Garden Note - Summer Begins

Summer is officially here with the arrival of sunflowers.  Temperatures took a tumble last night after a dust storm blew through.  There will be a few days of enjoyable weather to allow for work in the garden. 

Garden Update:

• Zucchini harvest began.
• Sunflower volunteers are blooming.
• Boysenberry harvest is winding down.
• Tomatoes (and there are loads) are ripening.
• Beans are sprouting.
• Farmer MacGregor has re-strung the vine support.
• Herbs harvested - oregano, thyme, chives, rosemary, & lavender.
• Fruit dropped due to wind - peaches, apricots.  Blasted wind!
• Grapes maturing.
• Garlic almost dried.
• Citrus pushing new growth.
• Apples looking good.
• Nectarine sapling is vigorous giving hope for fruit in a few years.
• Split leaf philodendron had 3 successful erotic/exotic blooms.
• Iceberg rose has returned from the brink of death and has buds again.
• Hydrangea is turning a pale lilac with the application of acid.

Garden Disappointments: 

• The bell pepper seeds and nasturtium seeds have not sprouted.
• Bud worms continue to munch on petunias.
• I have not given up the fight.
• Grasshoppers remain one of the evil predators in the garden.
• I have not given up the fight.
• Plum production is almost non-existent due to a spring wind storm that wiped out the blossoms.  Blasted wind!

Mother Nature Continues to be a Mutha

Apricot – Blenheim

Okay.  It’s difficult for me and many like me to thin vegetation in the garden.  Things like onions are much easier as the baby onions are harvested to use as green onions.  Items like apricots are something I leave completely to Mother Nature.  The outcome seems to be the same whether it’s me or nature doing the work.  The strong survive.  The only fruit on the nectarine dropped recently.  It was a sad piece of fruit that was destined to wither.

This evening I was clipping the parsley, thyme, and chives when my pruning shears demonstrated exactly how sharp they really are.  Slash!  The drip line was clipped clean through.  Luckily Farmer MacGregor has extra line in the shed and the repairs were made.  While cleaning up the clippings (along with the black widows and earwigs) I noticed that Mother Nature was again having her way in the garden.  A few more apricots will not reach maturity.  They rested on the gravel almost as helpless as a young mourning dove.

The trees are due for another trimming/fertilizing session.  No threat of sunscald yet with the wonderfully cool weather that is lulling most of us into a very false sense of security.  July is on the way.

Garden Note:

• Radishes planted as beneficials amongst the pumpkins.
• Parsley and green onions planted as beneficials to the tomatoes.
• Coneflowers, nasturtiums, zinnias, and some other flower seeds I picked up at the Rite Aid were planted in the front yard flower beds.
• The 1st tomato set on a plant mislabeled as Al Kuffa.  This is a mystery variety.  It looks to be a tall, lanky variety.  Maybe as time goes on I’ll be able to determine what variety it is.

Tomato – Variety unknown

Family Tree

Grape – Red Flame

Farmer MacGregor is the right man for the job…the job of thinning grapes.  He’s been studying the best way to prune the vine and the bunches in order to produce big, beautiful grapes with an eye toward future production.  I don’t know a thing about it and I’m glad he is taking control of the vineyard.  Does one grapevine constitute a vineyard?  Thinning is difficult for me.  I know I’m not alone.  Onions are easy because they can be thinned and used as you go along.  The fruit trees are a different beast.  The fruit trees were thick with fruit earlier this spring.  All that fruit is a promise of jam, pie, cobblers, fruit leather, and just plain fruit.  Many encouraged me to thin the fruit out to enable stronger fruit.  I didn’t.  Mother Nature and her wind loosened the weaklings and threw them to the ground.  Thanks Ma.

With days full of garden chores and a nighttime addiction to ancestry.com, I have had little time to make entries in my blogging garden journal.  There is no 12 step program for this addiction and I don’t care.  Like gardening, history is especially interesting.  My branches extend back well beyond the Mayflower.  Farmer MacGregor’s branches are a challenge to me though.  One of those branches is especially difficult because so many records were destroyed during the wars in Europe.  Finding information, and some of that information is only a sliver, can help create a character in a complicated story.  This type of history gives me a greater appreciation to those before me.  Thank goodness they didn’t thin me from the tree.

 

Garden Note:

• Planted Sugar Baby Watermelon 05/22/11.
• Thinned grapes 05/21/11.
• Harvested garlic 05/16/11.
• Planted red peppers 05/22/11.
• Thinned & repotted spider plants 05/25/11.
• Fertilized vegetables 05/24/11.
• Amended two middle beds 05/22/11.  Added sand and Gardner & Bloom.
• Sulfate of Ammonia applied to front lawn 05/20/11.

Twilight Garlic

I’m out in the garden well past twilight working and inspecting.  It’s about time to harvest the garlic that was planted back in October 2010.  I’m a lousy record keeper regarding the garden; and blogging is helpful but I didn’t note what date the garlic was planted.  At least, I can’t find record of it.  It was sometime in October.  Now the garlic is starting to dry out.  Today the drip lines were pulled away from the garlic and onions because irrigation will switch to automation in the morning.  Prior to that the garden was watered manually as needed. The temperatures are climbing into the 90s this week so it’s time to rely on the water conservation system to keep the garden and gardener happy.  This will help prevent swamp pants.The variety of garlic is a mystery.  In the fall of 2009, I picked up a package of garlic to experiment with.  It grew.  The harvest was dried (cured) then braided and used from June to December.  There was a small, junky head that remained from the braid so I busted it up and planted it in the fall of 2010 to see if it would grow.  It grew.  The circle continues.  From about 40 cloves of garlic came 40 heads of garlic.  The initial investment of 30 cloves was probably no more than $5.  From that came 30 heads plus 40 more.

How much garlic can you buy in the grocery store for $5?  I don’t know.  I believe I’m getting a pretty good return on my investment AND I know how it was grown.  That’s a pretty good feeling.

 

Garden Note:

The summer garden is moving right along.  Here’s what has been going on:

• Tomato starts have been planted in their summer bed.  The supports need to be strung in preparation for a burst of growth.
• Cosmic Purple Carrot seeds from Heirloom Acres Seeds were planted with some of the tomatoes to see if carrots really do love tomatoes.
• Malali Watermelon seeds from Baker Creek were planted along with some French Breakfast Radish seeds.  Last year, this variety of radish was planted with squash as a beneficial.
• Nastursium seeds were planted in the holes of the cinder blocks that form the raised beds to help attract pollinators.  If the pill bugs let some seedlings grow to maturity, it should look good.
• Strawberries received an application of Garden & Bloom.
• Scale was discovered on the grapefruit tree and the orange tree could be threatened.  Take down was applied.  A 2nd application should take place in 10 days.
• Scare tap was tied to the grape arbor to scare away nesting mourning doves.  One empty nest was removed.  The following day a nest with an egg was discovered.  Scare tape does not scare stupid mourning doves.
• Sweet Peas continue to be harvested.  This area will be reserved for more beans this summer.
• Irrigation drip lines are in place to start a regular schedule to begin May 4.
• Bolting parsley was trimmed back.
• Shoots were removed from the healthiest (eastern most) wisteria.  The canopy was adjusted to encourage growth to spread over the top of the pergola.  Tomato cages were removed from the bases of both vines.  Cages were used to prevent puppy from teething on the trunks.
• Received a couple of cherry tomato seedlings from a co-worker.  These have been transplanted into small pots to harden.  They will be used for grilling.