Planting in the Rain

    The area where the corn will be planted is once again clear of weeds, and so a few days ago, some organic white Sugar Pearl corn kernels were placed between wet paper towels in a pie tin.  They sprouted after a couple of days, and today I planted a row.  I’ve got room for five rows of corn this year, so the plan is to plant one row at a time, a week apart, to make an extended harvest possible.  It’s the same method I’m using with the carrots. 
    Carrot seeds were planted in the second carrot patch.  For these, I roughed up the surface of the dirt, then spread seeds down.  I covered them with about ¼ inch of dirt from the next plot over by picking up a handful and rubbing the dirt between my hands over the seeds, so that a thin layer of fine soil fell on top of the seeds.  I watered in the seeds, and then thinned out the first patch of carrot sprouts to about one inch apart. 
    Some more watermelon and cantaloupe seeds were planted in their respective areas.  The previously planted seeds did not germinate, probably because I planted them too early, and the soil was not consistently warm enough.  Watermelon and cantaloupe seeds get directly sowed into the ground, ½ to 1 inch deep.  I did not bother watering because it has been raining on and off all day today, and they will get rained on later. 
    More birdhouse gourd seeds were soaked overnight and planted one inch deep under the yellow ladder trellis today.  The first planting five weeks ago did not sprout.

    I soaked a about a tablespoon (probably too many) of Morning Glory seeds for planting tomorrow.  These seeds have a hard outer shell, and need to be soaked in room temperature water overnight before planting one inch deep under a trellis.
    We have two light-green leaved Heucherellas or Heucheras (I’m not sure which one they are) that in previous years were, in my experience, average sized, about 18 inches tall.  This year, these plants grew to be about three feet tall, and since they are planted right next to the walkway, they keep getting in the way when people walk by.  So I had to trim them.  Unfortunately, I cut them down to six inches before getting a picture of them… I’ve never seen them so tall. 

The Fruits of Neglect

   I had to take a break from the garden (and the blog), and now that I’m back, the garden is overgrown with unwanted plants.  Grass has sprouted everywhere.  There must have been grass seeds in the soil that I exposed last month.  It is a variety that goes to seed while the grass is still only an inch or two tall, and so there will be seeds being dropped before I will be able to remove the grass… it seems that this will be an ongoing battle.  Also, sprouts of the dreaded Bitter Dock have been sighted.
    However, many plants have made a welcome return, such as Digitalis (foxglove), Calendula, and common plantain, a medicinal herb.  We have two specimens of Lupine, one is a dark pink, and the other is purple, and they have begun to bloom.  Purple Irises are blooming as well.
   

  There are watermelon sprouts in one of the two watermelon patches, but no growth in the other one, and no cantaloupe sprouts either.  The gourds have not sprouted; same with the morning glories, and all the herb seeds I planted over a month ago.  Nothing.  I will have to replace all those this week.
   

  We have asparagus!  Well, asparagus fronds, actually.
  My uncle planted an eight foot long row of asparagus in an eighteen inch deep trench two years ago, and after so long with no visible activity, I lost faith in them, and filled in the trench, and planned and planted this year’s garden on top of the former trench.  Well, now there are about ten asparagus fronds, all lined up neat in a row, none taller than fifteen inches, growing where the trench was.  So, we’ll give it a few years, and we'll be eating homegrown asparagus.
   

  The first plot of carrots have sprouted, and are just about ready to be thinned out.  It’s time to plant seeds in the second plot.





   

  The snap peas are about six inches tall, and are grasping the twine lines strung over the row.  The peas would grow bushy and produce just fine without the twine, but this year, we're giving them a little extra support.     

  The shade garden is maturing.  The hostas have unraveled and opened their leaves.  This garden was planted two summers ago, so this is the third season of growth.

  The two Bleeding Hearts and the Hosta ‘Elegans’ are not as large as I expected them to be this year.
The Hosta ‘Blue Mouse Ears’ did not return, which is disappointing because I liked it a lot, and it was pretty expensive when I bought it.  Also not appearing is the Athyrium niobium var. pictum (Japanese Painted Fern), but it was pretty weak last year and had only two small five inch fronds.  Making a surprise return is the Astilbe ‘Deutschland,’ which was not present last summer at all.  There is one stem with leaves coming up.  I had counted it as lost; I have tried growing Astilbe before, and it seemed like they need a lot of water to survive, or at least get established, and I did not have success my first time. 

  The Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’ (Golden Japanese Forest Grass) is looking nice, but it is also not coming back as large as I thought that it would be.  Perhaps later in the season, it will grow out; pictures I’ve seen of it show a wide leaved clump of bowing grass, a foot tall and wide.  This specimen is less than half that.  We’ll see what the future holds for this young plant.

    The white Calla Lilies have begun to bloom; these are some of my favorite plants because the flowers are beautiful, and the foliage is large and tropical looking.  They really fill up space, growing three to four feet tall, and three feet wide.  We use garden fencing around them to keep the leaves and flowers upright, because they tend to get weighted down with water when it rains.
    Much beauty unfolding, but much more work to be done to ensure continuing beauty here at Brookside.

A Beautiful Day for Planting!

    On the east side of the front vegetable garden, I have three stakes in the ground about 10 feet apart, marking off where there will be melons growing. 

The danger of frost has passed, so today I planted ’Honey Rock’ cantaloupe seeds under the southernmost stake, and ‘Sugar Baby’ watermelon seeds under the center and northernmost stakes.  These seeds were planted ½”-1" deep.  The soil in the front vegetable garden isn’t all that sandy, but it is crumbly enough to work.
The ‘Sugar Baby’ watermelons are an icebox variety, so it produces small melons.  That’s why I planted two sets of seeds.

Unhealthy Veggies?

    Because I’m growing so many fruits and vegetables, I went online to read about food and nutrition, and how my diet affects me.  I found out some interesting facts about some vegetables that I didn’t know.
    The first vegetable or vegetable group of concern is the chenopods or the Chenopodiaceae family (sometimes listed as a subfamily within the Amaranthaceae family) which includes spinach, Swiss chard, beets, and rhubarb.  All of these plants contain varying amounts of oxalic acid, which gives them their sour taste.  In the body, I’ve read, oxalic acid or oxalate chemically binds with calcium in the blood creating calcium oxalate, forming crystals or precipitate (better known as kidney stones) which accumulate and obstruct kidney tubules.  According to Coe FL, Evan A, Worcester E. (2005). "Kidney stone disease". J Clin Invest. 115 (10): 2598–608. doi:10.1172/JCI26662, an estimated 80% of kidney stones are formed from calcium oxalate.  According to Wikipedia, other edible plants have significant amounts of oxalic acid:  star fruit, black pepper, parsley, poppy seeds, cocoa, chocolate, most nuts, most berries, beans, and tea. 
    Well, I’m not going to stop eating berries and nuts; I’m easing into a vegan diet, and nuts and berries are staples for me.  It would be no problem for me to avoid all those other foods to decrease whatever risk there might be.  But tea?  I love tea.  Why tea?  Even green tea?  I don’t know.  I also don’t know which berries and nuts contain significant amounts of oxalic acid.  Ah, well… there’s plenty of other plants to make hot water infusions from.
    Another group of foods I was reading about was goitrogenic foods.  In their raw state, these foods naturally contain goitrogens, chemicals which suppress the function of the thyroid gland by interfering with iodine uptake in individuals with low iodine intake in their diet (this can enlarge the thyroid into a goitre).

Lightly goitrogenic foods include strawberries, pears, peaches, soy, peanuts, pine nuts, spinach, bamboo shoots, sweet potatoes, and members of the plant genus Brassica, including bok choy, collard greens, horseradish, kohlrabi, radishes, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli, and cauliflower.  Cooking inactivates these goitrogens, and if there is enough iodine in the diet, it might not even be an issue.
    As a result of what I’ve read about oxalic foods, I’m going to remove the Swiss chard from the garden and replace it with kale.  Kale is quite the nutritious vegetable.  Check it out on Nutritiondata.com.  I’ve only just started eating it, and it’s pretty bitter, but I will say that the taste is growing on me.  I made a salad the other day with kale, carrot, celery, and sprouted sunflower seeds.  It was great, it tasted so healthy.

Planning Out an Extended Harvest

    Today I went to the nursery and bought some carrot seeds, ‘Tendersweet.’  The label says that they can grow to be ten inches long. The soil in the side garden is so friable that they should have no problem growing that long, provided they receive enough water. 
   

I roped off a carrot patch about 5 feet by 3 feet, and divided it into four sections.  I planted carrot seeds in the left most section and watered it.  Every two weeks, I will plant seeds in the next section, and so on, for the next six weeks.  So the harvest will be extended.
    As far as fertilizer goes, well, it doesn't go, at least not this year, in the side garden.  Three years ago, in 2007, before I planted seeds I worked some E.B. Stone Organics Sure Start into the soil.  Last year, in 2009, some 3-way compost was added.  So I think that this year the soil will be healthy and rich enough to feed and sustain the vegetables that will grow there.  Organic gardening is, for me, the only way to go.  For me, a garden is a hands on, nose on, tongue on experience, and chemical fertilizers are not something I want used in my garden.

We Have Blog.

    I finally figured out how to make and post to a blog, and I’ve been working on getting this thing up and running.  So, today, I go live!  Thanks to everyone who comes to the Gardens and enjoys what they read here!  This will be a running log of the goings on at the Gardens, posted for my reference, and your entertainment and education.
    What follows (in reverse order, start at the bottom) is my garden journal beginning March 15, 2010, when I started keeping notes in preparation for launching this blog.  We’ve still got some sunflower seeds from last year, so grab a handful and enjoy the read.
  

   The radishes are doing nicely as of today. 
I love radishes because they grow so quickly.  Here's a close up at ground level;  I love getting in really low and close with plants when I photograph them.                   They become so individual and characteristic.

    There are also some sprouts in the cosmos bed that I’m hoping are cosmos.  I looked for pictures of cosmos sprouts on the internet, but couldn’t find any that were good enough quality to match up with mine.  There was one that looked good, but it was a little older and further along than mine; the sprouts in the picture had their first and second set of true leaves.
    Something is sprouting in the herb garden, but I didn’t label or make a map when I planted, so I’m not sure what it is.  It could be fenugreek, I don’t know.  We’ll see.

April 5, 2010

    Thinned out the radishes to 1” apart today.  Was chilly, windy, and a little rainy.

April 2, 2010

    It’s been raining off and on the last few days, so not much has been going on in the garden but waiting.
    The radish patch has been sprouted for a couple of days, and I planted them on March 24th, so it took about seven or eight days to see growth.  We’re on the ninth day right now.

March 30, 2010

    This is a Hosta ‘Geisha’ that has come up earlier than the other hostas.

March 27, 2010

    Today my uncle and I went and got a half cubic yard of 3-way compost blend for $18.  3-way compost consists of composted cow manure, sand, and bark compost.  He unloaded while I spread the compost in the garden.  We had enough to cover everything by just placing compost at the spots where there will be plants.

 It was a good day for the job; the temperature was in the upper 60s and it was sunny with just a little breeze here and there.  It is supposed to rain for the next several days, so that will get the compost watered in.
    I want to have watermelons and cantaloupes for July 4th, and both of these are 80-85 day crops.  So I counted days backwards, and found out that I should plant the melons between the 7th and the 15th of April.  After I harvest them, I will plant in the same spots spaghetti squash (100 days) to be ready mid-October.  I don’t know if planting two similar crops in the same space concurrently is a good idea or not; I guess I’ll find out.
    I repositioned the tomato cages, and it looks like there’s room for twice as many plants as I had originally thought.  I was hoping to have at least four Brussels sprouts plants; now it looks like I can.

March 26, 2010

    It rained for a while in the middle of the night again, good for my newly planted seeds.
    This morning I planted the marjoram, anise, dark moss curled parsley, and Italian flat leaf parsley in the side flower bed in the front.  Then I went to the back patio and planted the ’Heavenly Blue’ morning glory seeds in the raised planter under my wire trellis.

March 25, 2010

    It rained last night, so I didn’t have to water my new cosmos, chard, radish, or gourd seeds.  The ground was a nice dark brown, one of my favorite colors.  There were only two or three tiny puddles, so I know the soil is draining well.
    This morning I forgot to prep some morning glory seeds for planting.  I have to soak them in warm water for 24 hours before planting them.  I was out working, and so I called my brother and asked him if he could soak a small handful for me.  He said ok and took care of it.
    I got the planting bug, and since I can’t afford to buy any seeds right now with a vacation coming up, I rummaged through the old seeds box.  Everything in there is packed for 2008 or earlier.  I decided that I would try lettuce and herbs, and not be too disappointed if they didn’t grow well.
    For the lettuce, I cordoned off a 5’x4’ bed in the side garden next to my radish plot, and roughed up the soil with the weasel tool.  I didn’t amend the soil at all, because the soil here in the side vegetable garden is about as good as it gets.  I amend other beds with soil from this one.  It also had a little 3 way compost added last year.
    In an old plastic container, I mixed four already opened lettuce packs together; there was black seeded Simpson, Butter crunch, a leaf lettuce (I forget which kind), and a Romaine lettuce.  I spread the seeds, and covered them with what I hope was about ¼” soil from another part of the garden.  I watered them.  I’ll thin them out to 8”-12” after they’ve sprouted.
    Three years ago when I first moved in to my house, I went seed buying crazy and bought one of just about everything.  This included a fine assortment of herb seeds.  I never used any of these seeds. They are all from 2007, and I’m wondering if they will perform well if they are a few years old.
  

I planted them anyway.  In the side flower bed in the front, I planted sage, spearmint, fennel, cilantro, savory, fenugreek, basil and purple basil, and thyme.   
 I used good soil from the side vegetable garden to amend the soil in the side flower bed before spreading each kind of seed in its’ own one square foot plot, covering with ¼” soil and watering.
    I didn’t have time to plant the anise, marjoram, or either the flat leaf or the dark moss curled parsley; and I want to grow some oregano as well.  I’ll do all that tomorrow.  Along with the morning glories.

March 24, 2010

    Today I begin my third day without smoking any cigarettes.  I started up (again) this last January, and quickly got up to smoking a pack a day by mid-March.  I have a horrible productive cough, which is probably as annoying to other people as it is to me.  I had to quit cold turkey, well maybe lukewarm turkey; my last day of serious smoking was last week Monday, and so Tuesday and Wednesday I mostly slept, and I smoked two cigarettes a day when I really needed them, which I did until last Sunday.  Then I noticed that I didn’t really need a cigarette like I did before, I just wanted one for the habit of it.  It was then that I knew I was no longer physically addicted, just mentally.  Now to stay quit I have to argue with myself and say “no” every time I think about it.  Keeping busy working in the gardens helps keep me motivated.
    I planted the radishes today.  I just messed up the soil a little, spread the seeds by hand, and shoveled a thin layer (¼”) of new soil on top, then watered.  In previous years, I planted in rows, but this year I’m doing a 5’x3’ radish patch on the edge of the raised side garden; I think this will be easier both to water and harvest, and it will save space.
    I built the gourd trellis add-on out of the old ladder and the two 2x4s.  I painted them bright yellow with exterior paint (didn’t bother priming).

Then they were fastened together using two 3/8” by 4” carriage bolts on each side.  I needed help for this part, and to raise it up to rest one end of the ladder on top of the yellow bean trellis and stand it up.

I didn’t sink the posts because I’ve got a pile of dirt in the corner right next to the trellis that I can move over and pack around the 2x4s.
    Two unfortunates, though.  First, the bright yellow paint I used isn’t the same color as the straw yellow color of the bean trellis I used, so they don’t exactly match. 
And even more noticeable is my crooked marking and drilling of the holes for the ninety degree angles of the ladder feet joining the 2x4s.  One of them is just about right on ninety degrees, but the other one is pretty off.  It kind of seems like the thing is walking.  So, overall, the structure looks like it was quickly slapped together.  Which it was.  Being a perfectionist, this does bother me, but I’m trying to tell myself that it is just temporary, and I’ll have something better next year.
    Put up the tomato cages, just to space the garden out.  Looks like there’s room for eight tomato plants (or tomatillos or peppers).  In addition to growing the standard ’Willamette’ tomatoes and ‘Sweet 100’ cherry tomatoes, I want to grow something special and unusual this year, like a purple fleshed or a stripe-skinned variety.  I’ll have to see what’s out there.  I love shopping for plants.
    At the east end of the patio there is a two foot high raised bed, about 2’x20’.  It originally held a large 18’ long by 12’ high trellis, and on it, the previous owners grew chayote vines.  Chayote is a unique, starchy (and bland) vegetable; they’re kind of like a potato or a jicama, only they grow and hang on the vines, not underground like the potatoes or jicamas.  The first winter I was here, the chayote trellis blew down in the strong Willamette Valley winds that come in January, and now for the last few years, there has been just a raised bed and a view of the neighbor’s back patio.  This really bothers me.  There is a fence, but this, for me, is not enough privacy.  Originally, when you stood on the porch and looked east or northeast, the chayote trellis and the kiwi trellis lined up perfectly to block the neighbors’ house and back yard. 
    I’ve wanted to replace the trellis and grow some large vines on it again; not chayote, though.  Aside from aesthetic value,  I was never really impressed by the flavor of the chayotes enough to want to grow them again.  One of my favorite plants is the Morning Glory vine.  It grows really long (more than ten feet) and has great 3”-4” unfurling flowers that attract hummingbirds.  I’ve wanted to have them growing here since I moved in, in fact that was the plan for the chayote trellis before it blew down.  So, I have decided to grow some morning glories anyway.  But because the trellis probably won’t be replaced this summer, I had to make a very temporary trellis using what materials I had, namely the wire cage left over from the original chayote trellis.

I rolled a 12’ tall section of this into a burrito shape 3’ wide, dug out all the dirt from the south end of the raised planter into two wheelbarrows, and set the rolled up wire cage in.  I shoveled the soil back in, and it’s a trellis.
It’s a good ten feet tall, and just the tiniest bit crooked, or appearing to lean near the top, but even that’s not too bad.  Once it’s covered with morning glories, it will look just fine.
    


    I moved one of the padded patio set chairs from the back, and put it in the southeast corner of the front, among the arborvitaes and blooming daffodils and red tulips.  The day was just perfect, blue skies with the occasional wisp of rippled cloud.  In my short sleeve shirt I tried to relax, but I found myself restless.  I am being impatient, and can’t wait for the time when there’s more work to do.  I tried telling myself that this, right now, is what life is all about:  having all the day’s work done (and some of tomorrow’s, too), and just sitting back and relaxing, enjoying looking at what I’ve built.  The quality of my recreation time is great because of how hard I worked today.

March 23, 2010

    Planted the gourd seeds under the bean trellis.  After doing some internet browsing, and looking at pictures of gourd vines and trellises, I decided that the vines would need some horizontal structure to grow over.  So I designed a simple trellis add-on to support the gourd vines.  I’m going to make a bridge-like structure with a ladder and two 2x4s.  The ladder will be horizontal and make a seven foot high bridge, and will sit supported on one end by the bean trellis tower, and be held level on the other end by a couple of 2x4s standing upright. 
    Planted two rows of Swiss chard.  One pack of Lake Valley brand seed was enough for two rows, eight feet long. 
    Pulled out the stinging nettles from the north side of the side vegetable garden.  Luckily, the soil in the side garden is excellent, so loose and crumbly, the deep and spreading roots of the nettles were relatively easy to (mostly) pull out.  Total eradication of the species is my goal. 
    Three years ago, I launched a successful campaign of genocide against the weed Celandine.  Chelidonium majus has the common name greater celandine.  It has deep running, easy breaking orange roots.  I have seen but one since those days, and I quickly pulled it and left it upside down to dry.  I’ve almost forgotten what they look like.  The war with the dreaded Bitter Dock has also been won just recently.  These plants have deep tap roots, and I needed a shovel to dig and loosen a lot of soil around them to pull up the root.  Sometimes I was pulling up twelve to fifteen inch long roots.  Some books I have read say that the leaves and root of bitter dock are edible, but bitter of course.  No thank you.  I honestly think that they are all gone now. 

    Placed both of the cucumber trellises.  They are wooden 4’x4’A-frames made from 1x1s, with hinges at the top to adjust the angle or fold them up.  This year, the frames are set up so they make angles of greater than 90 degrees, which is more spread out (shallower and lower) than the frames have been set up the last couple of years.  I want the angles to be low to the ground so that the cucumber vines have an easy time climbing up and over;  with the frames set up tall at severe, more vertical angles, the vines just couldn’t get started up.  The A-frame cucumber trellis is designed to have the vines grow up and over, and have the cucumbers hang down under the trellis, off the ground,  for easy harvesting. 
    Plotted the corn section; there will be five rows of corn, each row planted a week or two apart.  I want to have both corn and watermelon for July 4th this summer, so I’ll wait just a couple of weeks before planting both of those.
    Watered the cosmos patch.

March 22, 2010

    Went to Portland Nursery and picked up some early planting seeds.  I got ‘Sparkler White Tip’ radishes, some ‘Bright Lights’ Swiss chard, and four packs of seeds for plants I have never grown before:  ‘Sugar Baby’ watermelon, ‘Honey Rock’ cantaloupe, spaghetti squash, and birdhouse gourds.    I’m going to plant the gourds tomorrow, and maybe a row of radishes and a row of Swiss chard, but the melons and squash will wait for a couple of weeks. 
    The gourd seeds need to be soaked in lukewarm water for 24 hours after having the seedcases scuffed or nicked.  This help the seeds to germinate.  So I did that, and left them soaking on the counter top overnight.
    I also bought and planted some ‘Candy Stripe’ cosmos seeds.  I used a weasel tool to rough up the soil then added some of the fine grade soil from the side vegetable garden and mixed that in.  I spread out the seeds and messed up the dirt some more with the weasel trying to get the seeds planted at ¼ inch deep.  Then I watered the patch.  After they sprout, I’ll thin them to six inches apart.  The flowers will be white with red edges.

March 16, 2010

    The front vegetable garden is at last totally free of grass and weeds, and back to the lovely dirty brown, ready-to-plant state that I love most.  The side flower bed that runs the length of the vegetables now needs the same treatment:  taking a shovel and removing the top 2 inches to get rid of turf, weeds, their roots, and any seeds sitting in the upper layers of soil.
    I’m not rototilling this year because I’ve been reading recently on the subject, and it seems that a popular consensus exists with the opinion that tilling does more harm than good:  first, it destroys everything that nature has already been doing to the soil since last year, namely earthworms’ aeration and leaving behind of  castings, but also the layers of mycorrhizal mycelia (beneficial fungi) within the soil.  The soil does not need to be broken up or tilled every year in order to add organic matter or compost; simply spread the compost with a rake, stab the ground with a pitchfork here and there, and water it in, and the nutrients and minerals will filter down into the already well drained soil (thanks to the worms).  On a side note, it also costs you money to buy or rent a tiller and put gas in it.

March 15, 2010

    69 degrees and only partly cloudy today so I'm going to finally finish turf removal in the front vegetable garden.  The weather this last winter here has permitted me to not only work in the gardens as late as December 5, 2009, but to also resume my work this spring about February 15th.
    Two more blueberries went in yesterday, 'Earliblue' and 'Darrow.'  I've got ten of them now in two rows 6 feet apart:  last week, three plants went in (‘Patriot,’ ‘Rubel,’ and ‘Chandler’), in addition to the three planted last fall (‘Elliot,’ ‘Blue Crop,’ and ‘Blue Gold’), and the two mystery blueberries that came with the property (probably ‘Duke’).  I chose cultivars based on bloom/harvest times, and with a mix of early, mid, mid-late, and late varieties, hopefully in a few years I will be harvesting blueberries from June through September.