Let the Weeding Commence

Every gardener will tell you the one thing that truly sucks is weeding.  For me, it's not the boxes so much (although there's some of that from the breakthrough, persistent ghosts) it is the spots between the beds.  This year, as an attempt to cut down on that, I am slowly but surely getting kids to help by laying down cardboard and then spreading an alternative to saltwater marsh hay.  between my beds is looking sharp and it really is cutting down on a lot of the weeds.  

Yesterday, my youngest took a turn and spent a couple of hours going after some particularly nasty mint and mugwort and got the areas that border the plots next to mine under control.  Funny thing, this morning a Facebook memory popped up of him going after the weeks along the retaining wall at our old house from 11 years when he was a freshman in high school.  

He did a good job, not the job I'd do, but he did a good job and I'm glad I don't have to worry about it as much now.  This weekend, I'll get one of my helpers to go after the ones along the fence, get the cardboard down, and some more mulch.  I'll get my tomatoes in now that my box is refilled and refreshed.  The next big job is the 10x10 box in the middle of the upper part of the plot.  Now that Rascal and company have moved on, it's time to get that area prepped and ready so I can start my squash and get my indeterminates into the ground.

My peppers are ready to go in the ground soon along with my eggplant.  Then it's time to get some tomatoes off to a few other folks out there and it's all good.  My lilacs are thriving and put out some little purple flowers to make me smile.  The deck is starting to look good with the lettuce all popping up and the herb garden starting to delight in being outside.  For now, it's all good.

 

Bunnies, squirrels, and tomatoes

A couple of weeks ago, we found a nest of newborn bunnies nestled between my Egyptian walking onions and chives.  When I was down last week checking on things, there was one little rascal who was bold enough to explore while I was there.  I did name the bunny Rascal and, when we checked the nest, there were 4 or 5 babies in there.  I know babies only stay in the nest a few weeks before moving on when they're big enough.  Sure enough, yesterday Rascal and siblings were gone.  The nest was still warm, but I knew they were gone without me being able to say goodbye.  Checking today, the nest was empty and cold.  

So now it means I can bring the boys back to clean and level my 10 x 10 box and I can think about how to configure it for my indeterminate tomatoes and squash.  Right now I'm thinking a 10' high trellis centered in the box with strings for the tomatoes to climb.  I have a bit to think about it.

When I got home from the garden, I wanted to get my lettuce started on my deck, but we have squirrels.  I love Phat Phred and his antics on the deck.  He uses the umbrella over the table as a playground merry-go-round, running along and spinning it until he goes flying.  I swear he's screaming "Whee" as he goes flying across the quad.  He and his buddies also use the sunshade on my porch swing as a see-saw.  But they also dig up all my plants.  Last year I tried using hot pepper flakes, stones... you name it.  This year I figured I'd make a cage for the top of the box made out of hardware cloth and was pretty pleased with myself.  I can get it off pretty easily and it keeps the squirrels away... right?

Phred made it clear what he thought of my protective cage pretty quickly.  sigh  If only he weren't so damn cute.  So far, he only uses it as a seat while eating and hasn't tried more, but give it time I suppose.  

I also planted my herbs in the planter.  I have a platform inside that leaves a couple of inches for rainwater under the plants.  I filled the rest with soil, put in the herb seedlings - rosemary, sage, oregano, and thyme.  I then laid pieces of hardware cloth on the surface around the plants, added a little more soil, and then a layer of decorative river stones from the dollar store.  They're last year's stones, I gave them a good rinsing first and let them dry in the sunlight.  Again, so far so good.

Phred and friends have pretty much left it alone.  I know he did walk over it once and then sat on the lettuce cage to let me know he didn't like the feel on his paws.  Again, I don't understand how sitting on that stuff is any more comfortable on his fuzzy little butt; however, it doesn't seem to bother him too much.

Of course, yesterday, he sat on my table out on the deck and ate there all while watching me in the kitchen.  When he was done, he stretched out in the sun on top of my covered grill to catch some z's.  I'm OK with him hanging on the deck, really I am.  So long as he doesn't mess with my plants.  I am going to plant some carrots in a bucket and hardware cloth on the top as well to make sure he doesn't mistake it as a place to hide his nut stash.  Just like last year, I will leave an open bucket of dirt for him to use as a stash so he can play gardener too.  

Then there are my tomatoes... oh dear, so many tomatoes!  While my broccoli didn't really make it in my downtown garden, the peas and onions seem to be doing just fine.  My tomato seedlings all germinated.  You would think I would know how this works by now... but no.  I figured most of my seeds were either old or from a company I wasn't sure about.  Since my atomic grapes were a major bust last year, I ended up planting the seeds I had left after my students raided the pack.  (I told them not to... but kids are kids and there isn't much you can do about that.  Turns out it was a good thing as ALL 3 DOZEN SEEDS GERMINATED!!!

I hadn't expected to end up with 30 Atomic Grape plants, but there it is.  I'll pass them onto other people and keep some for me, but I have lots of indeterminates this year.  I have a dozen Midnight Pears with a ton more that need to be separated and repotted.  I have a half dozen Supernova Grapes and four Berries and Cream cherry tomatoes.  I haven't even started on the San Marzano and Romas!  I'm thinking this year the 4 x 4 tomato box will just be the determinates.

Then, of course, are the peppers and eggplant that all came up.  Lots and lots of peppers, hot and sweet, are all showing signs of true leaves and need to be transferred to their own pots.  I started them all at the same time as the tomatoes and they all lived on the heat mat until they popped, but the tomatoes seem to have really enjoyed the conditions.  To be honest, I feel like I started them all a couple of weeks late, and yet they all feel on track at the same time.

Next week I've got to have the boys come back to do some weeding.  I have figured out that if I cover the ground with cardboard and then place the hay on top, there aren't nearly as many weeds as the parts of the garden covered with the hay mulch.  Even then, those areas are a lot less weedy than the areas with no mulch, so I think this science experiment is yielding some early results.  I'll keep an eye on that as the season progresses.

IT IS ALIVE

I am facing surgery for my ankle and at least 4 weeks in a non-weight bearing cast, so getting things on track is essential for me right now.  This week I learned do NOT to underestimate the ability of a pair of 13-year-old boys armed with a shovel and a rake (and snacks) to whip things into shape in a couple of hours.  A former student and his best friend came to rake, weed, level, and build a couple of beds for me.  Then they spread some Semican Mulch - an alternative to saltwater marsh hay - between beds for weed suppressant.  What they did was amazing, but the top was a complete disaster.

This is what things looked like at the start of Saturday morning.  I wasn't sure how long it would take to finish things up and trying not to despair when a current student and his brother showed up to work.  Again, within two hours, the results were amazing!  

The two went right to it weeding and digging and leveling.  Before I knew it, the compost bin had been moved, beds were filled and charged up with some compost, ready for planting, mulch was spread and the garden is now organized and ready to go.  I am totally gobsmacked - but mostly I am grateful.  I have a garden and I am ready to begin thinking this is a reality for my summer and season.  

Now that all the PVC, hardware cloth, spare lumber, etc are together, I can start building my trellises and cages.  The tomato box will still need to be cleaned, composted, and topped off, but it's OK.  The big 10x10 box is currently a bit amok but that was because we found a baby bunny nest among the Egyptian walking onions and didn't want to disturb it.  We covered baby bunny back up, apologized to Mama (she was probably nearby) and the boys wanted to leave her something to eat for her and the babies, but I convinced them it was best to just leave the nest be.  They understood, but it was a bit exciting.  The garlic-onions (I don't know their real name) that I pulled before we found the bunny nest got planted in the new 4x4 box.

 I did get the onion and broccoli sprouts I started last month into the new beds.  I also got some sugar snap peas planted in the ground.  I know those will be replaced with some corn later when they've played out.  

The other amazing thing for me this week was discovering the difference a heat mat can make for my seeds.  I planted a bunch of different tomato seeds this week.  I was mad at myself because I really should have done this a couple of weeks ago and bit the bullet to order a heating mat for the seeds.  OMG!  Every tomato seed sprouted within 48 hours!!!  I'm right on schedule for them as they should be getting their true leaves and ready for their spots in the garden just on time.  I absolutely love that thing and we'll see how the peppers do now the tomatoes are off and about to move up close and personal to the grow lights so they don't end up all leggy.

Amazing what happens when you reach out for a little help and the universe responds.  I know I'm blessed and grateful.  If you're a gardener, please don't be afraid to offer help.  If you need help, don't be afraid to ask.  I have gone from, "Can we put this off until after gardening season instead of doing it ASAP?" to "I got this."  In the end, it's a garden and it's alive.

 

Another year, another attempt at this gardening thing.

 

As the old saying goes: people make plans, and the Divine laughs.  Well, this time around it came in the form of a tree root half a mile into a hiking trail.  Two ripped tendons and a torn ligament later, I was booted and wondering how to get things up and running for the coming year.  My garden was a disaster after having to spend all of August designing and building partitions for the school as we returned to in-person learning with COVID and such.  Then the school year hit full force and I was back in the classroom full time with no time to get things undercover for the winter.  Twice the work and bum ankle.  What's a girl to do?

She calls her adult son and asks his assistance is what she does.  Pi came out and started cleaning the lower garden to move a bed for me, set up the fence, and otherwise get a jump on things for me.  Unfortunately, like most of those in collegiate circumstances, he's busy packing to move so his time is limited.  Fortunately, I have other resources that will be out here to give me a hand over the coming weeks as I get the garden plan set up.

In the meantime, I've got my seeds in their mini-greenhouses under the grow light.  Broccoli (blue peacock and classic) are ready to go in once the next round of beds are ready as are my red and white onions.  I'll also direct sow some peas and set up a cold frame since it will still be a bit chilly at night around here for a few more weeks.  I have all sorts of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and strawberries trying their best to germinate (I may pull out the heating pad to see if that helps) so they'll be ready for later in May.  I've been playing with an online garden planner to help me figure what's going where before I have to go in for surgery to fix my ankle in June.  The hope is that, once things are in and starting to grow, I'll just need a hand with some maintenance until I'm ambulatory again.  

But kudos to my Pi guy, he worked his butt off and did a good job.  Now that I have a plan in place, it won't be long before things start looking more like a garden and less like a disaster.

Future insights?

It is July... in fact, a week into July for that matter.  This is when I see people posting pictures of things they are harvesting and other gardens and I feel, well, like I'm way behind.  I know, I know, that's not how all this works, but I still feel like I'm just not getting it.

Then, after a day of couch dwelling after Fay ripped just west of us, I went down to do a quick water before getting on to the errand run.  I was greeted by a beautiful little flower on the Blue Adirondacks. 

It's so pretty and so delicate and reminding me, "It's OK.  Be patient."

The purple tinge of the leaves and the rich greens make me smile every time I see them, now I have these little flowers to look forward to when I go down and suddenly I'm not as worried that I only have male flowers on the summer squash and zucchini plants or that my squash keeps having to face all sorts of challenges this year.

But the truly exciting moment beyond that was the formation of my first tomato.

I planted my tomato seeds on March 1 and tended and watched over them for months.  They struggled when I first put them in the ground because we got hit with an unexpected, and quite unusual, heatwave.  I didn't think my tomatoes were going to make it at all.  But the Solar Flares and Yellow Pears fought back against the odds and this morning I spied the beginning formation of a Solar Flare tomato! 

Then I heard the whisper, "Patience, patience, patience."  A virtue, to be honest, I seem not to be entirely blessed.  Persistence and stubborn determination, absolutely, but patience not so much.

Another thing is that, as I study my SFG materials, I need to demonstrate the grids on my boxes.  As someone who started out as a mechanical artist, I'm more of an eyeball and, when necessary, just draw lines in the dirt kind of girl.  Grids are OK, but I don't like their aesthetic and I have my planting square to help me with spacing.

But I need to show my grids if I want to pass my class.

I looked to my tomato box for ideas.  I need to cage my tomatoes as they are really starting to do what tomatoes are supposed to do - grow.  I built a prototype cage for myself out of PVC - and I do love PVC - and started thinking: can I adapt this to make my "grid" for my class?
Hmm...

So I did some calculations in my journal and I think I can adapt this in a way that I can build higher if I need to per the individual plant and still show my grid.  I feel like I should imbed a meme of Groo saying, "Lightbulb." Now I have a plan, so when the weather cools a bit today, I'll start on that down in the garden.

My mini eggplants are really starting to grow.  There is something so pretty about a little eggplant just hanging out and growing.  I wish I had some full-sized black beauty eggplants this year, but the heat killed them off with my peppers early in the season, so this is from Agway and all they had left were the minis at that point.

The summer squash and zucchini are flowering, but as I said earlier, it looks there are only male flowers which, while are a lovely bite when breaded and fried up, doesn't give me fruit.  They're still little, so I am hopeful that I will get some summer squash of some type this year.

As I said, the squash has been through so much between the chipmunks and vine borers.  (The DE seems to be helping that situation and I saw one of my butternuts put forth another set of leaves, so fingers are crossed as tight as I can get them.) 

I am seeing lots of crickets and ants this year.  I know snakey is taking care of the crickets for me and I'll have to put out a borax trap for the ants.  I know they're pollinators, but they are bitey ants and they are EVERYWHERE!  So yeah, a borax trap to knock them down to a reasonable population is probably a good thing.

I'm trying to keep the words from today's Old Farmer's Almanac in mind: "The zucchini crop for which you had big baking plans may never come to pass.  Despite everyone's best intentions (not just yours, but theirs, too, no doubt!), annuals sometimes droop and die off before the season has barely started.  Perfection is impossible, but there are no failures - just insights to guide you into the future."

Here's to those insights... and maybe, if it's not too greedy of me, some zucchini too?

Weeding again..

You may recall that Sunday I was concerned about fencing.  I originally wanted to work with what I had, but it was clear that the existing fencing wasn't going to work.  So what's a girl to do?

She goes to the local unnamed hardware big box hardware store of doom to pick up what she needs... right?  Well, apparently the UNBBHSOD was out of fencing.  Seriously, they are out of fencing.  They had one roll that was the wrong height and 1 roll of deer netting left.  No landscaping cloth of any kind, no fencing, no hose sprayers, practically no hoses... well, no lots of things!  One of the guys who ripped some wood for me to build up my potato boxes said that between people doing "projects" (yes, he used air quotes) and factories shut down during the pandemic, they are running out of all sorts of things like lumber, fencing, piping, you name it.  If there's a home project or DIY thing, people are running in to pick up odd things.

It's funny, I had noticed the lumber was lower than usual inventory, but it hadn't really registered with me until he said that.  I was happy they had a 2x4x8 to rip into 2' pieces so I could raise the boxes from 12" to 16" because, as I said to my potatoes, I'm greedy for potatoes this year.

So with no fencing available (yet), I turned to another round of weeding the ever invasive mugwort, mint, and who knows what else is growing.  Sunday I was just dejected at how a couple of good rainstorms, that we absolutely needed, could bring everything back so quickly. The only way to fix it was to take my shovel, turn over the ground, and pull more and more roots from the loosened soil.

I won't lie, it's hard work, but the place feels like there is breathing space again.  Of course, I also unearthed a colony of mini ants, so I'll have to set some borax traps to get rid of them.  I also discovered the shell of a squash vine borer, so this afternoon will be looking up how to get rid of those jerks.  My poor squash crop has suffered enough!

The other necessity for the day was building a couple of support cages for the eggplant.  See, this is the beauty of PVC, I have all the pieces already.

Of course, startling "Snaky," the little garter snake that hangs out protecting my garden from frogs and things, did elicit a bit of a scream with an apology.

It's a little boring to have to line up and organize all the cut pieces to find what I needed, but before long, the eggplants have been caged.  The big payoff was discovering a baby eggplant growing!

That brought a squee of excitement!

I am excited about eggplant and the squash is beginning to flower. As I build and start to trellis them, I will examine them to see they are male and female flowers to ensure pollination for fruit, but for now, seeing flowers after all the strife my poor squash have been through this year is a good sign.

As I hauled another wagon full of weeds to the scrub pile today, I did write a poem in my head:

Red Wagon

I measure my work by the wagon load

digging and filling each load,

hauling the unwanted survivors 

to another part of 

the world

where the unwanted 

seems to reside

with the help of

a rusty, red wagon.

Digging holes

Before I started

After weeks of looking, I finally found a post hole digger.  For those of you unfamiliar with this tool, it's essentially a couple of mini trenching shovels on a scissors-like pair of poles.  You shove it into the ground, pull it closed, and then pull up the captured dirt.  After you get down a certain distance, you stick in your fence pole and then fill it back up.  For more permanent fencing, you might mix up a batch of cement to pour in the hole to really secure things.

Starting to add posts

If I wanted to be that jerk, I would do that, but ...  community garden and all that.  Now the problem with my plot is that the fencing is really piecemeal.  Wooden poles, fencing poles, sticks - you name it.  Some of the fencing itself is welded wire, other is nylon, some is garden center special edging, all of it is a mess.  So I have to think through things, such as how much do I put up an effective, uniform fence in all this?  I'm thinking the real way to do this isn't happening this year.  I would want to dig a foot deep trench all around the garden, place a bottom bar on which to set my PVC into with the fencing strapped to that bottom bar, then fill the trench and make sure the fencing reaches at least 4' above the ground to stop burrowing animals, like the "fat beavers" (aka groundhogs aka woodchucks) from digging under the fence but be high enough to be a pain in the tuchis for the deer to jump.

View from the top of the plot

After two hours of setting poles, and just attaching the current mess with zip ties to keep it out of the way of folks getting to their plots (and making it clear my plot is still not a walk in all you can eat buffet)  until I pick up a roll of fencing.  Who knows, maybe I'll get a bit crazy and dig the trench still. 

I also spent some time digging up the pernicious weeds that never want to leave my plot.  Just like the wild things, they love it so.  I am being like Max and saying, "No."

Of course yesterday I made the grand mistake of visiting the vegetable garden at Tower Hill Botanical Gardens.  If you have never been there, it is a wonderful place full of interesting plants and gardens and things.  Currently, there are fairy houses scattered throughout the gardens.  They are truly delightful, but the vegetable garden made me sad.  It is so far along compared to mine.  The cubanelle peppers are producing fruit, there are tomatoes and it looks green and lush and perfect.  I keep trying to tell myself my garden is right where it's supposed to be, but sometimes it's hard not to compare.

egg plant flower

radishes :) 

I mean, I grew those tomatoes from seed and they are looking healthy and growing, my beans are climbing up the teepee poles and those potatoes!  I started the third set of potatoes "downtown" so they'll be ready for a slightly later harvest into the fall rather than at the end of the summer.  The corn is "knee-high by the fourth of July."  My eggplants are starting to flower.  Sure, I bought those from the local farm, but they are happy and thriving.  My radishes, which I planted from seed a few weeks ago are popping up like, "Hi, we're here and almost ready to go!"

My lettuce failed, so I'll try a different kind this week.  The carrots are really thriving.  I may plant some more to come up when I start pulling potatoes.  Tomorrow my trellis netting should be coming in so I'll start building my trellises for the squash.  I'm going to try to build an arch for the zucchini and summer squash and I'll build my PVC trellis for the full squash box.  Three of the six seeds I planted are starting to sprout.  My one cucumber and pumpkin that survived the chipmunk attack are needing the support.

The tomato trellis is next up.  Since it's the whole box, I think it will be a number of trellised walls, we'll see.

Tomorrow morning, I'll dig some more holes and get some more fence posts in, clear out some more weeds that are creeping into the overall plot.