July 2, 2009

Whew, what a night.  Exhausting but fun.  Tonight was the first night in I don't know how long that we took a break to spend time with our families.  For my part, we went on a walk, which was fun, but I was sluggish being so sore.  As we were locking the kids up in their jogging strollers, I couldn't help but snap this pic of my shady pea patch.



There must be hundreds of peas in these 4 SF!  A ton can happen in a few days since I last walked through the garden.

When we got back, I fired up the grill and barbequed some steaks.  In addition to the baked potato, I had the kids go out and harvest our side dish.



Don't mind the carrots.  They couldn't pass by without picking their own vegetable for dinner.  My wife and I didn't get any of those.  Instead we paired the snap peas with some left over broccoli.  Seems the cauliflower flourettes had gone yellow and smelled a bit funky in the crisper after a week, so they got composted.

Speaking of compost.  I still haven't had the time, nor energy to get out and aerate and mix in the stored compostables.  However, last evening I got home at 8 so after we read to the kids and put them to bed, I rushed out and ripped out the flowering radishes, spinach and spent broccoli.  For lack of better place to store it, I keep throwing it on top of the shrunken pile.  I've got tons more than this to add.



When I turn this, I'll use a shovel instead to chop up these so they break down faster.  Oh, and the newspapers in the corner are simply stored there under cover for when I need them, hehe.

Dinner was yummy, and my wife even ate the week old broccoli saying it was still good tasting, just not as crisp.  I'll take that!  Oh, and we found out that snap peas are unlike beans, in that you want your peas to be big and fat and your beans young and tender.  Note to self, pick only the largest peas.  They're sweeter and jucier. 

Lastly, I have no idea why I took this shot. I just thought it showed my garden from a different angle. 



In the foreground are yukon gold potatoes and carrots.  In the middle are broccoli and cauliflower and in the back are tomatoes and more carrots (my kids love them).  The other thing this shows is the shade-line created by the side of my garage.  It's in there where my monster pea patch is located. The patch in direct sun for more time every day is much smaller and stunted.  Go figure.  Peas like shade.  See, you learn something (many) new every day, hehe.

Well, I'm exhausted and tomorrow is a long day of work and then a late night at the house.  Saturday will be light and celebratory, then Sunday will be all hands for rigorous cleaning from top to bottom.  THEN WE'RE DONE!

Enjoy your garden.

June 30, 2009

Just wanted to drop by to let folks know I'm still alive.  Barely.  Working all weekend, then every night so far this week has been hell on my body, but we're getting things done left and right. 

Thanks Dan, yeah, I did two days of trim work.  The second day we just wanted it finished, so my brother and I both shared the chop saw and hammered it out.  I must say it looks good despite doing a lot of "good enoughs," hehe.

Pretty much the only thing I can say about my garden is that I know it's still there. I watered it the other day.  But other than that, I haven't touched it. Getting home exhausted after 9 pm does that to you.

I sure hope folks that are my regular readers will come back after this weekend to continue to read about my gardening adventures.  Until then...

Enjoy your garden!

June 28, 2009

Well, it seems like I'm on break from working at the house. We're in the home stretch with seven days before the stager comes in to take over the finished house.  Are we ready, not even close.  So after 8 hour days this weekend, we're going to pick right back up Monday after work and do that every day this week until it's done.  Actually, we're down to one page of big ticket items, and several of them have been crossed off.  It was really cranking today with everyone pitching in and doing what needed to be done.  I even tried my hand at installing quarter round base after my brother threw up his arms and gave up, hehe.  I survived it by not overthinking it. I knew I couldn't measure the 45 degree cuts with any precision so I measured once and cut 4 times for each piece.  Young legs, hehe.

Ok, I know, this is a gardening blog, but I had to share my to-do list results and it was a biggie on the list.  I also worked on the clogged drain, hehe. Cleared it with an arosol jet product rather than removing the toilet, YAY! Now the sink isn't even slow, it's been slow for months waiting for the renovation to be done to dig into it.

As for the garden, I got home from my folks at 6:30. Immediately the boys and I went out and mowed the lawn.  Boy did it need it, but alas, that's all I got done.  I had light to put up the trellis, but my arms and legs don't move. 

During my absence today, our teacher that I started the tomatoes for stopped by for an impromptu garden tour.  She was in the neighborhood, but I wasn't.  So my wife led the tour.  I was pleased that she took home with her a boatload of lettuce and my big head of broccoli.  Now I don't have to figure out how to eat it before it blooms, hehe.  She even caught that my watermelon was really a tomato. I hadn't mentioned it to my wife and our teacher said "there may be a watermelon in there, but THAT'S a tomato." Hehe.

Well, you've heard my schedule for the coming week. I can't guaranty I'll have anything to say or get to do anything this week, so the posts may be a bit sparce.  Sorry in advance.  It will all be over in a week. Eye on the prize, hehe.

Enjoy your garden!

June 26, 2009

Hey folks, short post.  Seems folks have been running into a bit of technical challenge, needing to re-register.  Sorry about that. I have no clue what's going on. If it continues, feel free to post anonymously and I'll approve comments.  I don't mind.  I'll ask Judy to look into it assuming I can't do it myself.  You know how technically illiterate I am.

Anyway, the weather's gorgeous out there, in the 70s today, and I've already watered, so it's time to play with my kids.  They've taken to wanting to ride their bikes so we have for the past two days.  They enjoy it.

On the garden front, the broccoli is just about over-done, but we still have some in the crisper, so I may be pulling it regardless this weekend. 

In addition, I'm on a quest to find out just how a tomato plant got into my watermelon bin? Now that KitsapFG confirmed that I don't have a watermelon growing, I know it's a tomato plant.  How it got in there I have NO idea.  I am interested to find out what variety it is, since I know I didn't plant it.  More on that as it grows.

Other than that, this weekend is going to be spent on renovation work. We need to paint and install quarter round and base molding throughout the house and pressure wash the roof and siding a bit.  Oh, and there's the little problem of my bathroom drain not working, so I need to remove the toilet and snake the drain.  Joy.

If I get time, I desperately need to mow the lawn and put up the trellis in the main garden.  I think my peas and cukes are starting to grab hold of anything they can. hehe.

Hope you enjoy your garden!

June 25, 2009

I guess this is a random garden tour-like post.  I've been accumulating pics of things that struck my fancy for a while and just haven't had opportunity to work them into posts.  After chatting with Judy on Facebook tonight, I commented on my freaky corn and I promised her I would show it in my blog post tonight. 

I've been trying to get it to grow fast by side dressing with fish emulsion every week or two.  That may have had something to do with these side shoots...



I went out today and those V side shoots are thicker and looking like more stalks.  It almost looks like the stalks that the ears grow on, but they should be mid-way up a 3 foot tall stalk, not coming out of the ground?  What do you think? Can I expect ears from each side shoot?  Very odd.  I'd wanted the nitrogen to help them grow tall, not freaky, hehe.

Ok, now I'm normally good at segwaying to the next topic and pic, but I'm not going to bother this post, sorry.  Instead I'll just jump from topic to topic to clear up my pics, hehe.

Here is a demonstration of what a few weeks can do for my peas.



I took that a week or two ago, and that same pea yesterday looked like this...



What do you think, snap peas ready now or should I wait?  I'm so nervous after waiting too long on my beans that I'm gunshy. hehe.

Now on to tomatoes.  I finally found another plant that is producing fruit. 



It's clearly a cherry, though not sure which one.  I'm kind of liking the mystery of it all.  Oh, and if you're wondering like I was, the grey thing at the bottom left is my wand, filling the SWC.  These plants are going through water very fast, much earlier than last year.  As a result, I may very well have home grown tomatoes by the 4th of July.  No, not these, but look at what I found when I last watered.



Yep, I've got two (Bloody Butcher?) ripening.  Pretty cool.

Next, I thought this shot was cool, so I snapped it.  It's a pic of my yukon gold potato patch.  Some of the plants are nearly 3 feet tall now, but some have dodged the crowd and are growing out into the path.



I remember last year I had a broccoli that did this, the stalk was leggy and in the shape of an S with the head growing two feet off the ground.

This next pic is yet another from my lone surviving Blacktail Mountain watermelon plant in a scrap SWC.  I'm just waiting for tomatoes to grow on it.  Very odd.



Lastly, I just had to take a pic today of one of my new blueberry bushes.  It's too small to allow it to grow a full harvest, but I like to let a cluster or two mature to taste them while most of the energy goes to developing a sturdy root system and strong canes.  This Jersey will be the first to mature a berry.  Look at them!



I'm worried that if those corn with the V stalks grows much bigger, they'll shade this plant, hehe.  Tough to do from the north, but it could create a canopy.

Anyway, sorry for the random thoughts.  Hope you've enjoyed my miscellaneous pics and have a big weekend planned in your garden.  I've got renovation and plumbing repairs scheduled. /sigh.

June 24, 2009

Thanks all for your comments.  As for the carrots, they were this year's first planting.  I was thinking back to what I had planted there last year to see if there could have been overwintered carrots there, and that's impossible.  Last year I had corn there.  Quite odd since they came from this year's seed too.  Unfortunately I'm not sure if they were bad Danvers or Purple Haze.  All I can say is there were a ton of them all together in the middle of the carrot patch.  My wife did me a favor and yanked them.  Here's another shot of the lot of them on top of the cole crop leaves destined for the compost bin.



There were about a dozen of them, all woody with thick 3 foot tall bushy stalks.  I didn't pay attention to what I planted where in the carrot patch, I figured if it was purple I'd know when I pulled them, which we have pulled one that tasted fine.  Well, enough about carrots.  What else do you give Rudolph at Christmas?  Yep, apples.

Last night I was at the Mariner's game in a suite for work.  They were loosing of course so I was chatting with the folks in the room and happened upon a gardening conversation.  A co-worker was talking about her apple orchard and her failed experiment at covering them with panty hoes booties.  Aparently it is too much work for a 20 foot tall tree, let alone a half-dozen of them.  So when it came up that I had a small tree with a dozen or so apples, she offered to give me her booties.  Tonight after watering the garden, the boys and I went out and covered some tiny apples.  We wouldn't have done it if we had a bigger tree or tons of apples, but a dozen is no big deal.



Little Owen proudly standing next to his apple tree.



They may be a bit big to cover, but better late than never.  The kids weren't a ton of help, but they sure had fun trying.  Owen for instance held the bag of booties (I have about 200 of them), and Logan put the booties over the apples.



Then, instead of using ties to close the ends, my co-worker suggested I just tie the ends together.  So I twisted the ends and simply tied them in a knot.  Not sure how well it will hold as the apples grow, but I'll check on them each time I water.



Don't they look silly?  Why do this, you ask?  Well, Western Washington is under a several decade-long Apple Maggot quarantine and we have a major Coddling Moth problem (did I mention Washington is the Apple capital of the world?).  How they found my little tree I have no idea, but last year before I picked off the tiny apples to let it grow, I found a couple of moths coddling.  I thought they were a dead leaf so I grabbed it to remove it... eww.  Anyway, I practiced organic pest control... I stomped on them, hehe.  Now I just hope I caught them before the moths found them.

Not only was I productive in the garden tonight, but the kids enjoyed themselves helping me.  Isn't life grand?!

June 23, 2009

Well, Father's Day is over, and boy was it a good meal, if I do say so myself (I made it, hehe).  Of course there were the steaks grilled to perfection and baked potato with all the fixin's, but I just had to include a broccoli, cauliflower and carrot mix from my garden.  They were lightly steamed and the talk of the meal.  Everyone agreed that they were so fresh and crunchy that it wasn't even fair to call the storebought veggies by the same name.



 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh my do I need to lose a few pounds, hehe.  Gotta get this leg fixed and stop eating like a pig when I am working on the house on the weekends.  More of those niche fresh veggies should help, hehe.

This pic is a bit better.  Action shot of me harvesting the entire cauliflower plant. 



Gotta give the cukes behind it some direct sunlight.  Bad idea to plant the broccoli and cauliflower as a wall in front of the cukes.  Poor timing really since I fully expected the cole crops to be out of there before the cukes were planted.  Oops.  Next year the cole crops go in Bed 4 where my potatoes are.  Speaking of bed #4, look at how well it's grown.



Hehe, sorry if I'm in all the shots. My niece asked for some shots of me gardening so I had tons taken of me over the weekend.  Those potatoes are 3 feet tall.  And those carrots, some of them are not far behind.  Funny huh?  Carrots with 3 foot stems?  They're thick too.  I just had to see what the carrots looked like, so I dug down and found to my surprise, that the carrots were the same thickness as the stem.  I harvested one.  Take a look!



Not only that, but the carrot was inedible!  At first I thought it was the Purple Haze since it didn't look like anything I'd grown before.  And it isn't an aboration since I've got tons of them in the garden.  The funny thing is that my wife pulled an 8 inch stem out and found an inch thick carrot that was 7 inches long.  In other words, beautiful. Sorry, no pic, my son devoured it saying it was the best carrot he'd ever eaten.  Another funny thing is that the next day we pulled a Purple Haze carrot that was actually purple and good sized.  It was sweet and excellent, so it wasn't these. 

Anyway, my wife yanked all these and they're now in the compost.  I doubt the carrots will compost anytime soon they're so hard.  Grrr.  Wonder what they are?  If they're not left over Mokums, they're either Danvers or Purple Haze?

Oh well, to end this post, I wanted to share my new favorite pic. I'm using it as my Facebook photo.



Enjoy your garden!