Ray's Garden

2012-01-07T12:00:00.000-05:00

2011-11-14T19:20:00.002-05:00

Barlotto solista

2011-07-28T21:55:00.004-04:00

Trapped 2 Squirrels Today

2011-07-28T21:36:00.004-04:00

Momo was excited to find squirrels that couldn't run off and climb a tree instead of playing with him. He was really excited to have new squirrel friends!

Squirrel friends were excited too but not for the same reason.

His squirrel friends got taken for a ride to a nearby park.

As you can see from the mess in the bed, the squirrels had a lot of fun in the corn patch before they went after the peanuts in the trap.

Mid July Harvest

2011-07-20T21:19:00.002-04:00

Clockwise, from the top: Green Stripe Cushaw squash (vines were pulled up today), potatoes, butternut squash (yes, much larger than I expected!) green & wax beans, tomatoes and a few okra. A couple baby zucchinis were under all the tomatoes.

Mid July Garden Tour

2011-07-17T22:31:00.001-04:00

Beds 1 - 6. Bed 2 was used to grow Arikara beans and is now covered with mulch waiting to be planted for fall.

Bed 8 - corn and beans.

Herb bed - the hop vine needs to be moved next year!

Butternut squash has run from Bed 9 all the way into the new blueberry bed, leaving a trail of fruit along the way.

Mid-July Garden Tour

2011-07-17T22:28:00.001-04:00

From top: Bed 6, chayote squash starting to run on the bottom, yard long beans cover the trellis but haven't started to flower yet and bush butternut squash.

Bed 3 - sweet potatoes and okra.

Blueberries are still producing sweet berries but are past their peak production time.

Bed 1 - Tomatoes race blight to ripen.

Bed 1 - these are not the Juliette tomatoes I am used to!

This and that..

2011-06-29T20:07:00.001-04:00

Squash vine borers took out 3 zukes yesterday, the rest of the zukes aren't looking so good either.

I planted the garlic bed with garlic, elephant garlic and shallots yesterday.

The Garden Pot BBQ Pit - Part 5 - Let's Cook!

2011-06-27T23:27:00.003-04:00

Light the charcoal ring, when the blaze dies down set on the top grill and the stepping stone to heat. When the lit charcoal turns white, put on the lid and set a thermometer in the top drain hole. Have the bottom drain hole wide open. When the temperature measured on the thermometer reads 200F close the bottom drain hole (push in the Control Brick) to close the hole halfway. When the temperature stabilizes at 250'ish F, it's time to start barbecuing!

It'll take an hour and a half from when you lit the charcoal until the temperature inside the smoker reaches 250F. In my smoker on my porch in warm weather, having the bottom hole halfway open yields a constant internal temperature of 250F. In winter you'll need to open it a nudge, on windy days you might need to close it down a tad.

Fill the Pyrex casserole dish about halfway with water, put the meat atop a trivet or grill setting on the Pyrex dish, take off the lid and set the dish on the rock. Replace the lid. That's it!

Every hour or so check the temperature and nudge the Control Brick to open or close the bottom drain hole. After two hours you shouldn't need to touch it again. The charcoal will burn for about 8 hours.

If you leave the bottom drain wide open, the temperature will get to about 350F. That's just about perfect for baking - you can bake bread in a pan atop the stepping stone - you've got a wood burning oven, after all. Or bake pizza using a pizza stone set atop the stepping stone.

If you let the charcoal burn to ash white before putting on the lid, all the lighter fluid will have burned off. If you don't like using lighter fluid, use a chimney to start a handful (8 - 12) briquettes and pile them on one end of the charcoal fuse.

"Competition Charcoal" sold by Kingsford burns hotter and faster than regular charcoal. I prefer the regular charcoal. But if I was going to bake bread it'd be a good choice to use.

Lump charcoal doesn't have regular sizes and so a ring of it doesn't burn evenly. That makes it trickier to control the smoker temperature, it requires much more attention to open or close the drain hole. Whatever advantage lump has over briquettes is lost by the increased hassle factor.

Don't add too much smoking wood! There should just be a barely visible thin line of blue smoke coming out the top of the smoker. If it looks like a locomotive, you're over smoking the meat. A little smoke over a lot of time is better than a lot of smoke.

And you can still use the smoker as a grill to cook burgers, dogs, salmon, whatever. Just use it as you'd normally use a charcoal grill.

And that's about all I have to say about that.

The Garden Pot BBQ Pit - Part 4 - Set Up Procedure

2011-06-24T23:37:00.004-04:00

Before using the smoker, let's set up the air flow control. Place one of the support bricks with its long side pointing to the bottom drain hole. Now, looking in from the top push the brick in until it just covers the hole. Then with a marker, mark the edge of the pot on the brick. Put an "X" over the arc to mean that when that line is pushed even with the edge of the pot, the air hole is complely closed.

Then pull the brick out until the brick only closes off half of the drain hole. Mark the pot's edge on the brick again but use a "/" mark.

Then pull the brick further out until the drain is just open and mark that location on the brick also.

Now you have a method to increase or decrease the amount of air getting into the cooker by simply pushing a brick in our out! This is your "Control brick"! The first picture shows the drain hole halfway closed.

In the photo shown, the brick is set so that the air hole is a little more than half open.

Replace the Smokey Joe, making sure that the bottom vents on the Smokey Joe are wide open.

Also replace its charcoal grate.

I make a "fuse" of charcoal by laying down two side by side rows of charcoal briquettes along the outside edge of the Smokey Joe. The briquettes are arranged kind of like toppled dominoes, leaning against one another.

Then lay a single layer of charcoal briquettes atop the two bottom rows.

I wet a handful, 6 or 8, charcoals with lighter fluid and pile them at the start of the fuse. Around the edge of the fuse I place my smoking wood.

Then light the pile of charcoal at the start of the fuse. When the flames die down, place on the top grill and the paving stone. Don't put on the top lid yet.

Leave the lid off until the pile of charcoal has turned white. Then put on the lid and make sure the "Control brick" is set so that the bottom air hole is wide open.

The Garden Pot BBQ Pit - Part 3 - All Together Now

2011-06-24T23:02:00.010-04:00

Some assembly is required!

First place the Smokey Joe legs in the bottom of the large pot, around the drain hole. The legs will hold the ash plate above the drain hole and storing them here will help keep you from losing them!

Then place the ash plate of the Smokey Joe over the drain hole. We need to keep ash from blocking the drain hole, which will be used to provide air to the charcoal.

Place the paving stone on a flat surface, place bricks on top of the paver then carefully set the large pot on the bricks.

Place the bottom of the Smokey Joe into the large pot. Stash the Smokey Joe's lid in a safe place in case you ever need it again.

Place the charcoal grate and the cooking grill that came with the Smokey Joe into place. The top grill shown in the photo is from another old smoker that had handles. The top grill needs to have handles so you can pick it up while it's hot. It's easy to make them out of wires wrapped around the edge of the grill.

Place the paving stone atop the cooking grill.

The stone protects the meat from direct heating, absorbs and distributes heat and evens out the cooking temperature, and protects the Pyrex dish from direct heat from the coals.

Place the smaller bowl, the lid, on top. Cooking temperature can be monitored by a thermometer placed in the top drain hole.

Now you're ready to cook!

Well, almost. Operating instructions to follow.

The Garden Pot BBQ Pit - Part 2 - Parts List

2011-06-24T22:32:00.008-04:00

Acknowledgments. This cooker is heavily based on the cooking show “Good Eats”. In that episode Alton Brown shows how to make an electric smoker using flower pots and a hot plate.

But as anybody who's tried to build the smoker featured in that show knows, there are some major design problems. First, hot plates have thermostats that cut off when the plates get too hot. And even at the highest setting, the plates don't provide enough heat to properly cook. There are some workarounds on the 'net for deconstructing or rewiring the hot plate to work better but they look really unsafe.

Plus, there's no drip pan in Alton's plans. Without one the meat cooks in grease fumes. And the whole contraption has to be disassembled every hour or two in order to reload the wood chips. Overall it was a good idea but there was lots of room for improvement!

There are ceramic barbecues and grills already on the market there are various manufacturers , and a range of prices and features. Perhaps the best known brand is the Big Green Egg.

The design I will show will have all the advantages and features of the most expensive of these cookers at a small fraction of the price. Here's what you need:

This is a shallow terra cotta planter used as the lid of the BBQ. The brick placed beside it for reference is 8 inches high.

These planters are more likely to be found at garden centers rather than discount stores like Home Depot or Wal-Mart.

The opening has to be the same size as the bottom pot shown below.

The bottom of the BBQ, the pit, is a large terra cotta planter with thick walls. It is about 17 inches tall and the opening diameter is about 18 inches.

There are pots about this size with straight sides and thinner walls. Buy the biggest, thickest pot you can move by yourself.

'
The Weber Smokey Joe is a small charcoal grill.

You may already have one. If so, take off the legs and the ash pan. If you buy a new one only assemble the handle on the lid, not the legs.

The two terra cotta pots and the Smokey Joe are the major components of the smoker. There are also a few odds and ends that you'll need:

You'll need a concrete paver or stepping stone, about 10 x 10 inches. Exact dimensions aren't important - I had one that I chiseled to size. A couple bricks might also work.

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You will also need 3 or 4 bricks and a paving stone, I think the pavers are about 15 X 15 inches.

And two other little things: A Pyrex casserole dish, about 10 x 8 inches and something to put on top of the casserole to hold the meat - a wire trivet or an old grill cut to size would be perfect.

The Garden Pot BBQ Pit - Part 1 - Introduction

2011-06-24T19:31:00.004-04:00

Let's talk BBQ.

Not grilling hot dogs, hamburgers, steaks or kebobs and calling it BBQ, I mean chunks of meat cooked real slow and real long in a moist, smokey chamber called a BBQ pit. Pork shoulders, beef brisket, fresh hams, beef shoulder clods and tri-tips, ribs. Real BBQ.

It's a cooking style as old as time. Dig a hole in the ground, build a fire in it, let the fire die down to coals then throw the meat in, cover it up, let it cook all day and maybe all night, call all the kinfolk and neighbors over, dig it up and dig in. That was probably the best way to cook mastodon at the Neanderthal family reunion.

So let's refine that technique just a little bit and throw some rocks on the coals to separate the meat from the heat and wrap the meat in something moist - mud, leaves, seaweed, a wet tarp, whatever, before covering it with dirt. What you've got there is a cooking style known all over the world from luaus in Hawaii to clam bakes in New England and pig roasts in Tennessee.

So the basic components to this cooking style are a separation of the meat from direct heat, moist heat to keep the meat from drying out, smoke to add flavor, and low temperatures and long cooking times to cook the meat past doneness to tenderize the meat.

And it seems so simple - holes in the ground have moisture from the earth, the hardwood charcoal smolders for a long time and all the heat is retained because there's no better insulation than an infinite amount of dirt, right? The covering limits the amount of air getting to the coals so they don't flair up and overcook the meat, but there needs to be some amount of air allowed in to keep the coals smoldering.

Over the last 5 years I've been tinkering with what is basically a hole in the ground filled with slow burning coals and covered with rock, with a moist, smokey chamber to hold the meat. The cooking area is covered and the amount of air allowed into the coals is controllable. With a little practice and a few tricks, this "hole in the ground" will maintain a moist, smokey low temperature cooking area all day long (8 hours) with very little effort by the cook. Just light the fire, load the meat, let it cook all day then call the kinfolk and neighbors over and dig in.

And you can build this system yourself in just one day and a trip to a hardware store and a garden supply store. You probably have a lot of the components already.

In the next couple of posts I'll cover how to build a garden pot BBQ pit.

Coneflowers & Squash

2011-06-23T22:26:00.002-04:00

From the top: The bumblebees are working overtime in both the perennial bed and the garden.

Cushaw squash & size 13 garden clog.

Zucchini stem shows signs of squash vine borer damage.

Thank God for the squash vine borer!!

Today's harvest - potatoes, squash, beans and blueberries

2011-06-23T22:24:00.000-04:00

Arikara Bean harvest

2011-06-23T22:15:00.001-04:00

I picked half the bed of Arikara beans and filled a bushel basket. They still need to be dried and shelled before cooking.

Blueberry Season!

2011-06-19T15:30:00.000-04:00

2011-06-19T15:21:00.002-04:00

Father's Day. I played in the garden for a little while.

First Pat & I picked a couple gallons of blueberries.

Then I dug through my garden fertilizer bin and pulled up some lawn fertilizer. I never fertilize my lawn, it's just high nitrogen fertilizer for my corn. I got rid of two partial bags, spreading it between the corn rows.

This will be the first and only fertilizing because very soon the beans interplanted with the corn will make access to the soil impossible. But that's ok - the beans make a green mulch and add nitrogen to the soil. But a little extra N2 never hurt nobody.

Speaking of beans - the Arrikara beans are definitely finished and starting to die off. I'm letting them stay in the bed as long as possible to allow the most possible pods to ripen.

And, finally - what's blooming in the perennial garden - a couple different daylillies, gladiolas, and the butterfly bush all make a nice arrangement.

On either side of the flowers is the results of two days worth of blueberry picking.

2011-06-17T21:18:00.002-04:00

From the top:

Momo cornered a field mouse in the grapevine bed and is patiently waiting for it to come out and play. He had many opportunities to kill the mouse if he wanted - or knew how - but instead just wanted to play with it. The mouse eventually escaped.

Monarda planted underneath a butterfly bush attracts hummingbirds, bees, butterflies and other pollinators to the garden.

The arikara bean plants are starting to turn yellow and die off. They've produced a lot of beans for harvesting.

The Irish potatoes are also played out. I've been digging up spuds as they are needed.

2011-06-17T21:06:00.002-04:00

From the top:

Replanted corn bed, with beans planted between corn. The beans are drying beans, either black beans or red beans.

Bed 3, the Cushaw squash started on the left side of the bed, has traveled to the end of the bed and down the opposite side from where it was planted, passing by bush zucchini with the darker leaves. It is headed out to open area on the other side of the bed, the sunlit area at the top of the photo.

The sweet potato bed has filled out.

Bed 6, bottom left side is the chayote squash, starting to vine.

In Bed 1 there is a light green swiss chard plant that has been an excellent lettuce substitute for my salads.

2011-06-05T22:36:00.002-04:00

This weekend I replanted the gaps in the How Sweet It Is plantings with two types of sugar enhanced hybrid sweet corn: F-M Kandy Korn (Bed 11) and Peaches and Cream (Beds 5 and 8). Beds 5 and 8 also got a planting of black beans while Bed 11 was planted with red beans.

Bed 9 got a few Rutgers tomatoes to make up for some tomatoes that were lost in the pea vines, and I added a yellow tomato plant to Bed 3.

I harvested dill and cilantro, stripping off the tenderest leaves from the herbs, then washing and freezing them. Last year I waited too long and didn't harvest much dill. Once it sets seeds after flowering the plant dies. It is in flower now but hadn't gone to seed yet.

End of Peas

2011-06-03T22:12:00.003-04:00

The pea season has ended. The vines were pulled out to make room for tomatoes, beans, cucumbers and other vines that need the trellis.

Bed 9 before & after pulling up the peas.

Today's harvest of potatoes & baby squash.

Good News, Bad News...

2011-05-23T19:22:00.002-04:00

The good news is that my chayote squash has made an appearance above ground!

The bad news is that flea beetles are munching on my sweet potatoes.

Neem oil spray doesn't deter them.

Maybe a spray of Sevin will.

But also maybe ignoring them since the potatoes are growing strong and seem capable of handling any damage the beetles might inflict. That seems to be the easiest way to go, doesn't it?

I'll monitor the little bastards and only nuke them with Sevin if necessary.

2011-05-21T21:59:00.002-04:00

The okra planted from seed in Bed 9 hasn't done well and there were some large gaps between the okra seedlings. So I bought 8 okra plants (Clemson Spineless) and set them out in the bed and stuck a couple spares in the sweet potato bed.

I also bought a sweet pepper banana pepper plant after noticing most of the peppers I have are spicey. I put it into bed 3 with the other peppers.

While I was at the store I saw a bundle of late season onions. I bought them on a whim and set them out beside the beans planted in beds 1 & 6 (photos).

Also planted on the north side of bed 6 were some bush winter squash seeds from a packet I found upstairs in my bedroom. I don't know how viable they'll be, but it's a good risk for that space.

Speaking of using old seed: I think I saw the first corn sprouts today.

Pea harvest

2011-05-20T19:25:00.000-04:00

2011-05-14T21:48:00.003-04:00

Planted 4 beds of HSII corn today. The seed was saved from last year and had some meal moth damage. I'll keep extra seed in the 'fridge from now own. I planted the seed thick, expecting some not to sprout. I hope it's still viable.

Planted: Bed 2 with the yellow Thomas Jefferson beans; also Beds 5, 8 and 11. Put out the new soaker hoses on the newly planted beds.

Mowed around the blueberry bushes today. Loads of berries hanging from the bushes. It should be a record harvest of berries this year.

Rebuilt the compost pile as I cut the yard, using layers of green grass clippings with layers of dried material from the pile.

Picked another serving of peas today from Bed 6.

Long day but the exercise felt good.

This week

2011-05-13T21:43:00.005-04:00

Bed 6 - Maestro variety, planted Feb 28. First peas to bloom and first to harvest. We had our first serving Monday. Nice size pods, I'll be sure to plant this variety again.

Bed 3 (front) - Lincoln variety, planted Feb 28. Bed 9 (back) - Miragreen variety, also planted Feb 28. The Miragreen vines are about 5 feet tall, the Lincoln about 3 feet.

Momo guarding the herb bed.

Potato flowers.

New product trial: Neem oil.

Bed 5 starting to fill up also

2011-05-03T15:17:00.003-04:00

I planted a chayote squash on the NE corner of Bed 5. Next year I need to get a chayote earlier in the season and allow time for it to sprout. One year I had a great crop of chayote but the last couple years I've had none.

I then planted a row of yard long green beans on the south side of the bed. I thought I'd saved some seeds of these beans but couldn't find them. I was lucky to find a packet from F-M at Home Depot. We really like young Yard Longs better than bush green beans, and they are much easier to can since they can be cut to exactly the right length to fit in a canning jar. They need to be planted close together since they don't have a high yield per vine. I used the entire packet for one 12 foot row.

New Stuff

2011-05-02T12:02:00.002-04:00

I don't know why it took me so long to discover Scuffle Hoes. But after spending too much time beating the dirt with a traditional hoe, I tried one.

I grew Malabar spinach last year, a green vine. It goes to seed easily and thousands, literally of the vine sprouted this year. I only want one or two of the vines so I had to chop down all the extras. The scuffle hoe made quick work out of weeding the bed.

It has a sharp, flat metal blade parallel to the ground. You just push the hoe blade back and forth, it slides just under the soil and easily cuts weeds.

The second new product is a cloth covered soaker hose. My usual soaker hoses have all been made out of rubber, recycled tires I believe. The cloth soaker hose was easier to roll out, easier to curve around on the bed, and I believe gave a more even distribution of water along its length compared to the rubber hoses.

2011-05-01T20:13:00.000-04:00

Bed 9 - Summer planting

2011-04-20T16:54:00.004-04:00

This might get crowded!

I saved seeds from last year's soybean crop. I'd never grown soybeans before but the entire family really liked them. I served them boiled inside their shells but we liked them best shelled while they were still green then boiled. I let some dry and those are the seeds I planted in two rows on the south side of the bed.

And when I came back later on my early summer planting spree, I forgot about them! And over the top of those two rows I planted saved seeds of (P) Barlotto Solista! And as if that wasn't enough, I also seeded a few (G) Argonaut winter squash!

I think the squash may be the first thing moved into Bed 5. And I prefer soybeans to the Solista beans if I have to make a choice about that. But right now I'm willing to wait and see how crowded it all gets.

On the north side I planted (P) Annie Oakley okra. The tomatoes in this bed are Juliet and Rutger's. I have had good luck with Rutgers before.

Bed 5 - Summer planting

2011-04-20T16:47:00.002-04:00

Bed 5 is being held "in reserve" for follow-up plantings of green beans.

The tomatoes on the trellis are Better Boy and Brandywine. Both are varieties I don't grow often.

Bed 3 - Summer Planting

2011-04-20T16:16:00.003-04:00

This will be the squash bed!

The tomatoes on the trellis are Juliet and Beefmaster hybrid.

On the north side I seeded (P) Silver Queen Okra. Planted beside and growing under the okra will be (F-M) Black Beauty Zucchini and (F-M) Cushaw Green Striped winter squash.

Then the south side was seeded with a wide variety of summer squash - what kinds I get will be a surprise!

Also on the south side, planted from seeds are peppers: (G) Sweetheart, (P) Sweet Banana and (G) Hot Paper Lantern (named from west to east across the bed).

Bed 2 - Summer Planting

2011-04-20T16:02:00.002-04:00

This bed has been planted with 4 rows of Arikara beans. When the soil has warmed it will be planted with How Sweet It Is corn.

Other corn beds will be beds 4, 5, 8 and 11. They will also be under planted with beans for drying, such as black, pinto, red or navy beans.

Planting beans and corn together makes good use of space and helps the soil. The beans also shade the roots of the corn and help keep the bed from drying out. The bean's shallow roots don't compete with the corn's deep roots. BUT the bean planting makes it impossible to 'hill' up around the corn. So the corn plants are more susceptible to wind damage than corn rows that have had dirt pulled up around their stalk bases.

Bed 1 - summer planting

2011-04-20T15:21:00.005-04:00

Bed 1 is closest to the house. It has a trellis and always has a nice tomato crop. In early spring I planted peas on the trellis and dropped a couple radish seeds in the bed.

This year the trellis will have three tomatoes:

Juliet, my workhorse paste and salad tomato;
Celebrity, a favorite my father always had good luck with but I haven't. But I'm trying it again.
Red Beefsteak, an heirloom and a new variety for me. I've had mixed success with heirlooms.

On the north side, closest to the house, I planted what I hope will be the main source of fresh green beans. I mixed the seeds of two types of yellow wax beans and two varieties of green beans and planted a single row across the length of the bed. The wax beans were Ferry-Morse (F-M) Carson yellow wax and Burpee (B) Brittle Wax. The green beans were Gurney's (G) Jade and Park's (P) Festina. For the wax beans I used open seed packets from last year. Funny thing - neither Ferry-Morse nor Burpee carry those bean varieties anymore.

On the south side of the bed I planted a few feet of (G) Swiss Chard. This is an experiment - I hope to use the chard for summer salads and greens. I planted the seeds of (G) Eggplant 'Fairy Tale' and (F-M) Grey Zucchini.

What a difference one week makes!

2011-04-20T15:15:00.002-04:00

Early Birds

2011-04-20T14:21:00.005-04:00

I've already noticed several hummingbirds around this year. While I was standing on the porch, one flew up and landed on an empty feeder still hanging from last year. He expressed his disappointment.

So I cleaned up some feeders, made some syrup and hung a couple filled feeders. I've already seen several hummers checking them out. I don't have any photos of the springtime hummers, they are much more shy right now than they are in the fall.

I don't know if they are 'locals' or if I'm seeing some migrants stopping in for a meal while they journey north.

We put a new roof on the house last year. I wonder if the new metal roof is attracting more hummingbirds than our old shingle roof? Because if red attracts hummingbirds then we've made our house into a huge billboard for migrating hummers!

When the flowers fall off the dogwoods...

2011-04-20T13:37:00.003-04:00

The dogwood tree in our backyard is huge for a dogwood. It is large enough to be a shade tree.

Each year it is covered with drifts of white flowers.

It is also a season indicator. Dogwoods bloom in late spring. Our last frost date will be when the dogwoods are in full bloom. It is not unusual to have a frost hard enough to freeze damage the dogwood petals.

We didn't have a freeze that hard this year. But when the dogwoods were in full bloom we did have a frost hard enough to kill some tender plant's I'd set out - basil and dill plants in the herb bed.
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It was my own fault. I knew better but I was taking a risk. If you don't lose something to frost every year, you're planting too late.

"When the petals fall off the dogwoods it is safe to plant tomatoes."

Mid April Garden Tour

2011-04-13T20:34:00.002-04:00

A quick tour of some of the garden beds.

The potatoes are starting to sprout out of Bed 7 and it's heavy covering of shredded leaf mulch collected during this season's first lawn mowing.

Peas are starting to reach for trellis support.

The four rows of Arikara beans just sprouted in Bed 2.

The herb bed has either sprouted or been planted and the bed is almost as heavily mulched as the potato bed.

Mint Prison

2011-04-12T21:55:00.003-04:00

Mint is a garden thug. It's one of the bullies of the plant world. Left unchecked it will take over a garden and choke anything in its path. It needs to be kept in solitary confinement.

So I dug out a 2X2 foot square in the herb garden. I placed a terra cotta pot in the middle of the excavation and filled the rest of the square with round river stones. I filled the pot with soil and planted chocolate mint. The mint would have to escape the pot and travel over the river stones to reach soil.

Now it looks like it's busting down the walls of its jail cell! After being exposed for several winters the terra cotta is flaking away.

Mowed the lawn today

2011-04-02T19:49:00.004-04:00

I spent most of today mowing the lawn.

To some people that might seem like a chore. To me it was a milestone! It's been 6 months or more since I was able to walk behind a lawnmower. Now, granted, the lawn didn't need mowing for most of that time but there were areas of the lawn that didn't get mowed much, if at all, last year.

It was a nice day for a long walk even if the walk was all around the yard behind a noisy lawn mower.

I bought a few pots of herbs from a garden center; basil, two types of thyme and a pot of chives. I planted them then mulched the potato bed and herb bed with dry leaves picked up by the mower.

I used the mower's bagger even though it filled up quickly with all the dead leaves and grass. That slowed down the mowing and made me do much more walking but I was in no hurry.

And I planted 4 rows of Arikara yellow beans, an heirloom bean collected by Lewis and Clark from the Arikara tribe in North Dakota and much loved by Thomas Jefferson. They can be planted much earlier than other beans and will sprout in cool soil.

I obtained my seeds from the gift shop in Monticello, paying several dollars for maybe two dozen beans. So last year I planted one row and saved the harvest for seed.

They are a pretty bean and are supposed to be quite tasty. I woudn't know, not having had enough to cook yet. But if the seed I planted today sprouts and grows well, I'll have a cup or two of dry beans that I'd be able to risk cooking.

2011-03-20T22:37:00.002-04:00

I spent a nice weekend in the garden. I chopped all the weeds off beds that haven't been planted, that would be all the beds without trellises. The soil didn't get much attention last fall because of my hip problems, so it got some extra attention this weekend. I added bags of sand, ground pine bark, and lime to the beds, planted cilantro, shallots and chives in the herb bed and pruned back the winter kill on the rosemary bush. My sage bush did not survive the winter.

Last summer I buried a grapevine to see if it would root. Boy, did it root! I pruned it free of the mother vine and replanted it in a container. The plan last year was to make more grapevine beds over the winter. Well, that didn't happen. I'll see if I can find it a new home, or maybe just plant it in a hole where the bed will be located. The trellis and such can always be added later.

Potato Planting

2011-03-13T12:03:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I did something that I haven't done in a long time - planted potatoes. It's been several years since I last planted them.

Dad always planted them near Good Friday but he also planted by signs - the waning moon meant it was time to plant or not plant some things, I can't say I understood it at all. When my wife and I both worked and we had the 3 kids at home and all their activities to chauffeur, I would plant whenever I had enough time.

I guess this violates my "I'm only planting things that grow on a trellis" vow, but I'm feeling stronger every day so I'm hoping that by harvest time I'll be up to digging.

I hoed off the old corn stalks and the winter weeds from Row 7 and planted two rows of Yukon Gold and one row of Kennebec. I started with the same weight of both varieties but the Yukons were larger and could be cut into several pieces while the Kennebecs mostly had to be planted whole. I'm thinking later in the year I'll buy a couple or three bags of mushroom compost to cover the bed. I don't really have enough room room left in the raised bed to hill the plants.

2011-03-10T11:06:00.005-05:00

Today I pruned the grapevines. The photo shows a couple vines that have already been pruned and the tangle of unpruned vines.

A hoe can substitute for a cane and is much more useful! I'm prepping one of the trellis beds for planting peas, photo taken late Feb / early March.

2011

2011-03-01T16:22:00.002-05:00

This will be a rehab garden since I had a total hip replacement on Jan 31. At first everything I plant will need to be on trellises since I can't get on my knees or sit on the ground.

On Feb 21 the Yellow Crocus started to bloom in the perennial bed. I took that as a sign to make the first planting of English peas. I followed up with more plantings a week later.

Bed 1 - Green Arrow Peas, Feb 21

Bed 3 - Lincoln variety, Feb 28

Bed 6 - Maestro variety, Feb 28

Bed 9 - Miragreen variety, Feb 28.

A big rainstorm rolled thru immediately after planting on the 28th.

Ouch!

2009-08-25T09:06:00.003-04:00

I harvested the last bed of corn this weekend. At this time of year that means shucking the corn and cutting of the tip of the ear eaten by the worms. I did this outside, letting the cuttings fly back onto the bed.

I dropped one ear of corn as I was cutting it. Most people would let it fall, pick it up and continue. But when something falls around me, instinct takes over and I have to try to catch it. My hand shot down to make the catch. The hand with the knife.

I was lucky. I didn't cut my wrist but that wasn't because of great planning on my part. I also didn't cut my fingertip all the way off. Both could have happened.

I went into the house to tell Pat that I had cut my hand, again, in another gardening accident. She got her purse and keys and was ready to drive me to the emergency room. Again. But I told her I thought this was a do-it-yourself job. It was.

It's still hard to type the letters "E", "D", and "C".

Late summer chores

2009-08-16T20:50:00.002-04:00

Last week I planted beans for drying in the sweet corn beds. Today I cleaned out the compost piles and mulched the bean sprouts. Those beds are now ready for the winter - they're under as thick mulch of chopped corn stalks and compost and planted with a crop that will improve the soil. The bean plants will be cut down after frost kills them and added to the mulch layer.

I mulched another bed and planted beans around the standing stalks of the late corn. I also planted beans on both sides of bed 6, the bed that was planted in berries last year. Its soil needs some work too. It's next in line for a dose of compost.

For supper we had a salad of Malabar spinach, Juliet tomatos, cucumber and sweet peppers. Anogher salad of a First Prize tomato, basil leaves and mozzarella cheese.

2009-08-10T20:17:00.002-04:00

Today I pulled up the green beans (Derby variety) in Bed 3. They had a good run but I like the Festina variety better. The Festina have had better yield, are longer, slender, just generally better looking.

Each year for the last 5 years or so I've grown Derby and one other variety. Each year Derby has proven to be the better variety, this is the first time I've selected another variety over Derby.

Here are their seed catalog descriptions:

Park's Bean Festina (New - have not grown this before)
Terrific heat tolerance!

The Most Nutritious (and Yummy!) Snap Yet!Dark green color packs in the vitamins!
56 days. Get an extra dose of vitamins with every bite of this delicious snap bean! Festina is far and away the most nutritious snap ever grown, as its dark green pods show. Ideal for canning or fresh eating, this upright plant regales you with crisp, tender-sweet pods in less than 2 months' time!
Older Blue Lake bush varieties have difficulty setting pods when the temperature warms up, but Festina is perfect for hot, sultry climates where spring is over before you know it. Resistant to Common Bean Mosaic Virus, this vigorous, bushy little plant sets nice straight pods about 6 inches long and full of rich flavor and nutrition. Why waste your time with less healthy varieties?
Direct-sow these seeds in warm spring soil receiving full sun, and keep watered during growth. In early summer you will be rewarded by armfuls of delicious eating!

Park's Bean Derby
Heavy-yielding and great-tasting!
Keeps Producing Tender, Delicious Beans All Spring and Into Summer!Straight 6-inch pods are round, smooth, and mouth-watering!
57 days. A dependable, heavy-yielding snap bean of high eating quality. The plant continues to flower from spring right into summer, producing beans for nonstop picking week after week! A great mainstay of the family vegetable garden, this super performer is not only prolific but very tasty. The beans are straight, 6 inches long, with a round, smooth pod and succulent seeds. A terrific all-around bean!
Easy and trouble-free, even for the new gardener, this snap bean is widely adapted across the U.S., and is compact in the garden. For best harvest, succession-plant every 3 weeks or so from early spring till late summer (avoiding the worst summer heat in warm areas). Hardier than pole beans, bush snaps can be direct-sown after all danger of frost.

Early August

2009-08-09T20:25:00.006-04:00

It's been a productive summer so far. The pantry is almost full already and I haven't even started making tomato sauce yet. We did use the last jar of last year's sauce so I've been making sauce from fresh tomatoes as needed. Here's a tour of the garden, early August.

A view of the garden from the kitchen door.

The squirrels are still attacking the corn, but we haven't caught one in a week or more. So the trap's been moved closer to the scene of the crimes.

The early corn beds have been chopped down and planted in beans for drying - black beans, pinto beans, and 'Yin-Yang' beans.

The Malabar spinach is growing wild and is a very pretty vine. It is just starting to flower. I've been using the leaves in salads. It's great to have a spinach and tomato salad picked from the garden in the heat of summer.

I'm caught in a trap..

2009-07-01T19:52:00.008-04:00

I'm caught in a trap
I can't walk out
Because I love sweet corn too much baby

Why can't you see
What you're doing to me
When you don't believe a word I say?

We can't go on together
With suspicious minds
And we can't build our dreams
On suspicious minds.

.I suspected a squirrel has been raiding the sweet corn and tearing off ears just as they began to silk. At the rate corn has been disappearing I wouldn't get any. One suspect was caught today and sent into exile several miles from the garden.

I canned 5 quarts of zucchini, 8 pints of a mix of carrots, green beans and wax beans and froze at least6 pounds of blueberries the last two days.

Squash vine borers took out the zucchini plants today. When I pulled the dying plants out I discovered a pepper plant I didn't know was growing in the bed!

Good News: I get to build a new deck

2009-06-25T08:13:00.002-04:00

Bad news: Because there was a sewage leak underneath it.

Early Summer Garden Tour

2009-06-24T07:56:00.009-04:00

.Perennial garden and one row of raised beds.
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.Grapevines beside the perennials.

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.Daylillies are putting on a nice show.

.Purple coneflowers, one of my favorites.
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Bed 1 with different varieties of tomatoes.
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Bed 7. Corn, I had to replant after spotting germination.
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Bed 8 also had to be replanted.

Corn in Bed 2 sprouted and has been growing well. This was planted under a layer of leaf mulch. I'm going to start leaving a layer of mulch on all the garden beds all winter.
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Bed 3, bush beans, a cucumber vine, a tomato and yard-long beans just starting to climb the trellis.

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Bed 9, spring planted carrots being dug.

Bed 5 is overflowing.

Picking beans.

.One day's harvest. Zucchini, green beans, yard-long beans, cucumbers, carrots and a green cayenne pepper.

The Canning Line

2009-06-23T08:52:00.003-04:00

I bought a pressure canner last year.

Some time in August I needed more pint jars. So I got in the car and drove to the local Ace Hardware. They were sold out, they only had half gallon jars on the shelves. So I bought them but I still needed pint jars.

So I drove across the street to the Publix grocery store. They too were sold out.

Next I drove south, towards Atlanta, to Wal-Mart. Their canning jar shelf was completely empty but I noticed their prices were 2 dollars a case cheaper than the other places that didn't have jars.

I continued south to a Kroger grocery store. They only had the fancy pint sized jelly jars on their shelves. Not what I was looking for. I continued south, into Alpharetta.

Finally at the next Kroger grocery store I found jars! They had shelves stacked high with them. I filled my grocery cart with cases of jars (it doesn't really take very many to do that) and headed back home.

I had found it! The Canning Line. It's the line where everyone north of the line has gardens and does canning but there are few gardeners south of there.

Goodbye Spring, Hello Summer!

2009-06-14T20:55:00.005-04:00

This weekend marked the transition between spring and summer. I pulled up the last of the pea vines and picked the first batch of green beans.

I canned 5 quarts of beans and one of peas, the first canning session of this season. I couldn't find the rocker valve on the pressure canner but the local Ace Hardware had the replacement part!

.This is my little invention for pulling hot jars out of the canner. I dropped too many using tongs. I made a noose out of nylon twine and use clothesline wire to hold the noose open. I just slip the three prongs of wire over the jar. tighten the noose, and lift out the jar. I haven't dropped a jar in two years now.

.Meanwhile, out in the garden....

Bed 1 is becoming a tomato wall,
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Bed 5 is crowded with squash, peppers, eggplant, and two varieties of bush beans.

Duncan Ridge Hike, May 30 - 31

2009-06-02T21:18:00.006-04:00

Duncan Ridge Hike - May 30 - 31

2009-06-02T21:10:00.002-04:00

Wedding costume

2009-06-01T11:23:00.002-04:00

Bluebirds, Peas & Carrots

2009-05-25T13:05:00.005-04:00

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For the last couple weeks I've been picking a few peas now and then, just enough to throw into salads.
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Today was the first time I've made a real harvest of peas. And I pulled up a handful of baby carrots. Because peas and carrots go together like...oh, I don't know. Beer and pretzels, I guess.

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Hanging on all the trellises (what's the plural of 'trellis'?!) are small hand tools and old colanders. The colanders are for harvesting, the hand tools are there because I got tired of walking back to the house to get a hand shovel or cultivator or something. Because usually when I did that I'd get sidetracked and either forget what I wanted or walk back to the garden without the tool.
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I've got a collection of rustproof tools like hand spades, cultivators, knives and scissors scattered around the garden and some old colanders for holding whatever I find to harvest.

I've found that a carpet cutter's knife, shown in the photo, is excellent for cutting tough vines.
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The bluebird couple settled into their usual house and now have a nest full of hungry babies. I can hear their chicks cheeping from the porch.
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Here's mom taking a moment to herself outside the house.
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Here's dad feeding the youngsters. From first light until sunset the bluebirds are scouring my yard and garden for bugs to feed their family.
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I watched a chickadee looking for an empty nest box land and look in the doorway to see if it was empty. The male bluebird attacked the interloper and chased him out of the yard.

Late spring garden tour

2009-05-18T21:37:00.007-04:00

The perennial beds.

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Some color is starting to show among the perennials.

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The grapes are leafing out well.

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Bed 9, peas, carrots and beets.

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Bed 9, view of the beet & carrot mix.

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Bed 5, peppers, eggplants, squash and beans with a deep mulch of compost.

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Bed 3, beans and peas. Asparagus beans have sprouted and will soon cover the trellis.

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Bed 7, corn. The earliest planting sprouted unevenly so I replanted the gaps. The second planting has just sprouted.

Compost

2009-04-21T22:14:00.004-04:00

Long, long ago in a garden far, far away... when I first started gardening I carefully read all the articles in garden magazines. Organic Gardening, Southern Living, Mother Earth News, the local newspaper, you name it I read it.
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There was a lot written about composting. Like how to build a compost pile using so much green stuff to so much brown stuff and how to monitor the temperature of the compost pile and how often to turn it. I even bought a book on backyard composting.
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A book! It told about trench composting and sheet composting and even vermicomposting using bins full of earthworms.
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And, following the authors' advice I dug my compost into the garden.
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It all worked pretty well, actually. But I did a lot more work then than I do now.
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Another author, Felder Rushing, wrote about the only two rules of composting I follow now:

- Stop throwing stuff away.

- Pile stuff up.

That about covers it for composting rules.

I have two compost piles in the middle of my garden. Which is where compost piles belong, I believe. Weeds and plant trimmings and spent plants get tossed into the piles. Compost comes out and gets spread on top of the garden.

Actually what's spread may not be 'compost' according to some of the articles I've read because I often don't wait for everything to break down so what I spread onto the garden as mulch often contains quite recognizable bits of stalks and stems and leaves. But it all gets used.

The great majority of what goes into my compost piles comes from the bagger on back of my lawn mower. Emptying the bag slows me down a lot, but I generate a lot of compost that way. Garden plants at the end of their life cycle is the second most abudant component and kitchen waste makes up a small but important percent.

I think of the kitchen waste as compost vitamins. I think of the eggshells and vegetable trimmings and fruit peels as adding nutrients acquired from all over the world - banana peels from Costa Rica, pineapple trimmings too, and avacado skins from California, grape stems from Chile, coffee grounds from ... where ever coffee comes from, cantaloup or watermelons from Florida, all add an assortment of nutrients from outside my yard. Bones the dog has gotten tired of chewing go into the pile too.

I keep a couple of small empty drywall compound buckets by the sink that I throw the trimmings and peels into as I cook. Then once a day I tote the bucket out to the garden. I don't bother trying to bury it inside the pile, it all dries out or gets covered with lawn clippings or charcoal ashes soon enough.

When I need to apply mulch around my plants I just shovel the pile into my wheelbarrow and cart it to whichever bed needs mulch. By the end of a garden season the compost mulch has disappeared, mostly thanks to the thousands of earthworms in each bed feeding on it.

Over time my garden soil has changed from bright red clay to a deep, dark brown. The soil is soft enough to jam my hand in it up to the wrist. There's no need to dig it into the beds.

Water saving mulch and fertilizer all in one. And all of it saved from the landfill.

Big Planting

2009-04-18T20:45:00.002-04:00

This morning we went to an RV show at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.

There's a rainstorm coming tonight so this afternoon I tried to weed all the beds and put a lot of things into the ground.

Bed 3: Yard Long beans planted under the trellis, Annie Oakley okra seeded on the north side, Derby bush beans seeded on the south side.

Bed 5: Eggplants - two of the nonbitter ones (I have to look up their name) that a friend started for me, a Black Beauty eggplant, a Cloud Nine white eggplant, 1 pepper start (need to look up name), a Pimento pepper plant, seeded Sweet Pickle pepper, seeded a striped zuchini and Kuta squash from saved seed. Left room for a habanero pepper or two when I find them. Also seeded half a row of Festina bush beans and an Italian bush bean. This should be a productive bed!

Bed 7 - How Sweet It Is corn. My early planting.

Bed 9 - Malabar Spinach planted under the trellis.

I also added two Monarda plants to the perennial bed, flanking the Butterfly bush. They were the last things I planted and just as I finished it was getting dark and a few raindrops started to fall. Mosquitos were getting bad too.

Deer visited the garden last night and tried nibbling a few of the perennials. They must not like Iris or Autumn Joy Sedum because they just took one bite of each. They are probably the reason my peas have been kept cropped. I've never had a problem with deer before, I hope visiting my garden doesn't get to be a habit for them.

Playing with the Perennials

2009-04-13T20:33:00.005-04:00

This weekend I spent some time with the perennial garden. I moved the water spigot that was in the middle of one of the walkways, moved some bulbs that appeared in the walkways, moved other plants that appeared in the 'wrong' beds to their correct beds, and planted a few more perennials.

I cleaned up the borders and added a few old logs as border material. A couple of years ago I removed some cedar bushes from in front of the house. Earlier this spring I used the wood chipper to make the smaller branches into mulch. The larger trunks are now bed borders.
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Photos show the garden in February (top) and April. Things are greening up!

Planting times

2009-04-11T14:31:00.003-04:00

I'm waiting to plant the summer crops until the flowers fall off the dogwoods, as mentioned before. But I had to put in two tomatos a bit early.

A friend at work started some plants for me and did an excellent job of growing tomatos, peppers and eggplants from seed. I took the box of seedlings out onto the porch and the wind blew over two of the little plants and knocked them out of their cups. So I put them into the ground and hoped for the best. Bed 1 now has a Belgium Giant (east side) and a First Prize (middle of bed).

I want to harvest my corn after I get back from summer vacation - which will be the International Juggler's Association Festival on July 13 - 19. Too many times we've returned home from our vacation to find the corn past its prime.

Since the corn has a maturity length of 87 days, by my calculations I should hold off planting until May 2. I will plant one bed early for harvest the first week in July, that planting date would be about today! The soil's too cool to plant still so I'll shoot for one bed ripening during the 2nd week of July and do an early planting next weekend.

And that will be about when the flowers start falling off the dogwoods, won't it?

Note to Self:

2009-04-09T20:57:00.003-04:00

Pick asparagus shoots before freezing temperatures.

A really nice potential serving of springtime asparagus froze and face planted.

Who knew?

Dogwoods are blooming

2009-04-05T20:58:00.003-04:00

I spent the weekend using the woodchipper to (...nearly...) finish mulching the blueberry bushes.

The dogwoods are blooming. The photo is of a big, triple trunked one in our back yard.

Dogwoods are one of my planting time indicators. When all the flowers have dropped off the dogwoods, it's safe to plant tomatos, peppers, beans, all the warm weather vegetables.

When their flowers drop, all danger of frost is past and, more importantly, the soil has warmed up enough so that plants that don't like to have cold feet will start growing.

We've had several days of weather in the '70's recently. But the forecast for tomorrow? There's a possibility of snow. Gardeners are being warned to cover tender plants. People who've set out tender plants should have waited until the flowers dropped off the dogwoods.

First Asparagus Serving

2009-04-01T22:50:00.006-04:00

The first stalk to appear on the 28th went into a salad.

Today I picked enough asparagus for two servings of lightly steamed stalks.

It's been so long since we've had fresh asparagus we'd forgotten how tender and tasty they were

Cedar Waxwings

2009-03-29T20:37:00.003-04:00

. The holly tree in front of our house is loaded with red berries from fall until spring. Nothing touches the berries until a flock of cedar waxwings arrives in spring and strips the tree bare.

Today was that day.

First Asparagus Appearance

2009-03-28T20:12:00.008-04:00

The asparagus started making an appearance last week! I'll be keeping a close watch on it from now on.
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So does that make me an asparagus stalker?
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The bottle tree has fully leafed out now. While in Richmond VA visiting our daughter my wife and I browsed a flea market. We picked up a case of old Coke bottles and a couple more old soda bottles.
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Grapevine pruning

2009-03-15T11:30:00.005-04:00

It's still raining.

It's also the Ides of March and time to prune the grapevines.

Before & after views of the minyard (mini vinyard)
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Garden Story - Peas

2009-03-14T10:11:00.004-04:00

It's raining today. A nice, soft all-day soaking rain. I'd hoped to be making more wood chips today instead I'm straightening out the house and porch, doing inside stuff.Here's a rainy day story about my first garden.
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Many years ago my wife and I were both in the Army. We'd just gotten stationed together and were renting a house near Fort Gordon, Georgia. At that time inflation was high and our salaries were low. The deposits for the house and utilities wiped out what small savings we had. Our paychecks weren't quite stretching to the end of the month. I thought growing a garden, raising our own food, would help save money.
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I rented a little front end tiller and wrestled it back and forth to plow up a small patch in the yard. I bought seeds at the PX, all kinds. I also bought a garden magazine and read that I was supposed to plant vegetables as far apart as they were wide - so one foot wide lettuce, for example, should be planted a foot apart. That made sense.
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I'd bought a packet of "Bush Peas", garden peas, green peas, English peas, whatever you like to call them. The package said they made 2 foot tall bushy plants. I was expecting a little bush two feet wide so I carefully planted the peas two feet apart. I only had room to plant about 8 of them.
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As you probably know, I didn't get two foot wide bushes. I got short, skinny vines. They drooped on the ground with lots of room betwen them. When they first started making peas I'd get about one pod from each of my 8 plants. Not enough to eat, I just shelled them and dropped them into our hamster's cage.
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Finally one day at the peak of the harvest I shelled out a whole cup of peas. For dinner I bought a little water to boil in our smallest sauce pan and dumped in my entire harvest. There was just enough for one small serving for both of us.That single serving changed my life.We were used to mushy canned peas. These weren't mushy - they seemed to pop inside our mouths! And the taste was extraordinary, like nothing we'd ever tasted. These were GOOD! My wife and I looked at each other - Wow! What is this?!!
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Now I was really interested in gardening. I found Organic Gardening magazine at the PX, it was a black and white pulp magazine back then. I invested in a subscription. I started cutting the articles out and filing them in alphabetical order. I sent in some of the cards in the magazine for seed catalogs.
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Fast forward about 25 years and here I am with a garden about the same size as the entire lot of that first house. I'm a Georgia Master Gardener. Peas are sprouting. Lots of peas. I'll grow as many in about one foot as I grew that first year.
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In a few weeks when my wife and I sit down for the first meal of the spring harvest, which will be a small serving of fresh picked English peas steamed with a few mint leaves and served with a touch of butter, we will again take the first bite and look at each other.
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"Wow! These are GOOD!"

New plants

2009-03-12T21:32:00.002-04:00

The vegetable garden is on cruise control for awhile, just waiting for the spring plantings to grow up and it's too soon to plant the summer vegetables. So I did a bit of planting in the perennial garden.
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I planted two landscape roses in the middle bed, the butterfly bush bed, and a few more Asian lillies in the back of the iris bed, a few Tiger flowers beside the lillies, and two patches of Oxalis in the front corners of the middle bed.
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It's supposed to rain tomorrow. That should suit these new plants just fine.
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After writing about how the bluebirds returned to the same old birdhouse year after year, they moved! I put a bluebird box on one of the grapevine posts last year and wrens moved into it. Wrens will move into anything - they've nested in my tool closet, on my garage shelves, a hanging basket, in a trashcan I keep on the porch to hold fertilizer bags, and even in our mailbox. We didn't close the mailbox door one day and the next day the box was full of sticks and twigs. The one place the wrens haven't nested is in the wren nest box I hung on the front porch, immediately above the fertilizer trash can and right beside the tool closet.
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But this year the bluebird couple decided they wanted the grapevine box. The female was out picking pinestraw out of the grapevine bed mulch and taking it into the house. But she wouldn't go into the house while I was standing on the porch, she'd just nonchalantly fly to various perches all around nesting box. "Nesting around here? Who, me? No, whatever gave you that idea?"
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The grapevine location should suit them better. In late spring and early summer when they're out gathering bugs to feed the family, I'll out in the garden weeding. My presence disturbs them; they won't go into the nesting box while I'm watching. But nothing is happening at that time over in the grapevine area, so they might be happier in their new location.

Hello, Peas!

2009-03-11T12:46:00.003-04:00

The peas have popped up to enjoy our warm weather.
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The daffodils and jonquils in the perennial bed are all flowering at different times this year. It's because they were rudely ripped out of the ground during their slumber and transplanted. Next year they should all have the same blooming time.

Sprouts!

2009-03-05T19:11:00.004-05:00

Lettuce and beets have started to push up in Bed 9. No sign of any peas yet.

Asparagus bed is quiet too. Horseradish has started to sprout, so has the mint.

The mint spreads and if left unchecked would soon take over the entire herb bed, if not the yard. So it's been contained inside a big terra cotta planter sunk into the ground then surrounded by rocks. It still manages to sneak a few runners out each year. The photo shows the herb bed, and the mint container, in Spring a couple years ago.

Rain!!!

2009-03-01T11:53:00.003-05:00

2 and 3/4 inches so far this weekend and it's still raining! With a chance of snow predicted later. The snow won't stick because the ground's so warm, so that's really just pretty rain. And it's been a slow, soaking rain spread out over several days.

We're in a drought here in North Georgia, that's no secret. This rain is most welcome. Our house uses well water and although we haven't had a problem with the well so far, it's always nice to have the ground water reservoir recharged. And this has been the perfect rain to do that.

I may have seen signs of the first plantings starting to sprout. Or I might be seeing weeds starting to sprout. We'll see later.

Right now the big story is that we're getting rain!

How much wood can a wood chipper chip?

2009-02-22T19:09:00.014-05:00

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Over the Christmas holidays I took all the cardboard we'd been accumulating around the house and used it to mulch the blueberry bed in the front yard. It looked like I'd started a landfill in my front yard. Most of the year the blueberry bed isn't visible from the street, in winter it is.
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But I had a plan. The Keep Georgia Beautiful organization ran a "Bring One for the Chipper" campaign to recycle Christmas trees and turn them into mulch. At the end of the campaign they'd deliver a full dump truck load to your house if you filled out an application. I filled out the application, mailed it in, and waited. The wood chips would be perfect to cover the cardboard.
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About the middle of January I called to see when I could expect my truckload of free wood chips. They said they'd collected a smaller than usual amount of trees and didn't have enough to distribute. My cardboard covered front yard probably wasn't helping them meet their organizational goals.
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I priced pine straw. Doable, but fairly expensive. I could pick up a couple bales every day after work. But I decided a wood chipper of my own would be nice to have. I have enough brush on my property that could be chipped. I started scanning newspapers and Craig's List looking for an inexpensive one.
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When a friend from work came over to pick up some of the plants I'd culled from my perennial bed I told her the story of the undelivered wood chips, and that I really wasn't just dumping all my garbage in the front yard. She said she had one in her garage that she'd never used. Didn't even know if it started.
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So this weekend I used it for the first time. Saturday I cleared out branches from a tree that had fallen near our driveway. Today I cleared out an area where I'd dumped various bush and tree trimmings over the years.

I found it takes a lot of wood to make a small pile of wood chips so I didn't finish covering the blueberry bed. But I have a lot more wood to go.

2009-02-21T19:26:00.001-05:00

First daffodil bloomed today! A yellow one in the perennial garden.

Pot Smoker

2009-02-20T08:46:00.011-05:00

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This is probably not about what you might think after reading the title.
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Barbecuing - the art of cooking meat very slowly past the point of doneness while using wood smoke to flavor the meat. I'm not talking about grilling hot dogs and hamburgers over a charcoal grill. Not That There's Anything Wrong With That.

So what's that got to do with gardening? Terra cotta pots from a gardening center were used to make my own low cost ceramic smoker.

Original idea from Alton Brown's TV show "Good Eats".

More about bbq later when its the season for seasoning.

Bluebirds arrive

2009-02-18T17:53:00.007-05:00

I saw a bluebird couple checking out the bluebird house today!

This house is mounted on the trellis post of Bed 3 facing east. It has had bluebirds each season for 6 years or more. Each year they raise at least 2 nests of eggs.

The house wasn't always at this location.

It used to be on another bed and the bluebirds had nested in it for several years. The house wasn't very expensive, I think it was a Boy Scout fundraiser project made out of pine and after a few years it was starting to show its age: the sides were cracked, the roof wasn't tight, the door didn't close securely and the outside was starting to mildew. So before the nesting season started I went out and bought a new house - a nice one made of cedar heartwood with copper fittings and a V-shaped roof. I took the old one, the one shown in the picture, down and threw it in the garage and hung the new house in its place.

I happened to be outside when the bluebird couple were checking out the house. The female would hop in then out, back in then out, then perch on the trellis and chirp. The male was sitting next to her, his head down and shifting his weight from foot to foot. I didn't have to speak bluebird to understand this conversation.

Her: THIS is not our house!

Him: It's in the same place. The exact same pole. Same height, even. It's facing the same direction...

Her: THIS is NOT our house!

Him: It's the same yard. Look at that branch over there, honey! Remember that branch? Remember how you used to sit on that branch and eat bugs. You liked that branch. Remember?

Her: THIS IS NOT our HOUSE!

Him: It's a better house. It's a newer house. It's got a pitched roof. The sides aren't cracked. The door shuts tight. It'll be drier and warmer than the old house. It's a great house.

Her: THIS. IS. NOT! OUR. HOUSE!!!

I went to the garage and got the old house and nailed it to another post, the one it's on now. It still has cracks and it slants backwards and it shares the post with a hose rack. The bluebirds started bringing in nesting materials ten minutes after I finished putting it up. That was their house.

The new house hung in the same place for a couple years with no tenants. I finally moved it to a tree and house finches started to use it. Bluebirds are territorial and won't share their property with other bluebirds.

Bluebirds eat bugs. If you have them in your garden don't use chemical pesticides. I'm afraid I was the cause of a nesting failure one year when I used Sevin dust on the plants directly under their house. That was also the last time I used chemical pesticides on garden pests. A spray bottle of soapy water kills bugs and won't hurt the birds. I do use fire ant poison applied directly to the mounds, but that doesn't hurt the birds.

Later this year I'll have pictures of the bluebird family.

Sundials

2009-02-17T15:44:00.016-05:00

I’ve been fascinated with sundials for some, uh, time.

As I learned more about sundials I became intrigued about how they work and how sundials relate to a specific location on the globe and ultimately even to the earth’s alignment in space and its path around the sun.

The shadow casting portion of the dial is aligned with the earth’s central axis so that the sun appears to rotate around the dial. And yes, I do know that the earth spins and rotates around the sun but sundials don’t care. They operate as if they are the center of the universe.

The hour lines on the dial can even be offset to match your longitude so that the dial keeps time closer to clock time. The variation between the dial and clock time is caused in part by the eccentric orbit of the earth around the sun.

The shadow casting portion of the dial, called the gnomon, is set at an angle equal to the dial's latitude and points north, directly at the North Star. The tilt of the earth causes the length of the shadow cast by the gnomon to vary with the seasons. A notch or pointer on the gnomon can be used to track the equinoxes, the solstices or any other date.

Besides, they’re just fun to have in the garden.

I wanted to add one to my garden, but not a garden-variety (…so to speak…) mass produced sundial but one designed specifically for my location. It really wasn't very hard.

First I needed to find my latitude and longitude. That was easy:
http://www.gorissen.info/Pierre/maps/googleMapLocation.php

By the way, my dial is located at latitude 34.201541; longitude -84.246812

That information can be used to design a custom sundial. There is a computer program that will do the designing for you and also calculate the varying difference between clock time and dial time during the year (that difference being called the “Equation of Time”).
http://mail.astrohk.cz/~mira/shc/shc.php?lang=gb

You may even reflect, as I did, on the irony of using the most modern of technologies to design the most ancient of instruments.

You must determine true north to align your sundial. Unfortunately Polaris, the North Star, is behind some trees as seen from where I wanted to set my dial. To align the dial true north using a magnetic compass I had to find the difference between my compass and north:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomagmodels/Declination.jsp

Then I built one. I saw a large saucer used underneath giant planting pots in a garden center. I was surprised that the saucer was made out of a soft plastic, like closed cell foam. It was easy to trace the shadow marks onto the surface of the foam. The gnomon, the shadow casting part, was made out of aluminum metal stock from Home Depot. It was easy to cut with a hacksaw then I made supports and glued them together using JB Weld.

That worked well as a temporary sundial. It encouraged me to try a more permanent design. I bought a large terra cotta plant saucer and have inked in the hour lines for now. Later I’ll try to engrave the lines permanently using a hacksaw blade and a straight edge. Or I might try to pour one using the saucer to hold a concrete or grout mix.

But I like the way the terra cotta saucer blends with my red Georgia clay.

I even laminated a little card with the Equation of Time graph to use to convert the dial time to watch time.

But who really cares how inaccurate watches are?

February Garden Tour

2009-02-16T21:48:00.008-05:00

A quick tour of the garden in February:

Standing on my south porch looking south:

There are 3 muscadine grapevines beside the house.
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Next to the grapevines is the perennial garden, still under construction..
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The grassy area behind the perennial garden is being staked out for a row garden that will be used for planting space hogs, like potatos, okra, or squash.
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Beside the perennial garden are two rows of raised beds, one row of 6 beds and a row of 5.

One bed is planted in asparagus, another in herbs. Four of the beds have permanent trellises strung across their length.
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Another view of the raised beds. The bed in front is resting under a nice cover of winter weeds.

Bottle Tree

2009-02-15T16:54:00.011-05:00

Today I installed the bottle tree in the perennial flower garden. I'd taken it down a year ago when I redesigned and expanded the perennial bed. The base had rotted where I had sunk it into the ground. So I reinstalled it by

- cutting off the rotten part at the bottom

- adding dowels drilled into the trunk to fill in bare spots and replace small limbs.

- staining everything with a dark walnut colored penetrating oil that I found on the clearance shelf at Home Depot.

- sinking a large plant container, tree size, into the ground and filling it with concrete.

- embedding 4 galvanized strut supports into the concrete

- screwing the trunk of the tree into the strut supports.

So now the tree isn't in ground contact and if it rots I can still replace it easily. There are still some blank spots on the bottom that need to be filled.

This year I'm going to get serious about food production from the vegetable garden. The perennial flower garden should add some nice cut flowers to the table. The bottle tree adds fun, a bit of whimsy, to the flower garden.

And according to legend bottle trees are supposed to keep away evil spirits. I haven't seen any evil spirits so it appears to be working.

And sow it begins! First planting of spring veggies

2009-02-14T08:44:00.004-05:00

First Crocus blooms in garden today!

This is my electronic row marker. In the past I've tried all kinds of row markers but nothing worked, either the marker got moved or lost during weeding or the sun bleached out the ink.

Peas:
The trellis beds are beds 1, 3, 6, and 9. Rows are against trellis, either north or south side.
1S - Wando
3S - Alaska WR
3N - Wando
6S - Sugar Snap
6N - Green Arrow
9S - Green Arrow
9N - Sugar Snap

Bed 9 - North side: Lettuce & radishes Little gem east of buttercrunch
South side - beets and carrots mixed together in wide row. Red cloud east of TTEW. Bed 9 shown in photo.

Seed Selection (Cont'd)

2009-02-12T20:01:00.002-05:00

Park's Okra Annie Oakley II
Early, tender, and rich!
The "Northern" Okra, with Big Yields of Tender Pods Anywhere in the U.S.!Hybrid plants produce 2 to 3 times the fruit of open-pollinated varieties!
48 days. This compact hybrid is a sharpshooter when it comes to bringing in huge yields in little space and less time! Annie Oakley II is a classic hybrid, delivering an astounding 2 to 3 times the yields of open-pollinated varieties -- and all on compact plants ideal for today's smaller gardens! A week or two before most others, these rich, very tender green pods are ready for picking!
Best of all, Annie Oakley II demolishes the myth that okra is an exclusively southern, hot-weather crop. It's well-adapted for the cooler climates and shorter growing seasons of the north, turning out just as big yields in New England as in the Deep South!

Park's Okra Silver Queen
Pick these pods late -- they'll still be tender-sweet!
Our Great-Grandparents' Prize Okra!This hard-to-find heirloom is renowned for flavor and tender texture.
80 days from direct-sowing. I am delighted to be able to offer this very hard-to-find, choice heirloom Okra to Park gardeners! From the elegant lime-tinted ivory pods to the succulent flavor, this is an Okra so much better than our modern varieties that it's in a gourmet class by itself!
Each pod is 5 to 7 inches long, and you don't have to worry about having to pick them young (and therefore small) before they toughen up. Even at 7 inches long, these pods are tender and delicious! The "iceberg" color adds a stylish look to the plate, too!
Silver Queen's flavor is legendary, but its plant vigor and productivity make it more like a modern hybrid than an heirloom! You'll get HUGE yields of fruit on this robust, well-branched upright plant, which reaches 6 feet high and 2 to 3 feet wide in the sunny garden. Easy to grow and ready to bear heavily, this is a fine selection for the busy gardener!

Park's Pea Green
Widely-adaptable plants tolerate Powdery Mildew and Fusarium Wilt.
Up to 11 Ultra-Sweet Peas in Every Plump Pod!The 4-inch pods arise plentifully on 24- to 28-inch plants. 70 days. You'll enjoy big harvests from these vigorous 24- to 28-inch plants. Every pod -- about 4 inches long and fresh, bright green -- is stuffed with up to 11 delicious peas!
Widely adapted, this plant tolerates Powdery Mildew and Fusarium Wilt.

Ferry Morse PEAS-ALASKA WR
One of the earliest peas, with vines 2 1/2 feet tall and pods 2 1/2 inches long. The small, smooth peas are excellent for canning.

Ferry Morse PEAS, SUGAR SNAP
Sweet, juicy, tender pods are produced on long vines. Peas can be shelled out to use alone or left in pods to be eaten together. Raw, snapped pods are excellent in salads.

Ferry Morse PEAS, WANDO
A choice variety if you can't plant peas early. Remarkable resistance to warm weather! More heat and drought tolerant than other varieties. Good yielder! Dark green pods, blunt and well filled with 6 to 8 tender medium-sized peas. High in vitamins A, B and C.

Ferry Morse RADISH, WHITE ICICLE
A wonderful early white radish! Its flesh has a deliciously mild flavor, especially when harvested young. Very crisp and tender up to the length of 6 inches. High in vitamin C.

Squash Italian Harvest Hybrid
Laughs at powdery mildew -- great for humid and rainy climates!
Delectable Flavor without the Ridges!This summer squash is a Cocozelle type, similar to zucchini.
55 days. Add a little authentic Italian bite to your summer squash garden this season with this cocozelle! The fruit is dark green with lighter green stripes, protecting the tender flesh within. Unlike most cocozelle types, Italian Harvest has no spiny ridges, so it's smooth and easy to harvest every time.
Pick these long, meaty squashes at about 10 to 12 inches. They'll grow longer, but this size is the peak of their flavor -- and such succulent, mellow flavor it is! Try them on the grill as well as fried and steamed. Italian Harvest takes plain old zucchini to the next level!

This year's seed selections

2009-02-11T20:28:00.000-05:00

Catalog Descriptions are sort of like reading vegetable porn.

I've always wanted to compare the description of the veggie that caused me to want to buy it with the final result. Here, in one place, are all the catalog descriptions of this year's seed selections.

Park's Bean Festina (New - have not grown this before)
Terrific heat tolerance!

The Most Nutritious (and Yummy!) Snap Yet!Dark green color packs in the vitamins!
56 days. Get an extra dose of vitamins with every bite of this delicious snap bean! Festina is far and away the most nutritious snap ever grown, as its dark green pods show. Ideal for canning or fresh eating, this upright plant regales you with crisp, tender-sweet pods in less than 2 months' time!
Older Blue Lake bush varieties have difficulty setting pods when the temperature warms up, but Festina is perfect for hot, sultry climates where spring is over before you know it. Resistant to Common Bean Mosaic Virus, this vigorous, bushy little plant sets nice straight pods about 6 inches long and full of rich flavor and nutrition. Why waste your time with less healthy varieties?
Direct-sow these seeds in warm spring soil receiving full sun, and keep watered during growth. In early summer you will be rewarded by armfuls of delicious eating!

Park's Bean Derby
Heavy-yielding and great-tasting!
Keeps Producing Tender, Delicious Beans All Spring and Into Summer!Straight 6-inch pods are round, smooth, and mouth-watering!
57 days. A dependable, heavy-yielding snap bean of high eating quality. The plant continues to flower from spring right into summer, producing beans for nonstop picking week after week! A great mainstay of the family vegetable garden, this super performer is not only prolific but very tasty. The beans are straight, 6 inches long, with a round, smooth pod and succulent seeds. A terrific all-around bean!
Easy and trouble-free, even for the new gardener, this snap bean is widely adapted across the U.S., and is compact in the garden. For best harvest, succession-plant every 3 weeks or so from early spring till late summer (avoiding the worst summer heat in warm areas). Hardier than pole beans, bush snaps can be direct-sown after all danger of frost.

Bean - Yard Long (Saved seeds)
Highly prized in Asia because of their sweet, tender pods. This particular variety of yard long bean produces red seeds inside long, light green pods about the diameter of a pencil and 12"-16" in length. These stringless beans thrive in heat. Used most notably in the popular Szechwan dish "dry-fried beans," this bean may be used to replace string beans in any dish, including soups. Cut beans into 2" sections and deep-fry, stir-fry or steam them. Be aware they will cook faster than string beans.

Park's Shell Bean Yin
Harvest young for tender beans or leave the pods to dry on the plant for hard-shelled (storing) beans.
A Bean that illustrates the Balance of Life!This hard-shelled variety loses its black-and-white pattern during cooking, so be sure to store some in a glass jar for display!
100 days. This charming heirloom variety looks for all the world like a yin yang pattern, right down to the spot of opposite color on each side, for balance! A hard-shelled variety that also may be harvested young for tender (soft-shell) use, Yin Yang is an American favorite just waiting to be rediscovered.
The plants reach 15 to 18 inches high, setting huge numbers of pods. The beans have a mild flavor that even children like, and are very useful if stored, enabling you to keep "bean season" going all winter! Whatever you do, be sure to set aside some of the beans to display -- they lose their pattern during cooking, and you'll want to remember their delightful yin yang motif.
To harvest the beans as hard shells, let them dry completely inside the pods on the plants. Pick them when most of the leaves have fallen from the plants, and the seeds within the pods are hard and unyielding to the touch. (The days to maturity refers to when the beans are young and tender.) Irresistible for children's crafts, too!

Drying Beans - Pinto and Black Beans (from food store)

Park's Beet Red Cloud Hybrid
Great in the garden or on the plate!
Super-sweet, Elegant Red Globes!Developed from the same breeding line as the classic Red Ace -- but improved!
60 days. Red Cloud comes from the same breeding line as the classic beet Red Ace, but is improved in both flavor and garden performance! The roots are smooth, round, and glossy, with a dark red sheen that hints at the rich flavor within. Extremely high sugar content makes Red Cloud one of the most flavorful beets you can find and the improved top strength makes it easy to harvest and very robust in the garden!
Beets are a cool-weather crop, direct-sown in fall or as soon as soil can be worked in spring. Before planting, make sure that the soil is as loose, rich, and well-drained as possible, so that the root can grow without stress.

Ferry-Morse BEET, TALL TOP EARLY WONDER
A fine all-purpose table beet high in vitamins A, B2, B6, and C. Flattened globe-shaped roots have purplish red flesh and excellent flavor. This packet will plant approximately a 30 foot row.

Ferry-Morse CARROT, LONG IMPERATOR
Large, straight, smooth roots. About 8 inches long when fully mature. The flesh is firm, and the flavor is excellent. Perfect in fresh salads. One of the nature's best sources of vitamin A. This packet will plant approximately a 40 foot row.

Park's Carrot Scarlet
Bright orange color and inconspicuous cores!
Quick to Mature and Extra-Sweet!6- to 7-inch roots are sweet, tender, and crisp!
62 days. Pushing its deep orange-red shoulders up to the surface days and even weeks sooner than most others, Scarlet Nantes is an exceptionally sweet variety just made for slicing! The 6- to 7-inch roots are firm, straight, and not tapered, with inconspicuous cores and plenty of tender, crisp, and ultra-sweet flavor in every bite.
Higher in vitamins A and B than their store-bought counterparts, home-grown carrots are also rich in calcium and phosphorus -- and they taste delicious!

Park's Corn How Sweet It Is Hybrid
8-inch ears are packed with flavor!
The Sweetest Super Sweet We Know!A classic favorite for sweetness, tenderness, and staying power!
87 days. This is consistently the sweetest white corn in our trials -- no wonder it won an AAS award and has been trusted by Park customers for many years! Its sweetness and tenderness are retained on the plant and after harvest, making it a good choice for busy gardeners who don't always get the harvest in promptly (or eat it all at once!). The ears are a whopping 8 inches long and 2 inches across, jammed with 16 to 18 rows of plump white kernels.
Super Sweet corn is specially bred to contain twice the sugar of regular sweet corn, and these hybrids retain their flavor and tenderness up to 2 weeks longer than Regular Sweets. They require warm soil for good germination, and must be isolated from other corn varieties by 200 feet or at least 2 weeks planting time.

Park's Cucumber Park's All-Season Burpless Hybrid
Park's All-Season Burpless Hybrid
Needs no bees for pollination--grow anywhere, anytime!
Seedless, Burpless, and Super Early!Sets more fruit than any other Cuke we've grown!
48 to 50 days. In just 7 weeks from sowing, you'll start harvesting beautiful cucumber, 8 1/2 inches long by 1 1/2 inches wide, with a sweet, crispy flavor! Completely burpless and without a trace of bitterness, they are also seedless if grown apart from other cucumber plants! The heavy-bearing vine needs no bees for pollination, so you don't have to wait till the garden gets going to start harvesting these scrumptious fruits! Strong and vigorous, these vines set more fruit than any other cuke we have ever grown--bar none! That's pretty incredible, considering the heavy-hitters we've seen over the years. Great resistance to Powdery Mildew, Scab, Downy Mildew, and Cucumber Mosaic Virus.

Park's Cucumber Alibi
A garden space-saver!
Makes Delicious Sweet Gherkins!These cukes reach 4 inches long, but pick them smaller for pickling.
52 to 55 days for full-sized pickles; much sooner for gherkins. For my time and money, there is no finer Cucumber for making sweet gherkins than Alibi. The fruit is absolutely delectable, with a good texture that holds up well for pickling, a perfect shape, and huge yields on space-saving plants.
This fruit reaches 4 inches long if you let it, but it will be more tender and succulent if you pick it much smaller (at about the size of your pinkie). It arises on very compact vines that take up less space in the garden. North Carolina State University performed extensive garden trials on Alibi and found that it scored very well for yields and for various measures of fruit quality. This is a top-notch Cuke you won't want to miss!

Park's Lettuce Buttercrunch
Heat-resistant and slow to bolt!
Juicy-Crisp Leaves with a Satisfying Bite!A classic favorite for high-quality flavor.
65 days. One of the classic butterheads, Buttercrunch combines good garden performance with tender-crisp flavor. The leaves are very dark green and thicker than most, with a crisp texture and juicy bite. They are loosely-held on big heads that grow more vigorously than many others, ready in just 65 days. So high-performing and satisfying that it won an AAS award, Buttercrunch is the highest-quality eating butterhead-type we know.
Lettuce thrives in cold weather and can be sown directly into the garden, starting in early spring. For an even earlier harvest, sow indoors; the seedlings don't mind transplanting. If a fall crop is desired, begin in late summer. Grow in single rows, plants spaced 18 inches apart, or in containers.

Park's Lettuce Little Gem
Super-sweet flavor!
Eat These Space-Saving Small Heads Whole!Great for small-space gardens, windowboxes, or the gourmet row!
50 days. Grow the sweetest, most tender butterhead (Boston) lettuce you've ever tasted in just 50 days with this petite gourmet treat! The perfect variety for windowbox gardens, limited spaces, and those hard-to-fill corners in the vegetable garden, Little Gem bears dark green heads just 5 inches across and packed with tender-fresh sweetness! Just wash these attractive little heads and serve them whole as the center of a composed salad, or use them as super-sweet, soft wrappers for appetizers and finger food! Children love them, too, for their non-astringent flavor and midget size.
Lettuce thrives in cold weather and can be sown directly into the garden, starting in early spring. For an even earlier harvest, sow indoors; the seedlings don't mind transplanting. If a fall crop is desired, begin in late summer. Grow in single rows, plants spaced 6 inches apart, or in containers.

Spring's Coming to Cumming!

2009-02-10T20:25:00.000-05:00

I saw a dandelion blooming in the yard today!