June 17, 2009

Hmm, if you haven't noticed, there are no pics in my ever-popular Potato Bin page.  I was sure I wouldn't have problems since my garden buddy that hosts this blog site offered up her site to house my potato bin pics so they would never go down.  You may recall I had to spread the wealth after the Times article caused my file server site to overload my bandwidth (I'm cheap and won't pay for service since this is a completely free site, no inflow or outflow).  Anyway, I've emailed Judy to see what's up with the pics.  I have them elsewhere if necessary, but I don't recall the order they're in so it'd be wrong if I replaced the links back to either of my pic services.  Rest assured that the pics will be back as soon as possible.

As for the garden, I took care of some spring cleaning in the cool weather after the heat we've had of late.  In fact, according to Cliff Mass, we've had 29 day without rain, which was a record for spring in Seattle.

I needed to rip out some bolting spinach.



And as you can see, the spinach leaf miners had their way with the spinach yet again, so it didn't go into the compost.  Oh, and I didn't even attempt to save seed because this is a hybrid.

Another plant that unfortunately needed clean-up was the transplanted Spanish Lavender. 



I had big hopes for a small plant that wouldn't spread, but would attract bees like nobody's business to complete the bluberry triangle for proper cross pollination.  Unfortunately it's too late in the season for proper transplanting and this plant is too old to transplant well.  After hearing both those things from my Aunt the flower queen, I didn't feel so bad about killing it.  However, I do plan on buying a new one next  year. I love the space it gives me in the blueberry bed.  Heck, I'd have room for another blueberry plant, though I think I want to plant strawberries in that bed in front of the blueberries.  It would cut down on weeds and I could make a nice patch next to this lavender plant.

Lastly, I had to clean up some errant bumble bees.  They have found their way into our laundry room that's right under their nest. 



So far I've found three huge ones, two of which I've successfully transplanted outside.  My dad says as a kid they would catch them in their bare hands and wouldn't be stung as long as the bees couldn't see light. I'm not that brave, hehe, so I used a gallon mayonase jar, hehe.  Anyway, I say for their sake because if they are coming in through the holes in the ceiling for the pipes, that means they're in the attic and have got to go.  I really want them to have come in through the open back door and made their way to the laundry room (unlikely) trying to get back to their nest.  I am still holding out hope that I can keep this nest until they abandon it in the fall.  They did great on the blueberries and fruit trees, but I've got tomatoes and melons for them to pollinate for me soon.  Grrrr.

Hope you've had a chance to do some spring cleaning (the garage is another matter all-together, hehe). Enjoy your garden!

May 31, 2009

Man, time flies when you're busy beyond belief, and this weekend was no exception.  We got a ton done over at the folks place, including painting most of two floors of the house, but I got squat done around the homestead.  Par for the course I guess.

I did of course water, since we had tons of sun and temperatures in the low 80s all weekend (horrible weather if your painting clothes happen to be sweats, hehe).  Most of my pics came from when I watered.  My garden has been on autopilot since I haven't had time to do much of anything to it.  However, Mother Nature has done me proud by setting a few broccoli heads growing this weekend.  Here is the farthest along.

 

I should remember to throw in something to give perspective, but I'd say this head is about a quarter diameter size.  I was excited so I looked and counted two more of my 8 or so plants with tiny heads forming.  Not long now and I should have fresh broccoli!

Yesterday after a long day working, we had plans to go over to our friends for a barbeque and Rock Band action.  I decided I should bring a salad, so I snipped 1/100th of my greens and four radishes.  I could do that every day for a month right now.  Judy, do you think it would ship Fed Ex well to you? hehe.

While I was out there my wife came to hurry me along (I always get carried away when I'm out there).  You see, my Aunt was robbing the old house of excess plants that she or we wanted at our homes.  My brother and I each snagged a Spanish Lavender plant.  We both wanted to put them into pots so they could be used to attract bees to our gardens.  Unfortunately I didn't have an ornamental pot to put it in and we were late for the dinner party, so when I got home with a bare root wilting plant, I threw it into the blueberry bed where my dead lavender was.  You should have seen me yanking that monster out of the ground with my bare hands, hehe.  Being later for a party will do wonders for your adrenaline. 

Anyway, after that I was harvestinga salad and my wife and I got to talking about tomatoes so I had to show her (and you) the progress babies.



If these are Bloody Butchers, they'll grow much bigger than that, but they could be some of my cherry varieties.  Not sure.  Regardless, these will have their seeds saved as the first to produce.  I understand that's a good way to get earlier maturing heirlooms.

Today's evening was spent with the whole family over at my folks so the boys wouldn't have to cook after a long hard day working at the old house.  After we got back both by brother and I needed showers to wash the paint off before dinner, and I HAD to get out and hill up my potato bins.  They've grown gangbusters in this great weather.  I swear you could watch them grow.  I didn't have time to take pictures of them, but safe to say I need to add one, maybe two more boards to each bin, I just didn't have time so they're hilled well above the board level.

When we got to my folks house, I took a moment to check in on my brother's garden progress, only to find he had the same idea I did.  Only he needed to plant some peppers and squash.



As you can see, he hadn't changed out of his paint clothes to garden either, you're just going to get dirty again, hehe.  Also, you can see some of his 10 plus tomat plants planted nearly as close as my SWCs.  Then come the newly planted peppers, followed by some really close zuchinni and other squash.  He says he'll thin them later, could you see how badly they take over that bed? 

While I was there I snapped a couple more pics of his garden. 



Here you can see part of his elaborate hoop house that he left up to provide support for his peas.  In the back of the bed he's got tons of cukes in a similar state as mine, so it looks like we may have a pickling party after all. Don't worry Jen, we can have one too.  Behind that bed you can see the explosion of mint that he can't kill. It just keeps coming back with a vengence.  He plans on harvesting it and making mint jelly and tea if his tea plant provides a harvest.  You can't see it well, but the tea plant is currently in a black pot between the cukes and the mint.

In the 4x4 bed, he's got 4 more tomato plants growing nicely.  And in case you're wondering, he's not going to do Mel's method and prune heavily.  We just let our tomatoes grow together.  However, he will use the spaces in between to grow carrots when he thins his carrot patch.  Like I try to do, he thins and transplants the rejects.  He's had better luck than I have, but I keep trying it.

The last pic I'll show you of his garden is a progress shot of his expansion beds.



As you can see in this picture, he dumped the rotting railroad ties that you can't buy anymore due to the chemicals used in water proofing them.  I think the bricks will look better myself anyway.  As you can see in the back of this photo, he's got two beds built just to make sure they were going to fit like he expected.  The back one is the 2x2 for the raspberries and the closer one is the first of three 4x4 beds.  He's chomping at the bit to get this project finished so he can plant beans and other summer crops.  Yep, he's a bit behind on planting them, but as you could see how crammed full his other beds are, he needs this space something fierce.  If only we had a weekend to ourselves, hehe.

Lastly, I'll share the cuttest pic I've taken in a long time.  We had corn on the cob and the boys had a blast shucking it (ours is 4 inches high right now).



I hope you had a great weekend and got to enjoy your garden!

May 28, 2009

Boy am I tired.  I'm not as young as I used to be.  Yesterday was the final show of Village Theatre's season.  Much as we enjoyed the evening, it was a very late night, followed by an early morning.  Unfortunately I was so exhausted this evening that I almost didn't head out to mow the lawn despite the calf-high grass.  It must have something to the 75 to 80 degree temperatures we've been having for the last several days.

I actually did get out and mow.  It took just over an hour and a half, which isn't bad, and the kids had fun "helping" me when I did the back yard.  The whole thing took two hours of course because I had to do the compost.  I hadn't aerated and turned it since I mowed last, which is bad, so it was difficult to turn before I added the new grass.  I actuallly had too much new material so I ended up dumping about half a 96 gallon yard waste container on top of the pile at the end.  No pictures were taken this time because it was too dark at the end.  In the end I am excited about the amount of compost that I'm making this year.  It seems like more than last year, though I'm not sure how that's possible.

Mostly this evening I spent my time staring into my rose garden.  I was searching for the bumble/carpenter bees to try to identify them.  You see, my recollection is that they had fuzzy butts which would make them bumble bees. However, EVERYTHING about their behavior screamed carpenter bee.  I've been doing a TON of research and carpenter bees nest in eves and facia, where this hive is.  They create the same size hole as I saw.  The males hang around the entrance "defending" it while the nest is being created, which would explain the bees lounging on my siding the other day.  The interesting thing about carpenter bees is that the very agressive males have no stingers so they're all bluster and no bite.  The other interesting clarification I learned is that bumble bees don't die when they sting you like honey bees, so they can sting you over and over, though you really have to piss them off to get them to attack (like get too close to their nest).  Finally, both types of bees are beneficial to gardeners, so I guess it really doesn't matter for the garden, but it does to my house (carpenter) and kids safety (bumble).

I could go on and on with all I've learned, but what I was really looking for was their torsos.  Carpenter bees have hairless black behinds and bumble bees have colorful furry ones.  When I was out there looking, I saw all sorts of bees.  My attention was first drawn to what looked like three wasps comanding the entire garden to themselves.  You know, the elongated, banded torso of and the long antenna.  Scary fighter planes is what I think of. 



Thankfully they ended up flying away over the top of my house after pawing all over all the plants.  Really odd since wasps don't like plants.  After they left, I did see several bees come and go, but they didn't hang around or go slow enough to see them, and none were lounging around the entrance. 

It wasn't until I was watering the plants in the shade that I saw a ton of bees all over my flowering rosemary plant.  They were definitely bumble bees, I got within a foot of them.  The same went for my flowering rhodie tree. However, I couldn't be sure if these were just traveling bumble bees or if they were the ones from my house.  It wasn't until I found one hanging out on the siding under the nest.  It clearly had a fuzzy behind.  I tried to get a picture of my bumble bee, but the silly bee was in the shade so my picture didn't come out.  You'll have to take my word for the fact that I have bumble bees that act exactly like carpenter bees.  So they're dangerous if the kids disturb them while they dig in the rose garden, but hopefully they'll just do fly bys over their heads until winter when they will abandon the nest and I can plug the hole. 

Of course I planned on painting the house so that would definitely anger them.  Not sure if that'll happen this summer, but if so, that'll take some thinking.

Ok, enough about bees, though that has monopolized my time ouside of work for 48 hours, hehe.  While I was out there I had to snap a shot of my purple/blue irises.



Of course my son likes the yellow the best, but they're not quite in bloom yet.  Arent these pretty?

While I was watering the scraps, I had to make note of the fact that I think I have a volunteer (weed?) in my watermelon bin.  I say this because I planted three seeds and got two different plants sprouting.



I guess I'll let them grow and see what happens.  Odd though.

Lastly, I was downloading pics from my phone, I guess I'd snapped some silly pics that I'd like to share.  First is when I was upstairs putting some things in storage I realized I still had my light setup going.  What I had really forgot is that I had some seedlings growing under those lights.  Unfortuantely I hadn't watered them in a few weeks, so there was no hope for them.



They USED to be Italienshier lettuce.  What I had THOUGHT they were originally was stevia, they were growing so slow.  It's ok that I don't have them to plant, I still have TONS of lettuce to harvest.

Whoever said I didn't have enough space to donate a CSA share of my garden clearly overestimated the amount of salads our family can eat.  Hehe.  I've still got tons of open squares to plant in my garden.

My final pic tonight was taken one morning on the way out the door to work.  I still have tons of sprouting potatoes that I don't have room to plant.  I would compost them but with my luck they'd grow and I don't want plants growing in my constantly shaded compost bins.  But look at these sprouts searching desperately for dirt to grow.



Enjoy your garden!

May 26, 2009

Short post tonight as not much to report on, but I had to share.

First off, I was catching up on my blog reading/commenting and came across KitsapFG's blog from the other side of Puget Sound.  I got half-way through her to-do/done list and had to stop to head out to the garden.  I've been seeing holes in my broccoli leaves and she had sprayed with BT, so I thought I should do so.  Thanks KitsapFG! 

However, the big news.  I've got a environmental dilemma here.  I've been planting flowers and other plants to attract bees to my yard.  We don't have honey bees here and haven't for several years, so for us bumble bees do the lion's share of the pollinating, so I love seeing them whenever I can.  I can sit there and watch them on the blueberry bushes.  They bring a smile to my face.

Until now.  I was standing in my kitchen making dinner tonight when outside my kitchen window I saw two fat bumble bees sunning themselves on my siding in the rose garden.  I thought it odd that they wouldn't go home as it was getting close to sundown.  Then I saw a bee fly up into the corner of my garden area above the kitchen window.  Seconds later I saw three fly down from there.  Some quick math made me say some choice four letter words.  Thankfully the kids are at their grandparents tonight, hehe (the last few sentences were literary embellishments).  Needless to say it meant I had a bumble bee nest in my house.  Sure enough, I went out to the rose garden and saw the hole where they were coming out of.  GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Why couldn't they have made their nest in a tree where I could point it out to my sons and say not to shake the tree and make them mad!?  No, they had to make their home where they are not supposed to be.  Now I have to kill them.  I really don't want to kill them. 

Maybe I'll wait until fall when the growing season's over, hehe.  Grrrrr.

Not a happy day in my garden for sure, hope you enjoy yours!

September 28, 2008

Ah, what a glorious day here in the Pacific Northwest!  The sun was shining, there were only wispy clouds in the sky, who'd have known it was fall and that we'd missed most of summer?  Unlike yesterday, I had the entire day to myself for work in the garden.  And boy did I make the most of it!

Thankfully my folks came over to help, because I wasn't looking forward to liberating a corner of my yard and planting my two new blueberry bushes all by myself.  After a half hour of planning, we finally settled on where to put them.



Notice the close proximity to the existing blueberry bushes on the other side of the yard.  I think the bees will have no trouble making the rounds, do you?

Notice that the blueberry bush is still in the transplant bin, that's because I had to mix up some planting soil for them.  Since blueberries are acidic, I wanted to make the soil about as acidic as an orange.  Not easy to do, even though we've got a pretty acidic soil here in the PNW.  So to accomplish that, I took the potato bin soil (Mel's mix minus the peat moss) that I'd amended with a healthy dose of coffee grounds last week and added peat moss and a sprinkle of fertilizer for acid loving plants. 



An hour or so later and presto!



Of course the bush on the right couldn't go there without a bit of work first.  I had a rose bush right next to it.  And since these bushes will eventually grow together, that wouldn't do.  So we moved it.  I sure hope it survives.  It didn't look good a few hours after transplanting.  But here is a shot of all three plants we tinkered with today.



I also hope that the downspout is far enough away at 3 feet to not flood the area with water in the fall and winter months.  If I see it's not doing well, I'll buy a rain barrel and install it there with the overflow over the fence into the front yard.  Apparently you can't kill the tree on the other side of the fence (I have forgotten its name).  Otherwise rain barrels are likely a project for next year.

Finally, if you noticed the scalloped concrete blocks in the various pictures above, well we "borrowed" them from my brother's house and my folks house and my house to piece together a border for the blueberries to match the rose garden.  I think it turned out decent enough for piecemeal.



Now all I have to do is buy some beauty bark and spread it over the area.  I think this time I'll put down landscape fabric between the bushes before I cover it with bark to keep weeds from growing up.  Why beauty bark you ask?  Well it's highly acidic which helps treat the soil as it leaches down.  At least that's what I hoped for when I did it to the existing blueberry bed.  Now it's just a symetry thing, hehe.

After that project was done, I cleaned up the yard.  I hosed down the tarp to put it back over the kids outdoor toys when it rains. It had been used to hold the dirt when I broke open the potato pinata, hehe.  Multitaskers.  Then I also dismantled the yukon gold potato bin for storage in the shed for next year.  I saved the douglas fir boards but recycled the pine 2x2s because they just weren't holding up.



After that project I cut the plastic for the hoop covers.  I sure hope I cut them right so I can cover all three beds now.  Anyway, now that the plastic is cut, I can install all three hoop covers in less than an hour if it looks like it's needed.  While I was in the garden I sprayed Spinosad over all the plants that something's munching.  I sure hope my cauliflower survives. I'm not hopeful.  I scrounged a clear tarp to cover the potato bin to let it dry out.  Then I fertilized the cantaloupe bed with bloodmeal for a nitrogen boost.  I've got a half-dozen or more cantaloupe forming.  I'd be happy if one or two make it before the frost.  Maybe I should have cut off all but one bud per plant, but I just don't have the heart to choose which one makes it.  hehe

Lastly, I was energized but exhausted.  Still I bundled up myself and my eldest and we ventured out into the back 40 for what's likely our final blackberry harvest.  This time I armed myself with a machette and went jungle exploring to find hidden blackberry treasures.  It worked like a charm.  I cleared out a fair amount of old inch-thick dead blackberry canes and picked an over-full gallon ziplock bag of berries in the process.  It was slow going because everything low was relegated to my 4 year old.  He was really good about staying away from the big sharp knife though.  I was proud of him.  We had some great father and son time.  What a perfect end to a productive weekend.  I finally finished up with my arm and back giving out on me just in time to pick up the yard and head inside just as it got dark. 

So I didn't get my garden mucked out and trellis taken down, but I think I've got a bit before the hoop covers are needed.  Let's hope so.  I also didn't weed the garlic bed, though it doesn't need it bad and I can weed when I plant garlic.  Speaking of which, my dad thinks I need to research whether garlic will work with acidic soil in a blueberry bed.  Something I should do soon. Maybe after I'm done here.  Lastly I didn't buy the clear corregated fiberglass to cover my compost bins, but I didn't have the truck.  Again that's something I don't HAVE to do but want to do. 

All in all, not a bad weeked, all things considering.  What's more, I think it recharged me enough to tackle the office again.  Whew!

Hope you all were as productive as I and enjoyed your gardens this weekend!

September 7, 2008 Part II

I don't know what I was thinking when I didn't post yesterday.  Sure it was busy, but I've been busy before and still managed to post.  So I decided to post yesterday's today.  In fact, after uploading 33 pictures from my phone, I decided to do three posts, so please go back and read what I just posted.  Enjoy!

Today, Sunday, September 7, 2008 was the day.  I decided to finally harvest my Yukon Golds!  DoubleD told me I could do so any time and gave me great info on how to store them.  I would have done it wrong.  So I laid out a tarp to catch the dirt.



I removed the boards...



And tipped it over with the help of my wife, boy was it heavy!



What's missing from the picture you say?  Well, potatoes for one.  That's right, my experiment was a failure.  I should have had layers and layers of potatoes.  Instead, I had a mountain of dirt.



And at the very bottom I had a cluster of potatoes for each plant I nurtured for an entire growing season.



I guess I should have researched it more and found out that I can't let the plant to grow more than 4 inches or so above the soil before covering it.  It's the only thing I can think of.  Frustrated?   You bet.  But as my buddy at work taught me, it goes shock, anger, denial, acceptance.  Thankfully on most things I cycle through fast and am already at acceptance as I type this.  I'm not sure I will do potatoes next year.  A lot depends on how good these taste and how many Butte's I get.  If I get squat out of all that jungle, I may reconcider doing this again.  All that work for 10.5 pounds of potatoes.  It's probably 5 meals or so, maybe more, but not a year's worth, that's for sure!

Anyway, thanks to DoubleD, I spread out the potatoes in the September sun.  They dried at 75 degrees for several hours.  Perfect weather for long-term storage, if they last that long.



Oh, and I forgot from my garden tour, look at the pretty flowers on the cantaloupe plants!



And look at what I found as I was working.



It's tough to see, but there's a fat bumble bee trying to pollinate my fruit for me.  Too bad there are no female flowers yet.

Anyway, it was about this time that my mother and aunt showed up.  You see, enough of the blackberries were ready to harvest.  Not too sweet but tender.  Perfect.



My first order of business, as usual, is to hack back a couple feet of space between the bramble and my back fence.  Haven't they heard of encroachment? hehe



So, my mother and eldest son started picking as I got out my machette and started carving a path for them.  I actually harvested more than I cut because my son's not quite tall enough to pick much.

While we were doing this, my aunt was doing what she always does, she was weeding the rose garden.  It's a never ending battle.  If it weren't for the mature roses and irises, I would napalm the area and start over with raised beds.  Someday maybe, but not anytime soon.

Anyway, it was early in the picking when a very unfortunate accident happened.  My aunt was pulling out some wild grass and weeds that had grown up between the house and the roses when she grabbed a hold of a wasp nest.  By the time my wife got out there and scrapped the clinging wasps off her, she had been stung between a dozen and twenty times on the arms, chest, throat and face.  My wife thankfully only got one sting on her stomach.  Even more thankfully, after they got safely in the house and the mini-swarm had disapated, I grabbed my son and made a dash for the door.  My mother followed shortly thereafter and nobody else got stung. 

A significant dosage of Benadryl, Advil and hydrocortizone later, we called the nurse line and on their advice, shipped my aunt off to the ER.  She's in good health, but 65 and a smoker.  Best not to take chances.  She's fine, but we blew the day.  Nobody went outside until dusk. 

So the dirt is still on the tarp, waiting to be bagged for use down the road for something other than potatoes.  The blackberries still need to be harvested.  The flower beds still need to be weeded. And my row covers still need to be installed.  Oh, and I've got a wasp nest to take care of.  My mother wants me to call an exterminator for $125 if it's the same as last time.  My dad just wants me to walk up with a spray can and do it myself.  We've taken nests out before.  When it's fall and the night-time temperatures drop considerably, they get slow and docile at night and it's easy.  But now it's still 63 at midnight!  No way. hehe.  I guess I've got a call tomorrow.  /sigh

Hope you had a good weekend.  My football team looked pittiful in their season opener and I wasted a day in the garden, on top of my wimpy potato production.  Mine could have been better.  Work tomorrow. Better hit the sack.

Enjoy your garden!

August 31, 2008

Good day, good day.  The weather cooperated, though I didn't get much done in the garden.  I did dig around about a foot down into my yukon gold bed and didn't find anything.  I was afraid to dig too much so I gave up.  Whatever's in there will hold for a while so I'm going to let them cook a bit more.  I may even cover them to keep the rain from providing irrigation. 

But good news, I found flowers on my cantaloupe! Tomorrow they should be big enough to tell if they're male or female.  Of course they should be male first, followed by females a few weeks later.  But you can bet I'll be hand pollinating any female flower I find!



We also were hoping to pick some berries or maybe harvest some plums, but their not ready yet.  DoubleD's right when she says in years past we'd have harvested all there was to harvest by now.  Here's to hoping there will be plums and blackberries to harvest this year. Without it, there will be no PB&J sandwiches for a year, for my kids or I.  Yep, I regularly eat them for lunches or even dinners if I get home way late.  But I can't remember when I've had store-bought jam or jelly, and I'm not going to start now.

Speaking of preserving, we did harvest five more mini-cukes for pickling.  Then, for the larger ones, we cut them into fourths (wedges) and started the pickling process.  To begin with, we mixed up the pickling spices from a recipie found on the net and raiding my mother's and brother's spice racks.



The only things we're misisng here is Mace (whatever that is), and dill seed (we figured we had fresh).  Then we cut up the cucumbers...



The next step was to layer cucumbers, spices and dill.  But wait, I've got to show you my farmer's market dill find (thanks to my brother for calling me to tell me about it). It's so tall it took two pictures to get it all in, hehe.





That's right, they were 3 feet tall and my house smelled like dill even before I started marinading.  So here's one of the layers of pickles to be...



Note that we threw in six cloves of garlic from my brother's garden, then came the thick layer of fresh dill.  I had more than needed so I laid it on heavy. Why not?



So, now that mix is marinading in vinegar and that mess for the next 4 weeks in the garage with a plate weighed down to keep it submerged. It says it will have foaming and scum.  So in anticipation of that, my corn pot (I'm not needing that this season /sigh) is resting in a pastry/cookie sheet.  The mix smells great!  Much better on my wife than the bread and butters did.

We also would love to can some beans since I've got far too many to eat for all three of our families.  But all my mother's canning books say you need to use a pressure cooker to preserve any veggie without acid in it.  We don't have a pressure cooker. Anyone experienced with preserving know of a way to can beans or the like without a pressure cooker?  The last thing I need is MORE kitchen tools.

Anyway, in case you thought I just sat around eating bon bons the rest of the day, I also started making a loaf of no-kneed sourdough bread.  And my mother is pleased that her white flour starter is 90% ready for her to take home.  But since you're probably tired of the progression shots, here is the current finished product. 



It needs to sit under plastic for 18 hours.  Tomorrow morning I'll do the final proof and bake it!  I can't wait.  Tonight I thought of something. We've got that rosemary plant that's taking over our yard. I bet that would be great in sourdough bread.  The possibilities are endless.  Now if only I can bake it without my make-shift cloche breaking on me.

Also, I took a few more pics of my garden.  Enjoy...

Here are some tomatoes that are almost done...



And here is a funny S'shaped broccoli plant that grew leggy behind the cauliflower.  It's twin we harvested tonight and I essentially boiled it in the microwave along with some frozen corn for the rest of the family and it was very tasty!  Yay!  It may not be as healthy as lightly steaming it, but if I'm eating it, it's better than nothing.  Same will go for the beans thanks to the peanut gallery!



And here are Judy's marigolds.  Funny that my brother hadn't heard of marigolds as an amazing companion plant. But they're pretty also.  At least I think so.



However, if they're supposed to draw in bees to pollinate anything, it's not working. hehe\

Lastly, I've been hanging out at Freedomgardens.org with some new local and not-so-local garden buddies, most of whom are either existing or homesteaders in training, so I'm learning a ton.  Anyway, there was talk about clothes lines for drying laundry, and how they're hit and miss in the PNW where it can rain at a moment's notice.  Tough to get your clothes dry if they get wet.  Here's what we've done to dry almost all our shirts, pants and some other laundry.



It was a quick re-build after my father grabbed a hold of it to keep from falling off a ladder, ripping the old one from the ceiling.  It works. Cheap PVC desigend to fit a very small laundry room! 

Yeah, I know, this is a gardening blog, so why am I bothering with making bread, pickles and saving energy.  Tis the season for saving money and preserving what we grow. 

Hope you enjoy it!

June 14, 2008

I don't really know what posessed me to look up codling moths and apple trees, but I found a post on GW about it.  It sparked something in my mind.  A few weeks ago I was out in the back yard, probably looking over my potato bins.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw what looked like a dead leaf on my young apple tree.  I pulled it off to get rid of dead stuff and it wasn't dead.  It was in fact, two brown moth's mating.  Needless to say they died happy.  But I didn't think much more about it until today.  I looked up codling moths on Wikipedia and sure enough, they could very well have been what was on my apple tree. 



This picture was taken while I was out looking for any damage.  There were a few eaten leaves that I removed, and I thinned the apple clusters down to the two best looking apples so as not to weigh down the branch too much.  However, I have no idea if there are moth larva burrowing into the center of my apples as I speak.  I'd like that not to happen, but I also don't want to start spraying.  I understand baging the tiny apples helps, but I figure the damage is done so that's not needed (could be wrong).  I think it'd be silly to see huge sandwich baggies ziplocked around the stem of tiny little apples the size of marbles.

Also while I was out there I realized that I hadn't shared my climatis. It's blooming despite my sorry attempt to trellis it.  I should really have been more diligent about that.  It's still pretty with it's huge white flowers...



 While I was outside, I was struggling with a to-do list.  The weather was turning great (currently 68 in the garden), well great for us. And I didn't know what to do.  Then I remembered I wanted to plant out 13 SF of my garden that was still bare.  So I planted 2 SF of carrots now that my second planting is over an inch high and starting to develop real leaves.  I also planted 1 SF of onions so my wife will have 4 SF total.  Finally I planted one more SF of radishes, you can never have enough radishes.

I set to soaking my last 8 bush bean seeds. Unfortunately it won't be enough to fill in the major bare squares, so I'll do my best.  Let me say I will not be doing Jade Bush Beans from Territorial again.  Not sure what I'll do with the 4 SF in front of my bush beans and behind my broccoli.  Maybe more carrots. My son loves carrots and they're like radishes, you can't plant enough of them. 

While I was out there, I kept hearing a chain saw in the distance. I hadn't mentioned it before, but driving home from the park-n-ride for the past week I've been eyeing this tree trunk almost as big as a car in my neighbor's yard.  He's an amature arborist and works for the PUD. He's the guy that helped me cut down my trees.  Well apparently the PUD had a tree they couldn't get rid of and gave it to him.  So the kids and I went for a walk.  Here he is just about done cutting up with the biggest chain saw I've ever seen.



We got to talking and I mentioned that that sawdust was good for composting.  He said I could have it if I wanted it.  So I borrowed his wheelbarrow and took a load back to my compost.



Here's what two loads of saw dust looks like on top of all that grass...



And here it is mixed in and aerated.



So now I've got a great blend of greens and browns, and it's fluffed enough that I shouldn't have a smell for Father's Day, which is tomorrow at my house.

Finally, you should see all the bumble bees on my lavender.  They're covering it!



I love having blooming flowers that bees love on either side of my blueberry bushes. They pass back and forth and stop now and then to polinate the bushes.  How nice of them!  Oh, the "other" flowering plant is my rosemary. It's gone wild from lack of attention on my part. I've never harvested any herbs from it yet, mostly because I don't know what to use them on or how best to harvest it.



Then we headed out for a walk to enjoy the weather and grab dinner (Teriyaki and salad with my radishes thrown in for good measure).  Out we smelled tons of BBQs and it made me drool for tomorrow. Steak, baked potato, home-grown salad, and freshly brewed ice tea... what more can you ask for?  Oh, yeah, apple pie and cheesecake for desert. Yum!

Right after dinner the last garden activity for the day was to plant the last 8 bean seeds after they'd been soaking for a couple of hours. I didn't bother sprouting them because I'm half tempted to transplant the only thriving ones to one or two squares and scrap the rest.  Out of an entire package of seeds I got less than 20 plants to survive.  That's horrible.  Ah well, live and learn.

Enjoy your garden!