may garden highlights

I've been enjoying seeing the garden updates here over the last week, so I thought I would share some of the highlights in our gardens right now.

 

 One of the most exciting new developments for us, is the addition of a blueberry patch. We purchased 5 bushes this week. They are 3 years old and are already full of quite a lot of green berries. It was tempting to bring home even more, but we held back in order to reserve space for some diversity in varieties. This particular variety is Bluecrop.

 The tomatoes have been planted. There are still quite a lot left over, so we're working on coming up with ways to fit them in, in other places. We could never have too many tomatoes!

Flowers are blooming everywhere, with colorful new faces each day it seems. A lot of herbs are starting to flower right now, which adds such a diversity of colorful texture.

 Tiny summer squashes are forming already! At least one variety that I chose this year is resistant to powdery mildew. I am hoping they fare better than past years.

 

 It's going to be time to have some artichokes any moment now. These particular plants are now about 3 years old, and are producing so well this year. 

We are planning to build cucumber trellises rather than let them sprawl as I usually do. They will be ready to start climbing soon.

There is so much growth happening right now. Looking back on some photos I took just a week ago, I am amazed at the changes and how quickly things are filling out. With June just a short ways off, the garden will really start to change and grow rapidly.

And just for fun, a photo of the native Rhododendron. I don't think I will ever get over my amazement of these impressively large, colorful blooms. The woods are lined with them right now. Such a beautiful contrast to the lush green of the forest in May.

The Delights of Mid-May

 Apple blossoms promising a bumper crop this year. We're hoping to make apple cider, apple cider vinegar, and applesauce this year.

 Good old reliable garlic. 102 cloves planted this year plus a few extra in the front herb beds.

Nothing makes me happier than to see buds on our peonies, or

the neon pink tulips around our cherry tree.

 100 dandelion flowers were collected to make a festive spring drink.

 Dandelion lemon soda (Dandelion flowers, light brown sugar, water, lemon) in the works. Recipe from Backyard Medicine, a new favorite herbal.

The tomato seedlings are getting bigger and needed to be re-potted recently. This year we are growing Orange Banana, Mortgage Lifter, German Pink, Indian, Sungold, Amish Paste and Cosmonaut Volkov.

The view of our field garden from above. Look behind the pond on the right to spot it.

Other mid-May delights not photographed:

Eating asparagus, just picked, from our neighbor's garden
The promise of free raspberry bushes from a friend
The first morel spotted
Sweet Pea flowers emerging from the soil
Weekend lunches eaten outdoors
The backyard garden planted with red and golden beets, alpine strawberries, parsley, cress, lettuce
Making a summer salve
Rhubarb, lemon, vanilla handpies from A Year of Pies
Melissa Clark's roasted asparagus with rhubarb puree from Cook This Now

What are your favorite mid-May delights?

full swing in the garden

Although our house is under major construction right now and i may have to hop over a ladder or straddle a pile of lumber to weed and plant, it is not keeping me from being out in the garden. after visiting chanticleer last week, i came home inspired to try new things, one of which was to play around with willow. willow branches are very pliable and root very easily making beautiful living structures. you can watch a little video by martha here to see how to make a living fence. i just dug up a boxwood hedge which was not doing so well and plan to make this type of fence to replace the hedge. for now my mother had a few bunches of willow that she rooted in a bucket of water which i used to make a simple little fence to weave around a bed of newly planted herbs by the bunny hutch to keep little feet from trampling them.
the dinosaur kale is growing well among the perennial flowers. i can't wait for fresh raw kale salad! last summer a friend gave me a peach tree which he had potted up a few years back. it had sprouted up in his compost pile from a peach pit and now it lives in the front of our house along the strip between the sidewalk and the street where it can soak up full sun. it is dripping with fruit! i still need to read a little more about growing and pruning peach trees. oh i am dreaming of peach cobbler! this week i bought a few asparagus plants and referred back to abby's post since i have never grown asparagus before. one obstacle i have with growing asparagus is that i do not have a place for it to grow all by itself in it's own bed. but i am going to be daring like i have with all of my edibles and try to grow it amongst some other things and see how it does. it can't hurt to try right? i also bought a beautiful healthy rhubarb plant to plop right in the middle of my front garden which gets loads of sun. i am going to keep this off the beaten path of people passing by on the sidewalk since the leaves are toxic. the rainbow swiss chard i planted in pots is growing strong and looks beautiful among the pansies and succulents.

the alliums are in full bloom.
and the strawberries are flowering making our mouths water for smoothies and crumbles.

what's growing in your garden these days?

late spring happenings: up north edition

after natalie's post yesterday i am once again in shock about the vast difference between the seasons down in arkansas and up here in minnesota! we are just barely scratching the surface of spring here. here's a bit of what's happening up here these days...

over the weekend, i finally cleared out all of last year's remains from my community garden plot. jared and i added some compost and turned the soil (well, he did that part...i've been banned from shoveling duty this year!) and i weeded the plots, dug up the ever expanding garlic chives that i plan to gift to friends and neighbors and transplant into my home gardens, and continued on my annual quest to corral the strawberries back into their designated areas.

back at home, i cleared off the leaf mulch from my perennial gardens and began planting some flowers. i didn't really get around to starting any flower seeds early this year (except for marigolds), so to satisfy my impatience and excitement over spring's belated arrival, i picked up some pansies, alyssum, and dusty miller (we love that name!) at my local garden store to pretty up the front of our house. we brought home another clematis to accompany the one we planted last year. my mother-in-law says they do best in pairs (or more) so we'll see how it turns out.

i also planted a few more pots of flowers with seeds that my friend mary sent me (zinnia and morning glory) and used the extra pansies, etc. to start planting my garage wall garden.

on the vegetable front...the kale starts that i was so generously gifted by a neighbor did not survive the neighborhood squirrels, so i'm starting over with direct seeding. in the next week or so i'll be planting seeds for cucumbers, summer and winter squash, chard, and dry beans. i'm also beginning to harden off my  tomato seedlings that have been growing like mad in the basement.

even though it sounds like a lot (and is!) i am intentionally trying to simplify my garden this year. with the new addition to our family coming in early august, i know my time and energy (and physical ability to bend over, ha!) will be limited. but i just can't stop myself! so...get ready for loads of flowers and herbs in addition to the slightly limited veggies i'm planting...

late spring garden happenings

i am always inspired by these tend ladies. their passion for gardening on small plots of land is contagious. in early spring, i found this old stump & planted mint inside amy style. every time i look at our little stump planter, i think of her. thank you, amy, for the wonderful idea! 

late spring is here & we are beginning to prepare for the summer season. we are planting tomatoes & making trellises with twine & bamboo for cucumbers. we are planting zucchini & yellow squash, crossing our fingers aphids & squash bugs don't get to our plants first (we still haven't found an organic pest control solution... any ideas? they are fierce here!). 

for now, we are patiently waiting for our carrots. only a few short weeks left until we can begin harvesting! it is definitely salad season here. we have never grown romaine lettuce before, but our heads are maturing nicely. we are filling up brown bags of lettuce for neighbors, family & dear friends. i sometimes fill up a mixing bowl of salad for lunch. it's so delicious this time of year. 

i found that old red chair at a yard sale for a couple of dollars last weekend. the seat needed to be re-woven, but instead, i decided to make it into a fun planter. 

we also added a new garden bed to the side of our house for mint. i am looking forward to mint tea & popsicles this summer.

it's a wonderful time of year for planting, harvesting, watching & enjoying the bright new greens of the season! happy gardening friends!

pests: problem solving in the garden

Like many other gardeners I know, I love kale. The last 2 years in a row, I've had a lot of trouble with what seemed to be root maggots, eating the roots and main stalks of my kale and broccoli to the point of their death. Kale is one of my favorite garden vegetables, so I haven't been able to give up on it, but it's been super frustrating.

Last spring, when I found maggot infestations in the roots of my first planting of cucumbers, I decided to investigate a little bit further (this would not be a typical plant for root maggots). I started to notice that where ever I found little white larvae, I would also find tiny white organisms with legs (millipede babies), and small millipedes (closer example here). Are there two problems, or are they all related? Still slightly unsure on this but I am thinking two.

Millipedes feeding on a decaying artichoke flower. If you look closely you can see babies as well.

After some research on millipedes, it seems pretty likely we have an issue with overpopulation. The garden provides nearly ideal millipede conditions, with lots of decaying matter in the form of mulch and woody compost, and steady moisture. Millipedes aren't usually problematic in a garden, but they will eat what ever is at the site of their hatching, including the roots of young seedlings. So in the event of an overpopulation, seedlings may start to become a more likely food source.

Lacinato kale, interplanted with arugula

This year I'd been holding my breath a bit. It's been drier and warmer than usual this spring, and my kale has been growing strong. We had the first rain in quite a while this week, and when the sky started to clear I went to check on the garden. Seeing the kale all flopped over from breezy rain reminded me of past issues, so I started poking around. I found that nearly every single one of them had many millipede babies in their roots, and at least one with maggots burrowing in the main stalk. I also found quite a lot of mature millipedes. I cleared out all offenders that I could, and then moped off feeling pretty grumpy and defeated. But yes I know, moping doesn't accomplish anything... 

I tried to feel out the situation to see if a solution would come to me. I thought of all the usual things I knew of... insecticidal soap, neem oil, wood ash, coffee grounds... but none of them really felt quite right, and then coffee came to mind. Brewed coffee. The feeling was to brew some coffee and pour a bit at the base of each plant - enough to saturate the immediate root supply. I haven't heard of doing this, but it just had that feeling of effectiveness, you know? Do you ever try that? To just feel for a solution? Sometimes I have come up with amazing solutions this way. I don't know if this one will work, but I'll be watching closely.

Later, I looked online to see if I could find any literature on using coffee as a pesticide, and actually found a few mentions of using brewed coffee as a spray on plants to deter slugs. Apparently the caffeine is toxic to them. I have to say, it was satisfying to find some backing to my less than scientific vision.

I used the grounds too.

If anyone has encountered issues with root maggots or millipedes and has found an organic way to deal with them, you have my full attention. This has probably been my biggest gardening frustration (lucky? maybe). It's hard to see beautiful plants you have grown up from seed just suddenly waste away.

While life will surely go on if I lose all my kale, I like to try to tackle these challenges and not give up. I've become a more patient and more enduring person in my day to day life by sticking it out with these kinds of perplexing challenges in the garden.

a little of this and a little of that

 as i was going through some old photos last week, i found the one above of our backyard when we first bought the house almost 15 years ago. as you can see i had a clean slate to work with-not one plant was to be found! there was just grass which over the years i have eliminated all of, except for one little strip along the sidewalk where we can get out in and out of the car (which soon will be flagstone:)
 
  i thought it would be fun to show you the before and after.

 this week we have been direct seeding several different vegetables including cukes and watermelon right on the front lawn. and i have been popping all sorts of beans in to little empty pockets here and there. bush beans don't take up too much room and can be tucked in between your perrenial flowers. there are many beautiful purple and yellow varieties which look lovely along a perennial border.
i also planted a few different types of pole beans to climb up the chicken run fence and some bamboo tepees. i am growing my friend tim's heirloom beans.

 i also wanted to share with you a little series which i have fallen deep in love with. i have a little crush on gardener, alys fowler who's gardening style is very similar to mine. she lives in the city of birmingham, england and has a small backyard where she incorporates edibles in with her perennials and ornamentals. she has written several books, many of which i have on my wish list. and recently i stumbled upon a bbc series called the edible garden where alys focuses on living off her own home grown produce straight from her little city garden.

not only is her garden charming and her style whimsical but i could listen to her say compost and basil all day long in her beautiful english accent. and i love how she refers to zucchini as courgettes.

you can watch all six episodes of the edible garden here.

both of my daughters are also quite smitten with this delightful little show and want to try all of alys's recipes. i especially have been keeping my eye out for purple sprouting broccoli.

 even though alys lives many miles away i feel as if her garden and mine are distant cousins.