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Easy gardening

2009-05-05T21:48:00.000-05:00

Is it unforgivable to have a gardening blog and not post for the entire month of April, or is it the other way around?

Given other commitments , I expected that I might not have much time for the garden this year. But truth be told, aside from some mowing left undone and some hoped-for projects unstarted, I'm about as set as I've ever been gardening-wise.

Mainly, I'm just not worrying about too much this year.

Once again I failed at tomato seed-starting , but rather than having a mid-March panic, I picked up some nursery seedlings and got the show rolling. I added a few more by the beginning of April, tucked them in here and there among the still-producing lettuce and they're looking great. I also haven't pinched a single sucker so far and don't plan to -- just to see how it goes.

That lettuce, along with the spinach and chard that the squirrels were going to town on in the fall, came back to life and provided plenty of salads. The chard is actually still going strong and keeping the un-thinned leeks company.

And while my struggles with the Squashbane are well documented, I'm trying a new approach this year -- the all-you-can-eat squash-vine borer buffet.

In the new in-ground bed I cut in the fall, I've got zucchini, tromboncino, crook-neck, cucumbers and canteloupe -- all cucurbits, plus a volunteer tomato and some garbanzos I planted as cover late in the winter.

Come get it!

Whew!

2009-03-30T20:32:00.000-05:00

Man, I got so much done this past weekend, I can't even blog about it.

And they're off

2009-03-17T20:37:00.001-05:00

After a wonderful 3-day rain last week, and temps back in the 80's this week, it looks like Spring may be here for reals. So let's get to plantin'!

Tomato seedlings, y'all ready to go?

Hmm. OK, not sure what the problem was this year, but I'll guess a combination of waiting too long to pot up from sprouts, sowing the seeds too densely, and maybe a weak grow light situation for the first month. Give me a break though, my attention was elsewhere .

If I'm lucky these guys may be big enough to plant out sometime in August. So, today after baby's first movie outing (The Watchmen is totally appropriate for a 6-week old, right?) we headed towards Great Outdoors, but instead stumbled across the very friendly and affordable PlantEscape Gardens, where I picked up some professionally-grown seedlings. You know, just to get things started.

That's Brandywine, Better Boy, Rutgers and Valley Girl. I've been meaning to try some hybrids, so I'm particularly interested to see what the Better Boy does.

So away we go. Tomato sandwiches are on the way. And hopefully my seedlings will put on a growth spurt and let me get them in the ground by April. I'll get seedlings figured out one of these years.

reBirth

2009-03-07T11:18:00.001-06:00

Let me just avoid any seed planting, bean sprouting or fruit ripening cleverness and cut to the chase.

The Crazy Billionaire household got a new gardener on February 3. She's been a pretty good baby so far, generally scheduling her fussy awake times to mostly daylight hours. And she's left me more time than I expected for seed-starting, bed-digging and watering, if not garden blogging.

Her arrival has accompanied another tempting early Austin spring that has everything in the garden perilously sticking out stems, leaves and blossoms, and me, as usual, itching to plant with no idea where to put everything.

But those are minor problems. It's been, metaphorically, a long cold snowy winter, but here comes the sun and it's alright.

Wake up.

2009-01-25T12:11:00.000-06:00

Mystery tomato. Seeded 1/19/2009.

Greens

2009-01-17T10:40:00.004-06:00

It's demoralizing, y'all.

I was making a ham sandwich to take for lunch the other day and had layered on my meat and cheese and went to the crisper for something green only to find it empty. Any other year since we've lived in this house, I would just march out to the garden and trim some lettuce or spinach and be done, but not this year.

I've come close to declaring a total loss on the winter garden this year thanks to those fluffy-tailed rat bastards. Spinach -- gone. Lettuce -- gone. Chard -- gone. Beets -- a handful of survivors. And all this is despite my heroic security efforts.

On the bright side, the carrots have remained relatively untouched (except by drought, which is another story). But the primary saving grace has been the greens -- specifically the side bed patch of Chinese kale (aka Chinese broccoli, kai-lan, or gai-lan) and broccoli rabe.

We actually had enough that we didn't quite keep up and some went to seed.

Most of the time, it got a quick trip through a skillet with some hot bacon drippings.

That's the Chinese kale. It has a good broccoli flavor and even the stems are pretty sweet, they just need a little longer on the heat.

The rabe is a little tougher, but it found its way into several pasta dishes.

The ultimate winner, however, had to be kale with bacon and oven-dried tomatoes. It was a fine partner to the mac and cheese on the other side of the plate, although next time, we may just put them all together into one dish.

Sadly though even the greens have now come to an end, but I'm not mourning them too much -- I've got seed packets strewn around the kitchen and will be off to Callahan's shortly for supplies to get the spring crops started. That big wheel keeps on turning.

Nestled all snug in their beds...

2008-12-23T17:11:00.000-06:00

Happy holidays everybody. Get your seed list together -- Spring will be here sooner than you think.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to tell my coworkers about my blog

2008-12-11T08:40:00.000-06:00

'cause this shit looks kind of crazy to the untrained eye:

That's the sight of 14 bags of dead leaves that fell in other people's yards and made it as far as the curb the night before trash day before being stealthily loaded into the back of my Jimmy. Well, stealthily, with the exception of those that fell in the yard of Evelyn, the sweet little old lady who was finishing up her yardwork in the dark and just pleased as punch for me to have them.

Hopefully sooner than later, these will all make a run through my recently acquired leaf shredder. Then they'll sit in an inconspicuous heap in the backyard awaiting a slow feeding to the compost pile, or thick layering as mulch around the spring plantings.

With luck, they'll hold out until about this time next year when the circle of carbon sequestration will begin again.

Winter time is here again

2008-12-09T21:34:00.001-06:00

Nine PM, and I'm in a rain jacket and gloves with a headlamp under my hood wrangling wet plastic over the garden, because the weatherpeople were right for once and it's sleeting. I'm not actually worried about the temperature so much, but I'm now on my second set of beet and lettuce seedlings, and the third set of spinach, and I figure they can use all the help they can get.

As you may recall from my last post, lo those many weeks ago, something mysterious had decided to chew on every new plant in the garden. I suspected insects and disbelieved my rodent-phobic wife's accusations against the squirrels. But that was before I caught one of the furry bastards in the act of jumping into the Swiss Chard box.

I released the Kraken on him ...

But he was too fast. (The Kraken, by the way, has honed her hunting skills since the departure of her mentor, and has already upped her career body count by one.)

The squirrels still don't seem to get the message though, which is why I had to institute some food security measures.

The chard has been netted.

The beets are on lockdown.

Lettuce dreams of freedom.

And the spinach is awaiting due process.

I think operation "garden-tanamo" has been a success, as everything is putting on new growth and not getting eaten to the ground. However, I worry that all the setbacks may not bode well for my fourth-season gardening. With the sleet currently falling outside and first freeze looming, these leafy greens have missed out on some prime cool sunny fall days.

And, hard as it is to believe, we're about a month away from tomato seed-starting time! I might be pursuing a different approach on that front this year though.

Still growing ...

2008-11-03T21:01:00.000-06:00

It's so nice this time of year to remember that we don't actually live on the surface of Mercury.

The artichokes have taken advantage of the cool weather to put on some growth. I may have helped a bit by completely excavating their roots and packing in fresh compost and fertilizer.

The serranos have also finally decided to get busy.

Green beans are in.

Swiss chard has made its debut in the crazy billionaire garden ...

joining the broccoli raab, Chinese kale, shallots and garlic.

But all the news is not so pleasant. After promising starts, every beet, lettuce and spinach seedling got devoured over the course of about 3 days. I still haven't identified the culprit. Squirrel? Grasshopper? Caterpillar? Beetle? Pill bug?

I put in some fresh beet seeds over the weekend, and am waiting for the green beans to finish before reseeding lettuce and spinach. Hopefully whatever it was has reached its low temperature limit. otherwise, I'll just have to keep replanting. I do have plenty of seeds.

Updated: Carnival of the green and brown

2008-10-12T13:10:00.002-05:00

I notice Anthony at The Compost Bin wrote a post today about the state of his eponymous bin. I'd totally accuse him of stealing my idea, if he wasn't already the Internet's leading compost enthusiast.

However, it does remind me of an idea I've been kicking around -- I think it would be really interesting to see how other folks out there in the garden blogosphere handle their composting.

So if you're reading this, how about taking some pics and writing a few words about the current state of your bin? Come on, you know your real-life friends don't want to hear about it.

If you comment here, I'll add links to the post, or you can link to others in your post ... or something, I'm not sure how that should work.

Compost!

And so it begins ...

Linda puts some big culvert pipes to good use in Australia

Anthony the compost man explains just how little effort composting requires.

Dean and his junior composter army dig a shallow grave.

What horrors lurk in the East-Side-Patch bins?

The plantening continues

2008-10-06T20:46:00.001-05:00

New seeds planted this past weekend:

Spinach, Bloomsdale Long-Standing and Catalina baby leaf

Chinese Kale (I think this is the same as Chinese broccoli)

Broccoli Raab

Shallots

Garlic

10/4/2008

A couple of bugs

2008-10-04T13:54:00.000-05:00

Pardon the terrible photo, but I came into the kitchen one morning a couple of weeks ago and found this fat walking stick sitting on the floor. When I went to scoop him up with a piece of junk mail, I suddenly felt a fine spray of liquid on my hand. Some Internet searching reveals that walking sticks (the Phasmida order of insects) do spit as a defense mechanism. Conventional wisdom that the spit is acidic and can blind you if it gets in your eyes seems to be untrue.

I was a little disappointed not to have seen any mantises in the garden this year, but this giant showed up in the carport recently. Crazy, isn't it? I relocated her to the herb patch in hopes she might enjoy some of the leaf-footed bugs that are still hanging around hoping the tomatoes are coming back.

The Compost Report

2008-10-04T13:38:00.000-05:00

If I was prone to poetic overstatement, I'd tell you that the compost pile is the beating heart of the organic garden -- the living organ that pumps the very life force into the soil and thus the plants which, when finally spent, return to the pile to begin again the cycle of life.

Wait, maybe that would make it the lungs then. Regardless, I want to talk about compost.

Here's my pile, which got a long-awaited turning last weekend.

It's been an especially hot and dry summer, and I've been especially stingy with the water, so the pile has been very dry since the spring and therefore, not very active. Composting, as I'm sure you know, has 3 basic ingredients:

Browns -- dry leaves, straw, twigs, etc.
Greens -- grass clippings, garden cuttings, kitchen waste, etc.
Water -- enough that everything is damp, but not so much that there's no air in the pile.

Mix them together in some some magic proportion and a menagerie of bacteria, fungii and bugs go crazy eating it and each other until it's all broken down into a pretty fundamental mass of organic material. Put that in your garden and it improves the texture and water-holding ability of your soil. And all that bacteria keeps eating any organic material it can find, breaking it down to the basic molecules that feed your plants.

The magic proportion can take a lot of fussing to find, but fortunately, even if you never manage to come anywhere close, it's all going to end up as compost anyway. It may just take longer and get kind of stinky at times.

Or you might find that 6 months of stocking a 40 cubic-foot pile gets you about $6 worth of compost.

But then it's all about the journey, isn't it?

Back in the dirt.

2008-09-28T19:48:00.000-05:00

Despite my carrot-loving friend's absence, I got out and did a bit of Fall planting today. Carrot and beet seeds are in the ground.

Yesterday was full of enjoyably back-breaking compost turning and bed preparation, with a little lettuce planting and artichoke side-dressing for dessert.

As I had hoped, the cooler weather seems to be good motivation for gardening. We'll see if it helps with the garden blogging.

Planted:

Oak Leaf leaf lettuce, Tom Thumb and Winter Density head lettuce from seed, 9/27/2008

Early Wonder beet, Scarlet Nantes and Danvers Half Long carrots from seed, 9/28/2008

Bink the Stink

2008-09-26T09:39:00.000-05:00

As long as I'm not posting about gardening, I'd like to share a small sadness.

Bink Smith, the fuzzball you may recognize from the background of many a garden photo, passed on this week.

Despite her love for pulling broccoli plants up by the roots and eating only the ripest tomatoes off the vine, Bink was a serene presence in the garden, as everywhere else in our lives.

Before she went, we had time for one more round of "chase the water", a game she loved albeit one I wasn't always happy with, especially when the field of play was a brittle squash vine. And she got one last shot at catching that rat in the shed. No success, but the hunt was always the best part.

She was a good dog and we miss her lots.

Ohai.

2008-09-13T15:56:00.001-05:00

Still not a lot to report around these parts. I've been lamenting the effects of this summer's crushing heat, particularly earlier in the week when the two surviving growing tips of my tromboncino squash got roasted to a crisp in the afternoon sun. Oh, and did I mention that control squash is all et up with the squash bugs, and I've still got no eggplants? It's a bit demoralizing.

Note to self -- just take next August off. I'm sure there are plenty of gardeners elsewhere who would say that a 10-month growing season is plenty.

Today was nice though. Hurricane Ike (or as it turned out here in Austin, "Hurricane Psych") gave us a day of cloud cover if no rain. I got out and turned up one of the empty beds. It's good to get into the dirt again.

I put in some green bean seeds when I was done, and have been giving some thought to the fall garden plan. At the moment, lettuce, spinach, carrots, beets, broccoli-kale, onions, garlic and leeks are on deck.

In other news, we got a new patio door. My friend John helped me install it last week and I've been fiddling with the trim some today. Addie hates it since she can't see the yard when the blinds are up.

It's for the best though. She would have died if she had seen this display of nerve out there earlier.

Planted: Green beans, Burpee Stringless Green Pod from seed, 9/13/2008

More squash talk

2008-08-30T10:42:00.000-05:00

Work in the lab continues.

The control squash (the one in its own bed) is thriving and even has a real deal squash on it.

However, I suspect danger lurks deep within its stems. In the last week, I've scraped about 30 eggs off of the vine.

The experimental squash (the one that was abandoned in the wild to be raised by cantaloupes) is still bug free, but that may just be because the moths have been embarrassed to leave their children there -- it's scrawny. Check out this side by side.

In the ground with the cantaloupe:

In the raised bed by itself:

That certainly makes me feel good about my soil mix tough.

What is the deal with my eggplant?

2008-08-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

Since my accidental all-night watering about a month ago, the eggplant have really turned on the blossoms. I took the hint and have been trying to keep that bed plenty moist, and have gotten a bit of help from some recent rain.

However, every one of those blossoms so far have ended up on the ground, leaving behind tiny stubs that are absolutely no good in a pork stir fry or breaded and smothered in tomato sauce and melted mozzarella.

So tell me gardeners of the blogosphere, what am I doing wrong? Still too little water? Too much water? Too hot? And whatever it is, is it the same story for my peppers?

Return to the garden

2008-08-19T19:20:00.000-05:00

It's amazing what actual rain will do for the garden and for my willingness to go walk around outside taking pictures of it.

This little patch popped up today near the acorn squash. It never ceases to amaze me how suddenly fungi fruit. And seeing this one reminded me of last year's freakish monsoon summer during which I identified probably a dozen different fungi in and around the garden.

The control acorn has seen fit to make its presence known to the local pollinator's union. In the upper left there, you can just see a little female blossom, which I hope gets a chance to get it on before you-know-who starts laying eggs.

The recent rains and perhaps the harvesting of the last two melons on the vine have inspired a fit of blossoming in the cantaloupe patch, with quite a few females like this one. We might just get a few more fruits before it's all done. Seven so far, for those of you keeping score.

And this guy and a few friends decided to poke their heads up this week. They're about the most colorful things growing in the lawn for sure.

The daily squash report

2008-08-17T22:36:00.000-05:00

The acorns are both still kicking, although the one I planted amid the cantaloupes is kind of stunted, probably due to it being planted in barely-amended native soil. The control squash is growing like crazy. I'll have to expound on these confounding factors when I submit my paper to the American Journal of Squash Growin'.

In sad news, the butternut has succumbed to Tha Itis.

That's the sad sight I found when rearranging its stems today. I've been checking daily for moth eggs and have seen none. I had been assuming that its poor growth was due to the brutal heat that has burnt its growing tip to a crisp twice, but it looks like the little bastards snuck in on me.

On a positive note, the Tromboncino planted 3 feet away seems fine so far. This might give some support to Matt's vine vs. bush idea -- my butternut was a bushy variety while the Tromboncino is very viny.

Now, if I can just keep the survivors alive for a couple more weeks, I may be set. And hey, it only got up to 93 today. Cold front!

Wrap it up

2008-08-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

It's too hot out there to grow anything, so maybe it's time for some reflecting (Thanks for the inspiration, Katie and Lewru.)

This has been my third summer of gardening. It seems like I've read that an organic garden needs three years to really hit its stride. That's three years of regular amending with compost, feeding the soil with organic matter and, of course, not using chemical pesticides or fertilizers. During that time, ostensibly, you're creating a hospitable environment in your soil and garden for the diverse population of microbes, worms and other critters that turn organic matter into plant food.

The summer crops did grow better than ever this year, although I don't think there was any third-year magic involved. This was my first dry summer using the new soaker-hose irrigation system and the first season since I turned up all that native clay into the peat/compost soilless mix.

Yet, I still don't think my garden grows very well. I sure don't think so when I read about random folks' gardens on GardenWeb or when I go see how the pros are growing at the Natural Gardener. I thought that having a garden meant desperately looking for friends and coworkers to take produce off your hands in the summer, but I haven't found that to be the case.

I doubt there's a single magic trick that will turn my garden into the Fertile Crescent (pre-modern times, that is). But maybe there are some clues here:

What worked this year.

More clay was a good thing. The raised beds still dry out and water soaks almost straight down from the soaker hoses, but their water-holding capacity is obviously improved.
I feel good about my decisive executions of squash and tomatoes. Rather than staring at sad dying plants for weeks, I opted to yank them out as soon as the end was evident.
Varieties that will be asked back: Ambrosia cantaloupes have been awesome. And if the squash experiment goes well, I may have to plant them everywhere. Brandywine -- these produced well and were delicious.
Leeks are awesome.

What didn't work.

Forget the tomato ring. I'm always desperate to find homes for tomato seedlings and have been planting a few in the shady corner around the compost pile. I do get a couple of tomatoes off them, but all in all, I don't think it's worth the effort.
Again I didn't give the cream peas much of a chance. I need to plant them earlier, in larger quantity in a real bed.
Varieties to pitch: Costoluto Genovese -- not very flavorful and the convoluted shape means it's mostly skin. Principe Borghese -- disappointingly tiny. I think for sauce/drying next time I'm going to go with some hybrid romas. Persimmon -- not its fault, but I wasn't too fond of the tart/salty flavor. Not a big producer either.
The earthtainer tomato actually worked pretty well, but I don't think it's worth the effort of having a separate container that needs hand watering. Perhaps I'll plant it up and pass it along to a garden-less friend.

Things to do differently.

Water the hell out of everything. I thought I was watering pretty well, then I went and left the soakers going for 12 hours straight on accident a few weeks ago. Since then, the eggplants have gone crazy with blossoms. I made a similar mistake with the peppers, and now I'm seeing the first blossoms of the year on a couple of them.
It's always hard to tell, but I think my feeding regime worked well. I think I might try increasing the amount of initial feeding and remember to do a mid-season side-dressing.
Feed the artichokes. The artichokes have always been small and loose and I think maybe they need more food. I may dig them up completely and add a couple of bags of manure and plenty of food to the holes.
Be more conscientious with the leek planting. I kind of half-assed these at seeding, and was regretting it when harvesting those delicious leeks. Also, plant more of them.
Try sweet potatoes, if I can find space.
Plant garlic, lots of it.
Plant more onions.
GASP! Try a couple of hybrid tomatoes. I'm a big fan of heirlooms, but I also like science. it would be interesting to see how yields compare.

I'm sure there's more, but you people probably have work to do.

Look out, leaves

2008-08-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

Dreams really do come true.

When I got home from work on Friday, this device was sitting out on our neighbor's curb.

It's one of them fancy electrical leaf shredders. And it works!

This is really going to change my Fall. I never got around to swiping bagged leaves from my neighbors last year, partly because it was such a pain to shred them with the lawnmower the year before. This year I'm going to be rolling (probably not literally) in shredded oak and pecan leaves. I'll be mulching a foot deep with them next summer, layering them with the kitchen scraps in the compost bin, mixing them in with my cereal for a crunchy, carbohydrate-rich breakfast. It's going to be awesome!

Oh the things that pass for excitement these days.

Round 2

2008-08-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

I'm about to kick it with the Scientific Method, 7th-grade style. So get ready.

1. Question: Is there something about cantaloupe plants that cause them to repel Squash Vine Borer moths? If so, could that trait be used to protect other plants from SVB infestation?

2. Research: Cantaloupe is theoretically one of the preferred victims of the Squash Vine Borer. However, cantaloupe in the garden have remained completely untouched by SVBs this year, even as squash have been completely decimated. It has been observed that while the cantaloupe vines look almost identical to squash vines, they tend to exude a strong sweet odor that squash plants lack.

3. Hypothesis: Cantaloupe vines could be used as either a cover or camouflage to prevent SVB moths from laying eggs on susceptible squash plants.

4. Design experiment: Plant a squash plant between two hills and among the spreading vines of cantaloupe plants. Plant a control squash nearby, but away from the cantaloupe. Watch for signs of SVB egg-laying and larvae infestation in both plants.

5. Conduct experiment: Two identical acorn squash plants were purchased on July 25th at the Natural Gardener. While in the store, investigator's wife embarrassed him by trying to take sneaky photo of investigator and John Dromgoole, causing investigator to retreat to the windchime department.

One squash was planted midway between two established Ambrosia cantaloupe plants in a hole amended with cottonseed meal and kelp meal.

Where's Waldo?

The other squash plant was planted in a similarly-amended hole 5 feet away in a bed that currently has one basil plant in it.

6. Record data:

7. Draw conclusions: