I spent some time clearing out the edge lawn-edge of my garden plot. When I was digging out the weeds and clumps of grass, I dug up Japanese beetles and some kind of larvae I've only seen on websites and pesticide packages.

I've tried to be "brave" about squishing up the posts that will ruin my plants, but doing it with my hands is so hard. I have to be wearing gloves, and it helps if I can pick up the creature with soil so I don't have to look at the guts or feel the crunch.

The wind has been blowing around the green mesh fencing I have on the outside edge of my plot. It's an east-west fence and it billows in the northern and southern wind. The posts are holding up well, but the bottom edge isn't secure. When I cleaned it up, I pinned down the edges with garden staples. I probably bought twice as many as I needed, but I'm covered to be sure and I have extra just in case.

I cloched a few of the greens I bought at the farmer's market on Saturday. It really worked well with the spinach and lettuce. In just a couple of days they look really great.

Some of the baby tomato plants I started and transferred to the garden have completely disappeared. Not even a wilted, flattened stem. I hope that they might just be sleeping from the shock and they'll perk up in a few days. It's happened before with other plants, but I've never started tomatoes before. I still have some that haven't been moved, so I will let them grow more before I put them in the ground. I'm very happy to say that not all of the tomatoes I've already planted have died. I'm very excited to see what happens.

I didn't get to the garden today, but I plan on going out tomorrow when it's not very, very hot. I churned up the dirt a bit. With the rain and watering, the silt washed away leaving a shiny shellac of silica on top. The water just runs off to the low spots. So far I'm not able to churn up all of the garden because in areas I've seeded, the plants aren't big enough to see clearly. When the water washes over the top the baby plants are deep enough that their stems are locked into the silica and they aren't washed away.

I'll take more pictures tomorrow. I've also got to install the strings for the beans and other climbers (they're doing great).

This bit of weather coming up is really warm for Minnesota in May. We've had a really warm spring (and winter, and fall), but there is always a chance that something strange can happen with the weather. I think we'll skip the tornadoes this week since it's already been warmish.

Pictures! Tomorrow! Yay!

Weekend planting

We have had a definite break in the rain. Friday we had grey skies and got a trace of rain. Yesterday was lovely. Today and this week are supposed to be great.

I decided to get some herbs from the Pflaum Family at the Minneapolis Farmer's Market. They have been so helpful with my gardening these last few years. They've answered my questions, and best, most happiest of all, the seedlings they sell are totally reliable and only $2 or 3/$5 for pots that are about 2"x2" with several seedlings in each clump. I've made mistakes in the past, killed something I liked, and was able to go back and get some more.

Yesterday, I grabbed a flat and started shopping. I decided to get 3 different varieties of slicing tomatoes, rosemary, basil, lemon basil, lemon thyme, catnip, Italian parsley, spinach, salad mix, pole beans, sweet peas and probably something I'm missing.

I planted everything I bought plus tomatoes, peppers, and some squash. The garden is really filling out. The seedlings help me visualize how the garden will look over time. I can't quite tell if things are too close together. I'm planting double wide rows of peppers and they seem a bit dense. I've staggered the tomatoes into two rows  with some closer and some further from the arbor. I plan on putting twine woven on the arbor uprights to  support the tomatoes.

I bought pole beans. I really like fresh green beans and I really like to watch them grow. They climb so fast. They are next to cucumbers and zucchini. I've set them on the east side of the arbor about a foot from the base. I'm going to run twine from the plants to the top of the arbor.

I'm going to move the last of the seedlings to the greenhouse or maybe outside because the greenhouse is getting really hot during the day. When I was moving things around yesterday, I noticed the spinach seedlings in my apartment were bolting. They're only 2" tall! I'm going to take them outside and shade all of the spinach with a tight weave nylon window screen so they are mostly shaded. I should have put them in sooner. I didn't get any spinach last year - it bolted right away. My book says this is caused by days that are too sunny too long. Wish me luck.

I'm going to try to spend all day outside reading and planting the last of the seedlings and a few more seeds. Everything should be done. All I'll need to do after is water, weed, and maybe thin. Oh, and eat too. The peas should be producing pretty quick.

Claim it. Own it.

I got a late start today. Copied the garden  plan I'd made into a notebook. I've spent so much time reading up on different combinations of plants and what additives each kind of plant needs when it's transplanted, that I can't remember it all.

Home Sweet Home
The Land is outlined in red, my plot is in white.

I hung fence around the perimeter of my plot. I put up the garden trellis, but I made it bigger and a slightly different shape, dug out about a foot of soil from inside the trellis to mound around the edges. Tomatoes will go on the mounds and be trained up (and over?) the trellis.

I flattened the soil inside and used boards to hold up the mounds from the inside so it wouldn't fall in. I laid some carpet strips on the inside to keep the packed dirt down, weed free, and not too mucky.

Mr Hu, Mr Tse, Mrs Lang, Mrs. Gao, Mr. Bu, and a few others were outside working in their plots. As I was working on the trellis, they asked if I was building a house. The carpet made it a done deal for them, they couldn't stop laughing.

I am often the recipient of shaking heads, chuckling, and outright laughter. Sometimes people just cruise by to watch me, some come right up to me and take tools (or whatever) out of my hands to try to stop what I'm doing because they think I am making some kind of monumental mistake. I don't mind being different, but interference or anything more than a casual suggestion just pisses me off. I rolled with it the first year and a half, but last summer, I lost my patience. There is no benefit in "being nice to old people" around here. The respect doesn't go both ways. I'm not used to this, but it's got to be a cultural thing I'm missing. I've decided it's better to stand my ground and cut off the pushy people. I'd rather be left alone because people think I'm crazy than be pestered and patronized by friends.

There trellis is open to the fence on the north side of my plot. I don't want to make too much shade for my neighbor without losing vertical space. I left an opening on the side so I can get inside the trellis area. I'm using it to store my water reservoir, tools, stakes, and other things I don't want stolen. It does look like a little house and by mid-summer, I hope it's covered in tomato plants, flowers and climbing vines, with a cool, shady place inside.

I laid in three rows of soybean seed, all of the yellow onions and garlic. I put in three rows of carrot seed, and I set in the reclaimed onions I took out last week. We still don't have access to water, so I didn't water anything in. The soil is really light and was pretty warm today. I hope the dry, cool conditions will keep the garlic and onion starts from rotting until I can water them. Tomorrow I hope.

I've set aside and "alum patch" for all of the onions, garlic, and carrots. They are supposed to play together nicely and they will be near-ish tomatoes, soybeans, brussel sprouts and peas, which is supposed to be OK. When I first drew the plan, I thought I might have planned too much space for them, but when I've put them in the ground, it looks like it will be OK.

The plot seemed to change shape as the day went along. First it looked so big, then too small, then bigger than the other plots that are still untouched. By the end of the day, I checked the fence line. I'm glad I put it in before I started. My plot looks so much bigger than the plot next to mine. I felt guilty, but everything checked out OK. I adjusted the hay bales so they didn't push the fence over the north boundary.

Dehydrated and worn out, I cleaned up my mess of twine and fence packaging and came in. I think I was outside for 4 or 5 hours. I finished a lot more than I thought I would. I'm going to try to get water to the garden tomorrow, put in the last of the onions, get the peas going, plant the rhubarb and chives I'd brought inside and water it all in. Tomorrow.

It's supposed to be in the 30's Thursday and Friday nights, so the live growing things will have to be kept inside until they are tougher, then cloched when outside.

My antsy self is satisfied. The plot is mine.

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.

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.

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!

Pictures of my plants so far

West Side Climbers

North Side Climbers

East Side Climbers

Soybeans

Sunflowers

Brussel Sprouts (I love 'em)

Salad Mix

Perfect Timing [updated]

There isn't much to do in the garden until the volunteer plants are big enough to identify. I got squirrly and went to the Mpls. Farmer's Market and stopped by Pflam's booth. They had pickling cucumbers I was looking for. I also picked up two more pepper plants - these are early bearing. Pflaum's only had yellow beans so I searched elsewhere. I bought an "asparagus bean" seedling (aka Asian longbean).

When I got home, I planted the stuff just as it was beginning to rain. The thunder rolled in and I finished just in time. Now we've had a nice downfall. Rain for another day or two so I don't have to water anything.

I'm on the couch with my favorite blanket. Chilly but not cold - just right. Cozy.

[Update:]
The storm passed quickly and blue sky followed. I took a sun nap. The sun is setting with wispy high clouds showing gaudy orange, pink, purple and blue. I could go outside to work on my latest construction project, but I'm not gonna. xoxo

Un-cloched

The covers are off the plants from last night. I've brought in the containers that still have bottoms so I can cut them off (sunlight and ventilation). They'll go back to the garden to protect the little plants. They make a nice windbreak, keep the soil damp, and keep the plants warm. I've seen nearly everyone else use them, but I wasn't really clear about the purpose.

I found an article. Thank goodness Google can turn "plastic plant cover" into "cloche". Google "cloche" and french bells, hats, and plant covers turn up. I just happen to be watching a very old movie and I've just about decided I need to make a cloche hat for myself made from knitting I've fulled.

I've also started a mental plan to make the climbing frame sturdy. It's OK for peas and cucumbers, but the squash will tear it apart and pull it down from the weight.

It's supposed to rain most of the weekend so my chores are few as long as it stays warm enough.

The International Incident

Bought 80lbs compost/manure, stakes, veggie climbing web and a couple of plants. The climbing structure is assembled and looks so good! I riched-up some of the soil and planted onions. I sketched out my plan for the garden with a hoe. The neighbors approve, but not of what I will plant. Katie, my Russian neighbor asked me why I am so fat and suggested I play softball so I can get a man. Same as last year. Everyone shares one little garden shed to store all of their stakes, fencing, buckets, etc. Not everyone has "unpacked" so the rest can't get their stuff. There was also a loud skirmish over tomato cages and ownership - yelling and carrying on for over an hour and it continued after it was fixed. The angry one (no one else was yelling) told me "they" are all "big." Bad? "Yes, bad. All bad, Jennifer. They all bad" *sigh*

The garden is going to be tilled on the 21st.

I wanted a full plot, but I only get 1/2 because it's all sold out. The guy in charge said "we are old people" "next year, you take my garden, I don't want" and the unspoken - maybe someone will... die. It cost me $3.25. Seeds are coming along gangbusters - soybeans freakishly so. Garden neighbors were pretty hard on me last year for wasting space. It's gonna be loaded up this year. Dad's gonna help me with climbing structures and manure.