Wild Strawberries

I was walking through the yard the other day when something caught my eye. Something red, down there near my foot. I bent down for a closer look and found . . . . .

Little wild strawberries! Last year I found some of these in my yard, but they were bushes along the fence. These are basically growing in the field of weeds that is the, uh, "lawn."

How cool is that?

No wonder that little bunny keeps coming into our yard.

I wanted to show the fencing that keeps Peter Cottontail out of the garden.

One side has tall fencing:

You can see it there on the other side of the bean and pea patches. That goes around almost two sides of the garden. The other two sides have much lower fencing:

Disregard the lack of tan, etc., but what I was trying to demonstrate in this photo is that it's a little bit higher than knee-height. So you can just step over it. But no Brer Rabbits can get in. Or at least they haven't yet.

The beans look great in their mulch bed:

And here in this shot you can see that i actually did get some newspaper down beneath the mulch in the pea bed.

Here's a closeup of the newspaper peeking out. I just used one sheet, folded in half. Hope that's enough.

And the cucumbers are popping up too!

Sprouting Pride

There is a certain feeling one gets when one sees all of the little seedlings sprout. A feeling of pride, and accomplishment. And after three years of trying this stuff, of . . . relief, honestly.

This is what I saw this weekend:

The peas are growing :) All around the jury-rigged pea trellis. You can notice very clearly that the two front rows are growing much more hardily than the two back rows. We will see if that changes.

These are the Top Marvels (I think i called them Modern Marvels before. They are Top Marvel peas.) They are looking great as of 5-2-10. They have come up in droves and are smiling at the world.

Back here on the back are the Sugar Snaps. These are the ones that never took last year. Now, granted, I was trying to grow them in May, June, July, and August - months that peas don't generally like (I now know.) However, in comparison to these Top Marvels, they aren't looking too happy, are they?

Take a look at the bean patch:

All the pretty looking sprouts raising their heads and poking out. Here's what they look like up close.

When they first come out, you can see the shape of the actual bean pod still as they unfurl.

But as they get larger and grow bigger, they grow a great big leaf, to aid in photosynthesis. Later they will flower, like last year, and develop bean pods. I read last week that I should plant a new set every two weeks to ensure a constant harvest. I'm glad to be reading these sorts of things. Because of my job I can't get all of the information I need all the time. I did not realize that I would need to be replanting lettuce and beans. I know this year. Zucchini, on the other hand, you apparently don't need to replant. It just overtakes your garden and produces enough for a neighborhood.

Speaking of zucchini:

I planted three seeds in this hole so will need to thin it out. There are two plants growing about 12 inches away that I will also need to thin out. I hope the zucchini does better than last year! With everyone complaining about how they have too much zucchini, I am going to feel like a total failure if I can't have an overabundance of zucchini. I can always bring it to church.

The cucumber seedlings look very similar to the zucchini:

Same shaped leaves.

Before I closed up shop for the day, I mulched the bean patch and the pea patch.

I protected all of the pea shoots first before putting a 2-inch layer down here (approximately.)

For the beans:

Same thing, basically. Actually I meant to put down newspaper first, but only accomplished this in the pea patch. I want to mulch the rest of the garden to keep down the weeds as well. Need more mulch!!

I'm a little late, but I'm a little Lazy

I'm Ba-aack! And I'm not the only one. The little bunnies are back too, looking much bigger and huskier than last year. I don't know where they were hibernating for the winter but they must have chomped down on some serious root veggies beforehand. I'll try to catch them in action.

Yes I lost heart and kind of fizzled out at the end of last season. This has been mentioned to me. But I do have other time-consuming hobbies. Such as:

I've also taken up the country fiddle. Harder than it sounds, actually.

Ok well back to gardening. Don't want to bore anyone with overexplaining why I am not a fantastic fall - spring gardener. Such as Maybelline. I was shocked/jealous/impressed that when I went out back to finally clear my land for planting again, (admittedly a bit late), I checked out how things were going in Bakersfield and learned that her pea vines are already done and getting cleared out. This shed quite a bit of light on my problems last year with the peas. I mean, I know I don't have a lot of online fans, mostly this is just a journal that keeps records of planting times from year to year for myself. However, I'm embarassed that through all of my lamenting about the peas not growing last year, I never figured out that darn peas simply don't grow in the heat of the summer. They are really a cool weather crop.

I give a pass to my Florida relatives. Anything will grow anytime in that state. Lucky you guys.

Well, we will see this time around if I got them in early enough. I planted them this weekend, April 18, 2010.

First I prepped the garden. The dirt was in good shape but there were serious and invasive weeds that had taken root. I can't identify them like Skippy's Garden does so easily by sight. To me they are all weeds and annoying. I began by trying to rake them up with the hard rake after a good rain but that did not quite work. So I turned to a tool we found in the shed. I think it is a manual tiller. Here it is.

Now when I said "I" turned to this tool, I turned to this tool for approximately 3.5 minutes. Mister Siren took pity on me and put his biceps to work, tilling up the weeds in no time at all.

up the dirt and I plucked as many as I could out. We still needed more dirt. This garden has always flooded b/c it is low. With the help of a friend's pickup, we got a truckload of free dirt from nearby, but contrary to all of our assumptions, it was inadequate. We still need more dirt, and I am worried about drainage.

I should just make raised beds, sort of like demonstrated here,

but I am too cheap/poor . . . so give me another few years.

Now, the "trellis" I used last year was woefully inadequate. See here: It was just an old tomato cage and it did not work. However, that post was from June 2. So I'm impressed it was growing at all. Another thing this photo demonstrates is how goopy the soil in that corner of the garden got last year. I don't know if we have solved this problem with the extra dirt.

This year I made a better trellis, I hope. I read somewhere recently that because the peas have tiny little tendrils, they need something skinny to grab onto, so I wound string around the stakes. The "stakes" are just fence posts that are falling off of the cruddy old ancient fence around my property. We split them up and pounded them into the ground. Well, you can't beat free. We'll see how these things work before I start spending money on future crops.

I also read somewhere recently (Grow! Magazine, I believe) that you can sort of control weeds if you crowd the crops. This works for some crops but not for others. Potatoes and carrots and turnips, for example, will be ruined by crowding, b/c their roots will twist up. But other crhps will crowd out the weeds - bush beans, lettuce, etc. Taking this advice, I threw caution to the wind and ignored the spacing recommendations for the seeds and just planted a bunch in the trench I made. I'm hoping they take off like gangbusters.

Now, I planted two kinds. Sugar snaps (my favorite) and Modern Marvels. Sugar Snaps are supposed to grow 6-8 feet tall, the Marvels are supposed to be shorter. So we'll see which grows better here. I can always put up taller stakes.

I plan to mulch this year to also control weeds. I don't want to use last year's newspaper-mulch method. That was great as an experiment and everything, but I don't think I'll be repeating it. I want nice wonderful paths of mulch and as few weeds as possible. I think that mulch is the secret to that. Along with the truckload of dirt we got a truckload of mulch. It still is not enough. I don't think I'll put the mulch down until the seedlings start to come up. I don't want to make it too hard for them to come on out.

I see all of these perfect gardens with paved walkways and gravel walkways, etc. etc. I'd love to have one of those. I know the first step is to mark off the "areas" where the plants will be. But you know how frugal I am. Gravel and pavers cost money. I just grabbed some logs from the woodshed and used them.

You have the peas in the corner, then the bean patch, then the zucchini. Who am i kidding, that will never be enough room for zucchini. I will have to move them. Then to the right I planted five cucumber plants. I plan to put in lettuce/spinach/arugula/mesclun/sorrel patch to the far right, and then the area closest to us is reserved for the tomato and pepper plants when they get here. I'm ordering from Burpee's.

This is a closeup of the bean patch.

I think i might paint the logs white and maybe paint cute sayings on them. To make it more homey and less "some logs fell in my garden."

Okay, April 18, 2010. Let's grow!

The Peas are so Cute

These sugar snaps are so sweet. (not tasting. They aren't producing anything yet or I would have snapped them up and stuffed them in my mouth and then all you would be reading is the equivalent of me munching: nom nom nom . . . ) No, I mean sweet in a heart-warming way.

They have these little tendrils that are sent out every two inches or so along the stem and reeeeeeach for something to cling to, and then twine and twine around it, helping it climb higher and higher. This is how vines work.


I don't know how much higher it needs to climb before it begins to flower.
But it is really starting to lean out and I have had to direct it back to its "trellis". It could probably use a better trellis than a tomato cage, but I don't know, seems to be working ok for now. I planted about twenty more sugar snap pea seeds and hopefully they will start coming up soon!

Now look at the zucchini - it's really getting big and beautiful!
At least this plant is. It also has some smaller inner leaves developing.
Some of the plants have a yellow sickness, though. Why must something always be wrong in this garden?

Take a look at the zucchini plant in the middle:
Some of the leaves are completely yellow and you can see where some of them are yellowing around the edges.

Then there is the one on the end:
All yellowing around the edges. ???? I've found a couple of other people who have had this problem such as this blogger , who seems to have had a split stem in her zucchini plant. We don't seem to have that problem yet, the plants aren't big enough. Other sources say it could be a nitrogen deficiency. Apparently you can correct that with liquid fish fertilizer or with manure. You gotta love the internet, don't you? How would I be finding out all of this without it?

For instance, I learned that when your cilantro looks like this:
It means that it is bolting. Bolting means it is about to stop producing the tasty flat leaves we like to eat and it is about to begin flowering and producing the seeds we like to grind for ground coriander. You can tell by the feathery-type leaves it produces, as you can see up at the top.

I did a lot of research over the past two days and there are several schools of thought on the cilantro. You can either, in the first place, plant the slow-bolting variety. On the other hand, some feel that you can pinch off the feathery leaves when they appear, and this may slow or stop the bolting and coax your plant to continue producing the flat leaves. (This is hotly contested.) Third, you can and should plant rotated crops of cilantro so that when your plants start bolting, you can have the new plants getting ready to produce.

Thankfully for me, a BIG cilantro lover, three of the cilantro seeds I planted are steadily growing:
So pretty soon I will cut off all the cilantro on the above plant and make a big batch of cilantro pesto, freeze it, and save it. It is GREAT on chicken tacos. I'll post the recipe!!

Rotated plantings, Peas and Lettuce

The four pea plants are finally showing their stuff.

Here's the first one:
Juuuuuuust disregard the weeds showing in the background. We try to get rid of those as often as possible.

Now that is the only pea plant that survived that two weeks of torrential downpour after the initial plantings. It is about a foot tall now and instead of a true trellis we just plopped a tomato cage down for it to climb up. It was planted on or about April 26, emerged from soil on May 3 and was recognizably going to live on May 8 (at least those were posting dates).

I did a second planting when it was clear none others were going to germinate/sprout:
I planted about 10 seeds on May 11, and three of them emerged. You can see here the newspaper mulch (just scroll around on the blog to see about the whole newspaper mulching effort).

So, now I have four pea plants - I really do not think that is going to be enough sugar snap peas!
I have found the greatest garden blog that I must share with readers. Maybelline's Garden - based in Bakersfield, CA. Now, she has some vibrant photos of her pea plants, which in the Bakersfield heat (Zone 9) she has already harvested and thrown into the compost heap.

Taking a note from a proficient gardener, I see it is a good idea to do rotated plantings. Obviously, I do not want to be stuck with bushels and bushels of peas and beans and zucchini and lettuce, etc. etc. all at once, and then have nothing. I will not be able to process or eat all of this, and it will rot, and then we will have nothing. As I layed in bed until 4 a.m. last night, hopped up on cold medicine that had my mind racing (note, don't take Advil Cold and Sinus if you need to sleep), i began devising a plan to donate my bushels of extras to the church or homeless shelter.

So I will plant more peas, and more peas. I will not let them keep me down! I may need to plant more beans, too. We will probably want a second crop. Mister Siren loves his beans. Here they are yesterday, a month after planting:

Anyway, I was thinking about this rotated planting issue back before I planted the lettuces. Especially last year when I had my druthers. But this year, i just plunged ahead. Well, we better be ready to eat some salad.

The mesclun/field greens are going to be ready pretty soon, all at once, and we will be eating daily salads, I think:
We have approximately six Bibb Lettuce plants growing, but these are at different rates, since I did that re-planting on May 11:
While we have 2 advanced arugula seedlings, the rest of the row is from the May 11 replanting, so hopefully that will give us some arugula salads later to mix in with the bibb lettuce, after we are tired of mesclun greens:

If you think the newspaper mulch looks messy, I know. It gets blown around by the wind and is a real pain in the neck. But is really helps with the weeds, let me tell you.

And the sorrel is basically coming up all at once, from the May 11 replanting:

So, anyway, I am devising a plan to rotate in some new crops so that we can have continuous salads, peas, beans, etc. The zucchini should be good producers throughout the season when they finally start bearing fruit. Maybelline's Garden had twelve plants, I definitely don't think we need that many! But I'll report back.