2011 Recap

Last summer I decided to plant Russian Mammoth Sunflowers. I'd read up on them and was excited to see if I could get close to the 10 foot goal. When the stalks were about 5 feet tall, they started to bloom (very early) and accelerated seed production. When trees do this, it means they are under stress and they're going to try to drop seeds before they die. These sunflowers were on the back border of my garden plot. When I checked them, I saw that all of the leaves on one side of the stalk had been cut off. Long story short, my garden neighbor, Alexi, cut them off without telling me. When I discovered it, Valentina (Alexi's wife) was in the garden and I was really mad and asked her what happened. When I saw Alexi, we went through several stages: he was mad that I upset his wife and got up in my face about it, he would never apologize (Jesus died to forgive all of his sins), and he mocked me. The idea that I was upset with him because of what he did versus the value of the damaged plants didn't seem to sink in.

When my sunflowers continued to die off because and there was so much anamosity going on with Alexi, the garden wasn't a pleasure. The blog was put together so my sister's kids could watch the plants grow since they didn't have a garden at home. The special focus was to be the line of sunflowers at the back of the garden, and when they withered and died, I lost heart.

My peppers never grew taller than about 14 inches, but by the end of the summer, I had full sized peppers that touched the ground. Most of my neighbors didn't get any fruit from their peppers.

My tomatoes got to be six to seven feet tall/long. Cherry, grape, and pear tomatoes did great. I was giving them away. Full size tomatoes in our part of the country were really bad. They took a long time to grow and were full size by September, but never turned red. In our community garden with just shy of 1000 tomato plants, folks were pretty devastated.
My sweet peas barely produced. The Asian long beans only produced 4 beans. Brussels sprouts were strange. One plant developed a stalk that was 6 inches across and didn't get very tall. The other got about 3 feet tall, but since the season had such a slow start, it didn't have a chance to produce like it could have. Edamame was very successful. I'd never grown them before and planted them too close to each other. Then ended up flattening out the plants on the sides so all could get sun. My butternut squash did great again. My herbs (lavender, mint, cat mint, sage, rosemary, chives) did really well. Flowers were a bust until late in the season.
It was such a strange year weather-wise that overall, I think the garden was successful, but not all at the same time.

Seven sunflowers down. Maybe 1 more will die soon.

Definately Dead and Not Dead, Just Sick

The drama over Alexi cutting off all of the leaves from one side of my sunflowers is still brewing. Five have completely dropped their petals. I decided to cut the heads down so there is room for the survivors to get big. My biggest sadness is that these are the sunflowers from Katie and Ayden's Garden.

I am just burned up that this guy shows no remorse. He feels completely justified. He's told his wife he cut the leaves to protect their pepper plants. He told me he cut them because they brushed him when he walked by. He told the garden president he cut them up because they had bugs. Five of the cut plants have dropped their petals. Today Alexi said this happened because I didn't water them properly. When I pointed out the non-cut plants right next to the others were fine, he shrugged and said his peppers were having a problem just like everyone elses'. What do short green pepper plants have to do with sunflowers dying from their leaves being cut? I don't know. It probably has the same thing to do with sunflowers being plants they fed to cows in his village (even though he told me he grew up in Kiev?)

I'm not dead, just sick. For about three weeks I was dealing with pain in my ear. I went to the doc a week ago and was given steroids and antibiotics for inner ear, outer ear, and throat infections. Last week was ridiculously hot and humid. Luckily, the dew point and humidity were so high, it didn't dry out the plants much. Today, I've got an off-and-on fever. I've taken photos this whole time and I'll load them soon. major stress in the garden has been a bit prohibitive to garden time too. Soon.  More soon.

Tropical Minnesota...

...is not just the name of the tanning salon on Main Street in Hopkins where I still have credits for 60 minutes of tanning from 4 years ago.

Our heat index is expected to be over 100F for most of the week. My spinach bolted within a week of going in the ground - I didn't get any harvest. I hope this weather will help the peppers. Lots of watering this week.

I "installed" 4' plastic fencing around my plot to keep Alexi (Valentina said he cut my plants) from getting at my plants and to burn off my frustration. The birds are loving it. They know that they can land on my beds and nothing can get at them, not even the people-critters. Happy little birds.

I'm knitting like a knitting fool. Knitty's Winter 2008 Dead Fish Hat pattern. I finished one last week and I'm nearly done with #2.  Pictures to come.

1:30am and some really strange thunder has finally started after 1/2 hour of lightning. It's gonna be weird. I'd love to open the windows, but I've finally gotten the humidity in my apartment under 75%, so I've got to stay buttoned up.

Border Wars?

I haven't been to the garden for a couple of days. It's going to rain tonight, but I wanted to water with plant food to help my peppers which are really stumpy. I noticed one of my sunflowers that is supposed to get 10+ feet tall has bloomed at 6 feet and the sunflowers next to it were also ready to blossom and were turning kind of yellow.

All of the leaves on one side of the plants were cut off. I'm certain it was Valentina. First she's upset about the wild bird feeder, which I took down. Then the thistle feeder was knocked down. Now the leaves are cut off my sunflowers. Yes, the leaves did hang over the "border," but that happens all over the place. Mr Tse and Anatoli have plants that hang over the border, but mine were cut.

I understand that the lower leaves may have been hanging over their plants, but how does a leaf that is 5 feet in the air bothering a plant that is 15 inches tall.

I think I would take this better if they would have talked to me first. I feel really disrespected. When I came in, I called their apartment and left a message. Ticked as hell, I was tempted to trim all of their stuff hanging over the border - bushy flowers and onions that haven't been trimmed, but I'm above that. (I think?) Good fences make good neighbors, so I've decided to get some fence to take care of that part of the boundary. Also, I re-hung the wild birdfeeder. So there.

Hey Shorty! What's up Stretch?

My sweet peppers are too short. They are all under 14 inches. One has fruit and the others have buds. It just doesn't seem right.
I decided to check out the University of Minnesota site and I found a paper with basics about peppers. I think the plants are short because of all the weird weather we had - they need warm weather to grow and all of the flux, they just couldn't get in the mood. It warns, though, that high temperatures will cause the blooms to fall off. I haven't noticed anyone's pepper plants. The tomatoes are tall so maybe their peppers are short too. I'm going to water with plant food for the next couple of days and see what happens. It's over 90 again today so fingers are crossed.


The sunflowers are getting really tall. I've learned that the stalks are really tenacious. They'll do whatever they can to get at the sun and grow tall. They seem to grow from the ground up rather than the head stretching to grow up. One plant was growing through the mesh I've put up for the climbers. The "shoulders" of one leaf set were caught on a horizontal section of the mesh. The stalk kept growing from the base and the stalk was forming a "c" shape because it was pushing up, but was caught. It's free from the mesh now and the leaves that were hooked on the mesh died.

I have a clump of 6 or 7 sunflowers that are planted close to each other. I noticed early on that they were wrapping around each other to follow the sun and get the most sun possible. I put a large tomato cage around them to contain the stalks so they wouldn't fan out and shade the neighbor's plants. This has worked well. The plants are growing straight. They lean against the cage which reinforces it and keeps them all in check.

Four of the sunflowers are planted in a row on the border with Alexi/Valentina. They were blown by the big storm last night so they were leaning over the neighbor's plants. They are about 6 feet tall and since they are in a line, there isn't much I can do to keep them together. As a short term solution, I put a large zip tie loosely around the stalks, tied cord to the zip tie loops and tied the cord to a tall stake six feet away. There is a lot of extra cord on each tie so there is some flexibility as they grow, but I hope they will get back to straight, anchor well, and I can remove the cords. I'm mentally planning a Plan B, but no run to Home Depot yet.

Lovely, lovely weather

FINALLY the weather has turned to summer in Minnesota! No tornado warnings every three days. No 50F nights. It's been in the 80F's several days in a row and the garden is loving it. I always watered every night, but it's crucial these days. Crucial, but with good results.

The sunflowers are nearly 6 feet tall. One tomato plant is over 4 feet tall and the rest are catching up, even the tomato ball.  There is fruit on almost every tomato plant, but nothing to harvest yet. Peas are more than knee high. My Asian long bean plant is up to about 6 feet. Squashes are blooming nicely and starting to crawl. The peppers are still really short, but one pepper plant - less than 1 foot tall has 1 pepper on it that is 5 inches long and of good size. They maybe short, but willful. I'll focus on giving them plant food the next week or so.

All well and good. Alexi/Valentina asked me to take down the wild bird feeder. It's hard to get exact meaning but either it happened or they worried it would happen - the wild birds would/might/did eat Valentina's strawberries and may destroy all of our tomatoes. I think this is  a worry more than a fact.

I didn't see any fruit-eaters at the feeder and strawberries in unestablished gardens have not done well here at all. The birds are everywhere and can't be helped, they just don't want me to encourage them to come to the garden.

I've kept the thistle sock feeder though. Goldfinch and other thistle-eaters do not eat tomatoes. It's "fallen down" once, but I suspect Valentina knocked it down. She's lovely, but when Alexi asked me to take down the feeder, Valentina was literally at his elbow whispering in Ukrainian as though she was telling him what to say. When I left the sock feeder, she whispered to him again, he asked if it was a feeder and I said yes. She tsk'd me. It's back up in such a way it can't be blown or knocked down without effort. I have no ill will towards Valentina, I just think she's nervous for no reason.

I've been quiet and not in the garden much lately - nothing beyond the requisite. I hurt myself and I've been laying low.

More soon.  Happy Summer!

Watering the garden

Don't forget the birds [update 7-7-1]

I'm doing what I can to get close to nature as I can. Tending my garden barefoot is one way to get close to bature, but birds are becoming another. The wild bird seed I bought earlier has only attracted little brown birds. I've seen goldfinches in the garden, but not at the feeder. I've learned they prefer nyjer seeds and they prefer a small, softish perch, so I bought a thistle sock. It works! The goldfinch have found the food and are singing about it.

[When I was outside the other day, Alexi told me the birds coming to my feeder were eating his wife's strawberries and would eat the tomatoes. Well, that's what I read from what he was saying. His English is pretty good, but Ukrainian to English means that he's not that great about using articles and conjucating verbs to indicate past, present, future. So technically, I'm guessing he was talking about the birds eating the strawberries in the past tense, not future. No problem, I took down the wild bird feeder. I left up the sock feeder. I think Valentina (Alexi's wife) is upset about this, but I know goldfinches aren't going to eat fruit. Does anyone need 7 lbs of mixed wild bird seed?]

They call this a shelf cloud

Second day of 95F+ = severe storms = no need to water

Can you hear the music from Jaws?
Danger approaches.

The weather man on the 5pm news is very excited. Tornado warning: There are "take cover immediately" warnings for places to the west. Also 2" hail. The rest of us are in a severe thunderstorm warning which means rain and wind is coming and tornadoes may follow that.

My afternoon plan was to hang out by the garden with a beverage and a book, but I got side-tracked. I'll watch the storm from my sofa.

It's not all about snow here.

YAY! Tomato Weather!

It's another "no touchy" day

Pain woke me at 5am. Vicodin helped me sleep. I take maybe 6-8 Vicodin per year. It usually doesn't help much, but I needed to try something.
When I woke, I had double vision from the Vicodin and had to go back to bed. I thought I would have to cancel everything today. I made it to my appointment and getting out of the house cheered me up.
I'm back home. I haven't figure out a way to not hurt (can't sit, stand, or lie on either side).
I'll have to do some garden time and water before it gets hot tomorrow, but it may not be tonight.

I'm sweating my onions off over here

OK, this is really for my onion tops.
I pulled several onions to thin the patch, cut the tops leaving about 4 inches of bulb and stem. I replanted the bulbs in a new, empty space with a little bit of stem above ground and watered them.
The exact same thing can be done by slicing onions into slices but you'll have more sulfur stink (bad breath, watering eyes) to cook off.

1. Cut onion tops into short lengths. 
2. Toss with olive oil. (You can also add balsamic vinegar at this point.)
3. Sprinkle with salt. 
4. Spread evenly on foil-lined sheet at least 2 inches thick. 
5. Cook low (250F) and slow. This will cook out the sulfur that makes for stinky breath and watering eyes.

Wilted (floppy) and light carmel brown - add to quick cooked fresh vegetables for an element of deeper flavor.  I like to eat them just like this as a side dish- onions are a vegetable after all.

Smushy (no real structure, very limp) - mash with a fork (or in a food processor/blender) into a smooth-ish spread consistency. Add more olive oil if needed. Use the same way you would use roasted garlic smush. This will be sweeter, greener and milder in flavor.
* Add Worchestershire to the smush for a more savory flavor.
* Sprinkle smush with a little bit of lemon juice, herbs or both. Mix in.
* Use as a spread for sandwiches.
* Stir into pasta sauces (red, white or otherwise)
* Stir into mashed potatoes, cooked rice, soup, couscous

A Sunny Day in the Trenches

I love the way the cedar planks lining the beds looks. Better yet, the plants seem to like them.

News From The Trenches

Baby birds be damned, I ran errands today. I'm trying to feel empowered by being a 2 legged creature near the top of the food chain, but when I got home, a sparrow was on the ground next to my parking spot looking kind of pissed that I drove away with her babies and nest in my car. I feel so bad!

I decided to firm up the sides of the trenches I dug between the beds. I bought cedar fence pickets (on sale!). Voila! very pretty, tidy looking beds.
Beans: Green beans are putzy. Long beans are growing up and sending out shoots.
Carrots: Finally sprouted, but under 1 inch tall.
Cucumbers: Vines are showing promise. Slow to grow.
Flowers:  The purchased flowers have re-flowered. The sweet peas and other climbers have sprouted. Sunflowers are growing tall and fast.
Herbs: Cat mint is going crazy and is ready to flower. Cilantro and dill (volunteer) took some big hits when I dug out the trenches, but I'm sure they'll come back quick. Herbs in the baskets aren't growing. Lemon grass is fantastic. Chives are making slow progress. Leeks are doing nicely. The greens on the garlic lay flat to the ground as though broken, but they've stayed green - I'll replant.
Onions: Red and yellow onions are growing really well. The greens can be cut and the onions are ready to harvest as scallions.
Peas: Snow peas are in harvest and still flowering. Plants from seeds are growing nicely.
Peppers: Flowers and unripe babies.
Salad Greens: Contained have grown over 6" and are ready to eat. The 3" plants were totally flattened and destroyed by rain. One row that's a bit protected is growing well.
Tomatoes: Flowers and unripe babies.
Squash: HUGE blossoms. Butternut squash are slow. Yellow squash blossoms are almost too big to be yellow squash.

It rained again today, but just enough to wet the ground. I watered a bit to settle the soil into the new boxes. I'm still waiting for a long stretch of temps over 80F to get everything moving.

No Rain!!!

It didn't rain yesterday! Not a drop! After running all of my errands, it was getting late in the day, and I decided to dig the trenches before going into the house.

The trenches are in the same place as the boards were, but a bit wider (shovel width). I crumbled the soil and scattered it onto the top of the beds. The deeper soil is so nice and black and full of worms. Nadya, a neighbor a few plots down, bought dog-eared fence slats (the wide flat bits) and pushed them against the sides of her beds. I think I might do that as todays get-out-of-the-house project.

Except for my new passengers.

While getting an oil change that turned into major ($700+) car repairs, the mechanics discovered my car is chirping. They brought me into the shop to show me the broken spring in the front suspension and point out the baby bird chirps coming from under the trunk.

On the lift, we could see an area in the rear, drivers side corner of the body frame that the momma bird could have climbed into and nested. "See, you've been carrying around those babies away from their momma. She's probably looking for them. You've got those babies away from their momma. She's probably freaked out looking for them." *sigh* *cringe* I'm a kidnapper.

I looked it up on the net, and there isn't a whole lot of information about what to do after the eggs have hatched. I'm pretty sure the instigators are sparrows. When they hatch, they stay in the nest for about 2 weeks. They may be ready to leave soon, so I'm going to keep driving. No extra food or anything for freaked out Momma because I don't want any of them to get the idea that my car is super-convenient. I hate the idea of it though.

Don't Even Bother

My cat (Emma) did that thing, where she runs around bouncing off of things like she's possessed, but part of it was bouncing off of me. At 5am. Run into the bedroom, jump on the bed, jump on my chest, turn, run away. Jump on the bed, jump onto the shelves next to the bed, chase tail, jump off shelf onto my chest, run away. All while cat grumbling.

I got up for a few hours, and eventually went back again. I finally woke up around 2:30p and the day was pretty much over. I had a few errands and before I'd finished, it started to rain again. I didn't even bother to check the garden today. The shovel for re-trenching is still in the back seat of the car.

Now I'm in really cozy jammies, I've planted myself on the couch, and I'm done for the day.

Yesterday the chiropractor touched my fibro spots (they aren't always so sensitive) and my brain is suffering fibroPTSD. I'm supposed to go back on Friday morning - other parts are crooked and locked up - but I'm already getting nervous. It's so sensitive today, even sitting up against the sofa pillows hurts. I'm going to have to take some pills and go back to sleep.

No touchy.

Rainy Soltice

I checked on things this morning before the rain. The small salad greens are matted to the soil - totally flattened. I'm going to start them (again). I'm not sure it's going to be OK for them until all of this rain stops. My carrots haven't sprouted at all and it's been weeks. I've still got soybean gaps.

Today was an ELL tutoring session with Zhenfang. She brought me seeds that are either coriander or a lettucy-green plant she gave me to try yesterday. I'm going to start these seeds indoors. It will help me figure out what they are, and I hope they'll last better than they might in the muck outside.


Happily, the tomato plants are still making babies. Anatoli is happy and has asked/hinted in his very broken English that he wants some because I have so many plants and they are already bearing fruit. I've also gotten requests for green tomatoes from two non-gardeners, I've promised some to Wyman (lives on my floor) and a new guy in the building named Ron.

The thunderstorm last night brought us more than an inch of rain according to my garden gauge.  It was overcast most of the day, and rained again at 2 p.m. Shortly after, we had severe weather and tornado warnings in this county (Hennepin) and the surround.

I fell asleep for a few hours (I sleep a lot), so I missed any excitement that may have happened. It's coming on 8:45p. The clouds are parting and rays of sunshine are beaming down between the gaps.

The parting of the clouds, and the sunbeams are more impressive than this. Cellphone
camera into the sunset does not a pretty picture make. Retail lights are coming on.
Ach, suburbs. I try to not look down at the shops. Sky only for me.

 I've just checked the forecast. We'll get more rain after midnight, showers and thunderstorms tomorrow, and some rain on Thursday. We won't have 80F temps until next week. I stopped by a hardware store today and came home with a shovel. I'm going to re-dig the trenches in the garden a little wider and a little deeper.

My apartment overlooks the garden (from the 12th floor) and though I'm too high to see the garden without a stretch, I can hear the neighbors working (hammering stakes today), wind chimes, and birds.

My view from above.

It Smells Like Rain. Again.

The soil in our garden is strange to me. Instead of black, rich topsoil like that where I grew up (at least 2 feet deep), the garden soil is really sandy with dirt that is more like silt.

When I dug a hole for my water storage, I got almost 15 inches before I hit a 1.5 inch layer of sand. Below that was a dirt layer where I've found insulated wire and pipes. Below that is a compacted clay mix. I came across enough buried pipe that I had to stop digging. I'm not sure what was in this spot before the building was made in 1981, but the stuff left behind is under our yard and garden; our top 1-2 feet of soil are a cover job for the construction junk below.

Sand collected on the surface of the soil after the rain.

When it rains, the rain will flatten the surface of the soil. When it's smoothed out, the water rolls off instead of absorbing and pool in low spots. The silt gets washed off the high spots and sand is left behind. Since I've trenched a bit  between my beds, the trenches fill with the silty dirt, I scoop it up and put it back on the bed and mix it in after the rain.

If it has rained, we all go out with hoes and small cultivators to scratch up the surface of the soil. If we don't break up the sand on the surface, it turns really hard like concrete, which makes the water situation worse. The turning of the surface also helps with weeds, and gives the surface texture to attempt to keep the soil and water in place.

I've got two problems. The rain keeps washing away the top of the soil. The other problem is the overcast cool. We really need a stretch of warm, sunny days to dry things up and put them to rights. The plants just won't grow when it's this cool.

A shiny, sandy crust after the rain. Seeds trying to break out.

The latest soybeans I planted are coming in very slowly. Many of the first set of seed I planted rotted from the cool damp. This second set is barely breaking through and there are still a lot of bald spots. I can't scratch up this surface because I don't want to disrupt the seeds that haven't emerged yet or the root systems of the very small stuff.

According to the news, Minnesota farms have had twice the amount of rain we'd normally have and the crops are half as tall. Standing water is starting to drown the plants and hay that could be harvested can't be because heavy equipment would get stuck in the mud. It's too early to say the crops are badly damaged, but more rain is worrisome. Though I live in the suburbs now, I grew up listening to KBEW in the morning before school with Paul Harvey and the daily commodity prices. Somehow crop status was burned into my brain as a measure to determine if all is right with the world.

The rain is supposed to start in the next few hours and it is supposed to rain on and off for at least three more days. Severe weather is also possible.

Think good thoughts for us.

Afternoon Delight

The birds seem to have that lovin feeling lately. They are all over each other, there is a lot of chasing going on, and some birds will fly into the garden and land right next to us to avoid being chased by others.

Yesterday, I got this picture of a goldfinch.

This picture was taken with my cell phone camera. This little bird kept following me around when I walk walking the perimeter of the garden. I was finally able to catch a picture over my left shoulder. 

Last evening was goldfinch, today it's sparrows. Love is in the air!

Tools In A Bucket

This year, all of the tools I use except my hoe and my cultivator fit into a 5 gallon bucket which sits discreetly near the lean-to in the middle of my garden. Too close to the fence or inside the garden shed and it could be/would be stolen.

Last year, I had very little money to buy implements. This year, that's not a problem, but I've found that for a garden my size, these tools, the cloches, and the arbor stuff are all I need.

This is my stuff:

Climber mesh, garden wire, and a mesh bag of zip ties.
Sprinkle plant food, ball of cotton string (recycled from a broken mop head), pint basket full of seed packets and liquid plant food powder.
Two pairs of garden gloves, a drawstring reusable bag, kid's garden shovel, garden fork, scissors, sprayer nozzle, snake-tongue-tool-thingy, trowel (I think, the little pointed shovel thing), terra cotta plant saucer (water for the birds), organic wheat grass seed (grass for the cat),  bulb planter, knee pads, and a hacksaw.

Cloches on a stick - perfect storage until winter.

Arbor

Now: brown = wood, yellow = mesh, grey = PVC

Anything in my garden has to come down in the fall and be stored until next year.Whatever stuff I have in my garden has to come down at the end of the season. It also has to be easy to store in a small mount of space. If I could build something permanent, I'd be rockin it out. I hope that the arbor, cloches, and my tools will fit in the garden shed. If not, I'll keep them in my apartment. Either way, I want to keep things small for storage.


I put this together in one afternoon. I planned on burying the uprights at least 12" deep, but soil composition and the tools I have made that  too hard. The uprights are 8' long, so they couldn't be driven into the ground. To help stability, garden stakes were driven into the ground right next to the uprights and they were bound to each other. This substitute was almost as good as planting the uprights themselves. Also, the whole thing is tied to the fence around the garden which my neighbor Alexi hammered in really deep.

My last aim at strength and stability was to plant giant sunflowers along the east/fence side of the arbor. The sunflowers could make things too shady, but I'll have to wait and see.

Center Cross and Top

Zip Ties are MAGIC! Only $5 for 650!

North Side

East Side

West Side  of the "Lean-To"

East Side of the "Lean-To"

Northside Climbers: The wind twisted things a bit.
Those two verticals should be lined up.

Having a tall arbor means I can "hide" things above eye-level.
My extra trim fence hangs from the top. No one noticed the
bird feeder for days - not a popular choice with everyone at
the garden.

June 17, 2010: 39 Minnesota Tornadoes in One Day

One year ago today, a huge string of storms tore up parts of Minnesota.

This house was picked up and moved by the storm. Those are
the front steps. The front door used to be right next to them. The
house moved, not the steps.

We're all very lucky there were only three deaths. The town of Wadena was hit hard - 232 homes of 4000 were destroyed or severely damaged. Farms were hit and emergency services had to follow the path of the storm from farm to farm to check on the well being of the people who may or may not have been home at the time.

That's the scariest to me - being trapped in your barn under stuff, being in a house without a basement - and no one knows you're there. There were stories of livestock picked up in the storm and found dead dropped onto roads and in fields.  Newly planted fields were wrecked with debris that would ruin expensive farm machinery - it had to be cleaned up before the crops were too tall, removed completely, and all that done without significant damage to the crops.

This was a house. The woman here was killed when the storm hit.
She didn't have a basement at her place.

I went to the closest coffee shop to use the Internet to find out what was happening in my hometown - hit hard with hail and less than 10 miles from several tornado touchdowns. Phones and cable internet may have been out, but "tethered" devices like smartphones and cell phones kept people in touch: who was accounted for, who was missing, and where is the flooding, hail, or wind damage.

So here's to good thoughts to last year's June 17 Tornado folk. You've made it through a year! It just gets better.

A funnel cloud dropping on a farm.

[Side Note: Solitude in the midst of life threatening danger is the cornerstone of the social phenomenon known as "Minnesota Nice" which breaks down to - never show negativity or dislike to anyone because at some point, your car might break down, you might be trapped in a snow drift, or a tornado may tear up your house, and you don't want the only other person in the middle of nowhere with you to dislike you. A society built that completely rejects "no" as a method of communication is a strange one, but someone will always hold the door open for you when your hands are full. You know you're in Minnesota when...you try to go for a walk and everyone stops to offer you a ride.]

My Little Babies, First Born

 

Neato Local Fancy Gardens

This is NOTHING I aspire to. Too pretty. My garden is simple, edible and has very few flowers. My garden doesn't have much time to grow. These are wonderful places for inspiration. They are all about beauty and nature.

Como Park Zoo and Conservatory 1225 Estabrook Drive Saint Paul, MN 55103









Minnesota Landscape Arboretum 3675 Arboretum Drive, Chaska MN 55318



 

The Normandale Japanese Garden  9700 France Avenue Bloomington, MN 55431

 
Walker Art Center Minneapolis Sculpture Garden  750 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis, Minnesota 55403

Vertical Gardening for Dads

I was scanning blog titles about gardening and I came upon "Vertical Gardening for Dads." Hey! I've got climbers! My garden goes vertical!

It's not quite what I expected, but it looks terrific! I think this is a very cute way to display air plants. Instructions are at the link. There are some obvious "containers" for houseplants, but this makes me think, what else could I plant in?

Oh, the world of garden crafts! I'm not talking about hand-painted signs with the names of herbs, I'm talking nifty, cool, groovy stuff. I've got a new search target!

Grown UP tomatoes

I've got one tomato plant I've been confused about. It's my pear tomato plant. I bought it from Pflaum's. I'm not sure if it spent too much time in a cloche, but all of the growing has happened at ground level. Instead of growing up and branching out, it's sending branches out low on the plant. It looks like a little round tomato bush ball.

Tomato ball on the left. Grown UP tomato on the right.

I've been following Desperate Gardener and for Tomato Tuesday this week. She wrote about pruning tomato plants. I've been thinking about cutting off some of the horizontal stalks that are coming off the tomato ball that are using plant energy to grow out, to redirect the plant energy to going up, but they are thick, heavy branches and I don't want to kill the thing. It's already got flower buds and I'm afraid fruit that low to the ground will rot or attract pests.

After reading her post, I went for it! I trimmed up the tomato ball and suckers on the other plants. I knew this is what needed to happen, but it's nice to have confirmation from someone else. Codependent gardening? Nah, deferring to someone who knows more and has a grandma to back her up.

The Wild Ones: Dill, Mint, Cilantro, Lemon Grass, and ???

Since ours is a community garden next to a park, a lot of things get churned into the soil when it's tilled every fall and spring, and assorted other things blow in all season.

Last year, it took me a while to identify the volunteer plants that we've got growing in the garden. Since they grow in the straight line trenches I made for my seeds, I can't always tell what's to keep. So far, I need them to grow to a certain size before I can tell what they are. I've asked Anatoli, Zhenfang, and Alexi to help me identify weeds, but sometimes we run into a language barrier. Alexi and I get pretty close.  When I ask if a plant is "good" or "bad," Alexi tends to judge the condition of the plant (healthy v. non-healthy). He calls the volunteer plants "wild." I've tried to teach him the word "weed," but it's not working so far. I don't think he can quite hear the difference between "wild" and "weed." "Can you eat it?" is greeted with a shrug because, well, anything can be eaten.

A lot of the wild plants could be herbs at their early stages. Zhenfang doesn't care for most herbs. She has chives and cilantro in her own garden, so I've given her different herbs to smell (maybe she'll recognize them?) but after grossing her out with basil, she won't go near them. Last year, she was helping me in my garden, and she started pulling out my lemon grass. I wanted her to smell it and look at the color so she could tell what it was and not pull it, but she refused. If I ask her if a seedling is "good" or "bad," she answers based on her own tastes. The herbs are almost always counted as bad, but she also calls onions, sweet peppers and potatoes bad. She knows they are edible but she wouldn't eat them, and she doesn't think I should eat them either. When she sees me come home with groceries, sometimes she'll poke around the bag to see what I've got that will meet her approval.  Too many boxes. She's not happy I bring home boxes and Coca-Cola.

This kind of secondary leaf means it's a kind of
squash or cucumber. In this case, it's zucchini.

This year, the "wild" seedlings are over an inch tall and have gotten to their secondary leaves, so I can tell what they are. Garden plant sprouts emerge with two leaves (primary leaves) on a stem.  They all look the same to me. I have to wait for the second set of leaves to show up to identify the plant.

The "wild ones" in this year's garden are dill, mint, and coriander/cilantro. All three are very popular in our little community, so really the only nuisance is that it grows wherever it wants.

The dill is sprouting up everywhere, gets more than 3 feet tall, goes to seed, and cycles back. There are constant crops of dill all summer. I found out that my Russian and Ukrainian neighbors save the seeds and scatter them by the hand full every spring. Valentina kept a huge a tin of seeds and offered to share. I passed on it. Even still, I've got wisps of dill growing. Sofia says that "Russian" dill tastes better than "American" dill. Alexi has said it's really good in soup. There is a "summer borsch" that was referred to last year. It seems to be heavy in herbs - mint, dill, and a lemony leaf that grows on a bush 4 feet tall. I've got to get that recipe.

I haven't planted my mint in containers (cat mint and spearmint). It can spread pretty far on it's own, but since the garden freezes hard and gets tilled every spring, I thought it would be destroyed and not bother the neighbors. Volunteer mint is all over my garden this year. It doesn't look like the mint I've planted, which is kind of bushy. This is a leggy, creeper mint with darker, shinier leaves. Last year, Valentina gave me some cuttings, she told me it was "Russian" mint. Tasty stuff. When Zhenfang saw it in my garden last year, she went nuts - she wanted some! I gave her several cuttings and she was over the moon. It's back.

Cilantro (corriander) popped up in my garden this year. Last year, my planning was really off and by late summer my garden was pretty bare. The waste of space lead Zhenfang to bring me seeds and seedlings to put in the empty spots. In one section of the garden, she scratched the soil and scattered coriander. It seems that some of it survived to live again this year. It's not growing in places I want it, but I'll let it get big and go to seed and replant the seeds where I want them. I should get several harvests this year.

Last year, the lemon grass I planted was just a curiosity - an expensive exotic I wasn't very sure about. I let it do what it would and it spread quickly. It grew nice and tall, and whenever I brushed past it, the air smelled of lemon grass. I got a recipe for a kind of Thai iced tea made from lemon grass and a little ginger - very nice. In the fall, I wanted to pull it up and dry some for winter, but I didn't realize that it's a rhizome. When it was spreading across the surface of the soil, it was spreading underneath and got some really deep, woody roots. I discovered that rhizomes like lemon grass and Mexican bamboo can do really well in Minnesota. This year, I buried a plastic, tight weave basket, filled it with soil and put the lemongrass seedlings in there. I was a bit worried that I'd stunted them, but I noticed tonight that they are growing gangbusters. Since I planted them near the walking path, I'll still get the lovely scent and this fall all I'll need to do is dig up the basket. No wild lemon grass this year and I hope to have some rhizomes to give to Felicia H in BE.

There is still one kind of plant growing in my garden that I can't identify. The leaves look like they might be salad greens, but last year, I let it grow it sprouted golf-ball-sized yellow flowers. When it gets a little bigger, I'll take some pictures and send them to the University of Minnesota horticulture folks for an identity check.

What kind of wild stuff grows in your yard/garden? Any surprises?

Rainin'

Yesterday, there was a deep rumble in the sky that promises more rain than electricity in the storm that was coming. I'd been sleeping most of the day (thanks fibro) so I was glad to find a reason to go out in the rain.

I have no idea why people run to escape the rain. In a little rain, it seems kind of hysterical to run away from it. In heavy rain, one minute more isn't really going to change things; wet is wet. I've never been terribly particular about my hair or my outfit, maybe that's the rub. There is nothing about any measure of downpour that will make me run from it. I love the rain.

Today I had more energy than I have had in days. I had an appointment and ran errands (alien-abduction-like lost time in the craft/sewing store). First the radio talked about a freak storm, then I could see it coming when I left the grocery store. I did my daily garden check before the rain came, but I wound up scrambling to get the cloche back on the delicate plants.  The wind had turned wicked and I did not want to lose any plants. I've already lost 2 tomatoes to wind this year. Last year 60mph winds (tornado nearby) literally spun my bush green beans and pulled them out of the ground. Today, I didn't have enough cloche to cover everything - it felt like I was choosing one child over another.

I checked the rain gauge, and we had 2.5 inches of rain before this storm even had a chance to start!

The storm's passed and I can see the sunset happening. I'm going to go un-cloche the kiddies once again so I don't smother the poor darlings. I'm gonna check that rain gauge too.

Katie and Ayden's Garden

Pictures of my plants so far

West Side Climbers

North Side Climbers

East Side Climbers

Soybeans

Sunflowers

Brussel Sprouts (I love 'em)

Salad Mix