It's Alive!

At long last I have blooms!

 First blooms of the year...really! Much later than last year, it's been far too cold and rainy up here for any springtime action (heck, we had snow less than a week ago!)

 I decided to bring a few in before the deer find them, as I cannot afford my Liquid Fence deer repellent this year.

At least I get to use one of the cool flower frogs I picked up awhile back. Hopefully in the next few days there will be even more blooms to enjoy. Happy Spring y'all! :)

Last Season Veggie Review: Double-Double Washtubbles

This area consists of two dual wash tubs, fantastic antiques from the days of labor-intensive laundry equipment. Now they get to decorate my yard and grow veggies! The set on the ground was planted up on May 22nd with a combo of indoor-started and winter-sown plants. This side has cucumber 'Crystal Apple', broccolini 'Atlantis', broccoli 'Packman', and chinese cabbage 'Soloist'. Cutting celery 'Afina' was added in a row along the front of both tubs on the 27th after they hardened off.

This side has nasturtium 'Spitfire' (from the SeedGROW project), a store-bought marigold, another broccoli and chinese cabbage.

Gotta cover them with chicken wire until they're well established, lest the chipmunks get to excavating.

Right behind the tubs on the ground are these on legs. They served as my water gardens for several years, but began to leak. Now they are planted with seeds: summer squash 'Cocozelle' and baby corn 'Bonus'. I'd read that pretty much any corn could be harvested as "baby corn" to stir-fry, but this variety touted "baby ears are ready to pick when plants are only 18" tall". (What I didn't pay attention to in the description was "for heaviest yield, plant seeds 1" apart" D'oh!) Anyhow, more wire protection, and we're off!

By June 3rd I had to remove the wire here to let the plants out (that's right, I  let the plants out! ;-)

The corn was too tall for wire as well, but I left it over the squash awhile longer.

First harvest was this nice bunch of chinese cabbage on June 19th! Unfortunately the other one bolted, but this was fantastic sauteed in olive oil with wine cap mushrooms (grown in my asparagus patch!)

Both the broccoli and broccolini responded well to "cut and come again" harvesting, I got several servings off these three plants. Not enough to freeze for winter, but I'm still experimenting with vegetable growing. I'll dedicate more space after the results are in.

The cutting celery was true to its name, responding like a rock star with generous yields all season! It's really great to cook with, and has tasted good even out of the freezer this past winter. Sure, it's not big ol' stalks you can slather with peanut butter, but the celery flavor is bolder and it's easy as pie to grow. Winning! (Heh, one for Charlie...dammit :)

This 'Cocozelle' was the best summer squash I have ever grown! Plants were  fruiting positively non-stop, and they were yummy on the grill.

By July the tubs are almost hard to see! These are some happy plants!

The squash blooms were magnificent! So huge, almost tropical-looking. I finally got around to sauteed blooms toward the end of the season...super yummy!

The first 'Crystal Apple' cuke harvested was almost too big at baseball sized, the skin seemed to toughen easily. They were better at golfball size, and I bet they'd be tasty if collected marble sized and used for a "non-stop pickle" recipe.

Yea, I just can't stop gushing about this squash! The skin was thin and just fine left on in every way I cooked them. This will certainly be planted again this year!

Here we are on August 5th, super lush growth with tassles on the corn....

....I used a clean cosmetic brush to hand-pollinate just in case. It's customary to plant corn in rows so it can be wind-pollinated, but these six stalks are in a single file line. I wanted corn for sure.

More good-looking cruciferous tasties....

....and by August 25th we have corn! I accidentally let one ear get full-sized, but got two babies. All three were highly edible.

All the lush growth in these tubs was very attractive to the froggies....

....as well as some bugs (but only after my harvests were done-how polite! :)

I got a lot of consideration from the deer too-no corn damage until the harvest was over. This stalk was downed on September 21st.

One last-ditch harvest of every edible speck on October 1st....

...but these bugs harvested corn stalk material right up until October 21st....

....when frost crashed the party. Hard!

Pretty soon I get to do it all over again!

Last Season Garden Review: Windowbox Veggies

Well I'm certainly blogging slowly this spring! My last year garden review posts are about to crash into this year's activities. Ah well, sometimes life gets too hectic for regular blogging...hopefully now I can keep up :) 

Anyhow, last year's windowbox plan was a departure from pretty flowers and into pepper production. In this box we have (from left to right): dichondra 'Silver Falls', hot pepper 'Serrano Del Sol', sweet pea 'High Scent', hot pepper 'Ancho Magnifico', and dichondra 'Emerald Falls'. Along the back of the box I also sowed Italian flat leaf parsley, all was planted up June 14th (the plants were started early indoors).

In this box is a sort of "mirror image" of the other one, something I obsessively do every year with my window boxes. From left to right: dichondra 'Emerald Falls', hot pepper 'Italico', sweet pea 'High Scent', hot pepper 'Hot Portugal', and dichondra 'Silver Falls'. Again the Italian parsley was sown along the back, both for the companion planting benefits and the fact that I feel that you just can't have too much Italian parsley :) 

As for soil, I don't replace it every year in any of my planters. Instead, I add some Soil Moist crystals to aid moisture retention and amend with horse manure (or compost, bat guano,  whatever's handy).

Wow! By July 15th the peppers have really taken off! I already had to stake the plants, guess they're happy to be displayed here like flowers.

By July 29th I had peppers large enough to harvest, the first to mature being the 'Serrano Del Sol'. At this point I'd already harvested some parsley as well, with no sign of any pests. Looks like companion planting is working!

This is a glimpse of one pepper harvest, though some are from other planters around the yard. Last season was a good one for me, pepper-wise.

As the season wore on, the peppers hooked me up with 6 seperate harvests and there were three good parsley gatherings. Insects seemed to enjoy the parsley in September, but they left the peppers alone (which was the point.) As you can see, the peppers got quite tall....

...and the dicentras cascaded down the sides (though not quite as lush as I'd hoped.)

But the sweet peas did nothing! Bupkiss!! No blooms whatsoever, despite lots of sun and vigorous growth. Anybody have any ideas as to why they didn't flower?

Creative Outlet For Gardeners

Awaiting the arrival of spring can make a gardener fidgety. Sure, you can force bulbs, start seeds, or play with your houseplants...but I'm looking for a creative distraction. Enter Build A Sign ! You can design your own bumper stickers...see what I did?

You can also design your own signs! They are available in a variety of materials, my designs are in alumium for durability...

...I used the clip art images on their website to decorate them....

...as well as their arrows for the signs I plan to place at each intersection. You can also upload your own images for some amazing, fully-customized results. I'm kind of a "basic" girl, at least for this project...

....can you tell what I have planned for the upcoming season? Much as I would LOVE to turn my hobby into a business, it's baby steps for now. But hey, the more I sell then the more new plants I can afford for myself! :) If you need bumper stickers, signs, or even banners for an upcoming event, check out the folks at Build A Sign...you'll be glad you did!

Disclaimer: Build A Sign gave me these complimentary items in exchange for a review. The opinions expressed here are honest and all my own.

Last Season Review: White Desk Planter

This setup was a very late season afterthought, both because I'd just acquired it and because I had some sad un-planted straggler tomatoes. Being a wood desk it may only last a few seasons, but it amuses me plenty in the meantime. I planted it up on August 19th.

Realizing how wood can dry out, I used these handy SoilMoist sheets in each drawer to hold in moisture.

In this bottom drawer is tomato 'Gold Rush', a tiny currant-sized tomato with orange fruits. It looks floppy at first because I always plant my tomatoes lying sideways in the soil, the lower buried branches pinched off to provide more spots for roots to develop. I'd wager that this technique may have further delayed fruits on such a late planting, since it was busier making new roots than fruits. *sigh*

This upper drawer has tomato 'High Carotene', another nice orange-fruited variety with larger fruits. These are pretty big plants, I felt bad they'd not found "homes" so late in the year.Some seasons we don't have a killing frost until late October, so there was some hope.

The top shallow drawer seemed well suited for greens, so I sowed lettuce 'Tom Thumb' and flat leaf Italian parsley. I used a SoilMoist mat again, but I want to point out that it's covered with soil before the seeds are sown.

I made sure to cover this shallow drawer with chicken wire so that my chipmunks and squirrels couldn't wreck my handiwork by burying their food stashes in it.

Atop the desk in one more pot is tomato 'Stupice', also protected from squirrels with this old grate. I make a point of collecting these at the local dump for this usage, saves money and repurposes junk. (Plus I rather like the "look", but that's me :)

All the plants grew well, tomatoes were forming, and I even thinned the lettuce and parsley in September.

By early October a hard freeze was forecast, so I gathered all the green tomatoes I could find. These aren't all from my desk, those plants yielded about a half dozen greenies.

This was taken after a light frost a few days later, but the party was pretty much over. (The other pot is some cilantro I'd moved there for more sun exposure.) I'd managed to get some parsley from the shallow drawer, but the lettuce never got anywhere.

Ah well, I'll study the desk and hopefully get a better harvest this year...doing my homework should really pay off! (Just couldn't resist the puns :)