Note to self

Self -

You know that ecinachea plant you put in the front row of the perennial garden to keep the deer out of the rest of the garden? Well, it's getting eaten by the deer (even though it's deer "resistant") and it's WAY too big to be in the front of the garden. In the fall, move it to the spot formerly occupied by the artemisia (the one Brynn killed with gasoline) and put a catmint in the ecinachea's spot. The deer don't touch that and it's lower growing. Also, move the second ecinachea back to the spot formerly occupied by the now dead (for no good reason) coreopsis and find something new to stick in its spot, too. Maybe a low-growing agastache.

Don't forget.

Lovingly,
Hillary

PS: Remember to look into getting a hedge trimmer to shear back the catmint and shape the boxwoods.

Spinach bolted.

Oops...I waited too long. I ended up harvesting (and composting a lot of) the spinach two days ago. Most of it had bolted. Some of it was still edible, but about a third of it went straight to the composter. Ugh! Next year I'm going to try planting Bloomsdale Spinach and see how it does. Whatever variety I planted this year was lame. Tiny leaves, took forever to germinate...not good.

I'm still waiting to see if I'm going to get any broccoli or brussel sprouts, too. The plants are huge, but there's nothing resembling brussel sprouts or broccoli attached to the leaves. Not sure how that's supposed to work since I've never grown them before. The carrots and parsnips seem to be growing well, as is the cilantro. The basil's kind of sorry, but I think it will get better in the next week or so. The tomatoes have lots of flowers and a few have actual green tomatoes -- a good sign, I think.

We got a bunch of lettuce and spinach in our CSA box this week, so we'll be having salads for dinner for the next few days. We've eaten about half of the lettuce out of our garden and it was great. Alice Waters talks about how wonderful lettuce is when it's still practically alive. She's right. Crispy and sweet...yum.

My first harvest

I was out of town over the weekend, and when I arrived home on Sunday afternoon, I went to the garden to take a peek. Much to my surprise, I found that at least half of my bok choy had bolted, meaning that it had gone to seed. This was despite the fact that each plant was less than a third of the size that I expected them to be. Seeing that it wasn't going to get any bigger, I planned to make stir fry out of most of it for dinner tonight. The stir fry was tasty, but what was most satisfying was seeing the gorgeous color of the bok choy in the colander as I rinsed it this afternoon.

Unfortunately, my strawberry plants aren't producing much of anything. Lots of flowers, no fruit. I was planning to put netting over the strawberries to keep the birds off, but there doesn't seem to be a need for it. The tomatoes are growing well and adding more flowers every day. My two bell pepper plants, on the other hand, don't seem to have added a centimeter to their height since Mother's Day when I put them in the ground. Since they're only about eight inches tall, I'm not expecting much from them this season. The carrots and parsnips seem to be growing well, as are the spinach, broccoli, and brussel sprouts. I can see little sprouts from the red onions, but I'm not sure if anything's growing under the soil. The green onions never germinated, nor did the edamame, so I've put in more spinach in those spots since that's what we eat most of the time anyway.

Here are some photos of what else is going on in the garden:

Most of Brynn's snap peas are tall enough to reach their support net.

The spinach hasn't grown much in the past few days. I'm nervous
that it might be getting too hot and it could bolt soon, too.
At least we love baby spinach!

The broccoli plants are growing like crazy, but nothing
resembling broccoli seems to be growing yet.

Here's a view of the whole sideyard from the gate nearest our driveway. The veggie garden is in the sections on the right. I love the creeping veronica that lines the edges. The blue flowers are spectacular mid-day.Too bad they're not edible, since they're the only thing really flourishing right now.

Closeup of the creeping veronica.

Brynn enjoying the purple flowers.

Cole crops are in!

That's not that cole crops are in, as in "cool," although they are that, too. My cole crops are in the ground! They might get snowed on between now and the official "last frost" on May 15th, but they should be able to handle a little chill. I planted about 72 individual plants (one seed flat worth of seedlings), about a third bok choy, a third broccoli, and a third brussel sprouts.

No more germinations in the tomato/pepper flat. I'm keeping the seed flat under 18 hours of grow lights a day and constant heat mat, but I've given up on seeing any new germinations. I think I'll try some pumpkin and melon seeds in a few of the non-germinated peat pellets. Hopefully I'll have better luck with those. It's interesting to me because all of my seeds came from the same source, but the germination rates have been totally inconsistent. Almost all of the cole crops, spinach, and basil germinated while only a few of the mixed lettuce and red onion seeds have germinated and none of the bunching onions. I'm not sure why some varieties of seeds germinated without a problem and some not at all. Anyone?

Uh-oh tomatoes

I planted my tomato seeds in the basement about two weeks ago, maybe a few days more than two weeks. I was a week late planting them, but figured with the propagation mat and grow lights they would catch up. So far, of the 25 or so seeds that I planted, only four have germinated. Oops. And they're tiny. And none of the pepper plants have germinated. Nor the asparagus. I will be very sad (not to mention discouraged) if I have to abandon my Mountain Princess and Green Zebra tomatoes, among others. If they don't get growing soon, I'll go buy some two foot tall plants from a nursery so that I can have tomatoes by August. But they won't be as good...they won't be old, hard to get varieties. Scott says my seedlings will be good for next summer. Hmm...I wonder if I can keep them growing in the basement for a whole year?

Germination has begun!

Tiny leaves of spinach, lettuce, and snap peas are all beginning to come up. In addition, Scott planted a few more strawberry plants to fill out the row and I put two rosemary plants in a tiny empty spot near the tomatoes. I think we lost a few of our old strawberry plants when I was savagely turning the soil this year. I worked the soil in early March, adding a bit of sand (to help break up and drain our heavy clay soil) along with some peat moss and dairy cow manure. The manure came from the farm where we keep our cow (yes, we have a cow share so that we can drink raw milk). Next time we go collect manure, we'll be sure to take stronger bags. Ours were wimpy, wimpy, wimpy and broke when we filled them more than a third full with the heavy, dense manure. Scott was having some issues at work that day, despite the fact that it was a Saturday, and so he ended up on the phone most of the time while I shoveled manure. Ahh, the delights of making his way up to management!

Here are some photos of what's going on in our garden today:

Lettuce. There are three seeds coming up there -- can you see them all? Tiny, I know.

The strawberry patch. Or, in this case, the strawberry row. Last year we had lots of half strawberries. Most of them had big bites out of them from birds. This year I'll cover them with netting when they begin to fruit. Or leave the dog in the sideyard. Or maybe both.

The rosemary I bought today at Whole Foods. I wish it could be grown as a perennial here, but it usually freezes and dies by October.

These are actually Brynn's snap peas that she planted back in late February or early March when we were just starting the process of amending the soil. They're finally starting to come up...although only two out of about ten seeds have germinated. I planted more so she won't be disappointed with a meager harvest. Although, we usually don't get a chance to harvest snap peas. The girls eat them all off the vines before I can get the peas inside!

As a bonus, here are two photos of my Rose Tree of China. It is one of my favorite plants in the sideyard. It's on the perennials/non-veggie side of the yard (although I'll probably be planting tomatoes around it a month from now). I bought it from Lowes as a bare root plant in the spring of 2006. I've not had good luck with bareroot trees or shrubs, but this one seems to be proving to be an exception. If it were outside the fence, I'm sure it would be pilfered by the deer. Inside the fence, safe and irrigated, it seems to be happy. Here's one photo of the shrub itself and one close up. The flowers should open up in the next few days, so I'll take a photo of it then so you can see it in all its glory. I'm glad it blooms early...it gives me confidence that summer will come, eventually!

Once in a lifetime?

I did something today that I hope not to ever do again. On a day when my kid had a two hour delayed start at school (because of the eight or so inches of snow we got yesterday and this morning), I planted parsnips outside in my garden. How many people plant veggie seeds outside on days when the school district has a snow delay? Is this normal? It doesn't really seem normal. Welcome to Colorado gardening. Not to mention the fact that I'm not sure I know anyone else who even eats parsnips. Somehow, parsnips have been a welcomed addition to my family's veggie assortment. For those who are not familiar with parsnips, they resemble carrots in size and shape, although they're a bit wider at the top. And they're white or off white. And they have a different flavor. They're great cut up and roasted with carrots, whole garlic cloves, brussel sprouts, olive oil and lots of salt and pepper. My kids avoid the sprouts but eat the rest.

So, after today's planting, here's what I've got in the ground:

Heirloom salad blend
White Lisbon bunching onion
Red burgundy onion
Certified organic monnopa spinach
Ruby lettuce
Hollow crown parsnip
Certified organic Amish snap pea
Strawberries (they're a perennial so I didn't have to re-plant them this year)

According to the seed packets, all but the Ruby lettuce could have gone in the ground a week and a half ago. A week and a half ago I was still concentrating on skiing, so I didn't have the yard ready for planting. Tomorrow I'm planning to get the carrot seeds in the ground and then I think I'm free until May 24th when I can put in the pumpkins, melon, fennel, cucumbers, and zucchini. It's going to be difficult for me not to start those earlier out of pure excitement about summer. But I think they're all supposed to go in after the last frost which is typically around May 15th...or so they say. I do remember camping in snow one Memorial Day. Hopefully not this year!