Fall Planting

 Garden season is winding down.  This afternoon we planted garlic and shallots, and it felt really good to be digging around in the dirt one more time before the weather turns too cold.  Fortunately, we had a lovely sunny day for working.  It took us about 3 hours to turn over a couple of beds, plant everything, and clear out the last of the dead plants.  We left our broccoli plants which to date have produced exactly three tiny heads of broccoli.  I'm curious to see whether the heads will get any bigger.

In some ways, this year's garden wasn't as successful as last year's.  We battled heat, drought and bugs.  But as a result we also learned some things and the stuff that did really well--like eggplant, tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, and beans.  Because we doubled the size of our plot, we had room to try new things.  We also started much earlier in the spring and kept going through the fall.

This was the first year that we tried lettuce, and we were really happy with all the varieties.  Especially tasty was Black Seeded Simpson, which grew nicely in spite of the very hot, very dry weather.  We tried spinach too, but it didn't do well at all.  Other firsts this year included garlic, peas, snow peas, buternut and acorn squash, watermelon and cantaloupe.  We were so happy about the garlic that we planted twice as much for next year.  Peas were yummy, but we needed to plant a lot more!  We munched our way through two crops of snow peas:  what a treat.  Watermelon was pretty successful--we ended up with six good-sized melons.  More importantly, they were delicious.  Cantaloupe tasted awful (we probably won't do those again next year).  Squash, zucchini and cucumbers were all devastated by bugs.

Possibly my most favorite vegetable for 2010 were the Nardello peppers, which I probably would never have tried or even known about except that CR gave me a packet of seeds.  Another fav would have to be the zinneas, which brightened up the garden entrance all summer long.

The whole set of garden photos for 2010 is on my Flickr page.  In a few months, we'll be looking at seed catalogs and planning for 2011.

Garden Notes

A couple weeks ago, we were battling drought conditions. Thankfully last week brought some much needed rain. This week we have different challenges: weeds and bugs. For the past three mornings, we've been out there weeding away. Today, finally, we have the weeds mostly under control (see the photo above or see an annotated view). Not that things will stay that way for long, but we've turned a corner and so long as we keep up with the weeds, it shouldn't get as bad as it was again for the rest of the summer.

Re bugs: earlier this week, we discovered our zucchini was infested with squash borers. Then, a few days later, we noticed lots of cucumber beetles flying around. We ended up pulling out the zucchini, but it may not matter in the end since mostly every plot in the community garden has the same problem. So no matter what we do, these guys will be in the soil next season.

To discourage cucumber beetles, Helena whipped up a batch of garlic pepper spray, which we applied to the leaves of our cucumber plants and other CB favs.

Scary looking stuff, no? And it smells pretty bad too.

On a happier note, we're proud to announce the appearance of two lovely cantaloupe. (See them there under the leaves?)

Adventures of Tiny the Dog

This is the third summer that Kate and I are participating in Reading to Dogs at the Easton Library. Above, Kate chillaxes while she listens to a story about Tiny, a giant dog who gets into all kinds of trouble. It's one of her favs. Many of the books in the reading room are about dogs, and I think the dogs appreciate it. I also think they appreciate the air-conditioning and the cool tile floor. The library provides mats for the kids to sit on, but sometimes the dogs claim them instead.

Kate is a surprisingly patient listener. When we first started coming to the library, I was worried that after 10 minutes she'd be giving me her "let's go" bark. But as it turns out, she's pretty happy to lay around listening to the kids read and hearing from the adults about how "she's such a good dog." (I like that too.)

These days, when Kate's not listening to stories, she's camped out in front of one of the AC vents at home. We still take a long morning walk, but it's already pretty hot by the time we get back around 7. And dinner walks are considerably shorter.

In spite of the heatwave (and thanks, probably, to diligent watering on our part), our garden is doing great. Helena and I have been documenting as we go so that we have a record to guide us for next year. This week, the big event was harvesting our garlic, but we also have snow peas, radishes, beans, zucchini and more lettuce.

Googled

Google "garlic scape," and you'll discover just about everything you needed to know about this delicacy. Which is exactly what we did this week when it was time to de-scape our garlic crop which, I know, you've been dying to hear more about. Garlic scapes are not only delicious, but they're fun to photograph because they're so weird looking. When I Googled "garlic scapes recipes," I found lots of options. Fortunately, I have plenty of these things to experiment with. For a first try, I added them to stir fry. Totally tasty. Garlic scape pesto seems to be the big thing, though, and that's probably next on my list.

Also--weirdly--while on Google maps recently, A. discovered that if you click on the image icon for one of the intersections near our house, you get the following shot of me and Katie. Pretty unnerving. I know there's no privacy on the internets, but on my own street? If, like me, you're asking how did they do that, you can read more here. I am of course aware of the irony of my posting this photo on my blog (i.e., in public) in order to complain about an invasion of privacy. Such are the contradictions of our wired culture.

Garden Views

After a week-long stretch of pretty cold weather and a couple frost warnings, spring seems to have settled in. Some of the first things to bloom in my back yard were these lupines. And shortly after, the yellow flowers on the right appeared, but I'm not sure what they are! I don't remember planting them, and I can't find any photos in my notes from last year.

The community garden plot--now double last year's size--is also looking good. More photos of both gardens here.

The weather could have been warmer for Mother's Day

We're still having frost warnings here in eastern PA. :( Normally, we wait to plant warm weather stuff until after Mother's Day, but temps might dip below freezing tonight. We just finished bringing in plants in from the porch.

Even so, bright and early tomorrow morning I'm meeting H. at Leiser's to rent a tiller and then head out to the garden. Classes ended last week, and I'm taking ONE day off for gardening before I turn my attention to grading and all the other things that demand my attention at the end of term. It might be too cold to do much planting, but we can at least get the ground ready. We do have some things up already including asparagus and lettuce.

In spite of the chilly temps, I was able to pick these lovely bunches of parsley and mint from my herb garden at home.

I used them to make some Tabouli, which I brought to my in-laws for dinner. My MIL really likes handknitted cotton dishcloths, so I made her this one to add to her collection.

Some Spring Planting

Right now, our plot at the community garden looks mostly like a big weed patch. Actually, since we opted for a second plot, it looks like 2 big weed patches. Thus the name for the new plot:

(Excuse my fingers in front of the lens on that photo.) The ground was a little too wet for rototilling, so we dug out a couple of beds by hand. As Helena put it, "we don't need no stinkin' tillers." Actually, true. We did just fine with a couple shovels and my trusty garden claw.

This year, since we have more room, we're trying some new things, including asparagus--which, can I just say--no one seems to agree about how to plant. Esp in terms of how deep to dig the furrows, and then how much soil to cover the crowns. In the end, we dug our furrows about 6" deep, and covered the crowns with loose soil almost to the top of the furrow.

If you've never planted asparagus, the crowns look kind of like big spiders.

We planted 10 crowns total of Jersey Giant, ordered from Seeds of Change. Asparagus takes several years to mature, so we won't be harvesting anything from these plants any time soon.

We also planted some lettuce, something we didn't try last year because (1) we got a late start in the spring and (2) the fall was pretty wet and we didn't do much then except to plant garlic (which you can kind of see in the first photo at the beginning of this post).

You can't tell from these photos, but it was pretty darn cold out there. And windy too. After two hours, we packed it in.

Garden 2010: It begins

Last weekend we officially kicked off the 2010 garden season. H. and I started a bunch of seeds inside, including the ones I received from CR for my birthday, some of which are pictured here. For most of this past week, there was no activity at all. And then yesterday we started to see some activity. First, as Katie and I headed out for our morning walk, I noticed these little bean sprouts.

Then later in the afternoon, suddenly the peppers had sprouted.


And by the end of the day, they were looking like this. Amazing.

Planting Garlic

On Sunday we planted garlic, which will be ready to harvest next summer. We were also hoping to plant a cover crop, but it's been so rainy here that we missed our window of opportunity. So we'll just have to suffer the weedy consequences next spring.

Garden Notes

Yesterday's haul included hot peppers, beans, tomatoes (which last week finally started to turn red), and our first eggplant. The hot peppers were an accident--we thought we were buying sweet banana peppers but the plants must have been mislabeled. We're not sure what we actually have. We only know that they're really really hot. So I'm looking for things I can make with them, and I'd welcome suggestions.

Locavore Lunch

Tomato sandwich with homegrown tomatoes. MMmmm.

It's Official

High as an elephant's eye. (I've been waiting all summer to say that.)

Attack of the Giant Zucchini

This week's haul included those two gigantor zucchini in the back, cucumbers and a handful of beans. I'm running out of ideas for zucchini :O --especially these big guys which don't taste as good. These cukes may be the last of the summer, but we sure have enjoyed them. And next year I think we'll plant more so we can enjoy them longer. My favorite cucumber recipe at the moment is to just add some rice wine vinegar, a little sugar, and a few teaspoons of toasted sesame seeds. Totally yum.

A big distraction this week has been 365 Days of My Dog--my new favorite Flickr group. Which I joined. Because (1) I need more excuses to take pictures of my dog and (2) I need more reasons to be at my computer.

Also keeping me online these days is this podcast on dog training hosted by Jolanta Benal. If you're looking for excellent advice about positive training, this podcast is worth a listen.

Vegetable Gardening (what else?)

Earlier this week, A and I took a pail of freshly made compost out to the garden. While we were there, we did a little weeding. Recently, a shed was added to the garden which will allow us to store tools instead of dragging them back and forth.
It's so great to see our stuff actually growing! This week we had lots of zucchini and cucumbers.

And we appear to have lots of peppers in progress.

Garden Notes

Cucumber salad from our very own, homegrown cucumbers. Mm-mm. I wish we'd planted more than one cucumber plant! Oh well--something to keep in mind for next year. Mostly what we're eating at the moment is zucchini. Lots and lots of zucchini...

Embossed Leaves

This photo was taken with my iPhone and then enhanced using the CameraBag app. Cool, no?

I finished the above Embossed Leaves sock this morning, and then just to ensure it will have a mate, I CO and knit the first two rows of sock #2. I would have finished these sooner, except that I got distracted by these coasters (one set for me, one gifted), this quilt and these mittens.

Now that we've had more sun, our vegetable garden has perked up. On Monday, we picked the rest of the radishes and in their place planted brussel sprouts. We also weeded and thinned out the corn, and added a nifty stepping stone path. Re the War against Weeds, er, Wild Plants--I can't say enough good things about our stirrup hoe. It's unbelievably efficient. Worth every penny. Srsly.

Accomplishments

I'm proud to say that Katie has earned her TDIA, awarded by Therapy Dogs, Int'l (TDI) after 50 visits. When I showed her the certificate, she gave it one snoof, and went back to her afternoon nap. Oh well.

Last week in the garden, we noticed that the string beans and radishes were ready to eat.


I don't like radishes, but I heard from A. and H. that they were good. I do like string beans, though, and I'm disappointed that the plants don't seem to be thriving. Or maybe 8 plants isn't enough to produce many beans. Or maybe we planted them too late. Or they don't like the soil they're planted in. Clearly, I need to read more about growing beans.

On a more positive note, my stirrup hoe arrived. Look out weeds!

Summer of Weeds

Okay, I lied. I'm sick of weeding! After two hours of work, Helena and I had the corn patch under control, but unless we want to spend all our spare time out there, we're going to have to be more pro-active. We're thinking of mulching with grass clippings. According to Organic Gardening for Dummies, after cutting the lawn, you can let the clippings dry out in the sun for a bit before raking them up and they won't get slimy.

While we were out there, we spotted an indigo bunting. Srsly. Helena made the call in response to my "hey, look at that blue bird!" What a sight! Unfortunately, the bird took off just as I was heading for my camera. Maybe he'll make another appearance.

Community Garden

This summer we're participating through the College in a community garden project. Because the plots are huge, we're sharing ours with another couple. I think we'll still have more vegetables than 4 people can reasonably eat--provided the critters don't get to them first. There's a big fence around the whole thing, designed and built by students and faculty, but it's not going to keep out any self-respecting ground hog or rabbit. More photos of the project here, and of our plot here. With all the rain we've had lately, it's getting hard to tell the plants from weeds. Still the rain has gotten our seeds and plants off to a good start, and in exchange, I don't mind pulling some weeds.

Weekend Gardening

Yesterday we gave our hedge a haircut. The hedge came with the house, and it's a pain to maintain, but when it's all trimmed, it does make a nice backdrop for flowers. And of course it provides some privacy. Because I can't ever seem to keep a straight line, A. did the trimming, and I picked up the clippings, about a third of which I shreddred in our new chipper and composted. But there was such a huge pile (you can sort of see it in the photo above, in the upper right corner), we'll be taking a bunch to the city compost center too.

For ordinary backyard jobs, though, this little machine does the job. Yesterday it turned a wheelbarrow full of sticks and leaves into this (which I added to the compost bin to balance out the grass and hedge clippings):

May 15 was the predicted date for a final frost, so this week, in between grading and other end-of-term chores I'll start putting things in the ground. (Additional garden photos, as always, are posted in my garden notebook on my Flickr page.)

In the meantime, I'm posting some knitting for GK. My first Selbu pattern. TaDA!


It's a dog! On a mitten! Although I'm not completely new to colorwork, I did have to rip and reknit because the fabric was looking (as Chawne puts it) all puckery and weird. As you can see from these photos, the knitting still isn't perfect, but hopefully I'll improve with practice. Here's the palm side: