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. 

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.

Closure.

Last year's garden ended in me having to leave it. I have no idea how/if the harvest came out, but here are some phone pictures from before I had to leave:

This is the Mexican Sweet Gherkin (started indoor from seed) as of 7/28/09:

In flower on 8/23:                                                             In fruit on 9/3:

Boston Pickling Cucumbers (bought as a plant from Home Depot) on 8/11:

Tassels on the corn in my 3-sisters area on 8/23:

Amish Paste Tomatoes on 9/3:

Ripe Beets on 9/3:

Going Gangbusters on 9/3:

Tassels on the corn! All sorts of stuff going crazy through the screen on an upstairs window.

How I threw my back out...or...the garden is done!

I took this picture on Friday-- so a week ago-- and some of you may have seen it already, but this is how my garden looked at that time:


Click for large and legible version.

It feels good to have gotten all the veggies in and I'm so excited about my three-sisters area. I'm sort of following this guide here.

Basically you plant corn and when the corn is 6 inches high, you plant peas or beans which climb up the corn and bind nitrogen into the soil. Then you plant a vine crop like a squash or a melon which shades the roots and helps keep the weeds down. Genius.

So I have corn, sugar snap peas, and then I'm going to do one mound of melon and two mounds of spaghetti squash.

After the week I had-- Monday and Tuesday clearing the ground and fenceline, Wednesday roto-tilling and sifting the soil (with help from Dougie and Anastasia), Thursday hauling three pick up trucks' worth of yard waste and logs by myself (but I got to use the new chainsaw!!), and then Friday planting it all...plus shooting 2 long weddings Friday and Saturday...when I bent down to tie my shoes on Sunday, I couldn't stand back up again. So I've been seeing a muscular therapist and am mending well but still in pain. Damn it. I still haven't learned to pace myself-- I'm either all in or...not.

Also, Anastasia wanted me to share her chicken coop plans:





As always-- click for large and legible.

Another big day.

So this afternoon after finishing the wedding I was working on and an engagement set I'd promised, I set to work on what I knew was going to be a big day. I was keeping an eye on the weather and this had promised to be the nicest day this week...and luckily I'd done enough weeding to make it work.

I ran out, rented a pick-up truck, and then hopped on over to Home Depot and rented a rototiller!!

When I got home, Dougie (who knew I'd left on said mission) had decided to attack the killer bamboo patch.

Arial view:



You can see where I cleared the ground over the past few days...and Dougie's butt.

Anastasia realized that there was more concrete than I'd thought and so moved some cinder blocks and dug that out a bit-- more room for the grill! (No pic tonight).

Apparently Dougie had used a rototiller before, so I let him get down with his bad self in that department:



Then Anastasia and I team-worked it up shoveling the loosened dirt through a screen and sifting out the roots and rock. (And giving me Michelle Obama arms)





Also making the piggy piggy greedy magpies happy:




They're so bold! At one point one sat right on the handle of the tiller while I was only about an arms length away. I also took both of the above pics with a wide-angle lens (aka, I was not far away). At one point one of them grabbed a big fat worm or grub and danced around for a full minute with it before it flew off! I has the foods now!!

Also in our tilling adventures we found:
-A license plate (too rusty to read)
-A radiator
-A buried pet cat or dog (at least 20 years buried, it was all tiny bones, sorry Fluffy)
-A leggo dog (unrelated)
-2 wrenches (same set)
-A hockey puck, a golf ball, a tennis ball, a baseball
-A sharp tooth (like a canine) at least an inch long.
-Lots and lots of chicken bones and oyster shells
-Several cans (no lables)
-A milk jug
-A hershey's syrup container
-Lots of metal bits (a hook, an old bike pedal (?), screws, nails)
-Lots of broken teracotta, bricks, roofing slates, etc.

We also found a brick wall that runs perpendicular to the fence adjoining the cement slab... The current theory is that there must have been an out-building of some kind there when a property was subdivided and it got taken down all but the slab which is now under part of a raised bed over here and must be below the neighbors' yards (which are about 4 feet higher than ours) too.



Tomorrow, I plant things! And bundle sticks! And try to find patio furniture and a portable dishwasher before I need to return the truck at 4!