilizer spikes at the drip line. And listened to the tree sigh, "ahhh!..."
Posted by Sue at 09:02 PM | Comments (0)
May 02, 2006
Checking in
We were out of town these past several days, hence the dearth of posts.
Sue just transplanted more strawberries to blueberry hill, and I've got several species of sage seedlings going, plus the Hopi Amaranth is taking off like a rocket. Also have seven species of tomatoes and three hot peppers doing fine.
Lots more photos coming real soon.
Posted by Bob at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)