Chris & Joy's Critterweb » Gardening

More volunteers (or, “why not to use the compost before it’s ‘cooked’”)

Chris — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 23:23:41 +0000

So I took that random 6′ privacy fence panel we’d had replaced and cut it up a few weeks back, with the help of some power tools we found at a thrift store (total cost under $25 including new blades)…

Then I made a couple of small raised beds for next year out of the pieces:

Last week I lined them with cardboard, and added several layers of newspaper, then last year’s barrel of compost to the bigger one. It didn’t really fill it, so I just dumped this year’s bin in as well.

Then, when Joy’s mom was here yesterday and we were showing her the garden, we found a bit of a ’surprise’. I have no idea what they are. We had a cantaloupe a few weeks ago, some watermelon before that. I think I tossed some okra that was too woody to eat recently, so there were lots of seeds in that mess. There are several dozen of these buggers. Guess we wait and see what they turn into.

In other garden news, the squash and okra are flourishing, as well as the tomatoes, peppers, and the elephant ear:

This was supposed to be a pie pumpkin? there were several seedlings – some are making pumpkins, and then there’s this. Can we eat it? How do we tell when it’s ready? Are we going to step outside one day and hear a voice boom “Feed me, Seymore!”?

The Mr. Stripey (hybrids) have crested the 8′ stakes and are making a break for the porch.

This is a Cherokee purple monster. That mass in the middle that looks like two tomatoes is one big ugly goon. It must weigh at least two pounds and it hasn’t turned.

pruning the brandywine bush…

… which is also making monsters.

What Mr. Stripey lacked in size (it was supposed to be a beefsteak variety) it makes up for in volume, and they are tasty little devils!

A big weed we pulled out of the garden

Flower power

Chris — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 19:02:11 +0000

Last year when we were still waiting on the closing for the house, I drove Joy nuts bringing home plants in anticipation of our own garden. One of them was this sad, bedraggled castoff stargazer lily that was sitting in a shopping cart marked down to $2 at Ingles. Last year, we couldn’t even be sure it was still alive. It didn’t flower. This year it grew slow, but was clearly going to bloom…

Yesterday afternoon we were greeted by this – I swear I did not photoshop the color on it It has two more buds getting ready to bloom.

We’ve also got some ‘volunteer’ sunflowers under the bird feeder. (look close and you’ll see the flower has a visitor)

The dill bloomed, and we’ve left the flowers since the bees seem to love them. Apparently, ants as well.

Even the hostas are blooming.

We’ve got a never ending bounty of marigolds, and the other unidentified but pretty flowers, as well.

I love this time of year.

Sasquash!

Chris — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 15:34:10 +0000

Our ‘grape’ tomato is showing no characteristics of what we previously have had for that type – that is, instead of a tall vining plant with large clusters of very small fruit, we have a small, sturdy, bushy-type plant with small clusters of what are already much larger than a grape tomato, still growing and a long way from ripening. So we got hosed on that purchase, and I think the yellow squash probably came from the same vendor….

Some of the smaller forming baby squashes look like they couldn’t decide what color to be

and the others grew, within a couple of days, into striped monsters. I don’t think yellow squash is supposed to have stripes?

We picked the larger one already…

…though I am not sure what the heck we are supposed to do with it.

Our best guess is the plant we bought was grown from seeds hybridized with some sort of gourd. Squourds?

First harvest!

Chris — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 23:30:06 +0000

Yeah, I know it’s only one jalapeno, but what a jalapeno! There’s a second one not far behind. And I guess it’s not really our technically our first harvest, because we’ve been eating herbs for weeks now, and even a few nasturtium blossoms.

Marigolds in the new window box.

The walkway (a work in progress)

Mr. Stripey! (6 baby tomatoes forming and lots of flowers)

Weeding and pruning.

The summer squash corner. I’ve never grown squash before – I think they are beautiful! I’d grow them just for that alone…

… though it doesn’t hurt that they are busy producing edibles.

A happy daisy to end the day.

My name is Chris, and I am a plantaholic

Chris — Mon, 31 May 2010 01:08:37 +0000

With first the photo gallery going down, then the entire website, then our computer’s hard drive, I’ve not really been keeping updated here about this year’s garden. It may have, uh, gotten a bit out of hand.

Here’s what we added this year:

4 tomato plants (Mr. Stripey, Brandwine, and Cherokee Purple heirlooms plus a grape)
9 pepper plants (Poblano, Anaheim, yellow and green bells, Mariachi, Fish, and Jalapeno)
3 basil plants
1 sage
3 nasturtiums
3 dill (plus a few ‘volunteers’ that popped up from last year’s seed)
1 marjoram
a patch of cilantro ‘volunteers’ that also popped up unexpectedly
2 thyme plants (lemon and English)
2 callibrachoa flowers
1 fern-leaf/Spanish lavender
4 okra
1 yellow squash
2 zucchini
2 Shasta daisies
2 cullantro
21 coleus
2 calladiums
3 roses
1 bee balm
2 columbines
12 allyssums (from clearance rack of doom at Lowe’s)
1 calendula
1 lemon verbena
1 red-veined sorrel
1 Iris that smells like grape bubble gum
2 elderberry bushes
1 cranberry plant (was kind of a mistake, but should be interesting)
Five pie pumpkin seedlings (unplanned, from Joy’s mom today)
2 marigolds and an unidentified daisy-ish plant in a new window box
a patch of unidentified plants plus seeds of same that are silvery with magenta flowers (the plants from Joy’s mom, the seeds Joy gathered last year while on a walk in Waynesville)
A few pieces of a fleshy looking plant with magenta flowers from Joy’s mom, (some sort of sedum we think)
a pot of flower seeds that were embedded in my birthday card from Joy last year!

This is all in addition to the things we planted last year that made it through the winter:

1 rosemary bush
1 marjoram
1 pyrethrum
1 anise hyssop
1 mint
2 ginormous catnip plants
2 echinaceas
1 stargazer lilly
3 sedums
2 parsleys
3 mini roses (plus the two wild ones that were already here)
1 clematis
2 blueberry bushes
2 lavenders
3 coreopsis
1 creeping thyme
3 pathetic little variegated purple ornamental peppers (still seedling sized after two years)
2 elephant ears

We did have a few failures. 2 jasmines, 1 coreopsis, (these, along with the clematis were clearance sale items at the end of last year) the sage, and the curry plant from last year didn’t make it through the winter. None of the seedlings I started indoors this year made it. I planted chamomile, sunflowers and a bag of wildflowers that never germinated. The chard is still tiny, stunted and yellow, I assume because it’s in the backyard bed under the black walnut and is getting juglone poisoning. We had two pepper plants that got mysteriously chopped off at their bases (every time I bought a replacement I came home with extras, which is why our original 5 became 9 even after two losses) and the slugs have been hell on the callibrachoa and some peppers. We’ve been putting out saucers of beer and got over thirty slugs the first night, which has cut down their predations significantly.

I think we got a bit out of hand somehow Everything is thriving so far and the front yard vegetable garden is really looking awesome. We’d just better hope that we keep getting regular rain…

Happy Friday!

Chris — Fri, 14 May 2010 12:18:24 +0000

Shasta daisy

I still haven’t gotten the WPG2 issue resolved, but the blog looks so stark without all the pics I decided to add a couple the old fashioned way. Above is one of our two shasta daisies in the front yard.

Window box

I also put a window box in the front bedroom window, with some marigolds and a really pretty flower that I don’t know the name of.

Purple Cherokee tomato flower

I’ve never seen flowers like this on a tomato plant? I’m also a bit concerned that the tomatoes are all about a foot or so tall and already flowering. But at least they seem healthy so far.

Happy Spring!

Chris — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:31:43 +0000

Yesterday was the vernal equinox/first day of spring. From this point on there will be a bit more light than dark each day until summer solstice. It was an absolutely beautiful day, too. Joy had to work and I volunteered down at the shelter half a day, then afterward we took Paddy to the park, then to Wag (the new pet boutique on Main Street) for some socialization, and then we sat out on the patio at The Black Rose eating cheese fries and having a beer (Paddy did have some of the fries but had water in lieu of beer… he’s underage, after all ) and enjoying the day. Afterward we sat out in the sun with the rest of the critters enjoying the weather. The cats are so happy to be able to go outside again, and Cricket enjoyed a bit of sunbathing. Lindsy even seemed to be doing a bit better than she has been lately.

Today it’s dark and rainy, and there’s rumor of snow on Tuesday, but winter has lost it’s grip on us, I hope.

Pepper, parsley, basil and oregano seedlings (the big bushy stuff is a batch of store bought cilantro I was keeping in water until I could get the dehydrator out)

Starting a bit early

Chris — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:08:17 +0000

We put up some shelves in the utility room over the laundry sink; that wall gets great sun and the shelves are up out of feline reach. Today we started some parsley, oregano, and basil seeds. Maybe having a few seedlings sprouting will help remind us that spring is coming, sooner or later.

Surprise!

Chris — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:07:30 +0000

You never know what you are going to find while harvesting herbs…

This little girl was hiding in the sage. Joy agreed to my letting her live, providing I took her FAR away for relocation. Which means, I am aware, that if one of our animals gets bit by a spider some time in the next decade or so it will be ALL MY FAULT.

She sure was pretty, though, in a scary sort of way.

I’ve been harvesting and drying batches of herbs for a week or so now. We’re supposed to get a freeze Sunday night so I need to get the last of the basil and sage, at least. The sage I already dried and rubbed is wonderful — the stuff from the grocery store is like a sad dusty imitation by comparison.

Because I am sure you were all dying to see them…

Chris — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:53:25 +0000

No doubt everyone was as excited as I am about the arrival of the black soldier flies to our compost pile, and disappointed that no photos of the actual squirming larvae accompanied my post. So here ya go. Aren’t they beautiful?