Reflections on the Garden, Summer 2009

I apologize for going so long without an update. Life has been keeping me busy. And on the days I'm not busy, I've been too exhausted, mentally, to post anything here.
I still feel worn out, but I am contemplative about the yard right now, and where better to share those thoughts than here.
I'm about halfway through the growing season and here's a list of successes, and non-successes, and items that fall in between.

Success:
Beets
Arugula
Cabbage
Sugar Snap Peas
Sweet Peas
Lettuce

Semi-Success:
Broccoli (They aren't producing a whole lot.)
Tomatoes (I lost a lot of the seedlings, and the ones I grew from seed aren't doing well.)
Frisee (I think I just waited too long to harvest it.)
Spinach (I think I just waited too long to harvest it.)

Non-Success:
Starting a bunch of plants from seed in January
My marigold border
Asparagus from seed
Strawberries from seed
Artichokes (I got one bloom, one tiny bloom that isn't doing anything, 2 plants not producing, and that is out of about 100 artichoke seeds that were started)

Still Waiting to See:
Peppers (Still too small, but a few are flowering)
Eggplant (Look like seedlings)
Brussels Sprouts (Looking Good)
Watermelon (Looking Good)
Winter Squash (Looking Good)
Summer Squash (Looking Good)

So, what I've learned from this:

1. Make a better effort harvesting my produce
2. Do a planting rotation on peas, beets, salad greens
3. Start most seeds later
4. Start artichokes earlier, transplant them sooner, and keep them in the basement longer
5. Harden off my plants
6. Don't bother with seed starts for: squash/melons, peas, salad greens, strawberries, or asparagus
   
7. Don't inter-crop broccoli or cabbage with peppers or tomatoes (broccoli and cabbage are way too big)
8. Do inter-crop beets with tomatoes and peppers. It helps keep weeds back, and they are a good size.
   

And here are some pictures:

My first spinach harvest. This was from "thinning" the plants. It was honestly my best spinach harvest, because I slacked off on all the rest, until the plants bolted and it was too late.

The peas as they were growing. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of them at their prime. Now they are turning brown and falling off the trellis. But just imagine the green plants growing all the way to the top of the trellis, and you can imagine what they were like at their peak.

This is my artichoke plant when I first realized I had an actual flower (the part you eat).

My artichoke flower was still really small, but since it was starting to open, I realized I had to pick it. I wish I could say it was the best artichoke ever, but it wasn't. It was on the tough side. Maybe I just needed to cook it longer, maybe it was because I picked it too late....


Here's a picture of my garden taken recently with my phone. I noticed a bunch of yellow birds sitting on top of the tomato cages and I was trying to get a picture of them. You can see the compost bin Nick made for me on the right.

It's Easter and There's a Bobcat in my Yard

So, when I left-off yesterday, Nick and I realized the project for the day was to work on the landscaping in the side yard and dig a trench to help deal with the drainage.

So, we got out the shovels and started digging. After about 10 minutes, Nick decided he wanted to get a pick axe, and took off for the hardware store to buy one. I continued digging.

Thirty minutes passed and Nick wasn't back yet. I thought it was taking him a while to run into town and was starting to get concerned. But I didn't worry too much, yet, and kept digging with the goal of connecting the hole I was working on to the hole he was working on. I felt that 6 feet of trench work would be a significant accomplishment. Once I finished it (probably after an hour), Nick still wasn't back yet. I went around the house to go inside and call him when I noticed someone coming down the road on a Bobcat. After a few seconds, I realized the driver was wearing an olive green shirt, just like Nick. Then I realized it was Nick.

It turns out that once he got to the hardware store, Nick remembered the store was closed on Easter, so what was typically a 24 hour rental was going to become a "til Monday morning" rental. He decided to rent a Bobcat.

So here's a bunch of before, during, and after shots.

Before:
(These shots were both taken last September, when we had the initial house inspection.)

Garden site, where 20x60 feet of sod needs to come up.

Unused driveway, where we'll run a trench to direct the water away
from the foundation; plus some grass would be nice.

Saturday work:

Nick using the Bobcat to dig a trench in the unused driveway.

Saturday's Results:

Unused driveway area, dug up.

Sunday work:

Nick lifting sod out of the garden.

Putting sod down along the dug up driveway area.

Close up of Nick putting down the sod.

It's coming along.

Sunday Results:

Dug out 20x60 food garden plot.

Finished laying the sod on the old driveway.

Nick applying finishing touches: grass seed.

Now, I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I know in all the pictures Nick is doing the work. When I wasn't taking pictures, I was helping get the sod off the Bobcat, filling in holes, and making the sod lay down as nicely as possible. Some of the spots were a foot thick. Sometimes the sod came off the Bobcat upside down, so I had to flip a lot of it over. Also, the sod wasn't in nice perfect rolls, or anything like that. The edges were jagged and there were a lot of chunks.

We definitely don't have a golf course grade lawn from this, but it is a huge improvement, the drainage coming off the hill should be a lot nicer. And, Mother Nature will level a lot of this out.

I can't imagine how much time this would have taken by hand. We're guessing Nick spent 10 hours on the Bobcat.

It's Spring!

I have to say that Spring has finally arrived to my corner of Wisconsin. Things have warmed up and its continued to stay pretty warm. Granted, there was a frost a couple nights last week, but Spring is definitely announcing itself.
The tulips I planted last fall with my mom, aunt and cousin started to come up. And a bunch of stuff that was already in the yard is starting to come up.
We started the day running to a horse farm where my roommate is boarding her horse. Then Nick and I went to an awesome garden and landscape store in South Saint Paul (or one of the suburbs in that area) called Gertens. It was amazing. It was basically a mall, but gardening stuff. We'll definitely be making a trip back when we start our full out yard planting.
After Gertens, we hit lunch at Champs and had our roommate wait on us. Nick splendidly split his drink all over the table, himself, and the floor. And I thought I was the clutz in the family.
Next Borders, where I bought WAY too many books. Then to Dick's Sporting Goods where we both made major purchases. After that, home.
Here's some of the things that were around the house after I got home today.

My tulips, that I planted. We had survivors!

I'm not sure what this is, but it looks like it will be a flower.

Look, bikes!

The bikes were the major purchase at Dick's. Nick had been thinking about a bike for a while now, so he could start riding to school. He convinced me to get one too, to help me with my exercise. We went for a very short, probably 5 minutes, bike ride. It was long enough to convince me to buy a new bike seat because that one hurt my rear. I think I have bruises.

After our short bike trip, we started doing garden stuff. I got out stakes and twine and staked out the 20x60 foot vegetable plot. I wanted to start digging it, but we want to move the grass there to a different spot on the yard, which was determined to be the part of our driveway that we aren't going to use anymore.

(We have a U-shaped driveway, but part of the second half of the U is on our neighbors land, and he is putting a fence up along between our yards, so we haven't been using that part of the driveway and will be filling it in.)

Before we can put the grass over the driveway, we need to dig it up. And that also involves fixing the bad drainage on our property. So, the next thing we did was start digging out new driveway. More about that after I get more pictures tomorrow.

Winter Gardening

On January 1st, I started my first batch of seeds (Tomatoes and artichokes). Pretty much every weekend since then has involved my garden. So I feel it is time to show it off.


These are the indoor greenhouses we bought at Fleet Farm (our new favorite store) for $25 each. (They were $50 each at ShopKo.) They are upstairs in the computer room, and I can smell the greenhousey-ness as I type. (The Kleenex box is sitting on my computer desk.) The greenhouse on the left belongs to Nick, the one on the right is mine.


This is our basement set up with our grow lights. We aren't using regular florescent lights. We are basically using aquarium lights that "stimulate plant growth." Each light is 4 feet long. The table is big enough for about 6 rows of lights. Part of my container garden from last year is on the floor under the table. All those plants are dead though.

My 144 Marigold seedlings, to go around the garden.

My peas (sugar snap and snow), along with some squash and a few other items. The peas are doing too well. I'm going to have to come up with some sort of transplantable trellis for them.

Emerald Green artichokes. These were part of my January 1st plantings. They have 180 to 360 days to harvest, and need to go through a "winter" period before they produce. They are in the basement to go through their "winter" period now. The containers are made from newspaper, and I feel it is very ironic that my office Wall Street Journal issues are being used for gardening. Each pot is about 4 inches high and 2 inches in diameter.


These are supposed to be beets, and I'm supposed to be able to eat them in April. I wonder if it is too cold in the basement for them. I planted them 2 weeks ago, and nothing. Its not safe to bring them upstairs and put them in a window. The cats already used my kitchen salad greens window boxes as a litter box.

Annual Weigh In

I had my annual doctor's exam this past week, which includes my annual weigh-in. I don't own a scale, and nor do I want to own a scale. So, I only get on one once a year, when I have my physical.
Ever since I got out of the Army (in 2004), I've been gaining weight at the rate of about 10 pounds a year.
I did not gain any weight this year!
This was a major relief. While I do enjoy food, I don't consider myself a glutton. I don't eat many sweets, I don't eat all my food from McDonald's (it averages to about 1 fast food hamburger meal a month). I was starting to think there were health issues associated with my weight, such as a thyroid problem, because I thought my sedentary lifestyle weight would have plateaued 20-30 pounds ago.
So, now that I've reach my plateau, I will be turning my weight around and beginning the process of losing it. I've already started making changes to my eating habits. Now I need to stop coming up with excuses to not exercise, like my cold Wisconsin winters. (Hello -20 weather.. I thought that only happened in Fairbanks!)

Tattoo

I've been thinking about a tattoo for a long time. I first got the idea into my head when I was on crutches, in the Army, in language school, working out each day with one of the SF guys in my class. My arms were starting to tone pretty nicely, and I thought it could be neat to get one of those arm bands. Then I remembered that tattoos are permanent and when I'm an old lady with flappy skin, that tattoo is going to look really silly. So I didn't do it, and the idea went away.
Then I met Nick and we stared dating, and occasionally he'd harass me about getting a tattoo. My response was always "No, they're permanent." But it did get me to thinking. I knew immediately I didn't want to get a rainbow, star or Tinkerbell on my ankle. I didn't want anything cliche. If I were to get a tattoo, I'd want it to be symbolic--Something I'd be happy having on my body forever.
I thought a Celtic knot could be cool. (I was thinking about something along that theme when I thought about the armband.) It would be a nod to my heritage, my English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. So I contacted an artist friend of mine, Bobbie, (also on deviantART) and asked her to draw something up for me. I wanted a Celtic knot, with Heather flowers worked into it.

Bobbie's drawing for my tattoo.

After I got the picture from Bobbie, I tried contacting a tattoo place in town, but they took to long getting back to me. So I stopped by a tattoo place in the next town; they set up an appointment for a week later (I don't know why they couldn't do it right away).
Last Saturday I went to my appointment, and received my tattoo. It hurt. It hurt a lot. I didn't cry, but I sure did complain and whimper, and I cussed a little bit.

Brian working on my tattoo.

My tattoo while it was getting worked on.

Basically, they took a copy of Bobbie's image, and put it on carbon paper. Then they applied the carbon paper onto my body, and traced it with the tattoo needle. The process took about 45 minutes. After he was done he cleaned the ink off, bandaged it up, and sent me on my way with an instruction sheet. The next day, Nick removed the bandage and cleaned it off for me. The antibacterial soap made the wound sting. The tattoo scabbed over along the ink lines, it itched some for a few days, and now it has pretty much healed up.

So now I have a permanent image on my right shoulder, but I'm very happy with it, and it is something I feel I can relate to for the rest of my life. I'm thinking about getting color added, eventually, but I haven't decided the coloring will be yet.