Weeding, seeding, and the view from the air!

With the weather finally warm enough to set things out (that have of course been properly hardened off), I decided to hurry up and get some stuff in the ground before I whisk off to California for a few days.

That required some heavy-duty weeding action first.  I probably weeded for a solid hour, and it still needs work, but I don't feel bad showing pictures now.

First thing - and no weeding required - the strawberries are starting to poke their heads out.  I'm not sure if I'll actually get fruit this year - but I'm optimistic.

All of my brussels but two disappeared - I'm not really sure where they went...and the two that are still there are pretty pitiful looking.  So I caved in and got some young plants the other day.  C. really likes brussels, so I really want to have some to feed her at some point before the frost. ;)

I also got some of my seedlings for the three-sisters area put into the ground - three of the corn stalks are big enough and two of the luffa plants:

(there are peas seeded in between the corn stalks - so as the corn grows, the peas will vine right up it (in theory))

And then, of course, the luffa will get big and sprawly and keep the weeds out of the corn/peas' roots.  If I were doing it right, I apparently would have put dead fish in both of these mounds, but...I didn't.

I also put the big-enough-cuke plant in.  It's a little shocked from transplant, but it'll perk up in a few hours:

In a few weeks, you won't recognize it, it'll be climbing up its trellis like crazy.

Here's a shot through the cuke trellis - I won't be able to do this for very much longer:

You can see that I still need to weed more, but there are chard, beets, carrots, spinach, some lettuces, broccoli, garlic, basil, onions and tomatoes out there.  The other day I seeded in my Paris Market Carrots (by the tomato plants) and some Lisbon Bunching Onions as well - they'll be poking their heads out soon.

And last, the view from the air.  It's been really weird to work around my landlady's trees.  Some of them desperately need to be pruned and I might help her out with that a little while she's in Italy.  The shadiest part of the garden has the greens, beets, and carrots in it.  The next sunniest has the tomato patch (with more carrots, onions, and basil) and soon will have pumpkins.  The sunny side will have the melon patch - and you can see the circular places where the mounds for the three-sisters area are being put in place. 

Intercropping - Carrots Love Tomatoes!

I've been reading the book Carrots Love Tomaotes by the late Louise Riotte - its a great book on companion planting and also a really helpful general garden reference.  Most people know that marigolds (as I overheard at the garden center yesterday) - "keep something bad away from your tomatoes...or something."  But most people don't know that there are plenty of other plants that will protect each other - for example mint planted among cabbage will repel the cabbage butterfly, cucumbers "are offensive to raccoons" so are good to plant with corn to keep them away and corn seems to protect cucumbers from wilt, if you plant garlic in a circle around fruit trees it will protect them from borers.  Did you know any of that?  I didn't.  The book is an excellent reference and her writing style is old-fashioned but cheeky.  This book should be on any gardener's shelf.
 
So, with Louise as my guide, I'm trying to do a little more intercropping than I have in the past - while some parts of my garden are just rows of stuff (with consideration about what is to each side), others are (or are going to be) more of a blend.  The three-sisters area (which I'm repeating from last year) is an example of this, but this year I'm doing a different take on a tomato patch.

I had just watered it before this picture was taken, so it gives a better visual.  To break it down - there's a big square, segmented into 4 smaller squares. The big square is marigolds around the border (I just put some full grown ones in as markers, but there are others seeded along  the sides) and also intersecting the large square and basil at every corner and at the intersection in the middle.  Each smaller square will be a tomato plant in the center, an onion at each corner, and one or two Paris Market carrots (I've just ordered them from Seed Savers (dot) org) at the North/South/East/West points on the smaller squares.

This is what a Paris Market carrot looks like:

Isn't that fun?  I'm so excited about them.

These are some of my more-developed seedlings having some outside time.  Three corn plants and two luffas (which are for the aforementioned 3-sisters area), a cucumber, an eggplant, and two tomato plants.

I'm sure that my neighbors will be happy when this is gone.  There are a few bigger (purchased - I'm impatient) tomato plants, a stevia, some extra basil and some trays of corn, watermelon, jenny lind melon, and pumpkin seeds that just went in yesterday.  On the sides are pots of morning glory that are staying there and hopefully swallowing up the railing.

And speaking of things that I impulsively bought at the garden center yesterday - lime tree!  With limes!  Anyone have a good name for a lime tree?

Out in the garden-proper - the broccoli is starting to make food!

The lettuce is starting to look like salad!

Beets are really starting to do their thing!

And it won't be long before my Titans will be knee-high!

Shots from a double barrel.

Over the Winter, my rain barrel was neglected and wound up damaged.  I rescued it and then rebuilt it - bigger, bolder, waterier.  As I am not a plumber, there was much to be learned about hosing and connections....caulk, PVC glue, some other stuff.  The guy at the home depot gave me a few pieces that you can't buy individually as they are part of weird kits like a water heater draining kit.  Exciting!

I also had to patch a sizable hole where the original water-spout came out...which involved two chinese-takeout-soup-lids, some pvc glue and some caulk.  I did a pretty good job, but it has a tiny drippy leak there.  It still holds water really well, although if it ever winds up empty again, I'll recaulk it and see if I can't get it to stop.

This is after I finished it - pre-rain.  I still need to patch the old lid and cut the new one.  I want to make sure that mosquitos have a hard time.  I've also just read that garlic oil kills mosquito larvae, so I'm thinking I might press a couple of cloves of garlic into them every now and then to try to stave off the little bugs.  Maybe it'll work?

I use a cut off OJ container for drip-catching - it gets to be about 1/3 full on dry days and I just dump it on a nearby morning glory while I'm filling the big can from the spout.

Gertie, however, decided that it was nicer to drink drips than her sink water and got her head stuck in it last week:

What a goon!

In other news:  Cherry Blossoms and Solar-Powered Lanterns are go:

The big one doesn't get as much sun on the sensor as the little ones do, so it goes out by around 10 or 11, but the little ones stay lit most of the night.  I also have some free-standing solar path lights scattered around.  I feel good about the ambiance... :)

Just so there are some plant pics in the mix:

My luffa has sprouted.  This is actually about a week old, so it has a full set of secondary leaves now.  I so hope that they're productive.  I want to make some luffa soap slices with herbs from the garden and my little gourds.

My lettuce continues to be adorable.

My spinach on the other hand is bolting already.  :(  I'm thinking of ordering a different variety for my succession plantings becuase these have dissapointed me the last two years in a row.

Little by little...

A few days ago, the flowering plum out front burst open!  All weekend-long there were bees everywhere doing their pollinating-best.  Gertie, of course, was doing her best to eat them.  Luckily, she was unsuccessful.

The forsythia are open too:

They're actually on their way out, I think.

There's a cherry in the patio area that's really thinking of joining them, but it hasn't happened yet - I'm guessing that the next warm day after all this rain, we'll get cherry blossoms too.

I'm looking for a good hummingbird feeder and some solar lanterns to hang from it - I'm feeling festive right now.  Spring!

In veggie news:

 It's seedling city.  I have 8 sprouted tomatoes, a bunch of onions and my full complement of brussels sprouts.  I have seen neither sprout or stem of the eggplant...and I just put the squash and the cukes in, so it'll be a week or so before they poke their heads out.

This is my flower  (etc) row - a peony (it's a pretty recent addition, so it's not sprouted too high yet), the mint which is not out at all, recently seeded morning glories, some new little poppy-lings, a bushy little lavender, a dormant rose bush, the other peony, and some container-ed salad greens.

I'm really excited about the poppies- they didn't come in last year.

They're obviously all too close together, but when they're bigger and can take it, I'm going to transplant some of them out into the garden.

This is the larger of the two peonies:

I'm really looking forward to being able to cut these and put them all over the house.  They're my favorite favorites and the double-white is super classy looking.  These are festiva maxima (they apparently have a bit of a fuschia tip on some of the center petals).

Next up, spinaches:

Left one is container spinach, right one is ground growing.  You can see the plum flower petals on the ground there.

The container chard is just thinking about putting up true leaves and there are a few tiny in-ground sproutlings, but not as impressive as the spinach yet.

I've never grown head lettuce, but it's really starting to look like lettuce- I think it's really cute!

The garlic I transplanted is feeling cheerful:

I also put some impulse-bought brocolli in, I've never had luck with it from seed:

I also have beets and carrots coming up:

The carrot seeds were from a few years ago, so I put a lot in just to make sure...I'm clearly going to have to think the heck out of them.

This is the overall shot right now...obviously it's more dirt than plants..and the soil really needs to be ammended, I'm starting, but it's going to be a long process.  After this rain, I'm hoping to get a bunch of maure turned in...it's just a lot easier when the ground is wet.  I may also make the starbucks rounds for a new set of grounds.

Oh - and of course, the rain has brought a bunch of new sprouts out - the strawberry popped up today.  I'm hoping for some preliminary morning glory action - there are some volunteers from pervious years grown in the chink between the fence and the sidewalk that Rita (the landlady) says come back every year, but they're dwindling.  I've seeded a bunch into pots here and there and will probably be less picky about getting all the seed off the plant so that she can have some fresh blood for her fence.

Marching toward April

So big news is that my landlady just gave me 80% of what used to be her garden.  She's 85 and going to be away fron mid-June to mid-August.  Apparently her grown sons lived with her for a while in the 90s and made it into a vegetable garden but she's just been doing tomatoes and flowers for a while now.  The soil needs help - I just started in with some manure and am using my coffee-grounds hookups to get myself premium nitrogen input (I've got a bag that will go in as soon as it cools off).  I'm hoping the poo and coffee combo will get this ground back into shape.

To start, some inside seed-bits all cloched up and waiting:

I've got tomatoes, brussels, eggplants, and onions in so far.

Brussels (Long Island Improved, for the record) getting their secondary leaves!

These guys just sprouted today! (they were definitely right on the edge yesterday) they're about to get moved into a brighter spot.

Basils and a Rosemary in the kitchen.

Peony a-comin' - I'm thinking about moving this inside over the weekend...it's supposed to snow, although I've seen plenty of other in-ground peonies coming up in the neighborhood, I worry about my babies.

Spinach Babies!

Chard babies!

New garden spot!  Colleen and I turned the soil at the back part already and you can see the dark area that I've amended.  The trashbag in the right corner is coffee grounds that I'm going to do another amendment with...and probably mulch a little high around the garlic sprouts in preparation for tonight's snow.  They're supposed to be planted out before the frost, but I still worry about them.

Composter all nestled in the shrub line.  You can also see the wire fence that I'm going to use as a trellis for my gherkins.

Light sprinkling of poo.  I have 3 more bags in the car.

Garlic I transplanted yesterday...not terribly gracefully, I must say.

Garden watchers.  I want two others.  I have to find my goose...so maybe I only want one more.

 

 Dirty Garden Sketch.  Really the best kind of map.  It's about 11' by 18' (not totally regular and punctuated by random tiny trees that may or may not do anything).  Starting upper left and moving clockwise there's a watermelon patch, 4 tomatoes and 2 eggplants surrounded by frilly borders of marigolds, the next rectangle is the partly amended part - garlic, bollyhocks and brussels sprouts, lettuce, spinach, onions, carrots, beets, and chard in rows followed by two cuke plants on the trellis fence.  In the upper right is the composter that I plan to partly screen with dwarf sunflowers. The rectangle full of circles is my three sisters area that will be corn, snap peas, and then two mounds of Jenny Lind Melon and three mounds of Luffa.  Next is a spot that I'm going to put two seed bombs that I have no idea what's in them, and then last (beyond the drain pipe) is the pumpkin patch.  There's going to be a row of nasturtiums between the watermelon and the pumpkin.  There's also going to be a row of Titan sunflowers behind the three sisters.