Making do

Yesterday was a perfect day for catching up. I transplanted about 100 kale plants into a bed, soon to be known as the Bed O'Kale, or the BLD bed (for breakfast, lunch and dinner, which is how I would eat kale).

It was also (drum roll please) tomato-planting day, and I decided to try something new. I used to have a soil block maker, but I got rid of it for reasons that are unclear to me now. Maybe something having to do with selling my lovely, beloved Diamant grain mill *at a substantial loss, never dreaming how the price would triple. . . Sigh. The decisions we make.

So I wasn't about to let a simple matter of not owning the right equipment stop me -- soil blocks it was going to be.

The first step was to moisten soil. Then I tried using a small drinking cup.

That seemed to work okay initially, but eventually the soil stuck really badly and they fell apart, even though I used my favorite bench scraper to convey them. I had to cast about for a better mold. Ideally, it would have some "eject" feature. Ah ha! Paper cup!A simple hole poked in the bottom would let me push the soil out.

They weren't perfect, by any means, but I figured they'd do okay.

Each one got two tomato seeds, since I was sowing fairly old seed. I'm sure, given my luck, that they'll grow perfectly and abundantly and I'll either feel like a murderer with nail scissors or spend a lot of time pulling them apart and transplanting them, ending up with way more tomatoes than I can handle. I'm trying to learn from experience! I don't want 25 tomatoes. . . 12 is plenty.

Each "block" (really a cone) got a bit of moist soil drizzled on the seeds, then lightly tapped to make contact. I covered the whole thing with a humidity dome and tucked it back under the lights. I have a mist attachment to a hose I could use to water, but it's only one flat; I'll probably use a spray bottle at first and then bottom-water them. They're sitting on a nursery flat, hopefully providing some bottom aeration without letting them completely collapse. It's an adventure, at least.

So if all goes well, we'll have a dozen San Marzano, a half dozen Roma VF, and enough tomato products to make ketchup and spaghetti sauce in addition to the regular canned tomato stuff I generally make. Now I have to keep the additional plantings to only ONE Cherokee Purple and ONE Early Girl.

Oh, and maybe two Principe Borghese. We're running low on dried tomatoes.

Today should be Pepper Day, but I wonder if there's enough room under the lights.

*If anyone is considering grain mill buying, this blog has some lovely and current reviews. I probably wouldn't get another Diamant based on it.

Dealing with sprawl

 One of the things I'm vowing to do differently next year is deal with the tomatoes in a neater, more contained way. I've done the 6x6" wire fencing approach, and that works okay. I tried to stake them this year, and that apparently takes much more effort than I put in. I don't know which approach I'll use next year -- maybe a combination, depending on the type of tomato and whether I mean to pick them a bunch at a time (like paste tomatoes) or singly (like slicing).

No matter which support system I choose, it's going to succeed or not depending on how much effort I put into it, I suspect. Things like proper spacing, clipping blighted leaves, and nipping back overwhelming growth for better air circulation actually count if healthy tomatoes with a neater aspect are desired.

I do know I won't allow any volunteers next year, as they turned out to be mostly uninspired cherry tomatoes. I'm not certain I'll grow cherries, at all. Sungolds are nice, but a little goes a long way, for me. I'm really a cooked tomato kind of gal, caprese salad notwithstanding.

As I was searching for those links, I was surprised to see that I'd put these tomatoes out in April. Can it really be that we have over seven months of tomato growth? Wild. I do grow, however, heartily sick of them, especially when they look as neglected as mine did.

So yesterday was the last day for tomatoes. Ellie and I pulled all the vines (she pulled when my elbow began complaining) and picked through the plants for any leftover tomatoes.

There were a lot:

They got divided into three piles: green, to go to my friend Vera to make into pickles (we ate this year's jar at Thanksgiving and maybe I ate a lot last night while I was doing dishes); a pile of red-maybe-will-ripen-on-the-window for sauce; and a pile of "yuck!" for the chickens.



This guy made me yell out loud, but the chickens will appreciate a tasty snack.

Green is a lovely color

And yet, and yet. . . I'm getting just a teensy bit tired of it. (Yes, anyone is welcome to remind me of this in about two weeks' time.) We have had a terrifically cool summer. It's almost showing off to mention it, because I know we have family and friends who continue to swelter in unaccustomed heat, with them and their gardens suffering. Changing weather patterns hurt everyone, just in different degrees of severity.

Knowing that I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, suffering, I do wish to whine about one thing.

Or a few. Such as this one:

And these wasp-waisted jewels:

Next to them, orbs of shiny green loveliness:

And finally, finally, on a plant that bloomed for the first time in February, for goodness' sakes, something that looks about like what we're all waiting for:


We complain mightily when it's too hot, as almost no one here has air conditioning, but I wouldn't mind a few more ripe tomatoes! Thank goodness for the Sungold cherries!

First things first

Life with small children (okay, less small than they used to be, but old habits die hard) can often feel as though it's all reactive. You try to anticipate, but really kids are just bags of immediate wants and needs. I'm pretty spontaneous myself, but I do like some planful time. It helps center me for the onslaught of my days. If possible, I like to get up before anyone else, the time I used to run, and now I read the paper. Then I take a walk in the garden. Sometimes I hope that it's going to be a quick overview, but often I end up harvesting, doing stuff, getting happily side tracked. Today was a seriously sidetracky sort of day. The best!

I'm tickled at the bursting bounty of my bell pepper plants. I know that they need fertilization to keep going at their peak, and I have a low-tech idea for that which I'll blog about if it works, but still, just think of all the yumminess coming up:


The potato harvest seems like such a high return on investment. Somewhere the weights of the planting potatoes have to be written down. Even though I don't mean to, a visit to the potato bed seems to sneak in at least once a day. I'm not going to repeat the red and purple regular sized potato plantings -- the red ones are only good for boiling, really, and it's not my favorite preparation, and the purple ones are very . . . well, purple. Not for me.

But the fingerlings? They're called "Red Fingerling" and "French Fingerling" at the store where the original ones came from, and the French are buttery and fantastic. Maybe tonight we'll taste the red ones:


Can you see the "European Bell" pepper under that Early Girl tomato? Neither can I. Note to self, tomatoes are space pigs. Give 'em their own bed.


A quick tie up of a big branch and some judicious pruning freed the pepper to have at least a little light and some hope of fruiting.

The volunteer squash is doing fine -- I'm going to have to start walking over it soon. Of course, depending on what it is, I might end up tearing it out. It will be compost, at worst.


Today is the tomatillos last. The municipal green bin is being emptied today, and since I won't compost anything with this much powdery mildew, I was waiting for room for the plants. Any tomatillos worth saving will go into another batch of enchilada sauce, and then we'll just call it a day. I'm not up to coaxing them along. Maybe some year I'll fight powdery mildew, but not this one.


The Cherokee Purples are like little happy surprises peeking among the foilage.


Yesterday I managed to mostly turn under the cover crop. Now I have to find out what was supposed to follow the buckwheat, soybeans, and clover. I'm sold -- now I just have to make certain that I've scheduled cover cropping in between rotations, and find a source for modestly-priced bulk seed.


Flowers mean that beans can't be far behind, if the beetles don't eat them all. Little pests.


The other bean bed is happier with some iron slug bait. I was finding too many babies half chewed. We replanted in the empty spots, but I bet there's going to be enough for the whole year anyhow.


When I was ready to go in the house, the basket was much heavier.


Ten minutes after going inside, a freshly beaten egg and enough butter to make me feel a little guilty made a breakfast to seriously savor. That's the kind of fast food I can get behind!


Squash blossoms, Cherokee Purple tomato, and some of the volunteer tat soi from a path. Now I get to think of lunch.

Un.In.Spired.

Call me the intermittent blogger.

Actually, I thought up that title a couple weeks ago but was so uninspired I couldn't bring myself to post. I'm less uninspired now, as opposed to more inspired, which might be an overstatement.

In July, I sing the praises of Early Girls, my very favorite tomato. By October I can hardly be bothered to pick them. The squirrels apparently feel the same way.

I have harvested many pounds, though. The last two batches became slow-roasted tomato sauce, just because it's easy. I discovered if you forget about the sauce in the oven, what you get is more like slow-roasted tomato paste, which is pretty, um, intense.

The squash gets big points for beauty.

I've never eaten a Lakota. Considering the poundage, I hope I like them.

Late-summer blues isn't the only thing sapping my gardening energy right now. We've done a lot of big-ticket work lately, like thinning and topping the 30-plus-foot bamboo to allow more sunlight.

That apartment building is such an eyesore, and it feels strange to thin our optical barrier. The difference in the garden is noticeable, though, and that means more to eat. We have our priorities in order.

The other big change is the wisteria, which grows vigorously over an archway of three cement-footed 4x4s. The original idea was that it would form a kind of doorway leading from one "room" of the yard to another.

The effect, while lovely, was also sun-blocking, so off came the branches, out came the 4x4s, and up came the tree.

It now lives near the remaining bamboo closer to the fence. Since it stretches toward the light, we're hoping it'll reach back toward its original site, again forming that lovely archway, but without stealing light from the garden. I love the carpet of lavender blossoms underneath in the spring. Fingers crossed.

The result of all this work is that the yard currently looks something like this:

We have lots of 20-plus-foot lengths of bamboo to build with---heck, maybe we can refloor the house---and a lot of cleanup to do.

The summer garden is slowly ending. I've pulled up all the squash, saluting the ridiculously productive zucchini and scallopini as I went, except for the butternut that has three tiny, probably ill-fated squash on it. I pulled most of the beans, but couldn't bear to cut the one that's still blossoming and climbing the apricot tree.

And finally, to the planting. Yippee! So far I've planted about 80 onion sets and transplanted 50 or 60 spinach plants, which is what dragged me out of my gardening malaise, I believe.


And after Kevin's egg joke, it was gratifying to return from a weekend away to find this:

And lastly, a surprise treat in the harvesting basket:

That's Dodger, our pest control. I've been on him to get the rats that have been scuttling around outside our bedroom window, belittling his paltry mouse offerings. I think he finally took it to heart, because last night he showed up with two startlingly large bite marks under his arm, and this morning we're off to the vet.

Nooooo!

If I could grow just one thing in my garden, it would be tomatoes: heavy, deep-red Early Girls, with Sungolds a close second.

Most of my Early Girls are thriving, threatening to grow taller than I.

My Sweet 100s, a couple Sungolds, and even one of my bush Early Girls, on the other hand, are beginning to look like this:


Stefani suggested it might be late blight; I think it's early blight, but the fact is it's blight. My tomatoes are blighted. They've been smote.


What I've been able to learn about early blight so far suggests it's a root issue; helpful phrases like "sterilize your soil" come up. Great.

The edamame are also struggling, though I think it's something else.


I believe a tiny pest caused these to look like brown-spotted lace, and I know slugs did the rest. I'm just waiting to see whether we'll get a small crop before they become compost.

Not all is gloom and doom, though. The broccoli, kale, potatoes, corn, and squash are thriving; the wax beans are large and lovely, sweet and tender enough to eat fresh off the bush.



And the happiest garden treat of all popped up all on its surprising own:



An honest to goodness morel, one of the most prized edibles out there, growing among the corn. We've been regaled with (Internet) tales from our fellow local mushroom hunters, lucky folks returning from the mountains with sacks full of giant morels. We've considered making the 3-hour drive ourselves, and now looky there!

The garden, she taketh away and she giveth.

Everything but the kitchen sink update

We were out of town this weekend, and while I was away, I was wondering what the garden was doing in my absence. It took me about an hour after I got home to get outside, just for a "hello" walk around. However, it took two days to finish the laundry.

After it was all done today, I grabbed a camera and my youngest and we headed out, so I'm going to do a "wander through the yards with the camera" kind of picture-heavy update. Thanks in advance for your patience!


The helper herownself, with the inadvertently-pole beans she planted a few weeks ago. Oh well. She's the only one so far who keeps wanting to plant things and keep up with them. Her little bed is getting very full.


Mostly-tomatillos, with some sunflower accents, this bed is doing very well. The two on the left were transplanted the day before we left. I jury-rigged a support by bending a long piece of 6x6 mesh in half. So far, so good.


The purple tomatillo is way ahead of everything else.


These are Sungolds.


And a Principe Borghese peeking out.


The Haricot Vert beans came up in four days.


Scarlet Runners are way ahead of all the other beans, and so very pretty.


They are, however, over their supports. While I had contemplated lashing an extension on the poles, the top of the string is the top of my reach, so either my neighbor is going to get to pick these or they'll hang back down. I really thought I had them at six feet -- apparently it's ten or so.


Three sisters doing pretty well. I haven't grown corn here before, so we'll see. I may have to do some raccoon-proofing. And the squash (Lakota, I think) is leaping around so much that the beans may get shoved aside.


First little peppers. I think these might be chili piquin.


This indigo is about ready for its first cutting (right above the jointed nodes). When the yarn for dyeing shows up, I'm going to set up a little dye studio and see what I can get.


Yellow Finns are really and truly (okay, eleven of twelve of them are) up. I hope by next week to have to put more soil around them. This is the most fun experiment I've done in a while.


And I have to remember to cut some examples of the apple trees and take them to the nursery. I don't think this is fire blight, but something is killing my apples, twig down. Since these are espaliered, there isn't much there to lose without losing the entire tree. Eeep.


Out front, the first pumpkin. Last year the front yard pumpkins were show-stoppers. I hope to repeat that this year, with different varieties. This might be a blue one. I have GOT to find my copper plant tags, since both my brain and my garden journal appear to be missing.



Too late for Garden Death Day, but the Charentais melon kicked the bucket in my absence. It was only one leaf, but still . . .


All is not serious around the Sicilian Sisters. We take good time for garden silliness.


Yellow crookneck and parseley, out front. The leaves are a bit spiky compared to the almost-downy feeling butternuts near them.


This is the reason I want to live to be a hearty old woman. It will take me that long to pull every last bit of Bermuda grass out of my yards. Bad weed! Bad weed! I muse longingly about Roundup in a squirt bottle when I'm out front.


Another thing I have got to get together is a low-pressure gravity watering system. Even with my helper, it took about an hour today to hose water everything from the rain bins. And I worry that it's not going as deeply as of course a drip system would. Hopefully before next summer!


These are the 275 gallon totes I was using today. The one on the other side of the house is 2/3 empty after a long soaking of each tree and vine out back.


The Purple Royalty rasperries, put in this spring, are going to have at least a tiny harvest. Yum! I can't wait until the whole wall o'berries fills in. With the butternut squashes near them and around the persimmon tree, it's going to be quite a sight.


Caterina was wielding the camera today, and these rasperries out back (terribly infested with weeds -- I'll clear them out after pruning) in front of the beehives are one of her favorite garden destinations. They're very carefully checked every day.


Her rocking horse is another. You can see the former lawn future garden bed space well in this picture.


The bee fountain is just past the pepper behind the volunteer bachelor's buttons. I'm keeping it topped off, and they visit a lot.

Laura, over at the Modern Victory Garden, made a point that it's time to start thinking about putting seeds in for winter's crops. That's true, and it also gives gardeners like me something to do instead of obsessively wandering around our happily growing summer gardens. So maybe I'll get to at least thinking about that while I'm watering these days.