Category: garden

Garden Stage V

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June 26 Garden

July 6 Garden

You know, I was feeling really disappointed in the garden this week, but comparing the two pictures makes me feel a little better.  People are posting on facebook about their amazing garden yields and what do I have to show so far? A salad.

Oh, and like, 20 peas, or enough to make about 4 bites of a dish.  Huzzah.

I even gave them little trellises for support, and this is how they repay me? For shame, peas, for shame.

While I was on my trip to NYC, it rained heavily.  I think this sad tomato plant got too much water and just didn’t recover.  I also realize now that it’s in the direct path of the tree trunk behind it and thus gets a LOT less sun than most everything else.  Every time I see it, I sing the R.E.M. song “Crush With Eyeliner” because it has the words “sad tomato” in the first verse.

The other ones look robust and are flowering, though no little tomatoes yet. 

At least the lettuce has had the decency to grow well.  Ungrateful plants.  After all the time and water I’ve spent on you.  Sigh.

Maybe I should have amended the soil more when I started out.  Or maybe this is just pretty normal for Colorado.  Or maybe, just maybe, my expectations of a perfect garden when I have no idea what I’m doing were a tad unrealistic.  Nah, that can’t be it.  These hands are golden! (Or, are they supposed to be green? Perhaps therein lies the problem.)

Next year, though, I’ll definitely move some things around.  I bought a couple more basil plants to replace the pepper (Susan, you were right about that.  Little pepper plant never got any bigger than the start I put in) and will see how they do in a sunnier spot.  I need to start the spinach earlier–it was an afterthought this year and bolted already, so I ripped it all out.  I did also apply a light fertilizing of an organic fertilizer about two weeks ago, and that did seem to help a bit.

I’m also going to plant some fall veggies now, such as Brussels Sprouts and another round of spinach.  Hopefully by next time, all those little flowers will have turned into fruits.

Or else, garden, or else.

Garden Stage IV

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It’s been a few weeks now and everything seems to be coming up well!

I noticed earlier that the pea sprouts were looking a bit chomped on:

After an email consult from a friend, I determined that it was the cheerful, yet sharp-beaked, robins that were after the tender sprouts.  I covered them with a floating cover, and now look at them:

I also couldn’t believe how quickly the beans came up:

May 27 Bush Beans

May 28 Bush Beans

June 6 Bush Beans

Tomatoes doing well:

And some carrots:

The swiss chard has had a little trouble, which is odd since it’s supposed to be the easiest thing to grow.  All the instructions I read said to put it in the most hostile part of the garden and it would still thrive.  I soaked the seeds overnight like the package said to, and had mediocre results.  I then took a second batch and soaked them for 48 hours and those did MUCH better.  I wonder if the seeds were a bit older and had dried out more being here in Colorado.  Anyone else here plant chard with the same experience?

One thing I’m not sure about, though, is how much to water them.  The area is mostly set up with drips that run at 2 gallons per hour.  Some of the tomatoes have 2 drips going to their bases, so they have 4 gph, I suppose.  The row plants have drips set up every 10-12 inches or so per row.  I’m currently running it for 10 minutes once a day, unless it’s a very hot day and then I’ll run it twice.  One person I asked said that this wasn’t enough water for the plants and I should be running it longer or even twice daily every day.  Another gardener said that I should run it only 3-4 times a week, but for longer duration.  So what to do? I mean, everything seems to be doing well so far but I wonder if I need to change it as it grows.  Thoughts? Advice?

Next update in a few weeks!

Garden Stage III

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The garden is planted, save a second row of carrots, bush beans, lettuce, and some spinach (though it’s late for that, I know).

The trellis went up and we put out all of the starts where we wanted them to go.  My hope is that the climbing plants wind their way up the bamboo poles to make a structural focal point for the garden.  I also conscientiously picked plants that have unusual colors or feature to add interest.  For example, the cucumber is an extra long variety, and the pole beans are purple with purple leaves.  There’s a purple and white striped eggplant, a patch of rainbow chard,  and I planted a variety of tomato colors, in the hopes that when everything grows it will be an explosion of color to rival a flower garden.  Of course, that all depends on whether anything grows or not, since I didn’t pay any attention to how these plants do in Denver.  I purchased all of my starts from a neighborhood woman who grows them organically in her backyard.  Everything that I got from her last year grew amazingly well despite the crappy location.  I think it’s because she spends a lot of time hardening off the plants, so when they go into the ground outside they’ve got a better shot at making it.  (Local folks, if you want her info leave a comment or send me a note and I’m happy to pass it along.)

Clearly, the girl was impressed by my brilliant idea.  Her basic function during the planting was to act as reluctant cheerleader, occasional digger, and mostly a general hindrance.  But then she’d give you this super cute face and you couldn’t possibly be upset with her.

The boy helped by planting dahlias in the center section:

As for things growing, the pea sprouts from a few weeks ago are up to a good start:

And the final layout of plants ended up like this:

Oops, I forgot to add the spinach in the center of the trellis.  I read somewhere that you can put spinach in the middle of a trellis arrangement because it’s shaded and keeps the ground cool and prevents the spinach from bolting early.  It’s worth a shot since I’ve got the seeds anyway.  I put dwarf sunflowers and zinnia as well as flowering chives along the walkway to have flowers along the path, and also to grow some cutting flowers.  I’d love to have flowers in front of my house I could snip anytime I wanted to brighten up the house or take to a friend’s as a bouquet.

We looked into some grass borders as suggested to keep the grass from encroaching into the garden, but everything I found needed to be dug in before we had planted, and it was too late for that.  Ah well.  That just means more ripping out of grass this year and remembering to do it next year.

And now waiting, watering, occasional fertilizing, and crossing fingers! I’ll try to post picture updates every 2 weeks or so to follow how things are progressing.

Garden, Stage II

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Next step for the garden was irrigation. Now, I know there were some comments about stripping the grass out, but I’d like to leave that in for a couple reasons, one of which is so that the entire area doesn’t turn into a mudpit in the fall.  We had a suggestion to border the lawn with plastic edging to keep it from spreading, and I think I’ll try that.  I realize it may send out creepers, but we’ll deal with that when we get there.

Also, one commenter (thanks, Susan) had me running for the geiger counter, but I’ve since been talked off the ledge.  I haven’t gotten the lead testing done yet, though it’s somewhere in the list of things to do.

Here’s how it looks now!

I think it sort of looks like Medusa now, or a bacterium with pili.

One thing is for sure.  Anything I plant will get a GOOD drenching.

The individual little tubes put out 2 gallons a MINUTE, which seems like a whole lot of water to me. Once plants start coming up, we’ll adjust them to water right at the base.

The spray heads around the center spray the grass and do a decent job of soaking the middle, too.

If we need to, we can put another soaking tube into the middle.  I’m a little concerned that the grass sprayers are going to spray the leaves of the plants in the center and hurt them, but then I remember that that’s basically how I watered the same plants all last year and they survived.

Once all this was in, we put in some seeds! Carrots, peas, and lettuce.

Hopefully the next pictures will be of some little sprouts coming up and the starts going in!

Garden–Help!

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Remember last year, when I talked about putting the garden in the front yard?  Well, the time has come to start! We’ve ripped out most of the sod, leaving some grass in to act as a path.

And by “we,” I clearly mean Eric.

Here’s the thing–the way I approach most things is just to start them and figure it out as I go along.  I’m not much of the planning sort.  This has tended to be how I do just about everything–knitting, parenting, and this garden.  So far it’s worked out, but I’m realizing now I don’t really know much about how this will work! So I’m asking those of you out there who are much better gardeners than  me for some advice.  Here’s the front lawn as it is now, picture taken at 10:30 AM:

I definitely envision a squash/cucumber tepee in the center (#12), and some shade flowers or lettuce in #1 and #13, which will be pretty along the walk.  But what to do with the other sections?  Each one is about 3′ x 3′ in a wedge shape and the sun is coming from the south.  I know it doesn’t seem like a ton of sun, but we got decent veggies in our backyard last year and that patch only gets about 4 hours of direct sunlight daily and this is much more.  Some shade is cast by a large pine tree that we’ll be trimming, so I’m not worried about that. (I am worried, though about thieves,  animal and human.)

Thoughts? Suggestions? Am I crazy? Anyone else out there with a front lawn veggie garden and how did it go?

Mary Mary Quite Contrary

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Somewhere among the knitting, doctoring, and parenting, I managed to grow a little garden in there too.

By little, I mean little.  In that little really grew.  I fully blame the cloudy weather we had in the early summer, as the majority of the veggies planted are in between our house and garage in a east-west direction, so they only get about 4 hours of real sun a day.  I refuse to blame my poor gardening skills and utter lack of knowledge.  Last sunny summer, this was enough to get a nice crop of cucumbers, but not this year.  I got most of my starts from a local woman who has a big sale on Mother’s day in her front yard, which in Denver is traditionally considered the first safe planting weekend.  (All y’all living in Zones 7 and higher who plant sometime in February can just kiss off)  All of these actually grew quite nicely, and the ones that I got from the greenhouse didn’t do as well.  Don’t ask about the sad little dill plant I got from Home Depot on an impulse buy. I did manage to get quite a few tomatoes from one plant, and some cucumbers and basil, and a few other things.

IMGP2763This beautiful little flower turned into…

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A rather lovely eggplant.

In a fit of denial, I planted bell peppers again this year in the same spot, despite knowing full well that they don’t get enough sun.  This is what the pathetic little suckers looked like last week:

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Yes, that is it.  That miniscule thing that looks like a green butt. Obviously, my dream of fresh-from-the-garden roasted red bell peppers will not happen this year. Do you want me to let you in on a little secret, though? Next year….I’m planting in the front yard. You heard me right–ripping out sod, putting in veggies instead.  Our neighbor just cut down the big cedar tree that used to shade and kill our grass, and now it just gets massive amounts of sun.  Furthermore, it’s elevated from the street level which cuts down on dogs and such wandering through and urinating on our future food.

I did have more success with flowers, though.  Check out some of the cool dahlias that grew:

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Pretty, no?