Heather's Garden

ONLY A MONTH OR SO LATE

The rainy month of June put us behind on a lot of our garden chores and many of the plants behind in growth.  All I can say is we'd better have a mild fall to make up for it!  It took a while, but we've finished nearly all the garden chores and the plants are behind the norm, but catching up.  The hosta/azalea bed is done:

The hosta/rhododendron bed looks great:

He not only mulched, he made us dinner!  VPH and the perennial shade garden:

  

Yummy mustard glazed pork, grilled zucchini (wish we had our own zukes to eat), and brown rice:

 

The veggie garden on May 16th:

 

On July 9th:

Let me take you for a little tour...always left to right.  Bush beans, carrots, habaneros and Brandywine tomatoes:

Habanero, dahlia, lilac bell pepper, dahlia, lilac bell pepper:

Same lilac bell pepper, scarlet runner beans, carrots, habanero, carrots, Kentucky Wonder beans, purple bell pepper:

Black Russian tomatoes, bush beans, peppermint, lilac bell pepper, Perfect plum tomatoes, habaneros, and another dahlia:

The Green Zebra tomatoes are one of my favorite things in the garden right now.  They're so beautiful in their blue pots.  The planter table looks great too with Royal Purple bush beans, nasturtiums, and the one cucumber that survived the rain:

A close-up of the gazillion blossoms on the Royal Purple bush beans:

We have teeny tiny eggplants growing:

 

This nasturtium is blooming despite it's 2 relocations (note to self--a little grass seed here wouldn't be a bad thing): 

 

The marigolds are doing their job and attracting pollinators to the tomatoes on the gravel patio (calendar-worthy, no?): 

 

I think we'll have a daylily bloom on the other plant tomorrow.  I have this sneaking suspicion that it's yellow:

 

These are our old trash containers.  I hate to replace them, but both have gaping holes in the bottom and no longer do much in the way of holding trash or keeping the raccoons away from it.  Rubbermaid apparently would replace them (they're less 3 years old), but only if I had the receipt.  You'd better believe that I kept the receipt for the new ones.  We will drill more holes in these and use them for composting:

 

We're enjoying the garden and being able to spend time on simple maintenance like weeding rather than looking around and seeing all the things still undone.  We still have the shed project and a couple of other little things to do, but really, we're done.

WRITING THIS WITH THE WINDOWS OPEN

And I can't tell you how much I'm loving it!  It's been absolutely glorious here since Friday.  I'm starting to get tan!  More importantly, I have completed garden clean-up and I've got a nice blank canvas ready for planting:

 

And VPH mowed the lawn/marsh marigolds:

And cleaned up the patio (I cleared out the herb barrel saving any perennial herbs that survived the winter):

All the better to enjoy our awesome bulb border:

And the pretty marsh marigolds in bloom until the leaves on the trees fill in and they die:

I'm so loving the tulips (now appearing in yellow and orange):

That I can't stop photographing them:

I find it so peaceful sitting on the patio staring at this border, listening to the wind chimes, and watching the grasses move in the wind.  I wanted to share the experience with you, so I've uploaded a short video here.

Someone still has to weed this bed, though you can see that the hostas have come back, and the fence is down.  The reed fence we bought was too see-through and we won't be using it.  I think we're just going to have to deal with seeing the neighbors since we can already hear them:

In the perennial shade garden I've got bleeding hearts:

 

And fiddle-heads:

 

VPH has lots and lots of stuff to cut into small pieces for compost:

 

The grill is back in its proper location, but I can't get over how different the space feels without those 3 trees.  Granted, the leaves and brush haven't filled in yet and the marsh marigolds have yet to die:

 

But just compare it to what it used to look like:

Much bigger now, no? 

I just watched the weather for Tuesday, 80s at home, 90s at the office (62 miles north).  This is just odd for CT in April.  Then we're back down to the 60s (normal for this time of year) on Wednesday and hopefully then I won't feel so much like I'm behind on my gardening.

NOT SO LAZY SUNDAY

It was really cold and cloudy yesterday -- just 55 degrees.  I hemmed and hawed and whined, but bottom line we took Saturday off and there was garden stuff that had to get done.  First up I had to get that spearmint divided and back into pots.  I split it in half and put half back into the original pot.  Then I split the other half in two and put it into 2 smaller clay pots:

I've been planning for a while to empty out the large herb barrel.  If you're a long time reader, you'll remember that I screwed up and put heavy garden soil and a little potting soil in the barrel last year.  It never drained very well and most herbs like dryish soil.  So the chives had to come out.  I gave them a little haircut first and then realized the clump could easily be divided:

These pots are temporary -- just waiting for VPH to empty the barrel for me before I start a new herb garden.  I love that there are a bunch of buds on the chives already:

Excuse me while I have a ball photographing the chives:

The lavender is staying in this pot for good:

The parsley will hang here for a little while:

I decided to use the mid-sized pot I bought on Saturday for the 3 bleeding hearts I had hanging around.  I cut a piece off a screen from the gazebo to help the soil stay in the pot:

Last year I planted a bleeding heart in the perennial shade garden (pardon the native plants, I've been waiting for it to rain before I weed and put down fresh mulch), but it died not long after.  I read that bleeding hearts die off in the summer heat, hence the pot.  If these don't do well, I'm going to find something else to plant in that spot: 

I'm happy with this, in fact, I think the pot looks really pretty there...I'm just anxious for the fern to grow large enough to be visible:

I finally got around to drilling holes in the new metal garbage can.  Now we can start a new compost bin in it and let the other one finish turning into black gold.  I'm hoping that it will be ready in time to use on our tomatoes.  Now I just need to remember to pick up a bungee cord to hook from handle to handle through the lid handle:

I did sneak in a little work on Saturday after our walk.  I took down the dead bean vines from last year and the netting from the fence.  This is the last portion of the garden where VPH needs to clear leaves.  He also needs to find the bag of lime in the basement and get it down on the lawn.  And someone needs to weed over here -- any volunteers?  Not one of my favorite tasks:

We're supposed to have 2 days of rain -- for which I am very grateful after 2 weeks of none at all -- so I don't anticipate getting much done in the early part of this week.

The to do list is rapidly shrinking.  I keep telling VPH if we just get a little done each day we'll be finished before we know it.  I haven't told him that we'll never really finish, but I think he's already figured it out!

BLOG ACTION DAY

When I signed up to be part of BLOG ACTION DAY weeks ago I had a specific idea for a post in mind.  Fast forward 2 weeks and we haven't done a thing in the garden except relax!  So here's an old post on being greener with updates in bold.  Enjoy!

IT'S EASY BEING GREEN (well, greener)

Ah, Kermit.  I loved the Muppet Show -- Animal was my favorite.  I wonder what that says about my personality?  Are you all singing the theme song in your head along with me?

Working in the earth (okay the potting soil) has made me think about what we do with our garbage.  I'm embarrassed to admit that to date we really haven't been recycling much more than our newspapers.  Cans, bottles, etc. have gone into the 50 gallon garbage cans willy nilly with little guilt.  We've been throwing most of the yard waste behind the big shed into this enormous pile:

VPH calls it his bastard garden because he's usually the one in charge of throwing debris in it and he takes a great joy in seeing weeds (pardon me, native plants) starting to grow on top of it.  Since there's so much poison ivy and God knows what else in there, we don't plan to actually try and use it for anything.  From what I read, even if we don't turn it, wet it, or look at it sideways, it will eventually decompose on its own.  It shouldn't get too much bigger because we've done all the brush clearing that we plan to -- remember it isn't our property -- and I like the woodsy edges which give us a little privacy from the neighbors (allow me my illusion, people).

Gardeners seem to be a pretty laid back group until you start talking about gardening organically.  Then they aggressively try to convert you to their side.  (Or at least they do on-line, I've yet to meet a gardener in person who has waxed poetically about the satisfaction garnered from organic gardening.)  I like Miracle Gro, it makes me remember working on the roses in our yard with my mom when I was little.  Making the green water and carefully splitting it between each bush, then watching them miraculously bloom more...good times.  The organic gardeners win -- I'll start composting, recycling, and I'll try to wean myself from Miracle Gro.  Does that mean I can't use their potting soil?  I like their potting soil. 

UPDATE: I do not like their potting soil and I will not use it again.  Nasty icky stuff.  In the spring I will probably ask my local garden center to sell me some large bags of what they use in their containers.

Step one in going greener (imagining us living completely green is impossible and frankly laughable as I sit on the couch in front of the air conditioner, typing on the laptop, and watching TV) was giving up bottled water.  This one made sense.  We have city water here and it tastes disgusting to this girl who was raised on tasty well water.  We've been spending gobs of money on 5-gallon fridge dispensers and refills for the past 9 years.  Recently I sat down to do the math.  We were conservatively spending $180 a year on bottled water -- probably more.  A water filter for the faucet in the kitchen plus a year's worth of replacement filters was under $90.  Guess who's loving their new water filter?  Thank you, Dooce, for the motivating post.  And this all transpired before Live Earth and every news program started harping daily on bottled water being the new evil.  I love being on the cutting edge.

UPDATE: The threads on the piece of plastic holding the water filter onto the faucet are stripped (turn on the water and the filter falls off) and we've been searching for a metal replacement.  We haven't found one that will allow a washer to fit inside the faucet, so for the moment, we're back to gallons of bottled water and it's a pain.  I am planning to visit a real plumbing supply house on Friday instead of a big box store -- keep your fingers crossed!

Step two is recycling.  My excuse for this one was ignorance.  When we moved into this house (again, 9 years ago) there was a blue recycling bin with the trash cans, but no instructions.  Okay, so if I really cared, I would have called town hall and asked what could be recycled.  Better late than never, I did a little research and they now have a great website that answers all the questions you could ever have about garbage, recycling, and composting in our town.  It's ridiculously easy to recycle, of course I say that as the person who neither cooks nor brings out the garbage, but VPH has promised to give it a shot.  To date, he has recycled at least 5 things! 

UPDATE: Recycling has become part of our normal routine, though it's frustrating how little plastic can be recycled.  What's up with the grocery store only carrying solid white plastic milk jugs and the town not accepting solid white plastic milk jugs?

Step three -- we've decided to give composting a try.  Since it's just the two of us most of the time (we've been lucky if we see the boys once a week this summer -- you'd think that working 30 hours a week was a fate worse than death), I think we can get by with the garbage can with holes drilled in it method of composting for now.  If we find that we can really stick with it and it goes well, maybe we'll graduate to a large container.  I'm also terrified that we'll attract all the raccoons that have so far left my garden alone (praise your deity of choice here). 

We have some ratty old garbage cans hiding behind the shed that I don't mind drilling holes into, but VPH declared that they are inappropriate for this purpose.  Something about not being sturdy enough and the lids are in pieces, which wouldn't allow for rolling the can.  So we bought a cheap metal metal garbage can and a 1/2 inch drill bit for my cordless drill.  That drill was the best 30th birthday present that a girl could receive -- at her request from her father no less.  I can't count how many projects over the past couple of years would have been impossible without that drill.  Really, between the drill and my $6.99 tool set from IKEA, I can do just about anything! 

I used my powers of plotting for good and figured out how to secure a lid on the garbage can to 1.) keep the varmints out; 2.) keep the lid on while we roll it daily (or more realistically every few days); and 3.) allow us to open the lid one handed and throw in our kitchen scraps.  We just threaded a bungee cord through the handle on the top and the handles on the side of the can.  Pretty easy really.

After I took this photo we lifted the can up on a few bricks left over from the retaining wall so the bottom wouldn't rust.  We threw leftover mulch in the bottom of the can -- some of the composting directions we found told us to put wood chips or sawdust in to help with drainage -- and layered in our kitchen scraps, garden debris, and shredded newspaper.  VPH threw in a bunch of worms from the "bastard garden" -- I don't do worms, I know they're awesome and I want them in my plants, but I just can't bring myself to touch one barehanded, though I'm okay in gloves.

UPDATE: No varmints and no rust!

Though VPH was adamant about "not keeping garbage on his kitchen counter top," I found this really cute container that matches the flour, sugar, coffee, and pancake mix canisters already on our counter top (all from W-Mart, and come to think of it, we haven't made pancakes in at least a year, so maybe it's time to put something else in that canister).  It is airtight and has a handle, so I think it's even intended to be a compost pail:

UPDATE: VPH is so good about emptying the compost pail often and rinsing it that we really haven't noticed much of a stink in the kitchen.  Our next debate is where to place the compost bin for the winter since trudging out to the back of the shed daily isn't going to happen.  Next to the garbage bins on the side of the house should work.

VPH is happily using it and very cutely asked me "what we are we going to do with the compost when it is done."  After much internal debate, I decided that it's going on the bare spots on the lawn where the contractor didn't get any top soil over the asphalt he buried out there.  As will the soil from my many containers in the fall.  That should be a fun weekend project.

So now we just have to keep at it and roll the can once a day, which kind of makes no sense to me.  Why put stuff in the bottom for good drainage if you're going to roll it around and mix it up?  I'll report back on our progress.

UPDATE: VPH and I are both astonished -- composting has more than halved the amount of trash we put out weekly.  We had no idea how much of our garbage was foodstuff.  Composting is awesome!  We're adding another container soon and once we get around to fall garden clean-up all the plant material will go in there.  We plan to let what we already have going cook over the winter and then in the spring it's going in the veggie garden mix.   I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to buy a compost screen or attempt to fashion something myself.

So there you have it, our 3 easy steps for being greener.  Have you been inspired to go greener or are you shaking your head that it's 2007 and we're only just starting to recycle?

IT'S EASY BEING GREEN (well, greener)

Ah, Kermit.  I loved the Muppet Show -- Animal was my favorite.  I wonder what that says about my personality?  Are you all singing the theme song in your head along with me?

Working in the earth (okay the potting soil) has made me think about what we do with our garbage.  I'm embarrassed to admit that to date we really haven't been recycling much more than our newspapers.  Cans, bottles, etc. have gone into the 50 gallon garbage cans willy nilly with little guilt.  We've been throwing most of the yard waste behind the big shed into this enormous pile:

VPH calls it his bastard garden because he's usually the one in charge of throwing debris in it and he takes a great joy in seeing weeds (pardon me, native plants) starting to grow on top of it.  Since there's so much poison ivy and God knows what else in there, we don't plan to actually try and use it for anything.  From what I read, even if we don't turn it, wet it, or look at it sideways, it will eventually decompose on its own.  It shouldn't get too much bigger because we've done all the brush clearing that we plan to -- remember it isn't our property -- and I like the woodsy edges which give us a little privacy from the neighbors (allow me my illusion, people).

Gardeners seem to be a pretty laid back group until you start talking about gardening organically.  Then they aggressively try to convert you to their side.  (Or at least they do on-line, I've yet to meet a gardener in person who has waxed poetically about the satisfaction garnered from organic gardening.)  I like Miracle Gro, it makes me remember working on the roses in our yard with my mom when I was little.  Making the green water and carefully splitting it between each bush, then watching them miraculously bloom more...good times.  The organic gardeners win -- I'll start composting, recycling, and I'll try to wean myself from Miracle Gro.  Does that mean I can't use their potting soil?  I like their potting soil. 

Step one in going greener (imagining us living completely green is impossible and frankly laughable as I sit on the couch in front of the air conditioner, typing on the laptop, and watching TV) was giving up bottled water.  This one made sense.  We have city water here and it tastes disgusting to this girl who was raised on tasty well water.  We've been spending gobs of money on 5-gallon fridge dispensers and refills for the past 9 years.  Recently I sat down to do the math.  We were conservatively spending $180 a year on bottled water -- probably more.  A water filter for the faucet in the kitchen plus a year's worth of replacement filters was under $90.  Guess who's loving their new water filter?  Thank you, Dooce, for the motivating post.  And this all transpired before Live Earth and every news program started harping daily on bottled water being the new evil.  I love being on the cutting edge.

Step two is recycling.  My excuse for this one was ignorance.  When we moved into this house (again, 9 years ago) there was a blue recycling bin with the trash cans, but no instructions.  Okay, so if I really cared, I would have called town hall and asked what could be recycled.  Better late than never, I did a little research and they now have a great website that answers all the questions you could ever have about garbage, recycling, and composting in our town.  It's ridiculously easy to recycle, of course I say that as the person who neither cooks nor brings out the garbage, but VPH has promised to give it a shot.  To date, he has recycled at least 5 things! 

Step three -- we've decided to give composting a try.  Since it's just the two of us most of the time (we've been lucky if we see the boys once a week this summer -- you'd think that working 30 hours a week was a fate worse than death), I think we can get by with the garbage can with holes drilled in it method of composting for now.  If we find that we can really stick with it and it goes well, maybe we'll graduate to a large container.  I'm also terrified that we'll attract all the raccoons that have so far left my garden alone (praise your deity of choice here). 

We have some ratty old garbage cans hiding behind the shed that I don't mind drilling holes into, but VPH declared that they are inappropriate for this purpose.  Something about not being sturdy enough and the lids are in pieces, which wouldn't allow for rolling the can.  So we bought a cheap metal metal garbage can and a 1/2 inch drill bit for my cordless drill.  That drill was the best 30th birthday present that a girl could receive -- at her request from her father no less.  I can't count how many projects over the past couple of years would have been impossible without that drill.  Really, between the drill and my $6.99 tool set from IKEA, I can do just about anything! 

I used my powers of plotting for good and figured out how to secure a lid on the garbage can to 1.) keep the varmints out; 2.) keep the lid on while we roll it daily (or more realistically every few days); and 3.) allow us to open the lid one handed and throw in our kitchen scraps.  We just threaded a bungee cord through the handle on the top and the handles on the side of the can.  Pretty easy really.

After I took this photo we lifted the can up on a few bricks left over from the retaining wall so the bottom wouldn't rust.  We threw leftover mulch in the bottom of the can -- some of the composting directions we found told us to put wood chips or sawdust in to help with drainage -- and layered in our kitchen scraps, garden debris, and shredded newspaper.  VPH threw in a bunch of worms from the "bastard garden" -- I don't do worms, I know they're awesome and I want them in my plants, but I just can't bring myself to touch one barehanded, though I'm okay in gloves.

Though VPH was adamant about "not keeping garbage on his kitchen counter top," I found this really cute container that matches the flour, sugar, coffee, and pancake mix canisters already on our counter top (all from W-Mart, and come to think of it, we haven't made pancakes in at least a year, so maybe it's time to put something else in that canister).  It is airtight and has a handle, so I think it's even intended to be a compost pail:

VPH is happily using it and very cutely asked me "what we are we going to do with the compost when it is done."  After much internal debate, I decided that it's going on the bare spots on the lawn where the contractor didn't get any top soil over the asphalt he buried out there.  As will the soil from my many containers in the fall.  That should be a fun weekend project.

So now we just have to keep at it and roll the can once a day, which kind of makes no sense to me.  Why put stuff in the bottom for good drainage if you're going to roll it around and mix it up?  I'll report back on our progress.

So there you have it, our 3 easy steps for being greener.  Have you been inspired to go greener or are you shaking your head that it's 2007 and we're only just starting to recycle?

Does anyone know what this mystery vine is?  We had it last year too.  I'm going to keep an eye on it and post more photos as it flowers.  I don't think it bore any kind of fruit last year.  It looks like a member of the squash/pumpkin family to me just looking at the leaves.  And my recollection is that the seed pods are star-shaped.  I'm glad it came back, it's a lot prettier than looking at the pile.

Zucchini count to date: 7, but only 1 female blossom coming and I'm really thinking that I need to pull them and plant beans and peas.  I may just do it this weekend if I can tear myself away from Harry Potter Book 7!