Rain Rain Go Away

Here in New England, the rain is rolling in on a regular basis.  Three inches in one day last week - which almost drowned my lettuce and carrots in the "uptown" garden.  This past Sunday, it was two inches according to the rain gauge in the plot next to mine.

Not only that, it came with tornado warnings.

Yep, tornado warnings in Massachusetts.  Last year we couldn't buy a raindrop, this year we can't seem to buy a drop of sunshine.  *sigh*

When the sun does peek out from the haze of the Canadian wildfires, it's in the air that is hot and humid and makes you feel like you're wrapped in a wet wool blanket.

Of course, most of the plants are loving it, particularly the weeds.  I really hate weeds and yet, they are so happy to be watered on a regular basis, they pop up above ground to party and I have to yank 'em and tank 'em.  In fact, most of the work in the garden these days seems to be keeping the weeds under control.

The tomatoes are loving it too.  They are loving this weather and are growing tall and strong.  I can see lots of fruit appearing on the stems as well.  This is kind of exciting as I see myself being able to make a lovely batch of tomato sauce to can for the months when, as Guy Clark once pointed out, I can forget about the diggin' and the sweatin' every time I go and pick me one.

Of course, there are some Sungolds in there with the Romas and the various Heirloom varieties.  I'll try to save some of the seeds to start in the winter as that's a goal for this year: learn how to save seeds from year to year of varieties I like.  My peppers... well, they're trying.  They seem to be stuck and I don't know how to help them.  

The squash!  Oh my goodness the squash is so happy right now.

It is hard to think that these are the little seeds I had to restart after something ate the originals and they're all like, "Yo! We're gonna be pumpkins and other things because... SQUASH!"

They totally have an attitude and it makes me smile.

I have some poles and twine to guide them up to the trellis netting and it is always fascinating to see those runners reaching out and up to let me know that they are ready to head on up high.  

The other plants with attitude right now are my beans.  They are stretching and reaching and racing up the poles.  The poles are six feet long and with the way they are racing up, I'm wondering if they will reach past that point.  If so, what do I do then?

The sugar snap peas are ready for picking, so I'll pick those and plant some more beans in their place.  When I do that, it will be fun to watch the whole teepee fill in, which will make a great place for a little one to hide.

Last week that whole box was weeded and all the little bits of rogue herbs, another legacy of the ghosts of gardeners past, were under control.  After Sunday's rain, there was a carpet of them throughout the whole box.  An hour later, they were gone, but I have a feeling that it will be back after today's rain blew through.

There is an old belief to plant rosemary for remembrance by the garden gate.  Not me.  I have sage by my gate, hoping it will bring me wisdom.

This plant keeps surprising and delighting me.  It was a rescue from a supermarket years ago that I had hoped would make it through that season.  Each year it comes back stronger and fuller than the year before.  I trim it often, hang the leaves to dry, and then grind them up.  It is one of my favorite things to give to people in the depths of winter when it feels like everything is cold and distant.  Then there's a little jar of fragrant summer goodness to remind us all that it won't be long until spring will come along to warm our spirits and hearts. For now, it greets my comings and goings and whispers messages of encouragement.

Here's hoping for some summer days that are dry, temperate, and sunny.

Sexy Dirt Update

Last spring, when I started trying to amend the soil, I was so upset at how much I did when it looked like I did so little.  As I shared my woes with a local farmer about how it looked like dirt, she replied, "Yeah, but I bet it's sexy dirt."

That made me smile.  Little by little I kept adding to my uptown garden and, for the first time trying my hand at flowers, it's looking OK.  I know the bits of flower garden wouldn't exist at all if I hadn't done the digging, amending, and refilling before topping it all off with new topsoil.  

The snapdragons look lovely and the lilies and other bulbs (with the exception of the dahlias that I caught the chipmunks snacking on) are starting to pop up. The miniature roses from Trader Joe's have been loving the rain and spreading upwards.  Again, if I can keep the critters from eating my rose blossoms, they will be a colorful display of love. 

Let's just say, I'm armed with siracha sauce if I see any buds soon.

Of course, anyone who has heard about the weather in New England recently, you know we've had some unprecedented amounts of rain.  Last week we had three inches of rain in one day.  The next day we got another inch or so.  Then, after a number of humid but rainless days, we had another couple of inches.  

The upside?  I haven't had to water much and the plants are loving it big time.

The downside? Well, outside of the huge amounts of damage from things like flooding and roads being washed out in New Hampshire and Vermont, it's just wet out there.

My poor lettuce are living in mud right now and every time there is even the threat of rain, I move them off the stairs and under the overhang to keep them from drowning in their pots.

Along with the rain, the humidity makes it deceptively hot.

One day in my downtown garden, I brought my big water bottle that holds a liter of water. The intention was to do "easy" work knowing it was hot out.  I planted all my root veggies (parsnips, three or four types of carrots, a couple of types of beets) in the former three-sister box.  I tied up my cukes to keep them from running along the ground, staked some tomatoes as they're going gangbusters, and spread DE on the sage, peppers, and eggplants... not a lot, but I felt myself go sideways.  

 In spite of drinking the whole thing in the 30-40 minutes I was there, the sun and heat got to me.  Now when I get whumped up the head by a cosmic clue by four, I notice.  Ignoring everything else I wanted to do, I headed back home.  I made it to the shade and called my husband for a ride home.  Yes, it was only a quarter of a mile walk; however, I knew I wouldn't make it.  He was running errands and almost home, so he got me back to the house and into some AC. I ate some crackers, drank a lot more water, and got my legs back.  After a shower, I felt a million times better but was careful for the next couple of days.

I am excited that I should have some peas this week as I noticed the flowers have been stretching into pods.  The beans are really starting to come into their own and climb up the poles.  I don't know how much taller the peas will get, it's late in the season for them, so I may be pulling them soon for another round of beans before I start a new round of peas for the fall.

Something I'm not excited about?  After a couple more days of rain, I know there are weeds waiting for me.  *sigh* While the battle never ends, at least I have some things to be excited about now. 

The war has over, and the chipmunks have won. 

I have started cleaning out the corner where all the junk has accumulated over the years and will consider what goes in there when I'm done.  Another box? A small greenhouse?  Who knows.  I do know one of my plot neighbors complimented me the other day saying it looked like I'm an engineer because everything looks so organized.  I thanked him, but the truth is, I look at his plot with great envy because he looks like a gardener.

In spite of the forks, Irish Spring, pinwheels, etc.  The chipmunks at 18 out of 20 corn seedlings.  So I waved the white flag and ceded growing corn this year.  Time to rethink that box, perhaps root veggies like radishes, carrots, and other yummy root veggies.

Tee Turtle ❤️

To be safe, I will make a cover out of chicken wire to go across the top of the box until things are growing strong.

Recently I discovered my favorite place to buy t-shirts, Tee Turtle, now has a "cottage core" line. Now I don't get any type of affiliate stuff from them, but I will always take a moment to tell people about how wonderful their customer service can be and the quality of their product.  ❤️❤️❤️ I own lots of their shirts, pins, and games so when I saw their new design my eyes lit up.  It is lovely.  It will be in my cart and winging its way to me if I hit my goal in Camp NaNoWrimo this July.

Back to plants.  

I spend a lot of time weeding little bits that grow up in my bean teepee box, but I am excited that the peas are climbing up the poles.  I noticed little white flowers on them and did a happy dance.  Hopefully, I will have "sugar peas" for my little nephew and, once the beans start climbing, I will get a little mat to put down in the middle of the teepee so he can hide in there when I'm working.

When everything's done, I'll plant a fall peas and beans crop to start the climb all over again because ... gardens!

The onion box is so self-sufficient, I sometimes think it resents my interference when I jump into weed and guide things.  I will say the Egyptian walking onions I thought were doomed last year have come back with force.  Between those, the garlic onion thingies, and the chives, that box will just be what it is until it's OK with me going in so I can muck around some more.  One thing on the agenda this week, if we don't end up with more buckets of rain, will be mixing up some soil to top off a few boxes.  That includes my curmudgeonly onion box.

 My tomato plants are thriving, which makes me so happy.  There are some Sungold cherry tomatoes, some Roma sauce tomatoes, and some heirloom tomatoes too.  Someone once asked me the difference between determinate and indeterminate tomatoes.  

I said that determinate (think fixed height) will grow and then everything ripens at once screaming, "Tomatoes baby... come and get your tomatoes before they're gone." 

Indeterminate will grow all season and be, "Oh, you want a tomato?  Here, have a tomato. If you want another, come on by and we'll see what we can do for you."

Me, I tend to think sauce vs sandwich tomatoes.  The determinates all show up at the same time as a convenience for people who make tomato sauce and can them.  The indeterminates just keep popping out tomatoes all season for everyone's enjoyment.

My peppers are in an odd state.  Something (I'm looking at you chipmunk) ate the bottom tiers of leaves on my peppers.  They kind of look like lollipop sticks right now.  The ones that were chewed off at the bottom are starting to produce peppers.  That's always fun.  

My squash... oh my poor squash.  My cucumbers are now coming up and I'll put in some straight neck yellow and winter squashes after starting the seeds at home recently.  I'm not sure if the seeds were a bit sketchy or they got eaten by critters or both.  I just know I have enough to put in the box now safely.  I'll run some bits of strings down from the trellis to the plants for them to do some climbing.

It's not a lot this year, but it is happy and happy is good.

Dear Chipmunk(s), Fork You

 Like most gardeners, I get excited about things some people think are stupid.  If you're a gardener, you understand that these things aren't stupid.  If you're not, you look at people you know who are gardeners and say, "That's kind of stupid."

So, when the chipmunks dug up my corn and I decided to start the fourth batch at my house because chipmunks don't want to eat the stalks, just the dried kernel that is ever so tasty to them, I was excited.  On Sunday I planted them in a seeding medium and turned on the heat map designed for seeds.  On Monday I had corn sprouts.  By Tuesday, I could turn off the mat and take the dome off as they were pretty solid.  Wednesday they were out on the deck and Thursday afternoon, I put them in the garden.

To say this had me squeeing hard enough to make an anime fangirl look like a piker would be an understatement. There they were, standing tall in my three-sister box embracing the sun and soil with relief. If they could talk, I'm sure they would have sighed with delight and said, "We're home."

Yeah, I get it if you think it's stupid.  For me, it was truly exciting.

Friday morning, I stopped off at the garden to drop off some stuff for the composting bin and noticed one seedling had been attacked but the rest were fine.  OK, maybe the chipmunk tried one and was... yeah... no thanks.  There were people down there watering and weeding and tending to their plots, so I happily went off to do my food shopping and picked up a couple of boxes of compostable forks because my dahlias were under attack again.  Seems those furry rat bastards with the good PR firm really like to dig up Dahlia tubers and snack on them.  Someone suggested plastic forks make a good protective fence, so I picked some up at the store.

Because I headed downtown first, I was shocked to see almost all the corn dug up - but not eaten.  The roots were still there and strong.  New plan of attack.  I decided to replant the corn and then plant two boxes of plastic forks as their companion planting for the box.  I then walked over to the local dollar store and bought two more packs of forks, these ones are clear and plastic, to put around my dahlia and lily bulbs for protection.  I guess I'll know if that technique worked or not in the morning.

Today was a small work day for me.  I replaced the manky old trellis netting with fresh netting, pulled a few weeds, and planted biodegradable plant-based plastic substitute forks with my corn.

I found there is a three-foot-long garter snake in the garden.  I usually only see the one I call tiny snek because he's about a foot long and, aside from startling me every so often, is cute.  I'm hoping the big one decides the chipmunk would be a tasty meal and take care of the problem.  We'll see.  Someone suggested I use a white vinegar/salt solution to take care of my mint problem along the non-growing sides of things.  I'm seriously considering it.  So far I've learned that if I have it in a spray bottle that can do a targeted stream vs a misting spray, it could just get the ones along the fences and open spaces where I don't have beds.  I haven't decided yet or not, but if I pull one more freaking mint plant... well, let's just say, I'm seriously considering things.

It's beginning to look a lot like a garden

So... what happens when you plant corn?   

Not a trick question, because it happened for the third time this season.  The answer is the chipmunks eat it.

They don't like the plant so much as the corn seed it is growing from.  The rat bastards would dig up my corn when it would get to this size and eat it all up so that my three sisters box remains empty currently.  Trying to find some already sprouted at the local farm stands has been useless.

So I tried again in a little bit of seed starter in the house.  It's growing well and will probably be down in the box next week sometime.  In the meantime, I am researching ways to keep the rat bastards away from my plantings because... I hate chipmunks.

Quick recap on my hatred - several years ago, I had a 50lb bag of soil on my right shoulder and I entered the garden, stepped into a hole with my left foot and did a barrel roll through my deer fencing. I sat up with the bag of soil on my shoulder and a right ankle that was swearing at me.  The docs told me that if I did that again, I would need surgery to repair the ankle.  A couple of years later, I had a fight with a tree root and ended up in a non-weight bearing cast for 12 weeks after surgery.

I really hate those furry rat bastards.

But back to the present day. The downtown garden keeps rolling along.  I have been planting away.  The bean teepee is up, although it's because I planted a bunch of sugar snap peas.  I also put up some more bamboo poles to plant some blue lake green beans. 

Soon it will grow high enough to be a place for my niecey-niece and little nephew to hide in.  As much as I hate chipmunks, I love Catbug and if sugar peas are OK with Catbug, they're more than OK with me.  Even more important, my little nephew is now excited about sugar peas because of Catbug so, yeah SUGAR PEAS!

I also needed to start adding things like tomato cages and figured it was time to get my tools up off the ground and found a cheap little stand for them. Of course weeding never ends.

It never ends.  If you ever want to be a jerk, plant some mint in the ground and let it spread.  Those who come after you will first be, "Oh, that smells nice when I mow the lawn..." until the mint takes everything over and they're like, "Curse you for planting mint you son of a bitch."  As they say, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

I did find another ant colony, so that meant a new batch of organic ant killer.

Let me be clear about ants.  Yes, some ants in a garden are good.  They eat some pretty nasty stuff not to mention provide tasty food for good insects, etc.  There are two problems.  The first is huge colonies of ants because they are carnivorous and they will eat anything/everything, including the good bugs.  The second is red ants because they are just pure spite sent here from hell.  So I mix up a solution of 1 cup boiling water, 1/4 cup sugar, and a tablespoon of 20 mule team Borax.  I then shove cotton balls in the jar to soak up all that dissolved sugary Borax goodness, which they take back to the nest.  A couple of days later, no more ant colonies.

If only I could get rid of the chipmunks so easily.

Uptown

So working the uptown garden off my deck was tough.  Lack of nitrogen in the soil and the large number of roots made for some backbreaking work.  Yeah, yeah, sexy dirt and all that.  

Hey, at least my abs, biceps, triceps, and pecs got a workout.  Who needs a gym when you garden?

The real thing is that having a garden off the deck makes me feel like a grown-up.  Well that and buying a new canopy for the porch swing that matches the umbrella and a tablecloth for the table.  Gone is that curb find college look, it's sort of like, "Oh here's a photo of my deck and I'm not embarrassed."

But I have a guardian angel for my garden.  Her name is Seraphina and she likes to face the East.  I decided she needed to be surrounded by lavender, salvia, phlox, snapdragons, and lilies.  In other words, she needs to be surrounded by pretty colors all the way around.  

Then came some new problems.

Apparently, I have something that likes to eat flowers.  I came out and found something had made a nice little snack of my red lilies and yellow roses.  Seriously?  What the hell eats roses?  

My guess was the squirrels, but everyone keeps looking at me and saying, "I don't think so."  I haven't seen any rogue deer wander through lately and after I got the red lily in, something ate the last of the flowers on it.

I did try planting some Asiatic lily bulbs in Seraphina's garden.  It's a bit late, but I figured I'd give it a try.  I also planted the Dahlia tubers someone gave me.  I don't know if they'll grow or not as this whole flower garden thing is new to me.  At least I can say I tried.

New year, new gardens

 Yes, gardens with a plural s.  This will be long because... well, lots of stuff and it's been a year.

What sexy dirt looks like

The uptown garden has expanded off the deck.  This year I decided to amend the soil. It was a lot of hard work for just some dirt that meant digging two trenches, adding blood meal to each, and then refilling the first trench with the soil from the second trench before topping it off with topsoil... and so on.  It was a lot of work for things to look like dirt.  As one farmer said to me, "But it's becoming sexy dirt."

In that space, I have some strawberries (what's left, at least, after the squirrels found them), two miniature rose bushes from Trader Joe's last Valentine's Day, some snapdragons, lavender, salvia, phlox, and the hosta.  The hostas have been there for ages but keep coming back.  I don't know what the bushes are that have been there for ages, but there they are and they work into things as well.  One of the teachers at school gave me four Dahlia tubers.  I don't know if they'll do anything, but I'll put them in this week as they seem to have a bit of a sprout.  

I also added a couple of covers to the drain pipes - a gargoyle and a dragon to keep him company. 

On the deck, I have the herbs.  On one of the hooks is a large everbearing strawberry plant.  She is a total diva, but I love her. The traditional bowl of herbs this year has dill, a couple of basil plants, flatleaf parsley, rosemary, and marjoram. The rail box has rosemary, oregano, curly parsley, and purple sage. I have a pot of basil on the deck and a bowl of lettuce on one of the tables. I'll add some Parisian carrots when I pick up some drainage rocks for the bottom of my square planter.

I know it will all look beautiful when all the work is done and things have started to fill out and grow.  It all comes down to patience... not a lot of something I have.

Let's Go Downtown...

The downtown garden is getting a lot of work done to it. 

I took this before I started and my husband said, "Wow! It looks good, what are you growing?"

I replied, "Weeds."

Yep, I started late clearing the place out this year.  New England weather has been... well, odd to say the least.  But it's New England so it's to be expected.  It took three or four days to clear it all out.  One of my original raised beds had a couple of boards rotting out, so I had some new wood cut for it.  

Just as a reminder: measure twice, cut once.  I'm ending up with two six by two instead of seven by three beds this year, which is OK.  I did mix up a new batch of Mel's mix (1:1:1 peat moss: mixed compost: vermiculite) for the center bed, which also had new wood and a reduced size bed.  The beauty of the slotted concrete corners is I can pull and insert new boards without having to rip nails out and such.   

Let me give a big shout out to my husband.  All the old wood and debris that had piled up in one corner is mostly gone now because he spent time hauling it to the dumpsters and wood piles for me so I could focus on rebuilding my tomato and pepper boxes. Of course, in the middle of all the weeding and prepping, I discovered a pretty good sized ant colony had taken up residence.  With a little research, I boiled up some water, dissolved some sugar and Borax, and saturated a bunch of cotton balls to place around my boxes.  It seems to work and there will be a full post on that later.

The far box is my peppers and eggplant, the middle box will be the tomatoes this year, and my onion box... well, the onion box is just fine thank you very much, and would like to be left alone to do its thing.  The Egyptian walking onions I thought were going to die last year came back with a vengeance.  It will be a nice crop this year with enough reseeding for next year.  The garlic onion things (I should find out what they're really called) given to me years ago have spread.  There is one clump in the box, the rest have scattered all around the plot.  

Perhaps someone will curse me as a ghost of gardens past as I curse the mint and mugwort planters. It's time to start chasing the rogue plants and dumping them back in the onion box with a firm warning to stay put.  (Oh yeah, that should work.) 

My old tomato box will be my three sister garden.  The corn is planted and I do need to pull and replace the boards around it as well as top off the soil, but it's wicked boring right now.  Photos will come as things grow. Basically, I have to wait until the corn is about 10-12" tall then plant the beans, wait until they are using the corn for support, and then plant the pumpkins. Hopefully, by mid-July it will all be looking good.

Squash and cukes get planted today after some final weeding in their box.  All in all, it's shaping up.  I'll get real photos and shorter posts up... but hey, it's been a year.