Heather's Garden

Bastard Garden No More

Known as the bastard garden and long an area for dumping stuff (composters, empty trash cans, leftover bricks, tree branches, dying plants), the space behind the shed was getting pretty overgrown.  This photo is from May, so you can only imagine how much more the brush and trees have grown since then:

And this is a shot from last year (before we got the floor into the shed and organized all our crap.  It's a terribly shady photo, but hopefully you can see the trees in back of the shed:

Because now they're gone:

 

I think finding the tire back there spurred Lee into cleaning up this area that has been annoying me since we started gardening.  We're going to create some sort of leaf bin back here, perhaps partially anchored on that tree trunk.  The two slabs of old concrete and big rock were too big for Lee to move by himself and we're not sure where that leftover poured concrete came from, but think it might be from when we had the patio put in.  Lee's going to see if he can dig it up:

And speaking of digging up...Jim, you were right, apparently we did grow that tire:

 

And while Lee did all the heavy labor, I earned the not so big bucks working away at my computer.  I did take a couple of breaks over the past few days (few and far between, very busy at work right now), but during one break I spotted this swallowtail way down at the end of the garden on an aptly named butterfly bush:

I only got off two shots before it flew away, but wow was it a beauty:

 

A little later the same day I found this Monarch on a zinnia in the patio garden:

 

And this bizarre spider near the double-lounger.  It's less than a 1/2 inch long:

 

Anyone know what it is?  I can't find anything like it online:

 

We've finally fallen out of the high 80s/low 90s and Lee feels like cooking again, which is good since our kitchen table looks like a farmer's market.  Last night he made a frittata with our own zucchini and lilac bell pepper plus not our own onion and garlic:

 

A delicious Black Russian tomato, our own golden oregano, and more of that lilac bell pepper plus not our own Yukon Gold potatoes (can't wait to try ours though!), fresh mozz, fresh grated parmigiano-reggiano, and eggs:

 

Is your mouth watering yet?  Mine is just looking at this photo:

 

And there's a leftover piece in the fridge!

Well This Is Interesting

I don't know what Lee was doing in the bastard garden while I was harvesting veggies, but he called me over to find this:

Yes, that's a tire in the middle of the place where we've been composting leaves.  Apparently a few treads were sticking out of the ground and Lee dug it up pretty easily.  I'm not sure what that means for our composting leaves or how it escaped notice until now.  We're growing our potatoes in soil from that area (right about where Lee's feet are), is it going to be unsafe to eat them?  Because you know we're eating them regardless.  Also unexpected, but a much nicer surprise, is the self-sown edible ornamental peppers that are popping up all over the place.  Here, in the gravel driveway, they're actually flowering:

 

I don't know that I would have spotted this tomato horn worm without the bracnoid wasp cocoons all over it:

 

It was on one of the Black Russian tomato plants, so we cut off the branch it had already stripped and moved the whole thing to the driveway, where Lee reported it died the following day (though it traveled about a yard before expiring):

 

I pulled all the carrots (and included my freshly pedicured foot in the photo for scale).  We were really disappointed by the small carrots which were kind of bitter.  But tasty enough cooked with some dill and butter:

That might be the last cucumber (this was Friday's harvest), but we'll definitely have another harvest or two of beans:

 

I was so excited to find the lilac peppers turning red on Friday:

 

One was no good due to some sort of rot or ickiness, but the other joined a huge harvest of tomatoes today (golden oregano is for the frittata we had planned for supper, which is also why I harvested the pepper, but will actually be tomorrow's supper instead):

 

So the raised veggie bed has the dying cucumbers, some basil, and a lot of nasturtiums left:

 

Now I need to decide what kind of fall crops I'm going to try this year.  Our first frost is usually late October or early November and I'm not afraid to try and push it with blankets, nor am I afraid to lose crops.  I'm definitely going to do some kale and spinach, but I also think I'll try some zucchini even though there's probably not enough time left.  The package says 55 days to harvest so even if I give them an extra 5 days for the weaker fall sun, that still would mean zucchini in mid-October.  Beets, carrots, and radishes for sure.  Any suggestions?

I'm Too Tired To Take a Shower

Day 2 of the marathon to finish the garden was another perfect day to garden--sunny, but right around 70.  I admit I slept until 10am.  Have I mentioned here that I'm a night person?  Unfortunately gardening at night requires too much equipment.  VPH suprised me by putting on gardening clothes right after we all had some bagels and heading right outside.  And SS2 shocked me by following him out the door even though I told him he didn't have to -- what a great guy!  He and VPH had the hosta/rhododendron bed weeded and mulched before I even came outside:

 

And the Mother's Day Garden too (though VPH still needs to fix those rocks on the upper right): 

 

When I came outside they asked me what to do next.  I suggested digging and screening some more compost and as we headed back that way I got distracted by the pile of tarps sitting on the gravel patio.  So we all moved our cars out of the driveway and laid out the tarps.  SS2 rinsed them off with the hose and we left them there to dry.  I just wanted to tell you this because it illustrates how easily I'm distracted in the garden and because I love that VPH insists on keeping this tarp that used to live under the big pop-up shed.  It stuck out a little on each side and he was forever catching the corners with the lawnmower: 

 

On to the compost...since I wasn't doing the heavy labor today I snagged a photo of the menfolk at work.  VPH is calling himself a dirt farmer now:

 

I added some of the finished compost to the top of the patio tomato plant since the soil level was rather low.  But now I'm a little concerned because the water just sat on top of it and it looks kind of clayey.  I hope it won't be a problem, but I'm going to have to keep an eye on it:

VPH and SS2 filled another 2 trash cans with finished compost and then came over asking for another task.  I set VPH to placing the big rock that used to be in front of the little pop-up shed in front of the shed.  He used some of the finished compost to build up because we wanted the rock to serve as a little ramp to make it easier to get the mower in and out of the shed.  I like this photo because you can just see SS2 laughing at his father right before he was excused with thanks for his hard work (and he even went inside and did the dishes -- love that kid!):

 

I think he did a great job getting it pretty close to level and building up the left side (the yard really slopes here and although we did our best, we didn't get the shed 100% level, but it's pretty squared up).  He even put down some grass seed.  Can you see the two patio boxes are in place on either side of the shed now?  So much better:

It's still not as neat and organized as I would like back here, but it's getting there:

VPH was then excused as well and I did fun stuff!  Four fingerling potatoes in the large pot and the basil perpetuo in the little container 'cause it's right near the front door: 

Four fingerling potatoes in the large pot and two more in the smaller one.  This is my little experiment to see if they grow better with the hilling method or a full container (just like I did for the red potatoes): 

 

Speaking of the red potatoes...they're coming up all over the place in the wooden box:

 

And the black plastic container:

At this point I really should have planted the marigolds in the veggie garden, but for some reason I just wasn't feeling that job.  I think it was planting the pesto perpetuo that got me thinking about herbs.  Before I knew it I was transplanting like crazy.  First I tucked some Red Rubin basil into this pot (everything else had successfully overwintered in it):

And some Large-leaf Italian basil into this one (you'll remember that the others were here already):

Then I went nuts with this year's configuration of the herbs in pots by the patio:

The golden oregano overwintered in the large container above and this is some that was spreading there (it creeps on top of the soil and roots as it goes), so I just ripped it up and planted it in a little potting soil -- free plant!  The rosemary came home with us from Florida in December and lived on the kitchen table for a few months then moved outside in March. The tarragon successfully overwintered in a pot outside (and started growing in March). The Bee Balm (a gift from Layanee when I visited her garden 2 summers ago) also overwintered. I grew the dill from seed started inside in March. I bought the lavender in March and planted it in April.  The parsley and basil are starts purchased a few days ago and planted today.  The cilantro was also grown from seed started inside in March.  I had a lemon thyme that overwintered, but I am going to use it elsewhere because it's growing too slowly and I want one here that's good-sized already:

I think this is now my favorite part of the garden with the herb pots, clematis from the boys, and lupine starting to bloom:

So now I have this left in addition to the lovage and basil seedlings (some of which are growing great, but others aren't doing so well):

And only the herb barrel to play around with:

I had just enough energy left to get one more job done.  The dead branches and leaves of the ivy have now been removed, its rapid new growth pointed in a good direction, and stapled in place until it affixes itself properly:

 

When I finished that I noticed that I finally have flowers on some of the peas.  This is the Snowbird variety and the package says 58 days to harvest.  They were planted on March 18th, but they didn't show up until the beginning of April, so I'd say they're right on schedule if I count from when the seedlings emerged:

 

I really was too tired to shower, but we got so much accomplished.  The to do list now reads:  

·     Plant marigolds and potatoes

·     Plant beans

·     Mulch: Mother’s Day garden, hosta/rhododendron bed, veggie garden,  perennial shade garden

·     Finish herb pots/barrel

·     Build compost cages

I should get the marigolds and beans in tomorrow evening, but I'm not entirely sure that the perennial shade garden needs any mulch and the compost cages may not get built this year (I've only had the materials for 2 years now, so there's not exactly a rush).  I will definitely get the herb barrel done, however I'm not too sure where the lovage is going (though now I'm thinking somewhere down near the potato cans at the end of the veggie garden rather than the herb barrel) and there has to be a significant redesign of the barrel planting.  I can't believe we're this close to done.  I don't know what I will do with myself after we finish.

I Don't Think I Enjoyed A Minute Of The 3 Hours I Spent In The Garden Today

It was all work and none of it fun.  VPH, SS2, and I got started outside at the crack of noon.  First the three of us worked together to move the massive stone from behind the shed to in front of the raised veggie bed.  It was so heavy and the moving of it so scary that I didn't take any photos of the process.  Then I set SS2 to moving bags of mulch out of my car to their destinations and VPH to digging a hole for the big ass stone.  I headed into the veggie garden to plant.  But it turned out VPH needed help with the big stone, so the only thing I planted today was the Black Prince tomato plant to replace the Hillybilly one I broke the other day:

Then I helped VPH flip the stone in and out of its hole, got it leveled and flush with the ground and then evened out the leftover soil and spread grass seed.  The stone is still covered by some soil and probably will be until the grass starts to come in, but it's nice to have it all leveled out and a dry clean spot to stand while I play in the bed:

Then while SS2 watered the veggies and I started planting the fingerling potatoes (also not completed because I was called away to help with something), VPH started the brick project.  I know, Mom, that you are dying to see what we were using the bricks for, but I'm not sure the end result will be worth all your excitment.  I present our brick and mulch platform for the double-lounger.  Bricks because we had them on hand, mulch because it's cheap and the soil here is very thin, so as the mulch breaks down it will enrich and add to the soil vs. another inexpensive option: pea gravel which would just add more rocks and you know we don't need those:

You can see in the photo above that VPH and SS2 set to work mulching the veggie garden.  Doesn't it look great:

We excused SS2 after 2 hours because we're nice like that.  And VPH and I went back to the bastard garden (otherwise know as all the shit behind the shed).  He's been throwing branches, leaves, and whatnot back there for years, even Christmas trees before we started gardening.  I figured there's a few feet of great compost back there and I'm sick of buying potting mix.  He wasn't so into the idea, but he loves me, so he grabbed a shovel.  I bought a few feet of 1/2 inch hardware cloth ages ago to build a compost screen to place over our wheelbarrow, but I haven't gotten around to building the frame for it yet.  I can tell you it worked just fine laid over the top of the wheelbarrow.  VPH shoveled onto it as I lightly pushed the compost through, saved the big fat worms, and removed all sorts of debris ranging from large sticks to rocks to broken glass -- you bet I was wearing heavy rubber gloves as I did.  Here's the hole we made today:

 

And the trash can full of finished and sifted compost.  We would have filled it all the way to the top, but we could barely carry the can at this level:

 

We did manage to get it over to the end of the veggie garden by the potatoes with the top safely on.  I'll try to remember to open it up and wet it a little every once in a while so the worms don't die, but hopefully the potatoes will grow so quickly that I'll need it before too much longer:

 

There's still some more mulching to do, and in fact I think we will need another bag or two before we're done.  Clearly we could spend a lot of time digging and sifting compost.  But I want to get some fun stuff done tomorrow too or I might not be able to motivate myself to go out to the garden.

IT ONLY TOOK A YEAR

Saturday brought another glorious day in southern CT.  It's forecast to be 77 here on Wednesday...77!  But then on Friday we'll go back down to the normal high 50s and low 60s.  It's really hard not to get ahead of myself in the garden.  So instead of playing with plants that don't need fussing (none of our perennials are ready for dividing), I decided it was time to finally turn our attention to finishing the shed.  You may recall that the shed was delivered last April and we finally assembled it in October.  Well we didn't get around to getting the plywood floor in before it got really cold, so we used a huge tarp we had on hand and locked it for the winter.  VPH emptied it all out:

 

And off we went to Home Depot for the floor.  Some complicated math (it just fit into our car cut into 4 pieces) and $50 later we had our floor.  Even better, it fit the shed perfectly:

 

Then the tough part of the project...cleaning out the old pop-up shed.  Something got into the birdseed over the winter, the roof ripped along the ridge-line, and well gross.  I'm just glad we had stored the chair cushions in the new shed for the winter:

 

We sorted into keep, give, and trash with me doing the grabbing inside the shed.  It took a while, but it was well worth the effort.  I moved the very last set of shelves towards the door of the empty shed and screamed:

 

Four mice:

 

They scurried around as frightened as I was:

 

We moved over to the patio to give them some space to escape, but they didn't go far.  I even poked at this one with a stick and it still wouldn't leave the marsh marigolds along the front of the shed:

 

VPH shoveled most of the seed out into the garbage and I threw this photo up on craigslist.  Someone's supposed to come pick it up on Tuesday.  I love it when people will come pick up our garbage!  I offered the tarp too, but not the bungee cords.

 

We decided that items that we used once or twice a year didn't need to be in the shed, so this stuff will go into the basement.  VPH loves that rake, but it's too tall for the shed:

 

Look how much we got in there and how nice and spacious it feels:

 

The chair cushions take up a lot of space, but we had room for the leftover plywood from the 2 sheets we had to buy, our large garden tools, and the lawnmower:

Then we have outdoor living items like the chairs in a bag, large serving dishes, furniture covers, pinon wood, scrap wood for the firepit, candles, citronella torch fuel, smaller garden tools, and tucked into the corner the leaf-blower/sucker and weed-whacker:

Some landscape fabric and the ridiculously large tarp are drying out on the gravel patio:

 

We still have to do something with all of this stuff behind the shed.  Some of the containers will be used for potatoes, some for compost, but a good bit of the haphazard compost pile will be dug out and used for the new raised bed we'll be building soon.  I'd like to replace it with this fun project I found, but modified to fit the space:

 

And then I celebrated the end of a very productive day with the first fire of 2010: 

I have a feeling I'll be sitting out there again soon!
  

OVERHEARD

I live on a small one-way street and in the summer we keep our windows open.  We don't get many people walking down our street so when I hear people outside my Mrs. Kravitz comes out.  Sunday afternoon I heard quite a ruckus and turned around to see what was going on outside.  It was a group of about 6 adults clearly enjoying the break in the rain with a walk.  And then as they passed the house I heard: "That's pretty."  I saw several of them turn and look back at this view:

"Oh, yes it is." 

Well my heart swelled. 

I also took advantage of the lull in the rain by walking my garden for the first time this week.  I really have no idea how much rain we've gotten, but I did just read that the area has received more than 2.5 times the norm for June already.  But even with only rare sunshine some things are blooming.  Lamium:

 

My first blooming dahlias!  It's the micro-mini plant:

But the Bay State Angel isn't too far behind:

There's nightshade in the bastard garden:

The hydrangea:

Which is just loving this weather:

It's funny that all of a sudden the Japanese painted fern is showing color since I was lusting after these on the garden tour last week in other people's gardens.  Who knew I already had one:

 

VPH can't get over the grass sprouting on top of the blue stone after the dirt and seed washed down in the first of the torrential downpours: 

 

I really must get mulch down, these beans turned, and string trellises up:

 

Something's eating the heck out of the scarlet runner beans, but I remember the morning glories were hit just as hard in this spot last year:

 

And the vegetable garden (complete with weeds) is growing like crazy:

 

If the rain is keeping me out of the garden, at least its not keeping me out of the stores.  Some new garden additions include glow-in-the-dark stepping stones (the white parts glow):

 

I thought it was cute that the moon glowed on this one:

This one is a little too cutesy for me, but buried under the grass the cheesy inscribed saying isn't too noticeable:

And the local garden center was selling perennial herbs for $1/each.  How could I not buy a few, or eight?  2 peppermints (one is for my friend Mary), 1 pineapple mint (which has one albino stalk), 3 purple sages, and 2 lemon sages:

And you think I'm kidding about the rain?  Any idea what this is:

Did you guess the bottom of my bird feeder?  Not sure what I'm going to do about this yet, I'd kind of like to see what plants we'd get:

 

How's your garden surviving the deluge?

NOW THAT WAS A SPRING DAY

I can't imagine a nicer way to spend Mother's Day than finally working in my garden -- can you believe we went 24 hours without rain?  The rain and Sunday's wind really did a number on the tulips:

 

But there are still some beautiful tulips blooming:

 

With the wind I had a hell of time getting this one in frame:

 

The birdbath is back in the patio garden now that I'm reasonably certain there are no more irises lurking under the mulch:

I've found that nothing grows really well in the ground in this spot.  Too much competition from the tree roots I think.  So this year I'm going to take advantage of the sunny spot and grown a bunch of herbs in small pots here.  Front row from left to right is lavender, rosemary, basil, and spearmint.  Back row will be cilantro and dill (both are still tiny seedlings), and all the way on the back right is the other lavender:

I like this visual representation of all that I planted on Sunday:

The husky cherry tomatoes are in: 

 

I purchased 2 "plants," but one of them had 2 tomatoes growing in it (chosen specifically for that reason), so I carefully divided the roots and planted them each in their own containers.  If you look very close, you can see all three containers in this photo:

I've started the side garden.  3 petunias in hanging containers and 2 large ceramic planters are done:

The large container on the right above may turn out to be my very favorite this year.  It has purple fountain grass, coleus, and sweet potato vine and that seemingly blank spot is actually the micro-mini dahlia:

But I like this one a lot too!  It also has purple fountain grass, sweet potato vine, perilla (very similar to coleus), and Marguerite daisy:

Here's another example of VPH saving a plant I've given up on.  This hosta used to be in the perennial shade garden, but I pulled it last year for an astible.  I told VPH to compost what I thought was the dead plant, but apparently he planted it on the hillside near the bastard garden instead:

 

Can you see it all the way over on the left:

 

My friend Mary is giving us some more hostas and SS2 gave me the best Mother's Day present ever!  So this azalea will shortly join a bunch of hostas on the hill:

I've still got all these dahlias and herbs to get organized.  All the herbs are either going into the 1/2 wine barrel or the large blue ceramic container like last year.  I have no clue what I'm going to do with all the dahlias:

All in all a great start, but OMG I still have so much to do!

BEFORE MY ARMS GET SO STIFF I CAN'T TYPE

VPH really did most of the "heavy lifting" this weekend, starting on Thursday.  Luckily his school vacation (have I mentioned he teaches?) coincided with the first truly lovely days we've had this spring.  Call us wusses, but we're not gardening unless it's over 55 and sunny (or over 65 and cloudy)!

He got rid of all the leaves along both sides of the house on Thursday (believe it or not, we actually have more grass this year than we did last year):

For one reason and another I didn't end up helping very much on Friday despite taking the day off of work specifically to do so.  But on Saturday I jumped right in and cleaned up the Endless Summer hydrangea:

My next task for the day was to get this garden cleaned up:

 

First VPH vacuumed up the leaves for me:

 

But then I cleaned up all the old grass and day lily foliage by hand and weeded the rest of the bed (I hate marsh marigolds so much):

So much nicer, but I think I'll wait a little while to put down fresh mulch:

I also planted a bare-root clematis in front of the right-hand trellis.  I had planned on planting two, one in front of each trellis, but when I opened up the package only one was in there.  We'll see if the one I planted actually grows.  I may have to buy more mature plants down the road. 

I just love sitting on the patio looking at all the happy daffodils (the tulips look to be a day or two from blooming):

I did find a remnant of the wildflower garden, a lupine, growing in front of the row of bulbs and I decided to leave it and see if it actually blooms for me this year:

Speaking of unexpected flowers...this is right smack dab in the middle of VPH's bastard garden.  Anyone know exactly what it is?  About 6-8 inches tall and in such an awkward spot I couldn't bend over to see if there was a scent.  It sort of looks hyacinth-like to me:

 

The sad looking broken bamboo fence is now down, soon to be replaced with a 6' tall x 16' wide reed fence and VPH has cleared all the leaves from this area (the hostas are hiding under all the marsh marigolds):

The forsythia is in full bloom:

I think this mum is coming back, but I think it's highly unlikely that I will go to the trouble of finding a sunny place to keep it and waiting all the way until the fall for it to bloom:

The Branford fern is all fiddle-heads: 

 

The cute little astilbe (and yes, the perennial shade garden needs weeding and mulch desperately):

 

Today (Sunday) I planted up 3 new containers with shade perennials for the side of the house by the grill where the trees were removed.  Bare-root hostas and astilbe predominantly, though you can just see the creeping jenny that overwintered in a hanging planter on the top right (creeping jenny has turned out to be just about unkillable in my garden):

 

I can't say yet if I'm going to like this area or not.  I'm planning impatiens in any blank spots for all the containers and we still have to put the grill back.  In a month or so I should be happier:

There is much work still to do.  Including locating and probably transplanting all the perennial herbs like this woolly thyme:

Finally cleaning up the vegetable garden and prepping containers for new plantings:

And the biggest job of all...assembling the new shed, which VPH and I are both dreading.  It's in this box (now covered by a weighed down tarp), the foundation is in a box in our kitchen and its anticipated location will be the site of the current ripped shed at the back of the garden:

Our plan is to assemble the foundation on the gravel patio, get an accurate measurement and then build a simple gravel base surrounded by 2x4s just like the gravel patio, build the shed on our nice level concrete patio, and then move it to its final location (which will hopefully be level).  This will be our most ambitious plan to date and you can clearly see why we're not excited about doing it.  It may quite possibly be put on hold until SS2 comes home from college and can help out.

I PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE BROKEN THIS INTO 2 POSTS

But since I haven't posted much lately, you're going to get it all.  VPH had promised our neighbor (whose fence is the one that figures so prominently in our garden) that he would move the huge leaf pile in the bastard garden off of the fence.  Said neighbor thought the weight of the leaves was pushing his fence over.  VPH and I disagreed about the weight issue, but I agreed that the leaves should be moved away from the fence.  In addition to moving the leaves about a foot away from the fence, VPH cleared the area next to the shed where we're planning to build a leaf bin with chicken wire and wood posts:

Along with the trunks of 4 Christmas trees past, VPH dug out this pile of trash including a jump rope, and yes, he thought it was a snake too:

Still protecting VPH's anonymity, but I was impressed with how dirty and sweaty he got back there: 

I wasn't sitting around on my hands while he worked.  I started off the day by taking down the greenhouse.  VPH has since weeded this whole area so it looks even nicer now than when I took this photo:

Then I went to work on the wildflower patch.  I just found out that Dame's Rocket has been deemed an invasive plant in CT and is banned.  Didn't know that when I scattered the mixed seed it was in over a year ago.  And I've seen it growing along the road around the corner, so I'm not too worried about it, but the blooms had faded, so I chopped them down (and left VPH a nice pile to shred for the compost):

I'm happy to report that some other flowers are blooming in the wildflower patch and it doesn't look that bad from the right angle:

When I started gardening that day this bud in the wildflower patch looked like this:

And by the time I finished it looked like this:

I love how this same flower looked next to it when I started:

And at the end of the day -- it almost looks like a different flower:

Then I attacked the herb barrel with my Felco pruners and scalped the chives, parsley, and thyme:

Did you know that if you stick freshly cut cilantro in a glass of water, it will stay fresh?  Did you know that you can freeze freshly cut chives and thyme without any prep and they'll come out of their freezer bags practically fresh?  Well that's what I read anyway, I'll let you know if it actually works:

The zinnias have buds at last:

The morning glories are finally taking off:

The hydrangea is showing definite signs of blue flowers:

Now we can turn our attention to the veggie garden.  I've got teeny tiny little tomatoes forming on the Sweet 100 cherry tomato:

And the Husky cherry tomato (or did I confuse the photos?): 

The Kentucky Wonder beans are doing great despite being nearly hidden from view by the zucchini.  I guess I'm doing the 3 sisters, but substituting the fence for corn:

This little guy startled me as I was trying to photograph pea blossoms:

I did manage to photograph the snow pea blossoms too: 

The peas are taking their sweet time and the Brandywine Pink tomatoes are making a break from their temporary containers, so I had to come up with a different plan:

These pea containers will instead be home to our second planting of carrots and I went out and bought 2 more containers for the tomatoes and I swear I will transplant them tomorrow or Friday at the very latest.  They'll all live together here on the sunny edge of the gravel patio:

Speaking of the carrots...they're out of control:

They got so big so fast that I couldn't resist pulling one out to see if they were actually carrots yet.  They are!  Little tiny carrots, but oh so tasty:

The whole veggie garden on Tuesday:

I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but we've been getting lots of downpours lately and after the last one, the cucumber and the Royal Purple Bush beans were a little on the floppy side.  I will use the wooden trellis from the peas for the cucumber and the bush beans weren't supposed to need staking, but bamboo and Velcro garden ties to the rescue:

And here's a handy little tip for you.  If you're using your very sharp Felco pruners to cut Velcro strips and you suddenly meet resistance, that's your hand.  At least my blood matched the handle (and in case you were worried, it was a minor cut that isn't even showing signs of infection despite my dirty hands when it happened and the fact that I kept working):

Along with the 2 new plastic containers I picked up for the tomatoes, I bought this gorgeous astilbe.  And it was begging for a new pot, so why not buy 3?  The plant was only $6 and all 3 glazed pots came to $41 -- how could I not buy them:

I don't have specific plans for the other 2, but I do still have this whole tray of seedlings to plant up:

And a potting table of other random plants needing a home:

We also rescued these purple rhododendrons from the red dot shelf at Home Depot -- 50% off of $6.99 each.  One will go next to the shed in front of the leaf bin, maybe 2.  The other might be squeezed into the rock-bordered bed of hosta and 1 pink rhododendron near the patio:

So there is my ridiculously long post on everything we've been up to so far this week.  If it ever stops raining long enough to let the seedling tray dry out enough for me to work with the plants I will be able to do some actual gardening.  Weeding is so boring!

THAT LIST IS GOING DOWN

It was a red letter day in Heather's Garden -- my vegetable garden is done!  And I crossed two more things off the To Do List:

-Transplant zucchini/plant nasturtiums

-Transplant cucumbers/plant nasturtiums

I was shocked when I pulled the zucchini out of the seed tray -- look at the roots on those things:

Here's the other container with the nasturtium seed packet.  I planted seeds in four spots in each container:

I was not as impressed with the roots on the cucumber seedlings and I expect 1 or more to fail so I planted all 4 seedlings together in the middle of the container.  Nasturtium seeds were planted in three locations around the edge:

I wasn't happy with the way that the peas were growing anywhere but up the bamboo poles and I had been trying to come up a better system.  The problem with growing peas in containers is that anything that is narrow enough to fit into the pot isn't tall enough.  The wooden trellis was perfectly sized, but the posts were too thick for the peas to wrap around:

I stumbled across these metal wire trellises for $5 each and I jumped all over them:

I would have pulled the wooden trellis out, but it was good and stuck:

The Little Marvel peas are living up to the little part of their name, but they got new trellises too just in case there is a growth explosion:

Now I only have to wait on the Red Peter peppers and the Brandywine Pink tomatoes to get big enough to plant (which could be another month).  But basically the vegetable garden is the way it's going to be for the summer.  Woo-hoo!

I've been resisting giving into my favorite addiction -- buying herb plants.  I'm growing 2 different kinds of basil from seed and I have chives, oregano, spearmint, and sage that successfully overwintered, so I really don't need that many new ones, but I want them all!  I've been pretty good about walking past a small container of basil for $4.00, but when I found this sage for $1.89 and the 4 basils and 1 thyme below for a total -- that's a total -- of $4.19, I couldn't resist.  I'm pretty sure that the basil in the back row labeled Purple Ruffles is in fact African Blue (I'm 100% sure it's not Purple Ruffles), but for $.79 I didn't mind not knowing exactly what it is:   

Those six herbs join the rosemary, thyme, and actual Purple Ruffles that I couldn't resist buying already.  I have to plant up the herb barrel and I intend to do a hanging herb basket like I did last year, but I'm still mulling over what I want to plant where:

When we were cleaning up the garden last month I didn't feel like trying to separate the Goldilocks (Lysimachia nummularia) from the dead stuff in the container so I just handed the whole thing to VPH for the bastard garden.  Well it's thriving back there and I'm going to ask him to fish it out for me.  I think it will look great split in half and wedged into the planter table:

So you can see how the shade hanging basket up high on that tree is completely at the correct height when viewed through my very dirty living room window:

I gardened on Monday from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm.  Remember that 7:00 pm end time.  I was cleaning up and putting away my tools when I heard a sound to my right.  I half turned to see which birds were attacking the feeder now and saw a big furry animal.  Wow, that's a big cat I thought quickly and then screamed when I realized that it was a raccoon about 8 feet from me.  It ran parallel to me along the fence towards the potting table and our cars in the driveway.  I carefully made my way to the front door checking to make sure it wasn't hiding under the steps waiting to bite my ankles and told VPH the raccoon was back.  I grabbed my cell phone to call the non-emergency line for the police and took some photos of the raccoon sneaking into my neighbor's yard from the safety of my front steps:

Did you note the BRIGHT sunlight that the raccoon is walking straight towards?  It was 7:00pm -- way before dusk.  The police asked if it was foaming at the mouth?  No.  Staggering around and tripping over its own legs?  No.  Do you know where it is now?  No, it ran into my neighbor's yard and I lost sight of it.  Well if you see it again during the day give us a call and we'll come down.  I can totally see me chasing the raccoon down the road telling the police dispatcher, "Now we're turning north on Main Street."

You can bet I'm not going outside without my cell phone in my pocket any time after 4:00 pm.

THIS IS MAY?

Another cold cloudy day -- not even 50 degrees out there.  I thought I'd be planting up my annuals by now, putting tomatoes in and enjoying the patio.  Maybe next weekend...

We headed outside this morning because our landlord was coming over to pick up all the crap that VPH had pulled out of the bastard garden over the past year and do a dump run.  For those of you unfamiliar with the bastard garden -- it's the space behind the big shed at the back of the garden where VPH rescues the past their prime plants that I tell him to compost.  Our compost bins are back there as well as a gigantic leaf pile.  Previous residents of this home obviously used this space as a trash dump:

Much better:

Lest you fear that no plants are growing, I present PEAS:

And the tiniest, littlest, loneliest sweet pea (it's at 9 o'clock):

In seedling news: another basil popped up, the probably chives are coming up gangbusters, carrots and dill are looking great, another sunflower is showing signs of popping up, and the other peas are doing great too.  No signs of life with the morning glories -- I guess they really do mean 14-21 days to germination.

My next project:

No wonder the herb garden was always too wet.  I will be drilling LARGE holes in the bottom of the barrel (I'm embarrassed to admit that I did drill holes last year, but not until after I filled it with dirt and plants, so the holes are about 2 inches up on the sides).

You knew I would go back to the store where I found those great ceramic glazed pots and buy some more (l-r: $1.50, $5.00, $8.00):

I don't know what I'm going to put in that crazy reflective one or where I'll put it, but it sure is fun imagining  the possibilities.

I had a $15 credit from the garden club at Van Wilgen's (how could I have possibly spent $300 there in one year?) so I picked up this organic tomato and vegetable fertilizer for $10:

I think I'm resolved to filling the large veggie containers with 2/3 the potting soil from last year, 1/3 new Farfard potting soil, and using this fertilizer from the get go as recommended on the package.  I just can't afford to buy all new potting soil that's not Miracle-Gro.

And for the other $5, I got these pretty coleus which will brighten up the shady side of the house once I figure out what I'm planting them in and whether they'll have company:

I also hit IKEA with a friend for lunch on Thursday and couldn't resist two adorable lanterns (which hold block candles that I already have).  I particularly like the spike in the middle to hold the candle -- I can actually envision hanging them by the handle from an umbrella spoke or on a shepard's hook:

Their likely new home:

I'm itching to really get going.  This in between time is killing me!  How are you coping? 

SPRING HAS SPRUNG

It was so beautiful today that we just had to go for a walk this afternoon.  Our neighbor across the street has the nicest lawn on the block.  He has a garden in back, but I've never had the courage to take him up on his offer to go over and pick zucchini and cucumbers whenever I feel like it.  But his forsythia bush is screaming spring at us as we walk out the front door daily:

We walked a different route today, one that I've never taken on foot before (except during a big snowstorm one winter when the roads were awful and we were dying for eggs).  I couldn't believe how beautiful these trees were.  It's a little tough in the photo to see the huge magnolia in the background, but it was the largest I've ever seen:

The 10 houses before this one and the 10 after are big lawns and foundation plantings, so this one sticks out -- in a good way.  I imagine a sweet old lady has lived in this house forever and she loves her spring flowers like she does her cats:

There's one thing from our walk that I couldn't show you.  There's an amazing garden -- and I mean amazing -- that we passed by.  I took photos from the sidewalk, but the garden is obviously the resident's pride and joy and I wouldn't feel right posting about it without asking permission first.  I plan to walk down again tomorrow, so hopefully I'll catch the homeowner out and about and be able to share its beauty with you.

Back from our walk now...I picked up these clay pots (25 of various sizes) from my next-door-neighbor when he had a tag sale at the end of the summer for $3.00.  I'm having a wonderful time deciding what to plant in them:

And yes, you spotted the last bag of that horrible Miracle Gro potting mix in the above photo.  I'll use it for non-edible plants, like the sunflowers I plan to grow in those 6 large pots.  I know they may be kind of small, but it's an experiment.  In case you're wondering what I'm using for potting soil this year, purchased for the ungodly sum of $15.99 a bag at the good gardening center, I present:

And for fertilizer...I finally found WORM POOP!  It was at Home Depot of all places.  I even got lawn fertilizer so the weed and feed is officially not being used this spring (but maybe in the fall).  Genie will be so proud:

VPH spent all day yesterday cleaning up the few leaves he missed in the fall.  He is such a trooper.  Now I just have to weed the perennial shade garden and put down fresh mulch.  I also purchased 3 bleeding hearts to plant in here -- just above the 3rd rock from the bottom:

VPH also did some work on the wildflower patch.  Note the wire fence on the patio that will go in front of the patch to try and keep the flowers from flopping over onto the patio:

See why this area is problematic for me?  It's all coming in very sparsely.  And I wasn't that fond of the out of control flop over in the rain and general chaos last year: 

I've got two options here --

1.) Leave it be for a month and see what develops.  If I don't like what I see, I think we're going to rip it all out and put in a perennial flower garden, even bulbs for early spring development next year.

2.) Use the perennial wildflower seed and poppy seed I have to fill in the blank spots and live with the chaos for another year.

I'm definitely leaning towards option 1.

VPH also cleared the leaves from the perimeter of the yard exposing the day lilies:

And you know how much fun he has playing in the bastard garden!  He pulled all the garbage out of the ground and piled it to the left and pushed the yard debris pile back against the fence.  He plans to put grass seed on the bare ground and do a dump run soon:

 

My forsythia bush and the weeds in full bloom.  You can't even see the bed with hostas and the rhododendron in front of the fence: 

The opposite side of the forsythia, cause I'm just digging on it:

In case you were wondering why we let the poison ivy grow out of the stump -- it's for privacy:

The lights from the gazebo are going up on Freecycle:

I've been cleaning up the veggie garden bit by bit.  When I went to tidy up the trellis planter that had tomatoes in it, I found a little surprise.  At one point last year I had planted garlic in a row in front of the tomatoes.  It didn't do well and I ended up pulling them all, or so I thought!  I can't believe one survived to stand tall front and center:

You have to look really, really, really close to find new growth on the oregano, but it's there:

We have big plans for tomorrow.  Planting the rest of the seeds, building trellises, finishing the garden clean-up, over-seeding the lawn in time for Sunday's rain, etc.  What will you be doing in your garden this weekend?

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?

SO IT WASN'T AN OLD SCHOOL TV ANTENNA

In this post on some of the junk we've found in the yard I guessed that the item on the right below:

might have been an old school TV antenna.  A few days later on her fantastic blog, A Study in Contrasts, Kim wrote about Urban Excavating in her yard.   I left her a comment and a link to my tale of urban junk and she left me the following response:

Okay, after leaving a comment on my own blog (after reading your comment and this link) I had to go online and search to see whether or not I was crazy, thinking your "antenna" might be a rake. Check this out:
http://www.photos.com/en/search/close-up?oid=4089222&hoid=f50832d34afd63e624b0e7902819c031

Maybe I'm not crazy! (Or at least, not in regards to this. lol.)

I immediately asked VPH if he could pull the TV antenna-like object out of the trash barrel in back of the shed the next time he was out there composting.  "You mean the old wooden rake?" he responded.  Guess who's not reading my blog.

So, Kim, you were absolutely right (and I don't think you're any crazier than the rest of us), it is an old wooden rake complete with one whole tine still attached:

I don't see any way to use this neat old tool in my garden that wouldn't seem like I was littering my yard with broken crap.

Any ideas?

REALLY FRIGHTENING STUFF

I mentioned a while ago that VPH had pulled a lot of junk from beneath the bastard garden.  Now that the mosquitoes have died back a little, it was finally safe to go back behind the shed and document the horror.

We really have no idea what the items are other than rusty junk.  VPH suspects there is an entire motor vehicle down there somewhere and he's pulling it out piece by piece.

Plenty of old fencing and a trap of some sort?

A tail pipe and 2 moving blankets?  Not to mention the apparent grill rack:

Is that an old school TV antenna? 

Now we just need to figure out what to do with all this crap.  I told VPH he should call the landlord and say look what we found, use your truck to bring it to the dump.  But for some reason, he's not jumping to do that.  I don't want any of that crap in my car and some pieces are too big for our vehicles.  I'm not sure why he started pulling stuff out either, but do you ever really know why men do anything?

Finally this spider is easily 2 inches tall and has spun and re-spun a web between the shed and the compost bin.  It completely freaks me out!

And it's missing 1.5 of its legs, what is ballsy enough to take 1.5 leg off of a mammoth spider like this?  VPH actually traps bugs elsewhere and transports them to this spider to feed it.  Ugh, gross, kill it!  But I'm trying to love spiders since they take care of problem insects for me. 

AT LAST...BEANS

I've harvested about 12 beans to date, a few at a time.  Yesterday, at last, I got a handful at the same time.  Do you think I took the time to take a photo?  Nope, I was running back to the office after lunch and just handed them off to VPH.  By the time I arrived home that evening, they were already prepped for cooking.  But oh, what a meal he presented:

Yup, that's a Tuscan lamb chop skillet: lamb chops with cannelini beans, stewed tomatoes and a side of our own green beans and a local farmer's zucchini in a balsamic vinaigrette reduction.  OMG it's insanely good!  One of my favorite meals and just smelling our rosemary makes me want it!

I'm working on a couple of things garden-related.  One is a post about all the stuff that VPH has pulled out of the bastard garden this week -- I'll tease with a photo of trash can full of crap -- note the bicycle frame. 

I'm pretty sure Friday is going to be the day that I pull apart the herb garden and start planting things in the ground to overwinter creating an herb garden between the shade garden and the wildflower patch.  I will carefully blog that process for your reading pleasure.

Make sure you come back to visit!

YUP, I'M JUST THAT BORING

Just a reminder of where we left off yesterday:

We took a trip to our local garden center on Saturday with 5 specific goals:

1. Buy a fern to replace the bleeding heart that was decimated by some sort of animal (perennials were 25% off).  Preferably a tall fern and not one that costs $20.

2. Get some annuals to fill the planter table because the current contents look like crap.

3. Do not come home with mums -- you don't like them -- even if there is nothing else at the garden center DO NOT COME HOME WITH MUMS.

4. Find some seedlings for the empty container in the veggie garden.  Not the ornamental kale that is advertised as on sale, get something that is actually edible.

5. Do not buy any herbs.  You don't need them, they're at the end of their season.  There isn't a lot of selection.  Just pass by without looking!

3 out of 5 isn't bad.  We got a great plant called a Branford fern which was developed right here in Branford, CT and it was only $6.50.  Then I left you hanging on which 2 of the other 4 goals we had accomplished.

Remember how awful the planter table was looking last week:

I had very lofty ambitions for this planter (which actually holds 4 smallish self-watering pots).  I was going to find some beautiful fall plants and put together something with lots of color and varied heights, foliage, etc. and so on.   Then we got to the garden center and found mums, mums, and more mums.  There were a couple of ornamental kale plants and a few ornamental peppers.  Yeah, this wasn't working out the way I thought it would.

I wandered around and finally found a few plastic patio boxes that the garden center had planted up and advertised as fall color.  No mums in sight.  VPH and I liked one of them very much and despite feeling like we were cheating, we decided to buy it.  It was a little bit smaller than the planter table, so I decided we would need a small plant on either side of the planter.  Yup, you know what I bought -- mums.  I couldn't help it, they were the only plant of that size and shape available.  And they're purple, well they were marked as purple, they're not in bloom yet, so we'll see.  Even with the mums, we are really happy with the way the table looks now:

The two end pots of the original plantings were still doing pretty well, so I snapped the bottoms back on them and, as you can see above, put them on either side of the table.  Here's a close up of the planter table:

See, the mums aren't that bad.  Unlike these sad, half-dead plants:

Which moved into the bastard garden:

So that's check on the fern, check on annuals for the planter table (though not exactly how I had envisioned it happening), and a big fat failure on not bringing home mums.

On top of that, the local garden center didn't have a single vegetable seedling, not one.  So now the question is what to put in the empty large container.  The only seed I have on hand is for lettuce (which we didn't eat in the spring -- it's off to the left out of frame of the photo above) and snow peas (which I have growing in two places already).  Any recommendations?  If not, the bell pepper in the smallest container is probably going to move in.

Our last goal was to come home without any herbs.  Unfortunately this one was rather easy to accomplish.  I guess it really is the end of the season, the selection was poor and what they did have looked awful.

Altogether accomplishing three out of the five goals isn't bad.  One was beyond my control -- the garden center didn't have any vegetable seedlings, who'd have thunk it?  And I only came home with 2 little mums and they're purple and green.  You know how I am about purple and green in my garden!

I'm going to take a couple of days off from blogging to enjoy what may be my last chance to sun with my husband and hang out with girlfriends at restaurants by the beach without a jacket.  Back on Green Thumb Sunday.

THE SHADY SIDE OF THE HOUSE

First, a quick update on items just hanging out there.

Today's harvest (4 tomatoes, 8 beans -- what do you do with 8 beans?, some purple basil, and our first vine-ripened habanero):

See honey, I told you that outdoor shower would come in handy!

I removed all the leaves from the sage plant that showed signs of powdery mildew.  I find it extremely odd that the pile of diseased leaves was larger than I had expected and that the plant didn't end up looking completely bald:

VPH mixed up a solution that I found on-line, which of course, I can't find again, but it was hot water, baking powder, and dish detergent.  I hope it works.  I would love to use neem oil, but I can't find it in a local garden center and purchasing it on-line doubles the cost with shipping and I just can't justify the expense to myself.  I'll keep looking for it and maybe I'll be able to pick some up during a fall sale on-line. 

The ugly tomato moved to the bastard garden:

I guess I haven't explained in a while that it only exists because VPH hates to destroy living plants.  So it's sort of a way station on the way to the composter.  Any time I say "Honey, please pull that plant and put it in the compost," -- because I can't bear to do it myself, he says, "Can I put it in my bastard garden?"  And since it's behind the shed and out of sight, I really don't care what he does back there. 

We took a trip to our local garden center on Saturday with 5 specific goals:

1. Buy a fern to replace the bleeding heart that was decimated by some sort of animal (perennials were 25% off).  Preferably a tall fern and not one that costs $20.

2. Get some annuals to fill the planter table because the current contents look like crap.

3. Do not come home with mums -- you don't like them -- even if there is nothing else at the garden center DO NOT COME HOME WITH MUMS.

4. Find some seedlings for the empty container in the veggie garden.  Not the ornamental kale that is advertised as on sale, get something that is actually edible.

5. Do not buy any herbs.  You don't need them, they're at the end of their season.  There isn't a lot of selection.  Just pass by without looking!

3 out of 5 isn't bad.  We got a great plant called a Branford fern which was developed right here in Branford, CT and it was only $6.50:

This is the time of year where the western side of the house gets about 20 minutes of sunlight right around the time I'm home for lunch so I finally got a decent shot of the shade garden:

Can anyone explain why the slugs love this hosta (I think that's slug damage):

And they totally ignore this one just feet away:

While I'm on this side of the house, the impatiens are doing a lot better (and I just gave them a little fertilizer so I expect more blooms):

This one's a little blurry:

 

I have to say I'm really proud of how the shade garden turned out and I can't wait to see the plants start filling out next year.  I think I may still add some astilbe for color in the spring in the shade portion of this garden, but I'm not doing anything more with it now and I kind of want to keep it a perennial garden, so I have more research to do over the winter.  I also have to figure out what's going in the sunny portion at the end of the walk over the retaining wall, but I have all winter to decide between herbs, vegetables, or flowers.  I'm not going to try heather again, I read that it's really finicky in my climate and I'm pretty sure my soil just isn't right for it.  Oh well, I knew not everything was going to make it through the summer.

Are you dying to know which 2 of the other 4 goals we were able to accomplish?  You'll have to wait until tomorrow.

WILL I EVER BE GOOD AT COMING UP WITH POST TITLES?

These are the last of the photos that I took on Monday.  I did pick up the camera and shoot some new stuff today, but since you haven't been staring at these same photos for 3 days like me, you'll probably enjoy them!

Monday's harvest:

Which did not include this habanero (what the heck invaded this pepper?):

We tossed it in the compost pile, just not appetizing at all.  We've got so many tomatoes that we want to make salsa to freeze, but we really want to be able to use our own habanero peppers rather than buying some.

And this poor guy just rotted right on the plant:

Quick update on other portions of the yard -- bastard garden:

The geranium is really loving it there and the cherry tomatoes are actually ripening.  However, I hit this area with a mosquito bomb Saturday morning before the party, so VPH will never get to taste one of his cherry tomatoes.

These sunflowers are about 6 feet tall and I cut off the right-hand bloom yesterday -- man was it ever heavy, no wonder they fall over:

The third purple hyacinth bean is finally blooming:

And lastly, Ashley's rose is really looking good:

My draft folder actually contains 3 posts in various stages, so maybe, just maybe, the dry spell is over.

WEEKEND RECAP

Continuing to think about how I and others write our garden blogs, today I'm going to use all the photos I took this weekend and see if I can come up with a coherent post.

I'm still trying to show the scale of the yard.  Can you see VPH roasting himself on the far right? 

The reverse angle from the driveway just past VPH:

I like this slightly different view of the vegetable garden since I rarely walk to the back of the garden to look at it:

VPH can't stop telling me that the geranium is blooming in the bastard garden:

Speaking of plants growing where they are clearly unloved...this fern popped up in the gravel driveway, and I need one for the shade garden, so I'm hoping it will thrive now that I've rescued it:

I'm pretty sure that there's too much fertilizer in the stupid Miracle Gro potting soil, so I'm worried that the fern will suffer the same problems as the previously thriving beans seem to be:

The peppers are doing great -- one red bell pepper harvested:

It's been sitting on the window sill since Saturday and now it's completely red.  Two of the habaneros are showing signs of ripening like this one:

On a completely different topic...mom wanted to know how the hyacinth beans were doing:

Loving the purple there and loving the purple here:

This is hidden in the wildflowers.  Way on the bottom left of this photo (but I can't see it):

I love the sunflower front and center of the above photo:

And since we're on the topic of loving...VPH loves me and we both love the dish that he made us Saturday night.  We're trying to come up with interesting ways to eat our tomatoes -- I know, nice problem to have.   He made a lovely rigatoni with fresh tomato and basil -- yum!

So what do you think -- okay post for such random photos?

R.I.P. Zucchini

As I wrote several times last week, the zucchini was definitely on death watch, it days numbered.  Friday afternoon's harvest - basil, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, chamomile:

After the harvest I tried to sit with my feet up and enjoy the garden and only one thing kept catching my eye:

 

I couldn't take it anymore - those sad, droopy, yellow leaves.  I jumped up, pulled all three plants, and tossed them one by one into the bastard garden.  When I pulled the last zucchini plant the stem snapped and I actually caught a glimpse of a squash vine borer.  So at least we know what killed them.  R.I.P. zucchini.  You weren't prolific (7 zukes), but you were fun before you started dying.  Now I hope the squash vine borer doesn't jump into my pretty unknown vine that looks squash-like to me.  Maybe I should have thrown the pulled plants into the garbage instead.  Oh well.  They're way back there and I'm not climbing on top of that pile to get them. 

As I've said before I really didn't notice that much difference in taste between the zukes fresh from our garden and those from the grocery store, but I won't have to worry about it for a while because our neighbor across the street is one of those people who has planted tons of zucchini and is looking for a sucker to take them off his hands.  We have an open invite to wander into his backyard and help ourselves to zukes and cukes.  We'll see if either VPH or I feel comfortable enough to do so.

Like many people, I spent Saturday afternoon reading Harry Potter Book 7.  I enjoyed it very much, but no spoilers here in case you haven't finished yet.  Every time I looked up I saw the empty planter calling out for action.

On Sunday I was finally able to turn my full attention to the garden.  Netting went up on the fence for the Kentucky pole beans to climb (most of the following photos were taken on Monday in the rain; the bright, sunny ones today):

Why are the leaves on these beans so much lighter?

Same beans, same potting soil, same amount of sun.  It's a self-watering container, could they be getting too much water?  Should I be worried or is this just one of those things?

VPH shoveled the old potting soil out of the planter (keeping it in an old garbage can for the fall lawn experiment) and I filled it up with new potting soil.  Then I planted a row of beans along the back to grow up the trellis and a row of snow peas to grow up the bamboo and string trellis I built in front.  It will look a lot better with plants growing on it!

So with the veggies squared away, I turned my attention to the various problems I was having with the annuals around the garden.  The red geranium and the sweet potato vine in this planter weren't doing great (you'll remember this photo from July 14th as my Green Thumb Sunday posting 2 days ago):

The geranium had stopped blooming and the sweet potato was losing leaves at a rate of 2-3 leaves per day, just turning brown and dropping off.  I also was never really happy with the arrangement I had planted in the right-hand tea cup planter:

It was overcrowded and unbalanced and as it grew it sprawled and developed large blank spots (look how old this photo is with healthy zucchini and peas in the background). 

I also had a hanging planter that was a combination of leftover plants and alyssum which never bloomed that looked dreadful and bothered me every time I looked at it.  I just went back through my files and I don't even have a picture of it, that's how much I disliked it. 

One trip to W-Mart and a local garden center later, I replaced the alyssum with some beautiful miniature petunias:

I pulled the sweet potato vine and geranium and replaced them with a different variety of celosia and some of the old celosia from the teacup planter.

But today I switched the pots around and came up with this.  Not sure which I like better and I have a feeling I will keep switching them around:

This coleus works a lot better in the teacup planter:

 

I moved these flowers that I grew from seed -- labeled "early bloomers" and I'm not sure how much longer they're going to last, and they're not exactly giving me tons of cut-flowers as the package promised either -- from a hanging planter on the fence to this pot on the little bistro table by the driveway:

And planted this pretty pink flowering pentas in the hanging planter:

I plopped the geranium in a pot and left in a sunny spot, maybe it will bloom again.  I've been very careful to deadhead it and there's plenty of new growth along the stem, so maybe it's just a lull in blooming. 

Then I took the sweet potato vine, which may have been suffering because it roots were severely overcrowded, and some leftover plants and threw them together in this pot:

We'll see if it bounces back with some room to grow.  If it doesn't perk up soon it will be headed to the bastard garden with the others that didn't make the cut on Sunday:

VPH is actually planting things in the pile of dirt now instead of just throwing them on top, of course now that we have the compost, fewer things are landing here.

A good afternoon's work and overall I'm quite pleased with how things are going.  I do wish we had even a hint of a ripening tomato, but nothing yet.  I do however have true leaves on the dill:

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!