Pictures June, 28, 2011

Finally decided to retake the pictures i lost in the computer fiasco.  Please excuse the weeds... between rain and my limited time its been hard to keep up again this year- even with my scuffle hoe.

 Remove the bug and it will look delicious!

 Potatoes--  i think i should take pics of the garden from this side more often.  Our patio might be littered with toddler toys but its a better backdrop than our neighbors' melted siding and bare clapboard! lol

 Tomato, cucumber and 49r summer squash.  I'm really disappointed by the cucumbers.  They are going very slowly. I've learned for next year to not direct sow anything! lol

 One tricky thing about raised beds is how quickly weeds grow up the slopes. 


49r summer squash....  Not sure if that silvery color along the veins is normal for this variety.  I had wanted to plant Golden Zebra, but 49r came as the substitute.

Tomatoes are starting to bloom!

Front end of the tomatoes

 Potatoes again

 Kossack kohlrabi and then cabbages.  There are some volunteer tomatoes in that row where the kohlrabi are. I'm planning on leaving them there so when i harvest the kohlrabi, i can have some extra tomatoes growing. I'm guessing they are from the yellow pear tomatoes i had last year.

 Onions. They always look so bare and forsaken.  The herbs are at the far end with the marigolds.  I have parsley, oregano, dill, basil, rosemary, cilantro and sage.

 Mostly full shot.  The empty spot near the clump of marigolds is where i planted the second round of green beans.

 Some houseplants vacationing outside. Mostly hoyas,  some citrus, cloves and a jade plant.   I need to bring my cardamom plant and bay laurel outside too.

My potted fig

My Nova elderberry might be thinking about setting a bloom. It would be a nice treat to see that in its first year. 

My unnamed elderberry from last year died to the ground, so its no closer to blooming right now than it was in fall of last year.


Stanley simply looks awesome.

Blueberries, starting to get blue

Comfrey, Bocking 14

It needed water, but the big leaves are almost the length of my arm from wrist to elbow.  This is the infertile type, propagation is by crowns i guess--- not sure if cuttings can be taken from this plant with its growth habit.  I'm hoping to be able to share these out because they are not cheap or easy to find.

So i got to take a little stroll around the house with no purpose but to enjoy it. I just let myself look at things for how they are right now, not how they will look once i can get this or that done- or how they will look if they survive the winter or how i have to prune in a year...  It was nice to be able to let go of some of my self-inflicted anxiety for once.
The air was fresh and warm, little breeze making the leaves float a little on the branches...  birds were chirping. The sun was getting ready to set.  It was really nice to just be in my little yard with all the things growing.

Woodchuck....round 2.

Its wonderful how it feels to be complacent when something is not raiding your garden.  Taking a stroll through the rows and watching things get larger instead of smaller, watching the gaps between the leaves close in rather than become gaping and ragged....there is an Eden-like tranquility in the air.

Then while having your morning cup of coffee, you spy another brown beastie in the vicinity of the garden....
Now i'll be fair....  it was eating dandelions off the edge of the weed fabric between the Patriot blueberry and the Marechal Foch.   But he didn't stay there.  He had sampled a leaf tip off one of the horseradish. I saw the little scratch in the dirt from its paw and the indent where he plunked his little, furry rump.
A quick check up and down the rows showed no sign of its entry into the actual garden as the horse radish is on the outskirts.

I conducted a serious thinning/pruning of the Swiss chard yesterday and only selected the smallest and tenderest leaves  for eating. The bigger ones went into the compost bin....  i think the 'chuck was attracted by the scent of the freshly cut leaves in there. Its possible that it only just discovered my garden this morning- or hasn't discovered the interior yet.  I'd like to keep it that way.

So the havahart trap contains some nummy things like apples and pears.  I'll add peanut butter and an overripe banana when i rebait it tomorrow.  If its not bold to the extent of virtual rabidness like the last one was, it might not return to my yard until later today and bait will be wasted. At $.99 a pound, 2 apples a day for who knows how long, is not cheap.  They might as well eat my broccoli.

I need to come up with some sort of flag for the trap.  If you've ever been ice fishing you'll get what sort of flag thing i want.   Ice fishing traps have a bar that pivots when a fish takes the bait, on the end of the bar that pops up is a long, stiff wire with an orange flag on it. So while you are on a frozen lake with large distances between sets, you can see at once when a flag whips up into the air and you can begin your shambling penguin-like race to the trap to reel in your catch.
Where i have the Havahart set parallel to the row of Jerusalem Artichokes, my view to the contents from the side window of the house is blocked.  I won't quickly see if i catch anything.  I put it in the shade so anything captured won't suffer before discovery.  I can't keep going out and checking the trap or i'll scare the vermin away and reduce my chances.

Of course i have work to do out in that area, so the soonest caught the better.


I'm debating whether or not i'll bother growing Swiss Chard next year.  This year they turned out very muddy in flavor. They are usually quite earthy, but this time they smelled of mud in a not pleasant way.  Of course the difference could be because we have had an early heat wave.  The last time i grew chard i picked them around the time the woodchuck ate them this year.
I understand they begin to taste nice again when the weather gets cooler.  So i'll make my decision later this Fall.  I have "Bright Lights" and they truly are pretty enough that i'll consider using up my last seeds to plant them in the flower bed.  They might even draw woodchucks away from my veggie garden...hmmm....

I'll have to go out today and clear the fence wires. The grass and the birdhouse gourd really took off and are clogging the wire so i will have to take care of that before i can turn the fence back on. This woodchuck is much larger than the last and i don't think it will be able to fit under or between the wires.  If the zap truly is a deterrent i will find out with this one.


I spend the weekend reading up on some Heirloom seed sources. I joined the SSE messageboard/forum yesterday.  Its a nice place to read despite the recent drama in the organization itself. They have kept the actual forum clear of it.
Besides the SSE (which actually is more limited a seed source than i expected) i found a couple of interesting seed sellers that i bookmarked for future purchasing.
Bountiful Gardens  Has Sea Kale, mycorrhizal inoculant (by the ounce, yay!), land race veggies and various herbs- both  common culinary and more uncommon medicinal.
Seed S.E.A.R.C.H , fascinating Native American seed strains.

We had rain all weekend, much needed. Today is expected to be in the mid 80's, its already 80 degrees at 9:30 am.

Oh, i am all excited about a plant i just bought.  Its one i have been looking to get for years.  Its a Clove Tree.  The actual plant you get cloves from.  Syzygium aromaticum.  Its partially hard to find because looking up "clove tree" gets you results for carnations and pinks because they are clove scented.  Looking them up by "Syzygium aromaticum" only gives you links to dried herb resources or Spice Road history.  I did find one for sale at a citrus houseplant website, but they wanted $275 for it.  Uh, no!
There are seeds, but they are available rarely, shipping is expensive and they are reported to have low germination rates. And as i mentioned above, sifting through search results is tedious and time consuming.
I found it on eBay, from a seller with 100% positive feedback,  located in NJ, so its not too far from here. Shipping should be quick.
I have been looking for this plant for years.
There are a lot of plants i have been looking for on the order of years. Most of it is because i really started to be interested in more rare plants when the Hubby and i got our first apartment.  I couldn't do anything with the land the apartment was on, so i took over the window space.  
If i could find pictures i'd scan them and post them.  My living room was a virtual jungle. I had 2 types of Jasmine, one in a 5 gallon pot and one small one. The small one was a pink jasmine and i had a net draped across the corner of the window and the jasmine grew on it like a living curtain.  I also had Hoyas and Passiflora, like i still have now.  I had a little cavendish banana plant, a queen's tears, various cactus, a bunch of mini roses that were always getting aphids, a vanilla orchid, phalenopsis,  i even had plumeria and stephanotis floribunda....there were also lots of standard tropical foliage plants. I tried to grow every fruit seed from the grocery store. Avocado, cherimoya, blood orange, key lime, i'd even sprout potatoes.   Drove. Hubby. Nuts.  I lost a lot of plants due to sabotage.  But now he's learned that this is just the way i am and has realized that there are much worse things that i could be doing.  He's actually interested ( though mildly) in this stuff now.
But i swear i almost died being stuck in an apartment for so long, if it weren't for the houseplants....

Hopefully this Clove seedling will arrive safely and i will be able to provide decent conditions for it.

Nothing much to take pictures of today. Garden things have continued to grow rapidly, but that is the usual way of things.

I think i am going to try air layering the silky dogwood plant. I also decided to move the porcelainberry vines to the back yard on the outside of the fence so it can climb the 12-15' of the retaining wall and fence...  they won't be such a nuisance in a larger space with something to climb.  I might try to move them today.  At least i should be able to work on the dogwood today.
I'm going to do these things because rooting them in a bucket causes more clutter and more containers to keep watered.

I think i'm going to heavily prune the lilac bush in the back corner behind the shed. It will make it much easier  to move later on.  When the fence goes up it will get almost no sun being between the fence and the shed, so its move or die.
I will have a good place to plant fiddlehead ferns and maybe edible mushrooms though....  I still haven't started those fern spores yet.  I may wait a few more months. They take a long time, don't need much light.... they should be a good winter project.  If they grow, the seedlings should be just big enough to set out in the Spring.

I just got my ship notification for the Clove Tree...  USPS Priority....  should be here by Tomorrow i hope... or Wednesday.


I forget when i did it, ut it was at least 3 days ago....  i finally planted the two Temptation strawberries that actually sprouted. I also planted the Red Shiso out there with them.  They are between the rosemary.  I don't think i wrote it down that i did this. So just in case...there it is.

Risky business...

Maybe it was early onset Spring Fever...  but i did it.  In early February, i tempted fate and granted the mail-order plant company with one of the worst reputations about $39 of my own money in exchange for some miniature citrus plants. 
According to my account, the plants will begin being shipped within a few days:

I don't like to be skeptical, cause being skeptical insinuates that i should have known better. But i feel i need to plead some sort of insanity...  of course i am also holding out that this company, despite all the evidence against it, will man up and send me something alive and in generally decent health.
I'm not expecting the Rutaceaen version of a mighty sequoia to be shipped to me in a box with fruit ready to be harvested...  but i would like to get more than a scale covered stick that dies within 2 weeks.

I have ordered from them before, with so-so results. I admit, at the time i ordered from them, i was even more a novice then than i am now. Some of he items came bare root and looked like something i fished out of a clogged sink...  but other things looked fine.
If i remember correctly i got some Japanese Toad Lilies, some English daisies, Ranunculus and i ordered some Manchurian Apricots.

The toad lilies did well enough and bloomed the year i got them. I think the bare root daisy may have had a better shot had i known what i was doing.  But it was a bust.

The ranunculus grew but never flowered.

The apricots never arrived. I was told they were backordered, and when it was shipped, i was sent a really nice looking forsythia by mistake.  I was told i could keep it, so i gave it to my parents- but they never planted it. That really bugged me because it was actually pretty nice.

They ended up sending me a store credit for the price of the apricots (about $7) that i never used, because the following spring they had filed for reorganisation bankruptcy or sale - and were shutting down during that time. So i kept the voucher but never used it.  I had planned on buying their multi packs of old fashioned lilacs with that voucher, but in a way i'm glad i did not because when we bought the new yard, i ended up with more lilacs than i could give away!


But i will try to be optimistic that i get the correct items, that  they arrive healthy, if probably smaller than i'd like, and they ship quickly because our weather is a bit odd in this "El Nino" year.

I am eagerly awaiting my Richters order. I want to get some of those seeds started. A number of them are hardy types that can be sown now. I got the ship notification on the 9th, so it should only be a few more days.

I think everything in the greenhouses did ok overnight. Before it got too cold, i put a heavy blanket over each one just to keep in whatever heat the containers had absorbed.

I need to write a list of what has sprouted already, just so i won't forget next year.  Many things have been up for a number of days, but i have been too busy to write down small details like that.

The Buttercrunch lettuce looks like it will be edible quite soon....

I cannot believe that these Tomatillo seeds as old as they are, are sprouted and look pretty good!

  A bit fuzzy, but i think these are the Polfast. The stick is facing the wrong way for me to read the name and i forgot already.

Pruden's Purple tomatoes

Yellow Pear tomatoes

Gypsy broccoli

Welsh onions and Mirage shallots

Collards...  i should have had faith and sown one seed per pellet. Now i have to thin them. Glad i only sowed two seeds each. I have had great luck storing seeds, so i tend to think of every thinned seedling as a whole plant wasted since i can keep my seeds in high germination ratios for many years.

Pak Choi...  I can't wait to grill up a few of these!  I need to do successive sowings of this!

Mixed flat of assorteds...in the front on the left is Burdock, on the right is Kolrabi
in the back i can see the tag for the Oregano, but no sprouts...  on the right, i can't remember what that is and i can't see the tag, but its obviously some sort of cole crop.
See why i need to write everything down? lol

Some brave little  tomatoes are sprouting in there...  both from seed that is over 7 years old.

Mixed flat...  the Swiss Chard and Point One cabbage are waking up.

Finally, the Rosemary...  it has been cold, but they have made it very well.  Now that i have the light setup, i might bring them inside.  I will need to pot them up soon or i will damage them too much if their roots get tangled.

The Electric Fence kit i bought from Tractor Supply has come in, i just need to go pick it up. Maybe later today. There is no real rush since i can't install it yet- nothing to guard.... and i don't want to have it too long before installing in case the warrantee is too short.  I have at least 30 days before i will need it and most return policies are "within 30 days".  So i won't get it until we can test it some weekend.  Lay it out and make sure it is sturdy and complete.

I saw my first cabbage butterfly yesterday...  i felt kind of bad giving it the stink eye as it merrily fluttered across the yard.  I covet my future broccoli and cabbage plants, if the electric fence keeps the woodchucks out, i don't want to lose everything else to caterpillars! Even with the row covers, i don't want to have to use a bunch of bug killers to fend off a plague.

Soon i have to clean out the Worm Farm.  The red wigglers have been happily munching away at kitchen scraps all winter. The topmost bin is looking quite full. I am not sure i know how to remove all that black gold without losing half my worms.  Its too cold for them to live up here through winter, so if i lose any to the garden they won't last. I know they are just worms, but they do such a good job :0)

Well i have cleaning to do and if i get it done before nap time is over, i might get to read a little too! Yay.

Good day for just browsing.

Cooler today, a bit of rain yesterday evening and i think a little overnight. The good thing about having the mini greenhouses is the waterproof  vertical storage. I just zip them closed before it rains and everything inside is safe...as long as the towers don't fall over.

I think i finally got the Jiffy mix in the flats to absorb water. It took a heating pad to warm it to the verge of melting the plastic of the flat and then putting them all outside on the pavement during our almost 80 degree weather from yesterday. Plus constant spraying under the clear dome.  It cooled off overnight quite a bit so i have the flats back inside to get a bit warmer before i plant them up.

But i did some houseplant maintenance, potted up some cuttings i had rooted a very long time ago that have been languishing on the windowsill in tiny glasses of water.
I don't have a lot of pots to use since i plan to pot some of them all up together in a display in a 10 gallon tank- terrarium style, so i used a soda bottle design similar to what is shown here:
Pop Bottle Pots

I found two more places that i'd like to buy plants or seeds at (quick, take my purse and put me in a straitjacket!)

This place has a great assortment of unusual flower seeds, most hardy to my zone 5.
Specialty Perennials

From what i understand, it is a one-man operation and he sometimes gets swamped with orders, so if you order, do so early and expect to wait a while lol

He has a wonderful list of Asclepiads -- aka, Milkweed...  or Hoyas! One of my most favorite groups of plants with fascinating flowers and yummy scents.
I have a house collection of Hoyas, i may begin collecting outdoor types, which are best known as the Milkweeds.  I'm kind of bored with many of the classic flowerbed plants so i think i might enjoy getting some great seeds from SP.

This store also has stuff i love, Hens & Chicks, Semps, Echis....etc.
Squaw Mountain Gardens
I spend a lot of time just looking. Many of these are hardy to my zone. I might re-do the spot i have the Silky Dogwood, Burgundy Hydrangea and the Purple Smoke Bush.... turn it into a rock garden... somehow.  I want to move the Silky Dogwood anyway. I love its berries, but its getting too ungainly and the three bushes are too big to fit well there now.

Anyhow, i got my Hen & Chicks seeds planted and i found a spot for the heat mat since i need to keep the flat at 70 degrees for a while.  They can germinate in a few days or it may be a year... we'll see how it goes!

I also managed to pot up the pathetic little horseradish roots i bought for around $4 at Lowe's.  I dug through the whole box, embarrassing my daughter, just to find the only bag with two roots that were at least the size of my index finger. I don't expect much from them.


So far today, no rain. Cloudy though.