The Vegetable Garden

Hydroponics at Fox Valley Technical College

2012-01-15T16:55:00.015-06:00

Hydroponic Basil - think how easy pelletized basil seed would be to plant in the cells.
Tissue culture begins with meristematic tissue from a mother plant.
Once the individual plants grow they need to be separated and planted out.
Determinate tomatoes seem good candidates for hoop house production.
Indeterminate plants need to be de-suckered to successfully grow in a hoop house
Pollination means shaking the plants when in flower or finding bumble bees to do the job.
Each basil plant has its roots growing down in a solution that is pumped through the cells.
Personally, the parsley is a true experiment because the basil is more valuable.
Fresh and ready for pesto - very tender flavorful leaves.

I had a good visit at Fox Valley Technical College this last week and visited my good friend Jim Beard and the tissue culture lab and the hydroponic greenhouse. Both structures are devoted to not only teaching these skills but experimentation with them too.

The tissue culture lab had a number of specimens growing on culture media under fluorescent lights. Some of them showed signs of needing transplanting as there were multiple plants growing on the mediums. I remember how orchid tissue culture was quickly used to replicate award winning plants. This was especially useful for the first red cattleya and the first yellow phaeleonopsis orchids developed and demand for them made tissue culture plants one sure way to get exact plants of the award winners into more greenhouses.

The Fox Valley hydroponic house had indeterminate and determinate tomatoes growing in buckets and strung up on strings as they grew. Pruning the indeterminate plants was necessary to keep them growing on one main stalk - just like we do here in the summer tomato patch. There were also, as the pictures show, lines of basil and flat leaf parsley destined for the kitchens of the college.

The college has built a much larger hydro house that will be heated with insulated pipes in the floor. A wood burner outside the hoop house will heat the solution that will pass through the pipes and warm a brick floor and the hydroponic hoop house when its finished. I will be back down to Appleton in February and the house should be almost up and running by then.
All of this makes me want to invest in a home system to grow -yup- lettuce. If I had three or four runs with a dozen plants per run, with some good timing, we might be lettuce sufficient here in winter. Using fluorescent lighting and the ambient heat in the basement, the cost might be even with purchasing lettuce from the store. However, I would have to think mine was better. Pelletized seeds are becoming more and more useful all the time - no wonder I liked them from the beginning.

Always something to experiment with and try as each new growing season begins and maybe with hydroponics the growing season here in Wisconsin can be more productive in winter too.

Happy Gardening

January Explorations

2012-01-08T16:19:00.007-06:00

Not quite hydro because this system has soil but also has a water reservoir at the bottom of the pot. Still a great way for us to grow peppers is in the EarthBox system.

January is usually book and seed time with some thoughts about next seasons explorations too.
I like to check out the garden books at the library and see what I haven't seen before or what might give me a new bit of info. "Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener's Handbook" by Ron Kujawski and Jennifer Kujawski ($14.95 Storey)was a new one for me. I found the premise exactly what one needs to prepare and execute the garden success plan. The sub title is: Perfectly Timed Gardening for you most bountiful harvest ever - and I think with their plans it might work. The average frost free chart in the back of the book shows they are thinking about everyone not just their neck of the woods - western Massachusetts. I like it - maybe it will be on my shelf too.

The other book "The Vegetable Growers Handbook" by Frank Tozer ($22.95 Green Man)is a manual about 200 common vegetables with good information on each one - an introduction, nutritional content, soil, planning and planting suggestions, care, harvest and cooking suggestions and a few recipes. I just liked the format and all the information about each vegetable. Take a look at them both if you can and I think that you will like one for sure if not both.

Also this week a serendipitous trip took me into a new, for me, garden store here in town. Garden Supply Guys on the west side of Green Bay, off of Velp Ave ( 752 Memorial Drive) is a Indoor, Outdoor, Hydro and Organic supply place. (gardensupplyguys.com) What piqued my interest was all the equipment that is out there for the indoor grower. Way back when my greenhouse failed and became too expensive to heat through the winter; I built a light area in the basement which I still use. Shop lights and fluorescent fixtures with gravel filled trays became a place for me to winter over some of my plants and continue to grow orchids. That poor stuff is so primitive compared to what is available today. And along with improved light structures there is hydroponic equipment that is seriously tempting me. With some of the new systems of light and hydro setups I could have lettuce and herbs all Wisconsin winter down in the basement. The space requirements have been reduced and the engineering has improved so that it just looks like something that might be in our future here. Plus when I saw a guy in Missouri growing orchids in quarry caves I knew indoor gardening was here for sure.

Next week I have a visit to Fox Valley Technical College to get some more information and my good friend, Jim Beard, hints that a basic Hydro course might be in the works for next year at the college - might mean back to school for me - we'll see. For now its fact finding on hydroponics and what it all entails.
Happy Gardening

Looking Back at 2011

2012-01-01T15:09:00.042-06:00

Its time for those "First Steps" into the garden - Thanks to Vincent Van Gogh
Wake up time is January for the amaryllis.
They are the show stoppers after the Paper-whites.

One needs these for the early dark days of winter.
To be followed by the boldness of these.
The greenhouse in early April just after the heat is turned on for a month.
Spring pruning will bring on a good harvest.
The greenhouse heating mat on the job.
I planted more of these species crocus this fall too.
I have noticed more pellitized seed available this year - great idea.
My Grandmother's favorite spring flower.
Late spring storm that wrecked the 25 plus year old cedar trees.
But made for more growing space in 2012.
Pretty in pink.
Hoop house harvest.
Grow chives for all the native bees in your yard.
The 2011 tomato patch.
My little name lost mini geranium.
Greenhouse space is summer time cucumber space.
The pest that has arrived this year in my garden NEVER to go away.
Blue ribbon fair entry.
The chicken experiment that was not to be - Black Australorps.
My other grandmother's favorite flower.
Mini Zinnia "Profusion" aptly named.
There is not better garden fragrance than the Four-O'clock.
One of those potted fruit plants - Black figs.
Garden interruptions - for a week in Canada fly fishing for Northern pike.
Fresh harvest.
Dried for winter munching.

High winds took down the hoop house - so I built another.
My last flowers of the season were these.
2011 was a great apple harvest year - we are still eating them fresh even in 2012.

I think I will take you back through the year with a few repeat pictures because new snow on the ground makes looking at spring and summer more fun than ever.
I was given a copy of the 2012 Farmers Almanac and there was good interesting reading in the notes on 2012 trends - other kinds of pot plants than just tomatoes and peppers - fruits - maybe figs? A green tomato to look for "Green Envy" - the green salad tomatoes this year were good too. "Making the best better" about grafting tomatoes! Wow! what a great idea as we already know. A section on sunrise and sunset garden beds, one on noon-time shadow beds, and one about cardinal direction beds. Also a nice article about keeping bees, and one on growing under lights and with hydroponics too - all interesting. Check out a copy at the grocery or newsstand.
Happy Gardening in 2012

Cross-Country Twice

2011-12-18T16:31:00.005-06:00

I have seen the plants and habitats of eight states since my last post. Everything from the desert Southwest of Arizona and New Mexico; the mountains and evergreens of those states and Colorado; the plains of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas; the rolling hills, hardwood forests, and farm fields of Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois. For someone who is fascinated with the land and its plants both drives cross-country were times to observe and marvel at the flora and scenery - even though some of it was vastly flat and pretty monotonous. The ability to see ten to twenty miles flat ahead is just amazing. I also experienced all the weather those states had to offer, snow, dust storms, gale force winds, black ice, torrential rain in three states, and sunny blue skies.

As a result I have not had time to do much with gardening except to start paper whites three weeks ago and have them blooming for Christmas now. I even started another set this morning and hope to have them for after the holidays when I will be trying to wake up the amaryllis that are in the basement crawlspace.

Wow, I see that Johnny's is advertising pelleted onion and parsnip seed. I like the idea of onions in pellets but parsnip seems not to be practical since over seeding is usually necessary to get decent germination and the need for thinning is a fact for the home gardener. probably the commercial growers are where this product is aimed. Johnny's does supply to farmer's market growers, and they are into to production.

However, last spring I was not at home in time to plant parsnips so this is the first year in a long time that I will not have any for harvest at the end of the year - sadly. I will miss that harvest because cold weather makes parsnips a fantastic root vegetable.
Happy Gardening

2012 Seed Catalogs Here - Already!

2011-11-20T18:57:00.002-06:00

I was again inAZ for a while and when I got home in the mountain of mail were the first two 2012 seed catalogs. Now this is the absolute earliest they have ever come. Unfortunately, I did not collect them from the mailbox so I don't know which one was the first to arrive. But still, this is November and not like last year when Stokes came in December. One will have to get to these wish books along with the mountain of other catalogs that fill the mailbox at this time of year. Personally, it might be a bit early - what will we have to do in those cold January days if we have already gone through them by then? Maybe I'll just set them aside and wait until New Years Day.
Happy Gardening.

Strange Fruit Harvest

2011-10-30T17:46:00.008-05:00

Must be a season for strange fruits.
Pleasant surprise to find this fruit on a vine this fall - Got any ideas?
Make your guess before you read the text to see if you got it...
Strange seeds inside too. Yes the fruit is edible.

We have had several nights of real cold weather with frost on windshields and ice frozen in buckets so most of the outdoor growing season is done. I picked all the bird chillies and donated them to my local Asian grocery store - they were pleased to get over a gallon of fresh hot peppers. They are just the kind that are used in green papaya salad. Plus I gave my favorite grocer a jar of hot pepper jelly made from the same peppers - I'll check back in a couple of weeks to see how they liked the jelly.

Fall chores include the final grass cutting and application of fall fertilizer to the lawn. I don't fertilize grass more than twice a year as the basic result is that grass grows and has to be cut - not my favorite job. All the marigolds had to be pulled and so in the front bed I planted the seedling white Alpine strawberries that will be the sidewalk edge in the future. Alpines are great edgers because they do not have runners. The white ones will fool the robins and the front walk will had 17 strawberries fruiting most of the summer ( I hope).

I hope you guessed the mystery fruit in the pictures. I was surprised to find it and the seed inside reminded me of the shark egg cases one sometimes find on the beach - yes, it is a Mayhop Passion Flower fruit.
Happy Gardening

A Good Apple Harvest for 2011

2011-10-23T17:20:00.011-05:00

Last of the marigolds.
Part of the apple harvest.
These are Wolf Rivers - great for cooking
Good germination on the spinach crop.
Radishes mark the rows as they germinate in about five days.
These radish should make in 20 plus days.
These are tomatoes that sprouted in the cold frames - too bad kids, winter is on the way.

With cooler nights finally here and frost on the roof for the last three days it was time to harvest the apples crop. I was pleasantly surprised at the size of the Firesides - nice large fruits were the norm this year. I harvested everything off of all the trees and we have the vegetable bins in the basement refrigerator full, the small cooler and the large camping cooler full to the top and an extra five gallon pail full of sauce apples - ones that fell from the tree and are bruised. We will make sauce soon with those.
With the hoop house done I planted it before we took quick trips to Minneapolis and Chicago in the last two weeks. Everything is up nicely and most nights I leave the hoop house door open because the cool night air is good for the spinach seedlings. I did plant some radish seeds with the hopes of getting a crop before real cold weather sets in. So far so good. All the seed has sprouted and we should soon have true leaves on the seedlings and then hopefully the roots will swell into nice fall radishes.
The fig trees are inside the greenhouse and the Chicago has lost all of its leaves while the black fig still want to keep leaves - I need both of them to go dormant and soon. The amaryllis too need to go dormant so they will get no more water this fall and should start to cast off their leaves in a few weeks. Then I will put them all in the crawl space in the basement where they will stay till after the new year and they show signs of growth.
Happy Gardening

Sunny Warm October

2011-10-09T17:41:00.018-05:00

The chickens we gave away this spring are finally laying eggs - Thanks Beth, for the egg gift - GREAT dinner from our former feathered friends.
The hoop house in need of fixing.
The work station - I added more ribs in hopes of making the tunnel stronger.
This time I painted the ribs - foam brush worked the best.
Both ends got double plastic from one 8 x 25 sheet of 3 mil.
The rest of the covering will be a 20 x 25 sheet of 3 mil doubled stretched and stapled at the base.
The garden ready for winter.
The planting in the hoop house.
Green coated spinach seeds.
Apples stay in the plastic in storage so they do not shrivel.
Good ole Wolf River - big sauce apple.

Center tomato is a grafted plant - yes it does have a bigger root system than the other heritage type and grafting should do this - makes for more vigorous roots.

The warm weather continues and so that makes fall garden work much easier. The garden has been tilled and I dug the drainage ditch across to allow for water to run off next spring. I got the rest of the crocus and tulip bulbs planted and worked on rebuilding the hoop house this week.
I put more ribs in this version and got them painted to see if that might extend the life of the plastic covering. I tilled the soil in side and planted spinach, lettuce, and radishes in several rows but have not put the main cover on yet because I need a windless day to get that job done and it was somewhat breezy today. Plus I would like the seeds to have some sun and warmth before I cover the tunnel with plastic which will make for a fair amount of condensation in the hoop house.
The apple crop is getting ready to pick but I am postponing it as long as possible because the harvest goes into coolers in the garage and we need some cooler weather for that storage method. Most of the second crop of figs are not getting that big and the Chicago fig is dropping leaves and trying to go dormant. The black fig is much happier to be in the greenhouse so who knows how it will fare this winter.

I made two batches of hot pepper jelly this week. I used organic apple juice as the base and chopped the peppers fine and the resulting jelly is really good - nice bite to it. Yesterday I made another batch of apple sauce and this morning we had it on pancakes laced with hickory nut pickings and a drizzle with maple syrup - very nice.
Happy Gardening

A Sad Unkempt Garden

2011-10-02T19:49:00.011-05:00

These zinnias are still blooming nicely.
Tomatoberry is one of the few plants with fruit still on.
The winds did a number on the garden
And finished the hoop house.
I am still letting this watermelon grow as long as possible.
The Thai bird peppers are going to be for the pepper jelly.

My wife and I spent seventeen days in Flagstaff, Arizona working for my parents in the management of their home and getting it ready for sale. So my garden was left to fend by itself for that time and upon my return my garden was a sad site.
Overgrown and unharvested was the basic condition of it all. We have not had a killing frost but the tomatoes show just how much they hate cool nights. Most of the plants are done except for the Tomatoberry's and Candy which are still good. Both of the green grape varieties were poor this season and the Red Peach plants have fruit but most of it is still green and will never ripen. I think tomorrow I will take the tomato rows down and cart them off to the dump.
The hoop house fell victim to the heavy wind storm we had several nights ago. The 45mph plus winds shredded it. But some failure of the covering seems to have been part of the problem too. I had read that plastic on plastic was not a good mix and caused deterioration with time and UV. That seems to be the case so I will have to recover the hoop house and I make make some improvements in the number of ribs I have holding the cover.
The best crop still producing is the apple crop. we have been harvesting apples for over a month and the early fall varieties are now ripe with the later ones still on the tree. I made dried apples and a big batch of apple sauce - great on morning cereal.
The peppers in the EarthBox planters were ready for harvest and so I picked most of them and I am thinking about making some hot pepper jelly - great stuff.
Both the fig trees have second crops maturing so they have been moved into the green house in hopes that the figs will mature. Fall planting begins with bulbs as my order from John Scheepers Bulb Co. came and there are 270 tulips and crocus to get in the ground this month.
Happy Gardening

Hot Days and Cool Nights

2011-09-12T13:47:00.003-05:00

Fall has arrived with silence in the morning. In spring the number of bird sounds was constant and now about all one hears is the sound of crickets chirping the temperature. I have not heard a robin or wren in more than a week and although hummingbirds are still around, they don't make much noise.
This past week the big event was presenting a vegetable class at the Wisconsin Garden Club Federation Gardening Study School. Great location at the Elwood May Environmental Park in Sheboygan. Plus, I had an excellent attentive group with many great questions. I sure hope everyone had as good a time as I did. Thanks, Julie, for the invite.
The garden is winding down with fewer tomatoes and cucumbers to pick. The second crop of figs is growing nicely and I have two watermelons hanging through the trellis supported by pantyhose so with luck they will get ripe. As a result of the slow down in the garden and with apple harvest about two to three weeks away I might just take a short break in posting.
Happy gardening

Harvest and "Putting Up"

2011-09-05T20:54:00.020-05:00

More perfect amateur grown roses I have never seen at any fair.
These Zinnias were beautiful and a perfect entry.
These entries of Zinnias were great to judge.
"HUGE" does not really describe this Cockscomb.
And the veggies were nice too even though someone else got to judge them.
The poor man's - Seal-a-Meal process for my broccoli.
Just freezer bags and a straw.
Out goes the air.
And into the freezer.
The Tomatoberry was a great choice for drying.
The dryer tray ready for hot air - sun dried tomatoes over night.
The same tray in the morning - dried.
The whole dryer in a one quart bag.
Dilly Beans and peppers - Our "Putting Up".

Friday I spent one of the best days at a county fair I have had in a very long time. I was judging at the Shawano County Fair in class 15 - Flowers and House Plants. What a great display and more participants than I have seen in a long time. Not only were there many entries but they were good if not great entries. Noticeably, I saw the most perfect homegrown roses I have ever judged. I was very impressed with the perfection of the entry and they justly deserved the "Best in Show" ribbon awarded at the end. My photo does not do these flower justice - they were beautiful!
With the arrival of September the weather seems to have quickly decided to change. The threat of frost is in the forecast for northern counties in Wisconsin tonight - Frost! Oh No...
My grandmother would spend fall days canning the bounty of her garden and whatever anyone would give her. She would build a fire and cold pack her canned goods with that open fire instead of using her electric range - "costs too much" was her reason. That was her way of "putting up" for winter.
We did our "putting up" this week with canning, drying, and freezing our bounty. I have frozen beans and broccoli. I used the "air out of the plastic freezer bag" method - check out the pictures. The broccoli was not the best I have ever grown but frozen it will be OK during winter. I froze more tomatoes this week too. I think frozen is a good use of energy as we are not cooking them twice to make tomato juice or sauce. I only have to peel them with water and set them to cooking after they thaw and during the thaw I get rid of some of the water in them too. I did make tomatoes ( vegetable) juice too. I like to juice cucumbers along with the tomatoes and add the basil, parsley, garlic, and onion juiced instead of cooked. Some of the juice I will freeze just in plastic bags as it keep fine that way and is good.
We also did some drying of apples and tomatoes. Both will dry overnight and our research suggests that drying 6 trays costs about 25 cents. I really like the flavor of dried tomatoes. This year I used mostly the "Tomatoberry" variety as they are meaty and dried nicely. The entire dried batch filled one quart plastic bag and the sink was full of fruit prior to drying. As the apple harvest continues we will dry a major portion of that crop too. Dries apples are a favorite here and an easy way to store our crop. My wife did the real canning. She made "dilly beans' and she "put up" both sweet and hot peppers. The peppers are her crop and with the success of the Earthboxes she had a nice selection to can. All in all we have begun our "putting up" and all of these will be great additions to the winter menus.
Happy Gardening

A Week Away - And How the Garden Grows

2011-08-28T17:55:00.013-05:00

Shore lunch in Canada - fresh Northern Pike - FANTASTIC
The fragrance of Four-O-Clocks is one of my favorite summer smells.
Tomatoes and more tomatoes.
Big heads of Green Magic broccoli.
The luffa that covered my 8 foot trellis.
I think these vines grew a foot or more every day.
The Chicago Brown Turkey fig tree will give us nice figs for the next month - great tree!

WOW! leave the garden for a week and BAM - everything jumps. My wife worked hard to keep the garden picked while I was gone fishing in Canada but 2in of rain and sunny summer days will make everything leap. The fishing trip was back at Woman River Camp in Ear Falls Ontario - about 750 miles from home and in great fishing waters. I went with my brother, Dennis, by fishing buddy, Dick Schaal and the three of us had a great time - good fishing, great food, and lots of laughs. Only had rain one day out of six and one day that was really hot for late August that far north.
While I was gone the garden really started producing. Easily a half dozen cucumbers a day, great amounts of green beans, and the tomatoes really got ripe. Somehow I have quites a few determinate plants that I will cross off the list for next year. I even found two watermelons on the vine that I have since hung in pantyhose slings to support them on the trellis - now if they only have enough time to get ripe.
The fig tree is really producing and the peppers in the EarthBoxes are making a great crop. I really like those plants for peppers. They get plenty of water, are nice an warm on the greenhouse apron and no earwigs have found them - sounds like all plus marks for them.
The luffa gourds are taking over one trellis as the pictures show so they have been cut and will be headed for the compost bin soon. The broccoli has matured too fast and so we intend to pick the whole crop and freeze as much as possible. Daikon radishes are still edible and not too hot. I got rid of the melon plant in the greenhouse because the one in the hoop house is doing so much better - has set three nice melons.
My only bad note was the hornets nest in the greenhouse that was in the thermostat so when I reached over to turn the knob to open the vent they got mad and one stung me - welcome home! They no longer live in the greenhouse by the way.
Happy Gardening

Tomatoes and Cucumbers A Plenty

2011-08-16T20:13:00.006-05:00

Can't resist sharing zinnias.
Brown Turkey Figs - yum yum.
2011 garlic harvest - replant the LARGEST heads for next year late Sept/Oct.

The tomatoes are finally ripening so that we can't eat them all in a day. The cucumbers are probably the best crop I have ever had. I pick 6 -8 perfect straight fruits each day and growing on the trellis most of them hang down inside and are just perfect. I wish the tomatoes were as healthy - Septoria is on quite a few plants and tomorrow I plan to leaf prune them off. I have already cut most of the tops out of the tallest plants. No need letting them grow so tall as most of the fruit developing now is what will be ready before frost. Any fruit that is just in flower may not make it with the days getting shorter. Unfortunately I seem to have more determinate plants than I expected. I don't like them because of their habit of branching makes cutting out suckers tough. Along with the fact that all the fruits usually come ripe at once - these are great plants for ketchup or other canning or freezing.
The pole beans, food and home for the Japanese beetles, are finally ready to pick. I like the Roma type pole beans but this years main corp is a snap bean ( Fortex )that's not too bad just slow in production. The first figs are ripe on the Brown Turkey and they are such a treat. The garlic has all been dug and is drying in the tool shed. We have had roasted garlic from the grill twice this week and I am taking some on my fishing trip. I cut the top off the garlic bulb, give it a shot of olive oil and wrap it in foil and put the bundle on the back side of the grill. In less than 20 min they are done and ready for bread. Great eats.
Happy Gardening

New Varmint Arrives on the Scene!

2011-08-07T20:30:00.020-05:00

Yukky - Nasty eating machine!
Can't mistake those white spots on the sides of the wings -Japanese beetle!
Lets look as something much better - quick before it gets eaten!
Zinnias are, I guess, my favorite garden flower.
These little yellow ones are really much brighter than the picture can show.
Tomatoberry - good little salad variety.
The peppers in the "EARTHBox" planters are starting to produce
The little black fig tree has a respectable crop.
Fair entries at the Door County Fair seemed to be down this year. But blue ribbons weren't.
Some entries were just too tempting.
This has got to be the largest kohlrabi I have ever seen - can't comment on its taste.
Black Australorp rooster - fills his cage.
An Australorp hen with egg. There must have been over a dozen examples of this breed.

I knew that Japanese Beetles had been introduce to the west side of Green Bay maybe about 10 or more years ago. We have been monitoring their expansion annually. Unfortunately, they have migrated into my garden this week! I found 28 of them feasting on my pole beans on Thursday and have found a few more each day since. Needless to say I was most unhappy. These eating machines could be worse than white cabbage butterflies or even rabbits. The Extension office said that they had been discovered on the UWGB campus last year - that's less than 5 city blocks away and it did not take long for them to spread farther north. As grubs in the lawn and adults on my garden plants these critters will initiate constant monitoring in the garden from now on. I dreaded this event and now it has happened. A big UN-thank to the commercial landscaper who brought them into the city on nursery stock those years ago!

I still did not get my garlic dug as we had some rain and I just ran out of time. I see from the comments that others have done their harvest and had great results. I was in Door County judging the Junior and Open classes at the fair this past week and they had great garlic too. General entries were down this year - for example we had no potato entries in any class! The best thing at the fair were the chickens. I had wanted to see adult Australorp chickens and I sure did. There were rooster, hens, and pullets and those are big chickens. The roosters at the fair were HUGE. As a reminder, Australorps were the variety that I got as chicks and had to give up on this year.

Cucumbers and more tomatoes (slowly) are on the menu along with a few heads of garlic and some of the shallots. The broccoli should start to head up and at last the melon plant in the greenhouse has set female flowers. So I pollinated as many as have bloomed this week. I hope they take.
Happy Gardening

Tomatoes Finally

2011-07-31T11:34:00.011-05:00

Sunflowers brighten the garden at last.
The first of the 2011 tomato crop.
Evil purslane that would cover my entire garden if I did not fight it.
This is a small plant - some stems on other plants are twice as big.
Cucumbers on the trellis and the lettuce below benefits from their shade.
Lettuce is hot summer is hard to grow that is why its under the cucumbers.
The garlic crop look ready for harvest next week.
The kayaks are ready for a float trip.

I harvested the first tomatoes for breakfast eggs today - Tomatoberry came in with a half dozen ripe salad sized fruits. I have plenty of mature green fruits that should turn soon. The weather has been tomato hot and we have had enough rain to mostly avoid watering. Remember that to avoid blossom end rot you need to make sure your plants do not go into moisture stress. That is why it is vital that you mulch your crop. Mulched plants have cool roots and you can better regulate the moisture they get. That goes for potted plants too - keep those roots cool and don't let them dry out - wilting in potted plants is a "bad thing."
The purslane is still a problem and I pulled plants again today. All those weeds go into the compost because they have trapped my garden nutrients and I want that good stuff back! The compost bin will get a new addition today, some more dirt on top of the layer of weeds and a good watering to hurry the decay along.
The cucumber crop this year has started and we are getting 3 - 6 cukes a day. (And my wife says YES we are eating them all ourselves.) I think the thinning process is working. I have been taking off the side shoots just like with the tomatoes so as to devote the growth to one main producing stem. Some of the plants are at the top of the trellis and I am getting good fruit set. I think I will try this with the watermelon and cut out the side shoots and just leave two main producing stems growing up the trellis. I have seen female flowers on the watermelon but nothing on the melon plant in the greenhouse. Whatever I choose this year for growing in that space has been bad - Telegraph Improved cucumber was terrible and this melon Savor Charentais hybrid is equally as poor - no melon set just tons of male flowers. Oh, well that's was experimentation is all about...
Also this week I finally got my kayak trailer fixed and the boats on it. A great big THANKS to my fishing buddy who has welding skills. Now maybe I can get a little fishing in along with my gardening.
Happy Gardening

Wow! Is it HOT!

2011-07-18T19:08:00.012-05:00

This is the flower for this summer.
The parsley that has gone to flower attracts all kinds of insects.
And for some reason Wasps like these flowers too - maybe for the pollen protein.
Telegraph Improved is not my choice for greenhouse cucumber - not enough fruit set.
This is the seeded water cress that is growing in an aquarium - nice peppery taste.
This is my white milkweed plants grown from seed - insects like this one too.

Summer heat has arrived with a vengeance - in the high 90's and dripping humidity. Something that cucumbers and tomatoes love. I have snapped thumb sized suckers and I did that job last week too. I am also trying to limit the growth of secondary cucumber vines on the trellis system. I have been cutting out the side shoots in the cucumbers just like snapping tomato suckers. This is a test to see just how productive I can make the main vine growing on the trellis.
The "Telegraph Improved" cucumber in the greenhouse has been a disappointment. We have harvest the first fruit but the plant has set mostly male flowers that the literature says must be removed to avoid bitter cucumbers. But the plant has only set 2 main fruits and 2 secondary and that's not enough in comparison to the abundance of fruit from last years plant. I planted seed today in hopes of raising another plant that will produce much better. As the seedlings get along I will get rid of this plant. I have already cut the terminal buds on both vines to force the energy into the small fruit set.
Purslane is the dreaded weed of hot weather and it has tried to take the open space in the garden. I pulled plants today and they are destined for the compost bin as they are full of the nutrients of my garden soil and I want it back. I should be able to fill the compost bin to a foot or more in depth with all these weeds.
The hot weather has brought the return of some sun scald to some of the bagged apples. This seems to happen to one tree in particularly and to one variety on that tree - sorry but long ago I lost the names of the original grafts on this tree. The tree was a 5 in 1 dwarf tree that I got a local nursery. The fruits might be Gala because that was one of the varieties on the tree that I remember form long ago. But whatever it is some of these bagged fruits, when just right in the sun, will scald. I just remove them so as not to waste the energy to an apple that will drop off later.
I left a few parsley plants go to flower because native bees and wasps seem to be attracted to the pollen that these plants produce. I have left a few of the arugula and some mustard plants go to flower to. Native bees need food sources and several accounts have indicated that these are good sources for these critters. Try leaving a few for them in your gardens.
This is the summer of the Zinnia and mine has just started to bloom. They are just such a great flower and perfect for a quick bouquet in a Mason jar.
Happy Gardening.

Summer Warmth at Last

2011-07-03T15:34:00.019-05:00

I have had this miniature geranium for so long I can't remember and of course the name is gone too.
I make new plants every year to keep through the winter and grow on like this all summer.
The EarthBox peppers are planted, finally.
One set has sweet peppers and one set has hot.
My new little black fig is doing the figgy thing.
By sometime next week I will have to use the shade cloth on the green house to cut down, not so much on the light, but on the heat buildup.
This "tea cup" hosta is prefect for my maple bonasi and has been in this pot for 3 or 4 years.
Robin-proof white alpines.
The tomatoes will not do this by themselves like pole beans, you will have to help them.
Rub or snap out the suckers inside each leaf junction. June 28, 2010 has more pictures of snapping suckers and a video at the end of the post - take a look.
Carpet pads for the broccoli will keep the root maggots out of your plants without chemicals.
This is what's left of the old pole been variety that I am trying to save.

Hot. Nice and hot for the last few days - makes one feel that finally summer is here. The tomatoes are growing nicely and having them mulched makes them happy and me too. They were finally at a stage for snapping suckers and starting them up the strings - something that is now a weekly chore. I snap the suckers because I want only one main stem producting fruit not multiple stems making leaves and fruit as one gets with cages. Yes, you can train to two stems in a cage, but the few gardeners do that. And without care and some restricting, the tomatoes in cages go wild. Snapping suckers is easy and effective and you will not be removing fruiting spurs because, on tomatoes, suckers grow out of a leaf node and fruits are on the stem at another point. I notices that as my plants got bigger the larger suckers were occurring higher up on the plants. Little, easy to rub off, smaller suckers were lower on the stalk. I wont get any ripe fruit soon but I have flowers developing on many plants. I also tend to snap suckers late in the day as the plants are less rigid then instead of early in the morning when the cells are full of water. I do this because occasionally you might accidentally snap off the terminal stem winding the stalk around the twine and then you have to wait till another sucker starts to take over. Thus I wind and them snap, so that if I do break the top of the plant I still have suckers to take over. Unfortunately I did just that very thing with one of the grafted plants and set it back till a sucker could take over.
I have planted out the pole beans and have two more pole sets to plant; one is for my old bean variety that hopefully I can get my seed stock back with these plants. Once they get planted they will not be for harvest but I will keep all of them for seed stock. Another variety is a "Christmas Lima" bean that I want to try again. The peat potting method allows me to have the beans well along and place them at the base of the poles when the soil is warm which is what beans like.
Garlic scape's seem to be the new vegetable. Last week I talked about the harvest of them. Well this week I not only found my Master Gardener newsletter contained a recipe for a Scape Soup but Friday we went out for dinner and my Tenderloin came with a very lovely sauteed portion of garlic scape's. I sure hope you didn't throw them away. Google them for recipes and good eating.
The broccoli was put out late but it should make. I use old carpet squares to keep the root maggots out of the plants and this has been effective in the past. The carpet lasts for many season and expands as the broccoli plants grow and amazingly returns to its original shape even after the stem expands the carpet during growing.
The green house cucumber is well on its way and we should start a harvest soon. The biggest issue with this plant is keeping a water reservoir filled as the plant grows. Even with the 5 gal bucket soaked in every morning by noon the plant is thirsty. The quickest way to limit production is to put the plant under water stress - so I see that I need a bigger saucer for that plant.
The white alpine strawberries are fruiting nicely. Robins and strawberries don't mix. However my local robins have yet to figure out that my white alpines are strawberries. They know where the few red berry plants are but I have replaced most of those with whites, and I have over 36 seedling plants growing in the greenhouse for planting out as a runner-less edge in the front flower bed. Whether you get plants or grow them from seed, alpine strawberries will give you a handful of berries most of the summer and they are sure good.
Lastly, I want to wish a very 'HAPPY RETIREMENT' to Linda Blondine who retired from the Brown County UW Extension after over 36 years of helping people and answering every manner of question, especially bug ones. Everyone will miss you. We certainly wish you the very best in your new life adventure. Your answering machine rightly says - Gone Fishing!
Happy Gardening

Mulch ThoseTomatoes

2011-06-26T19:35:00.013-05:00

Last year's parsley is going to seed but some Black Swallowtail caterpillars have taken up residence so the plants will get to stay as their home - share for beauties sake.
The greenhouse cucumber is off and growing nicely.
This is the newly mulched tomato patch.
The twine that the plants are trained on is the best material and it composts easily too.
Down on the floor of the greenhouse whats left of the grafts are struggling.
Garlic flower stalks are curled and need to be cut to allow the garlic to make large heads.
But these are the first harvest of your crop so put them to good use.

The rain finally quit after Wednesday to allow for a bit of drying out. The tomato patch was finally dry enough for me to put the straw mulch down between the rows. Tomatoes are best grown with a nice deep mulch that keeps them with constant moisture which will best of all eliminate the dreaded black spot. Yes, calcium is important but even if you add calcium, which you really don't need to do, if the plants go through water stress you will get blossom end rot. Mulch, however, is the key to eliminating this problem. Keep your plants evenly watered and mulched and tomatoes will be happy in your garden. The same is true for potted tomato plants. Keep the pots cool by covering them or putting other pots in front of them to keep the soil temperature low. Potted plants usually need to be watered twice a day morning and evening and in real hot weather maybe even more. As soon as you stress potted tomatoes you will develop those black spots on the underside of your fruits - its the lack of water getting to the cells of the fruit with the suspended calcium in it. So mulch and water are your friends for your tomato crops.
The garlic is making flowers so its time to cut those off. They are edible and I cooked some tonight mixed with onions to garnish our hot dogs - yum yum. Garlic flower shoots store well so you can cut them, put them in a plastic bag and into the vegetable bin in the refrigerator for at least 2 week of use. Mince some into your scrambled eggs. You can cut them off and toss them but they are your first garlic harvest from your growing crop so why not eat them.
I am still working on bagging the apples. I want to get that job done before the coddling moths start laying eggs at the ends of the fruits. Looks like I will be at it now that the tomatoes are done.
The pole beans have sprouted and will need to be planted this week. I plant them all in peat pots because then I can place them at the bottoms of the poles and know that they will start to climb right away. I planted two kinds but the white variety germinated poorly - variety Helda. The brown variety, Fortex, sprouted much better. This week I will clean off the poles, set them out and plant the bean plants around them and hope this year we do not have another ground hog incident. I have seen immature ground hogs that soon will be out on their own looking for territory to move into - not my garden, I hope.
I did some vegetable grafting last week and I find this to be a VERY challenging process. The tomatoes grew together but they have declined again about the time I want to introduce them to more light. The cubits are even more difficulty so I think I need more information and some better directions; plus I might have to build a real mist chamber to get this to happen. Grafting apples is not nearly as difficult and the success ratio is much better. Oh well, we will just have to read, research, and experiment so more.
Happy Gardening

Apple Bagging Process

2011-06-19T16:35:00.019-05:00

Apple bagging in full process on this tree. I have been plastic bagging apples for over a decade.

I first started with these Japanese fruit bags in the 90's/ Stem at top, wire closure at center.
Then I went to plastic. Nick the bottom edge of the bag on the corner or both corners.
Thin your fruit clusters to one apple every 6 to 8 inches.
You can start bagging as soon as your fruit sizes to larger than a nickle to quarter size.
Partially open the bag and slip it over the fruit - these bags do not have the top edge stripped off as I did with all my bags this year.
Zip the bag closed and staple though the zip to keep the bag closed.
The finished fruit will grow nicely in this bug free environment till maturity.
Apple bagging produced this fine harvest. Nice, hey?

I have been bagging my apples for over 10 years in an attempt to avoid using pesticides. In the past I did a full spray program but that was a lot of work and the need for protecting yourself from the spray begged the question - why spray? So I tried to eliminate all but the first spray to protect the early developing fruits from Plum curculio which as you saw last week can damage the young apples quickly. For the last few years I have been getting my apples bagged before the Plum curculio get at them but this year that just did not happen. I am still in the process of bagging the rest of the fruit and for the most part the damage seems to have stopped. But the next pest is on the way- the coddling moth - so I have to get the job done soon.
In the June 14, 2009 entry I have videos of the complete process but this season I will just go back over the highlights.
I started bagging apples a long time ago with Japanese paper apple bags. This was an interesting process because no one really knew how to apply these highly engineered bags. My wife, who has taught origami, suggested that we think folding in that method and so we did. The bags folded into the neatest pyramidal shapes that easily protected the apples and took windy days well. But getting the bags was a problem and they took much longer to apply than plastic. So on to the next level of extermination.
Regular zipper bags - store brand is good enough - have worked the best for me so I usually buy around 3 to 4 hundred bags and figure on a weeks worth of bagging to get the job done and then I walk away from the trees and wait for harvest.
I nick the bottom of each bag with a blade making a small slice less than a 1/4 inch on the bottom corner. You can do both sides if you want and then avoid having to cut a water filled bag later in summer as rainwater gets into the bag, fills them up as the drain just happens to be on the other side. I stuff my pocket full of bags and go to the tree. I have gotten to wearing my scissors and stapler on a rubber band around my wrist so they are easily accessible as I will need them for working each cluster of apples. The stapler is one of those small types that seems to have been made for this job.
I strip the top part of the bag off - I started doing this on every bag this year because some of my apples have real short stems and the extra bag just gets in the way. If you pull fast the top part usually comes off.
I cut away all but one apple per cluster and bag that apple. You have to get rid of fruit to allow your tree to continue to produce annually. An apple tree will naturally bear heavy on alternate years. But prune a back yard tree correctly, and the apple clusters managed will allow for a good crop every year. Prune to the largest apple in the cluster - that may not be the king fruit. Picking the largest one should ensure that there are enough seeds pollinated in the fruit to allow it to grow to maturity.
Open only one end of the bag. This allows the bag to be zipped closed easier than if the whole bag is opened. Slip the bag over the apple and zip the bag tight to the stem. Staple through the zip closure to make sure that it stays closed for the season. I have sometimes placed an apple in the middle of the bag and stapled on either side but this is extra movement and is not necessarily better bagging. I can usually bag 50 to 60 apples an hour if I am really getting it done.
Once the tree is bagged you should expect some June drop but I bag fruit clusters every 6 to 8 inches and this usually means that any drop should not really affect my crop results.
I like this process, it produces good fruit and is no more time consuming than a bi-weekly spray process and I harvest almost organic apples and recycle the plastic so it's pretty green for me.
Happy Gardening

Apples Attacked

2011-06-12T20:29:00.014-05:00

This is Carolina Allspice (Cylycanthus floridus)
A great shrub that I got as a cutting from my Grandmother years ago.
The fig tree is setting a summer crop.
These are the scars left from the female Plum curculio
Some of these fruits might make maturity but most will drop off the tree. Bagging some might give of a partial crop.
Bunnies ate the zinnias and,
feasted on the fall asters.

I had to make another trip to Arizona to help my parents and my wife and son worked hard to keep things going here. They had real hot weather for part of the week making watering a chore with the cold frames full of seedlings and the newly planted tomatoes and flowers in the garden. Then on Saturday rain helped ease the hard work. Thanks to my wife things looked good on my return.
However, we have been attacked - bunnies on one front and Plum curculio of the other front. The rabbits are small enough to still fit through the bottom of the chain link fence and feast. They have eaten most of one sunflower planting, some of the zinnias, and done a real number on the fall asters. For some reason, rabbits really love the taste of fall asters and will eat them to the ground. Every plant in my yard has been eaten on. Luckily for me I have plenty of Cayenne pepper to sprinkle on the plants to try to stop them. The pepper will burn the leaves a bit but will also burn the bunnies too and they will stop feeding. Get the biggest containers you can get and use it to keep the rabbits off young plants till they get established. Most of the asters will recover except for one plant that has been eaten badly but then that plant is in the way of garden expansion so it may be on the way out anyway. I have some replacement zinnias but no sunflowers unless I discover some extra seed and do them again. I have the traps set and will hope to get these pests out of my space ASAP.
The apples on the other hand have been really damaged. Usually I get the fruit into the plastic bags before we have a real bad infestation of Plum curculio but not this year. The degrees days must have really helped these bugs get going. Unfortunately my neighbor has a large apple tree that they do nothing with and so that is a draw for these apple pests and then the pests also come to my trees. Warm days like we had before I left for Arizona help wake up these beetles from hibernation. For the last few years I have been successful in bagging early enough to eliminate any need to spray the trees for this early pest. However, should this happen again next year I may have to resort to some sort of spray to protect my early developing fruits so as to get them to size for bagging.
I will make next weeks entry a complete apple bagging entry and go through the process so you can see how we do this. I do not have a completely organic yard and garden but we do try to use as few pesticides as we can - but being out of town this season only added to the trouble.
Continual close observation is key to preventing problems with critters that want to invade your garden for free food - so you must be on your guard all the time trying to outwit them if possible.
Happy Gardening

June Jobs

2011-06-04T11:59:00.018-05:00

Sweet Pinks make for a bright spot in any yard.
Bumblebee food are what Chives are - I let the bees feed and then cut the flower heads off so they don't set seeds.
The next tomato job will be the straw mulch.
First I rinse the seedlings in water.
Then I tease them apart into two's or threes.
And then I plant them out - later they will be thinned as bunching onion size.
I planted some Japanese Daikon radishes in a cold frame to try to keep the root maggots out of them as they grow .
Plus, I punched holes and filled them with potting soil to make for straighter roots.
We went to the Green Bay Urban Chicken workshop this week.
This chicken is not full grown but what a pet - just sat there and got petted.

I went ahead and tilled and the garden was still wet in spots so I have lumps galore. However, I am off to AZ again and the work needed to get done.
My son and I drove the stakes and I strung the twine and planted the tomatoes. There are seven rows with 8 to 10 plants per row. The Nebraska Wedding plants were put at the far end because they might be determinate - one catalog says so - and they will not need as much height as the other plants. As per request of my wife I put all the Sugary's in one row right off the yard so she can get at them easily. I inter-planted two rows with my basil plants as last year basil and tomatoes did well together.
I also got the onions in. With the seed onions in flats I rinse the soil off the roots and clump plant them - thinning later to one onion per spot- hopefully. I like this method as I usually plant onions from seed and not sets. Planting sets limits the types one can get so the LaSalle and Patterson varieties are new this year. We will see how they do.
I also got most of the front flower bed and all the Zinnias planted. This summer is the year of the Zinnia so we have planted them in that honor. Besides my grandmother always had a row of zinnias in her garden - usually about 50 or 60 feet of plants so she could have cut flowers.
The tomato grafting failed miserably this spring as the last of the struggling plants died this week. I had wanted to try grafting cubits but my seedlings are just at the graft stage and as I said I must leave town for a week so I will have to start again and see what we can try.
The dames rocket is blooming and I think I am going to use that as my phenology marker for planting tomatoes in the garden. That would give me a constant to work with in the future.
Happy Gardening

Troubles in Garden Land

2011-05-29T17:35:00.020-05:00

This columbine is over three feet tall and full of flowers.
The start of lilac time.
Alliums are nice colorful ball of flowers.
Unhappy tomatoes.
Its a wait and see what develops on this one.
I don't think I will have any of these grafts take.
The following are all the peletized seeds that make transplanting so easy.

The cold frame is full of transplants waiting for garden space.
The new fig is looking good.
My maple bonsai is really nice this year - check out the tea cup hosta in the pot.

Wet, this spring is so wet. It is raining again as I make this entry and by next week we are supposed to continue to get more. My heavy soil just will not dry out. Boy Howdy, this is the year we should have a crop of winter rye planted to help the soil dry out. I am planning to put in the tomato stakes tomorrow but will not be able to till yet unless I want bricks. To add to this complaint my tomato seedlings don't look happy (see picture) I think I maybe burned them with too much fertilizer or they got sunburned themselves because I sure don't want a fungus among us. But just to play it safe they got a dose of a fungicide today - if you have to treat your plants remember all fungicides are expensive - $20 for my bottle. With all the rain I could have a disease so time will tell. Plus, the grafted plants are just not making it. I have read that without a mist chamber grafting is tough - well that's an understatement - its way more than tough. I am down to three plants out of eight and they don't seem happy. I have some more root stock planted and will need to plant some scions and try that again. These grafts are almost two weeks old and should be able to be in the light but that's not happening. Try, try again and see what has to be changed to make grafting happen.
I planted my root stock for cubit grafting but germination was poor so I re-planted in hopes of getting another chance. I have the clips and would like to have some watermelons on real strong roots systems but my watermelons damped off and my root stock did not germinate too well - one out of four cells. That too we will just keep experimenting with and see what happens.
Otherwise the plants in the cold frame are itching to get into the ground. I am ready to plant the front bed with parsley and marigolds but have a rabbit in the area so bring on the Cayenne pepper to ward him off. I planted my tower but instead of flowers I used spider plants so hopefully it will look like a green and white tree. I used them because they are more drought tolerant than flowers.
The apples are in full bloom but with rain we may not get good pollination this season. I have yet to see any honey bees on any of the apple trees and I have a 25ft snowdrift crab blooming in the front of the house - that too has NO BEES! But my neighbors are all on commercial spray programs - ugh.
The new fig tree is growing nicely and may soon need a bigger pot. The old fig tree has made some nice growth this spring and now we await the formation of figs.
I unpacked the two new Earth Boxes and got my soil mixed but have not filled them yet. All the peppers are going into these containers this year.
The flowers in the yard are blooming nicely and a little warm weather would be more than appreciated.
Happy Gardening.

Warm Days, Big Rain, and a Change

2011-05-22T18:48:00.011-05:00

Male catkins of Bur Oak - some things are just fun to take pictures of...
Grafting tomatoes - Red Peach root stock and a variety of scions
Finding single edge razor blades is a trick.
I cut both plants together to make sure the angle is the same to graft them together. To remember which is the scion I cut the seed leaves off and not on the rootstock.
I have two sizes of these sleeves and I learned that you keep them on until the plant grows out of them.
Now the tray of grafts goes into a humid, warm, dark environment for a week.
Apple flowers on Friday will be blooming today and waiting for bees.

The garden had almost dried out when we had a cloud burst today and water ran through the garden and will put off tilling for some time. As I dug around yesterday I noticed that closer to the house the soil was still too wet to till so I decided to paint the garden shed instead. I got two sides done before the weather man warned of thunderstorms and hail - a greenhouse nightmare. So I put my paints away and covered the greenhouse with a tarp and as luck would have it scared the hail away. I will leave the tarp up all night as the storms seem to still be in the forecasts and I can pull the tarp off in the morning.
I spent most of Friday transplanting tomatoes. I put them into four packs and thus had some plants left over, so I tried grafting again. Last post showed the grafted tomatoes that I shipped in and today's post has some pictures of the plants I grafted. I had plenty of Red Peach rootstock so I took scions from whatever I had extra and got eight grafted plants. I once again almost lost them because my heat mat got TOO warm overnight but all seems to be going well now. I will keep them in the dark until Tuesday and then slowly bring them into the light.
I also started melons and cucumbers along with the special seeds I purchased to try grafting these plants too. I may have some problems as I have a return trip to AZ scheduled in a little less than three weeks and this might not be enough time to get the grafts done - Oh well it's all experimentation fun.
I had to make other arrangements for my baby chickens as I have a new family commitment that will be taking me back and forth to AZ and we all decided that the chickens would be too difficult to manage this year. Getting the shed painted and a coop built were some additional problems. Happily I found homes for them all. Joe took two on Friday and Beth and Todd took Kevin and her sisters today. I am so happy for everyone as I am sure that these birds have great new homes and will be welcome additions to both these Urban Chicken families. Good luck guys and all we ask is for a couple of eggs sometime in the fall.
I included pictures of my favorite oak flowers this week as I find these so very interesting and take pictures of them every spring. Plus the apples are blooming and here's hoping we have some bees out there doing their work.
Happy Gardening

Still A Cool Spring

2011-05-15T19:09:00.006-05:00

A great dwarf iris
These plants from Territorial Seeds were well packed for shipping.
Looks close to my grafts from last season
The chicks have more than doubled in size!

I have been gone to AZ for some time helping my invalid parents so my lovely wife has been working hard to keep things growing in the greenhouse and cold frames. This spring is causing us to still heat the greenhouse for seedlings. Usually we have cut the heat long before May in the past. Well not this year.
The grafted tomatoes came from Territorial Seeds and they don't look a lot different than the ones I did last season. They need repotting and some warm sun to take off; and that goes for our own seedling tomatoes and peppers. I am thinkiing that I should pull off one of the plastic layers in the greenhouse and see if more light will perk things up.
The chicks came May 2nd! and I left for AZ on the 3rd! They are now out of the basement and in the greenhouse in a big plastic tub and hopefully this week they will be out of that and into a dog crate and moved to the garden shed which is destined to be their permanent home. The city ordinance was successfully rewritten and now all I have to get is the $5 license. They really grew while I was gone and have started to give us clues to their possible names.
Now that I am back home to my family, greenhouse, and garden things might slowly get growing if the weather would decide to cooperate.
Happy Gardening

Grubbing Out Stumps and Asparagus Class

2011-05-01T18:02:00.012-05:00

They are my" favorite" spring flower.
Dig that trench 10in deep, 10in wide and plant the crowns 18in apart for the best results.
Having a good time at the Asparagus Festival - people, plants, and food always a good mix.
The cedar stumps removed and the holes filled with runoff from the rain.
Cutting the trunks too short was a big mistake - leverage is a good tool.
But cutting the roots and using a pry-bar worked.
My son, Andrew, helped me with the stump cleanup - we may have to use his truck too.
Because I don't think the leaf and brush guys will take them and we will have to take them to the leaf dump.

The weather cooperated and with my saws-all in hand, and help from my son and wife, I was able to cut the stumps out and get them to the street. I will call the city to see if they will take them or if I have to remove them to the yard waste site, but the space is clear and now I can get onto the next job. This spot will probably lay fallow for a year while I plan what will go here but I am thinking seriously about grapes and an apricot tree.

Before the chicken coop is built in the garden shed I need to clean it and repaint it. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and I will be able to get that done this week.

I got another tray of lettuce planted in the hoop house this week. Most of the zinnias are seeded and they are amazing germinators - most are up in three of four days. The Four-O'clock are really slow to germinate even with good bottom heat. I was also happy with the germination of the Stevia seeds as I got six plants from the seed packet and for as small as the see was I was happy with the germination. The tomato and pepper seedlings are real poky and we need some good sunny weather to move them along. I have not started any cubits because I want to read up on the ones I want to try to graft and the month of May and early June are packed with activities some which will take me away from the greenhouse and its care so I will have to plant accordingly.

The Negronne fig , which was dormant last week, has sprouted and the Chicago Fig outside is really happy - green and growing 6 to 8 inches so far this season. I have even seen several figs that are already swelling and growing.

I planted shallots bulbs today on the back of the hoop house as the ground there was ready and easy to work. I had found two nice one pound bags at Trader Joe's several months ago and decided to use them and see what I got. Hopefully they will sprout and multiply. The onions in the cold frame would like to go into the garden but the soil is still very wet and as it rained last night not tilling is in the immediate future. Moving some sorrel and getting rid of some sod close to the area where the cedar trees were taken out is something I might be able to do this week but no planting in the main garden is remotely possible -

Saturday I had a good time helping people who bought asparagus plants from the Gardeners' Club of Green Bay. I was the answer guy for planting questions and with plants, ruler and aquarium I explained the trench method for planting this crop. We talked about fertilizer and that gave me reason to invited people to the Urban Chicken workshop and expound on the value of chicken manure as fertilizer and compost. Everyone was eager to go home and plant asparagus. I think most everyone understood the need to let the plants grow undisturbed till 2013 before the first harvest.
Happy Gardening

The End of the Cedar Era

2011-04-24T18:06:00.015-05:00

Fig secured at the bottom and bamboo tied in at the top - well packed.
Negronne fig
Green Bamboo / zone 5 hardy - we will see.
With the cedars gone, the space will sure get the sun, but how to fix the view.
This is the before
This is the after.
Later we will cut and split for the summer fires of the future.
Waiting for the city to chip at the curb and take away.

Dare I mention that the snow is gone and the daffodils are again blooming and looking quite spring-like. The weather was good enough to send the fig tree outside I hope for good.
I got my new fig tree and some bamboo and a Passion vine from One Green World on Saturday morning. Great packaging, I was very impressed as the plants were nice sized, and very well tied down in the box - nothing moved or slid on top of one another. I got them potted within in the hour after they arrived. The fig was still dormant but the other two were leafy and ready to keep growing.
I did some seeding this week but the biggest job was the removal of the winter damaged arborvitae in the back yard. The winter pictures show how badly the snow bent them and what you could not see was the way the roots pulled causing them to need removal. I probably planted them way back in the late 70's but their present condition meant that I either cut them down now or after they died in few years. So my wife, youngest son, and I did the deed today. Took most of the afternoon and I only broke the Saws-All blade close to the end of the job. We cut the branches off, piled them to the street and cut the trunks in long lengths to be cut and split later and used in the metal fire circle that we bought this spring. We have the cut up rails from the fence that we took down last summer before the new fence was put up. Now we have another large pile of logs that will take some time to burn in the fire pit. Summer nights will have a new activity like the evenings we have spent around a campfire in Wyoming in the past.
Hopefully we will be able to cut the stumps out and then this will be a new growing place as this is full south exposure and plans are already in the making for grapes and maybe apricots - new space for more edibles and just maybe a few flowers.
I have my permit for my chickens! I got it early in the week and have already ordered chicks so now I must get their pen ready. I have the dog crate to use as an early place for them but a coop is essential. We are thinking about housing them in the garden shed with an outside run and some sort of chicken tractor for moving them around the yard. I am getting Black Australorps as they good producers, friendly, calm and take cold weather well. They are due to arrive in early June so I am looking at coop plans while getting the garden ready. Spring is that busy time but what excitement - chickens...
Happy Gardening

Spring Interrupted Again!

2011-04-20T15:49:00.009-05:00

6-8 inches of heavy snow fell on April 19th
Blanketing everything
crushing the daffodils
and my Cedar trees are history. Enough already....

Seeds Are Sprouting

2011-04-17T20:09:00.018-05:00

Spring to me means daffodils.
These clumps are in the yard and we mow around them.

Tomatoes have sprouted nicely.

Peppers have done well too.
This is the Simply Salad mix
This is some of the pellitized lettuce in with some seedlings from last fall.
Not the prettiest but they sure were good roasted.
These irrigated fields fascinate me - and probably would at ground level too.

I had to go out of town for a week and my wife did a wonderful job managing the greenhouse and the sprouting seeds - always a tough task.
Most of the parsley is up and I had a good germination. I think I will do some transplanting of some of the cells that have more than two seedlings because I need quite a few plants for edging around the front walk and maybe around the patio in the back yard. the Darki seemed to sprout better than the Laura. Both had the same hot water treatment.
The peppers did well and the tomatoes are all up too. As I have just returned from Arizona I am not sure what is next for seeding and will be busy in the greenhouse this next week.
I have some pictures of the plants I transplanted into the hoop house and they are really moving along - hardly any setbacks. Some of the hoop house spinach looks like it could use a shot of nitrogen to move the leaves along. We are keeping the door to the hoop house open to help modify the internal temperature because spinach and heat do not mix. I have some space left in this hoop house and will attempt to plant this week.
We harvested the first of the parsnips today. As you can see they are not the best examples of good growing in a cone punched in the ground for them. I am going to plant the same variety again this year and if I get this much branching I will find another variety. If I am not mistaken this years parsnips are Javelin. However this is only the first harvest, late as it is, so maybe the rest will be better. I also am thinking about moving parsnips to a new spot as this is probably the third year in the same location and moving crops is always a good thing.
We had terrible weather while I was gone, heavy winds, tornado warnings, hail and rain. I even drove back from Chicago yesterday in sleet and snow. But even so, I have daffodils blooming and the grass is really green. The garden shows the effect of all the rain as I can see where water ran down the ditch that I dug last fall and filled with straw to help the yard and garden drain in the spring. At least one night the temps drooped to 29 degrees but the lettuce, onions, and other seedlings out in the cold frame came through quite nicely. What did not fare as well was the lettuce close to the house. I found today that cold temperatures did not harm it as much as hungry bird beaks do. Some feathered fiends have decided that they like my salad crop and were eating it. I have since fenced and covered the area to keep them out.
I included the circular field aerial pictures because I think this farming method looks so amazing from 30,000 feet.
Happy Gardening

April Snow

2011-04-03T17:40:00.014-05:00

Say, What's all the fuss about?
These are the crocus that I bought on sale last fall - planted real late - they did great.
These greens are right next to the house and we should have radishes soon.

This is direct seed lettuce that needs thinning - I use a tweezers.
This is pellitized seed and needs no thinning - love this method.

If April showers bring May flowers just what does April snow bring? It snowed big fat flakes most of the morning and the weather is not cooperating but planting continues in the greenhouse because everything else is just TOO wet outside. I had a video of the snow but for some reason it just wont load - but then who wants to see more snow?/ not me either.
The onions have sprouted nicely and maybe this year I can get them in as early as possible. Plus I think I said I have some nice shallots that I found in the grocery and intend to plant them even though fall planting might have been better.
The lettuce pictures show the reason I have gone to pelleted seed. The cells will be so much more productive that the ones that I have to thin as thinning first disturbs the roots and I just can't seem to thin as effectively as only planting two pellets in a cell. The pellets from Stokes that were multi-seeded germinated nicely. Some of these plants are destined for the cold frames if they ever dry out. I trenched the water out of the cold frames on Saturday but after today that may not have been much use.
I saw a few parsley seedlings today - unheard of in a week - but I think the hot water treatment does some good as parsley is very slow to germinate. The rest of the crop might take as long as 2 -3 weeks to get out of the ground so keeping them moist is an issue.
I got the pepper crop seeded yesterday and turned up the heat mat a few degrees as peppers like warm and the weather for the next week does not seem to be going in that way. Next I will get on to the tomatoes. The new garden location for them will have to have all the stakes repositioned as we pulled them last fall.
Now for a side issue. We are having renewed discussions here in GB over CHICKENS. The law on the books says: a resident my have 4 chickens (hens) on their property. There seems to be some who want to limit that rule or add a lot of bureaucracy to the issue. One must get a permit but its a "No Fee" permit - something a city clerk or treasure office could issue. Instead you have to go to the Humane Officer and get the permit. The committee in charge of this issue approved nine cats at one residence the same night they had issues with the chicken count.
Let me know if where you live allows urban chickens and how many. Plus just what kind of hoops do you have to jump through to get the permit, if one is required. I am going to another meeting this next week on this issue and would love to hear from my blog readers about this. You can post anonymously if you like but let me hear from you.
Happy Gardening

Spring Still Paused

2011-03-27T17:47:00.013-05:00

The Fig tree is glad to be in the greenhouse.
Part of this weeks seeding on the heating mat for 75 degree bottom heat.
Onion flats with three to four rows of seed the short way in the flat.
You can see them starting to sprout already.
Getting ready to hot water treat the parsley planting.

These pellitized lettuce seed make planting much easier and thinning really easy.
And they're off...

The 17 plus inches of snow is still here and not going any place real quick. It will take a real warm spell and some rain to get rid of this much snow. My cedar trees took a real hit on the west side of my house. They really bent over and even though I got out and knocked snow off, branches broke and a decision on which ones will stay and which ones will go will have to be made. The trees are almost 30 years old and this storm has probably forced me to make a decision about re-working that side of the yard. Opening up the area and getting some extra space close to the garden might not be a bad thing. But the bottom line is - first the snow must GO.
The birds at the feeders have increased noticeably and much more frequently. I have been feeding sunflower, cracked corn, Niger thistle, suet cakes, safflower and this week I put out grape jelly and some dried meal worms. Hope it helps some make it. The Goldfinch males are starting to change color and the male House Finches already have spring color. The number of Grackles is just huge and they are so noisy.
The snow made it tough to get to the hoop house so I only got one row of spinach planted on Saturday but I did a lot of planting in the greenhouse. Onions were the first. I will review this year the onion planting method as I like to seed onions and them plant them out in the garden. I make multiple rows (3 or 4 depending of the size) in the seed flat and then sow them thick, as I will be separating them at planting time. They are already showing signs of sprouting. I did shallots the same way - in mini rows thickly. I did find sme shallots in the store the other day and bought two bags as they looked ready to grow. I will plant them as soon as I can out in the main garden and maybe some in the hoop house.
I also started parsley today and Thursday. I put the seed in 12 packs with 3 -5 seeds per cell and then hot water treated the planted seed. I have hot water treated the contents of the seed packet before but then you have to wait to plants as the seed clumps together when wet - so I got my water really hot and treated the planted seed.
I also planted marigolds ( they are already up) two flats of lettuce. All the lettuce seed is pelted so it was easy to seed one or two seeds per cell. I planted all of the special Simply Salad Mix pellets. They were much larger than the lettuce pellets and easy to seed only one in a cell. I also planted one large wallpaper tray with a lettuce/radish mix for micro greens and plan to do another with arugula as soon as I can get that cold frame set up - the one I took back in to paint - lucky me as all the cold frames are snow buried again. I also planted some Stevia. The seed is very small so I put it all in a small 3 inch pot and will transplant any seedlings that grow. I made geranium cuttings and potted some spider plant off-shoots to replace the plants that I will use in an outdoor planting this summer.
Not too bad a effort this week after a major spring storm.
Happy Gardening

Spring On Pause

2011-03-23T22:21:00.005-05:00

Looks like the garden will be invisible for a few more days....
Wait now the apples trees have snow under them again!
My measurements are too early as the real total is another 5 inches more -

Winter has returned to the tune of 17inches of snow... that puts a real pause on spring.

Moonlight Singers

2011-03-20T19:08:00.017-05:00

Without pruning your apple tree will bear heavy fruit in alternate years.
These are some of the grafts on the tree - this one is maybe on its third year.
This graft is older and as you see it took on the bottom instead of on the top like the other.
I got my scions from Tony Dembski at Maple Valley Orchard and Nursery, Gillett, Wi.
Water sprouts need to be take off.
All of these were taken back to a downward facing bud.
Wow, all these water sprouts need to go.
Gone....

These are fruiting buds - large buds and on spurs.
This is a stem or leaf bud - thin and terminal on this stem.
The trees pruned and ready for this seasons growth.
The newest cold frame for transplants.
Lettuce that wintered over in this garden cold frame

Early this morning, around 2 a.m., I was up sorting seeds and heard the Whistling Swans (Tundra) calling as they flew through the moonlight on this first official day of spring. Each year I enjoy hearing the flocks of Whistling Swans call as they fly north. In the daylight the white V's are tiny specks high in the sky, but last night as they few through the moonlight dragging spring north with them only their voices announced their presence. Something got me up so as not to miss them as they flew.
This week the apples were pruned. The pictures show the long water sprouts that I was cutting off. These will not produce fruit and need to be cut off. In my pruning I try to get as many fruiting spurs to develop as possible so some of the one year old wood was pruned to encourage down ward buds that might produce flower buds for next season. The fruiting wood for next season will grow this spring and the flowers that I have were produced last season. Fruit buds are larger and in most cases are on a spur. Occasionally some trees produce tip buds but most of my grafts don't. Note the pictures for the difference between fruit buds and stem or leaf buds. I tied some branches downward with soft twine.at 45 degree angles to try to encourage fruiting buds to grow. I made loose knots so I could check them during the growing season so as not to gird the branch. Sometimes the same thing can be done with weights. Once, I used clay flower pots to pull branches down.
The cold frame is one I want to use only for transplants so I set it up and then got a big hint that it would look so much better painted. So before today's rain I brought it back into the garage to wait for a warm painting day. The old shower curtain in the frame will be the plastic lid for this one - I like the idea that the plastic is not clear but opaque. That will help with tender plants that come out of the greenhouse to be hardened off outside.
I have started to fill the rain barrels by the greenhouse. The first one filled with today's rain and so now I should set the other four up to fill. Last summer we did not need them but since they are close to the cold frame and the EarthBoxes I use that water for those plants - nice to have it close.
Most of the last snow went with today's rain so I was glad I got the pruning done. Too wet in the cold frames to plant and cleaning my basement work space to get back to lamworking meant that the seeding I thought I might get done - didn't. Certainly the packets are in good order due to last nights sorting.
Happy Gardening

Spring Signs Just Keep Arriving

2011-03-13T17:21:00.009-05:00

But will the new fence keep the bunnies away from these?
The fig out of the pot and needing some root pruning
I pulled and cut off maybe a 25% of the root ball.
New soil, some time release fertilizer and a top dressing of worm casting - bring on the figs.

This past Saturday I spent talking about vegetable gardening at the Seeds Of Hope Plant Event at Fox Valley Technical College. There was a great responsive crowd to listen to presentations on Roses, Herbs in Cooking, Plant Propagation, Landscape Structures and Vegetable Gardening. This is an annual scholarship fund raiser for the college and my second year of participation. I had enthusiastic gardeners for both sessions and lots of interest and great questions. I brought along some pellitized lettuce seed to show the gardeners and a knock down cold frame to spark some interest in building a season extender even this spring. I put a planting board in the silent auction and was happy with the amount it raised for the scholarship fund.

During the day I found out about a great little plant store in Appleton, WI called Arics Indoor Garden Supply at 1104 W. Wisconsin Ave. This is a neat garden supply store especially for Hydroponics but also for other growing supplies. I got some worm castings, vermiculite for top dressing my seeding this spring, a new grafting try and lid, and was amazed at the huge selection of organic soil mixes. I don't know about shipping but if you are in the area stop by - Aric's web site is - www.aigs1.com - open seven days a week.

The signs of spring are arriving daily. I saw a groundhog today - luckily far away from my
garden but still a reminder of last summer's intruder. Robin count is two so far but I am sure more are here and I did see a Purple Grackle at the feeder this afternoon so they are also back - the yard noise will radically increase after the near silence of winter.

I got the fig tree root pruned this week and opened the auto-vent system on the green house because it has already gotten TOO HOT in there. Even with double layers of plastic the heat builds up almost instantiously on a bright sunny morning so the vent should solve that problem.
The list of "to do" will grow daily and top of the list is pruning the fruit trees and doing the taxes - OK now which one will be more fun? Duh.
Happy Gardening

Figgy and Other Sure Signs of SPRING!

2011-03-06T16:49:00.009-06:00

The greenhouse is insulated, populated, and running for the 2011 season
The fig tree was in the basement crawl space till yesterday -
Something told the tree spring was close...
Species crocus in the grass have been blooming for at least two weeks!
The return of the Red Wing Blackbird will mean the finches will soon turn yellow.

I was gone last weekend to visit my folks in Flagstaff, AZ. Just in case you don't know Flagg - I arrived 5 hours before a six inch snowstorm. However, I did have some time to walk and enjoy the mountain sun and I even saw a Robin, but back to Wisconsin spring signs.
The fig tree came out of the basement yesterday. As the pictures tell, the tree had already decided it was time to awake even in a dark crawlspace. I think the little fig on one branch is determination on the part of this plant to grow and make figs for us.
Crocus are blooming in the yard in the three foot distance from the house. This is usually the first spot to have flowers and then as the grass on this south facing slope warms more crocus hear the call of spring. These lawn plantings do OK as they seem to have enough time to bloom grow and set new bulbs for next season. Farther out in the grass the daffodils are still covered with snow.
There was also my first Red Wing Blackbird at my feeder this afternoon. If I look back it might be a bit early for them in my yard but with the feeders freshly filled I guess he was hungry and will be back unless determined to go farther north.
The green house is newly insulated with a double layer of 4ml plastic that I got done today. The heater is running and all the plants under the lights in the basement are out there even the fig tree. It will be a cool run for a couple of weeks until I can get some seeds going and then when I plant tomatoes we will warm the space up a few more degrees. Right now 50 degrees will be the night temp and the day temp will be what ever the sun can warm up the space to. Today while putting up the plastic the space was hot but it sure felt good.
Susan and I attended a series of garden lectures Saturday sponsored by the NEW Master Gardeners. The whole day was informative, and we always enjoy the information that Phil Pellitteri, UW Entomologist presents. He spoke on native pollinators, something I am most interested in this season, and suggested that planting, cilantro, mustards, and arugula, and even letting the weeds flower are good for these insects. I am going to make sure that we have as many of these as possible in the garden this year - and the weeds should be the easiest part.
Happy Gardening

PS
Next weekend I will be part of the SEEDS OF HOPE Garden Talk Event at Fox Valley Technical College - you can Google the site or call for info. If you can, come and participate, the day will be full of great information. and the funds raised go to assist students in need.

Seed List for 2011

2011-02-13T15:06:00.008-06:00

With all the seed orders in, here is what we hope to plant this season in the garden and greenhouse, along with some further experimentation with vegetable grafting again this year.

2011 Seed Sources

JS = Johnny's Selected Seeds
TS = Territorial Seeds
S = Stokes Seeds
TT = Totally Tomatoes
PT = Pinetree Garden Seeds
SP = Sandhill Preservation Center
BC = Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co

Skyphos Red Butterhead (pelleted) JS
Dancie Green Butterhead (p) JS
Concept Green Summer Crisp (p) JS
Magenta Red Summer Crisp (p) JS
Winter Density Romaine (p) JS
Simply Salad Global Gourmet (p) S
Simply Salad Alfresco Mix (p) S
Tom Thumb -SP
Marvel of Four Seasons - SP
All Year Round - SP

Space Spinach - TS
Regatta Spinach - TS
Olympia Spinach - TS
Regal Spinach - S
Emu Spinach - JS
Tyee Spinach - PT
Spinach Mix - PT
Gigante d'Inverno Spinach - BC
Merlo Nero Spinach - BC
Giant Noble Spinach - BC
Giant Winter Spinach - SP

Sylvetta Arugula - JS
Surry Arugula - JS
Astro Arugula - JS
Fall Greens Mix - SP

Fortex Pole Bean - JS
Helda Pole Bean - TS
Golden Sweet Pea - BC

Franklin Hybrid Brussel Sprouts - TS
Green Magic Broccoli - JS

Green Rocket Chinese Cabbage - PT
Soloist Chinese Cabbage - PT

La Salle Onion - S
Patterson Onion - JS
Saffron Shallot - JS

Rapid Star Kohlrabi - S

Javelin Parsnip - JS

Celesta Radish - S
Onmy Oriental Radish - S
French Breakfast Radish - PT
Green Heart Daikon Radish - PT
Watermelon Radish - PT
German Giant Radish - PT
White Hailstone Radish - BC
Helios Radish - BC
Spring Radish Mix - SP
Winter Radish Mix - SP

Telegraph Improved Cucumber - TS
Tasty Jade Cucumber - JS
Summer Dance Cucumber - TT
Summer Top Hybrid - TT

Sugary Hybrid - TT
Celebrity Hybrid - TT
Tomatoberry Garden Hybrid - TT
Druzba - TT
Nebraska Wedding - PT
Nebraska Wedding - SH
Red Candy - S
Emerald Evergreen - BC
Raspberry Lyanna - BC

Sweet Spot Hybrid Pepper - TT
Planet Hybrid - TS
Yum Yum Gold Hybrid - TS
Jimmy Nardello - SP
Gusto Green Hybrid (Hot) - TS
Ascent Hybrid (Hot) - TS

Plato Zucchini Squash - JS
Bush Delicata Squash - TS
Sunny Delight Squash - S

Savor Charentais Hybrid Melon - TT
Sugar Cube Melon - S
Rich Sweetness Asian Melon - BC
Orangeglo Watermelon - BC
Orange Flesh Tendersweet - SP

Watercress - PT
Upland Cress - PT
Zefa Fino Fennel - JS
Italian Large Leaf Basil (pelleted) JS
Nufar Basil (pelleted) JS
Laura Parsley - S
Darki Parsley - S
Stevia - BC
White Soul Apline Strawberry - PT

Jelly Melon Kiwano - BC
Jelly Melon - SH
Pastella Melon - SH
Bottle Gourd - SH
Luffa Gourd - BC

Radio Calendula - PT
Orange King Calendula - BC
Yellow Profusion Zinnia - JS
Zowie Yellow Flame Zinnia - JS
Zahara Double Cherry Zinnia - JS
Benary's Giant Pink Zinnia - SP
Orange King Zinnia - SP
Miss Willmott Zinnia - BC
Burpee Rose Giant Cactus Zinnia - BC
Bonanza Harmony Marigold - S
Salmon Sunset Four-O-Clock - BC
Marbles White/Yellow Four-O-Clock BC
Tassel Flower Irish Poet - BC

Happy Gardening

2011 Seed Order is Complete

2011-02-09T11:57:00.005-06:00

Grafting clips for working with melons, cucumbers and maybe tomatoes too.

Today's mail brought my final seed order so I will be able to identify the 2011 seed selections in the next post. Also, in the mail were the grafting clips that Maria from Johnny's Selected Seeds sent me. They will be vital to the grafting experiments this season. A big "Thank You Very Much" to Maria for helping with these supplies for our experiments.
Happy Gardening

Amaryllis Wake-Up Month

2011-02-06T12:56:00.021-06:00

Sorry, but keeping names of these bulbs just does not seem to be my best skill....
You will just have to enjoy them and carefully read catalog descriptions for a possible match.
Not an advertisement but I do like John Scheepers for good healthy big bulbs.

This multi-bulbed Appleblossom fell victim to Red Blotch (Stagonospora curtissi) after this great flowering.

Constant turning will help to keep the stalks as straight as possible
There is at least two weeks between the bulbs in the back and the ones in the front.
I like multiple bulbs in pots as it makes for possible more blooms. Plus happy plants just seem to grow more off-shoots.
This bulb, although small, is still in need of a new pot for a few years growth.
Don't bury the bulb, as this will allow you to renew the soil in the pot and keep the bulb happy.

I am glad that February is short because with all but one seed order in, my fingers are itchy to get planting. So, the next best thing is to wake-up the amaryllis bulbs that were nestled in the crawl space in the dark since November. I purchased five new bulbs last fall to add to the fifteen pots I already had. One of these bulbs had Red Blotch (Stagonospora curtissi) , which I identified in an earlier blog, and was thrown out - the bulb supplier promptly reimbursed me the cost - and all the new bulbs have bloomed so we are now working with the older bulbs some of which are at least five years old.

As the pictures identify, we have many budded bulbs ready to bloom. I awoke half of the collection by renewing the soil tops in the pots and then soaking the pots overnight. They are under the fluorescent lights until the bud stalk gets started and then I will bring them up into natural window light to finish them off. The bloom stalk on most of them will lean towards the window so daily pot turning is essential to try to keep the stalk as straight as possible. I don't over water them at this stage but keep the soil moist.

Some of the bulbs were in need of a larger pot so some transplanting was done, however I try to keep them as tight in their pots as possible. Happy amaryllis have pinched roots. You can renew the soil in the bottom of the pot before you awaken them but keeping them root bound for as long as possible should ensure flowering every year. And your bulbs treated this way should have two flower stalks not just one. I even have some that have thrown three!
Once they have flowered, they go back to the fluorescent lights or some may stay in window light until I can get the green house started and they can go out there in full sun. They grown in the greenhouse all summer with regular watering and heavy fertilizer all summer until late August. Later in the fall I start to withhold water and then once again they go into the crawl space before the greenhouse freezes.

I never cut the flower stalk off. I just let it wither until the stalk pulls out. I also do not cut the leaves back in the fall, I let them die naturally which they do in the dark of the crawl space. These bulbs are like any bulb, a predictable bloomer, and with care they will reward you with repeat blooms the following year, or sometimes even in the summer.

I am waiting on only one more seed supplier and then we have all of this years seeds. Even all the back-orders are here already. I spoke to Josh at Territorial Seed Company about - yes - grafted tomatoes. Territorial is the ONLY seed company to offer the home gardener grafted tomatoes this year. Of course, even though we are going to try our own grafting again, I could not resist ordering a few of their plants just to see how they would produce here in Wisconsin. Watch this company for more grafted possibilities in the future. Great job Territorial!
I also spoke with Maria at Johnny's Select Seeds about their seed sales this season and they, like Territorial, are having a very good beginning sale season. Both of these companies are ones you should request a catalog from as they both develop and produce their own seed. It is certainly not too late to get a catalog and make an order either online of by phone. Plus, I will probably make a another seed order in late summer for fall crops. Unlike the local garden center that pulls their seed display down by July, these people are available all year for orders, so get that catalog.
Also notably: this is the first time since my rotator cuff surgery that I have been able to type and use the shift key - Ah! progress....
Happy Gardening

We Have A Winner!!!

2011-01-24T12:29:00.003-06:00

Wow, now that is fast. The seed order made on the phone Friday morning is here already and Johnny's Select Seeds is the winner as the just delivered box indicates. Now on to the garden planning.
Happy Gardening

Zinnia Summer 2011

2011-01-23T16:28:00.016-06:00

Exploration of the zinnia

Most of the seed orders were made on Friday, with one going via USPS tomorrow. Territorial Seed Company had some tempting lettuce but spinach and some interesting peppers were the top choices. Johnny's Selected Seeds got the arugula picks but also the lettuces. The reason was simple - pellitized seed. Because transplants are an important process in my lettuces; pellitized seed makes for ease of planting. I am going with as many pellitized seeds as possible. This company also has carrot seed pellitized and basil too. I feel that the increased cost is negated at plating time because of the ease with which one can position seed into flats. This would be true even with direct seeding in the garden - think of no more thinning in the carrot row. I am sold on pellitized seed and would suggest you try some. Also a neat find was a seed trademarked as 'simply salad' from Stokes Seeds. They have multi-seeded mini pellets with multi-species salad mixes. I am going to try both the 'alfresco mixture' and the 'global gourmet' mix. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds provided me with some of my zinnia choices . This Summer is 'The Year of the Zinnia', according to the National Garden Bureau - so we are ready with some selections of old time zinnias. Baker Creek also had a luffa gourd and a few tomatoes of interest. Pinetree Garden Seeds will supply the yellow tomato 'Nebraska wedding'. I have seen this variety labled as determinate and indeterminate so growing it will tell the tale. sand hill preservation center is the source for my cubits grafting seed.

I want to continue the experiment with tomato grafting but also want to try grafting some melons and cucumbers. The literature suggest using 'cucurbita ficiolia' and 'cucumis metuliferus' both of which Sand Hill has - great. plus I like the seed packet size of this supplier. They are a small company with a great catalog - no pictures so you will have to read their descriptions. They are also a catalog of rare poultry. So if you are going to experiment with chickens you might get their catalog. Chickens are a dream here but maybe not practical yet. One concern with Sand Hill is their 25 chick minimum order - way too many birds for a 4 hen ordinance here in Green Bay.

Besides the grafting I am using the summer green house space to grow our cucumber crop so I ordered varieties that will produce fruits without pollination. This is rather noteworthy because I want to work on learning more about native bees as pollinators. After the success of getting the ban on residential bee hives lifted here in Green Bay. knowledge of native bees which are just as efficient, maybe more so, than honey bees, would help in spreading the word about these species that could be encouraged in back yards maybe more easily and definitely cheaper than honey bee set-up. 'Farming for Bees' guidelines for providing native bee habitat on farms, from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation - ISBN 9780974447513, is a good introduction to this idea. Go to the society web page to read about pollinators and get publications.
Happy Gardening

Seed Order Season

2011-01-09T16:40:00.008-06:00

We no longer heat this greenhouse space in winter - too costly
'Cocktail' is the variety name.
This red blotch ( S. curtisii )means this bulb will not stay in my collection - it MUST go!
Grafted tomatoes are available at Territorial - not a bad price either.

Making decisions is always difficult - making the seed order at 9 degrees with drifts of snow at the back door leading out to the garden is just that. But the anticipation of what the garden could contain is what these seed wish books are all about. Those perfect pictures of what might be only fuel the desire to fill every inch of the garden with those plants and hopefully one's plate with the same delicious produce. So decision time is upon me so that several months from now I can harvest those dreams.

Today I sorted through the seed boxes to remove the very oldest packets (I will make a few rag dolls with some to test the germination) and to get an idea of just what I have - too many cucumber packets and a nice selection of pellitzed lettuce seed. The plan this year is to very selective with cucumbers as last year's greenhouse cucumber growing was successful and could possibly replace any field grown cukes. I was also going to try to buy only pelitized lettuce as it is so easy to seed into flats. Melons were not as successful as I had hoped and so this year we will work with only a few (trying to keep the choices two types and one of those for the greenhouse)

The seed catalogs have been highlighted with a wish list and now the work will be to finalize the list down to the best choices. Once I have got the list done I will share. But don't expect total rational thinking on my part for I too can be fooled by tempting pictures and mesmerizing catalog copy.

I was especially pleased to see that grafted tomato plants are available to the American gardener this season thanks to Territoal Seeds. Grafted plants have been available to the English home gardener for a few years already. A few internet threads show gardeners who are still surprised and new with the concept of grafted vegetables. I have been looking for a tomato grafting workshop that I might attend this spring, but as yet nothing real close has shown up. If anyone hears of one let me know - nothing like some hands-on training to help in my experimentation. I have been told that grafting melons and cucumbers is a bit easier than tomatoes so I will have to look into some tough gourd seeds for that experiment.
Happy gardening

New Year - New Tool

2011-01-01T20:39:00.033-06:00

A look back at the 2010 garden
Crocus naturalized in the yard - I planted 90 more bulbs this past fall.
Wild ramps - a great spring tonic
Jack in the Pulpit
French Sorrel - a wonderful green for every garden
These copper bands were not too successful.
Our front yard living sculpture.
Mother's day is pink roses.
The fig tree and the 'Earthbox" planters - good idea- excellent harvests.
Who can resist sunflowers.
Potato flowers - the beauty of nightshade flowers.
Grafted tomatoes - a fun experiment.
Tomatoberry - good little variety
Green Doctors - sweet fruits.
We just like zinnias.
A Monarch beauty.
The greenhouse cucumbers were a success worth repeating.
The makings for Mango jam.
Mother Nature's way of recycling.
The garlic harvest.
Footies were not too effective against apple pests.
So we will continue to use plastic bags.
A delicious pepper harvest from the 'Earthbox' planters.

Oh, those zinnias, they were a favorite of my grandmother.
Harvested cardoons ready for cleaning and cooking.
Our new hoop house.

Welcome to 2011 and another year to experiment in our Wisconsin backyard garden.

I got a new shoulder for Christmas - rotator cuff surgery on 12/22 - and am happy to be on the mend. The recent rain and spell of warm weather was going to make a parsnip harvest possible but not after my surgery - oh well, we will just have more when we dig them in spring.

I went back to the pictures of last year's garden and those are the choices you see. This past season had some good experimentation and a few successes of note - the grafted tomatoes worked but will need more efforts this next season; the apple bagging was again successful; and some of the tomatoes new this year will get as repeat this year especially the 'Tomatoberry'; the 'Earthbox' plantings were wildly successful for peppers so much so that I will add a third box and grow all our peppers in them with none in the garden; and lastly the fig tree was very productive and I intend to buy another small variety mail order this spring.
We won't be using footie's for organic apple production next year because of expense and the fact that did not succeed against coddling moth. The copper bands around the peppers were not too successful and with all the peppers in containers that eliminates the slug problem for good so
I will just have to fend off the earwigs.

Maybe the most successful endeavor of 2010 was our successful work to get the ban lifted prohibiting bee hives in the city of Green Bay. Now that one can legally have a hive, I think I will look into the class about bee keeping that is scheduled this month - my wife has always wanted bees - they might be what we get instead of the chickens that I have always wanted (they too are legal in the city limits now too).

I hope you both learned and enjoyed our garden this past season and will join us again this season.
Happy Gardening

A Snow Blanket and Sprout Time

2010-12-12T17:04:00.019-06:00

Sunflower sprouts are a great treat you can grow yourself.
The first real big snowfall of this winter.
The hoop house took the storm well.
These sprouts are ready for light and harvestable in a week.

Harvest time for these sprouts.
One has to clean the seed coats off the sprouts as a fair number do not drop off.
Harvest with a knife or kitchen shears.
I clean them in cold water and then spin them dry for storage.
The roots can go on the compost pile or out for the bird to have some winter greens.

Our recent winter storm brought a white blanket to the garden and covered the cold frames so most of our harvest for 2010 is over.
However, on December 1st I harvested Napa cabbage, sorrel, and some parsley but now most of those are covered with snow. I am not too sure if I will be able to get any parsnips out of the ground this December like last because the ground is really frozen and a nice heavy snow blanket is not drifted on that patch. If snow was over them heavy the ground might warm enough for me to dig them in a few weeks. We are down the the last of the apples for one more batch of applesauce and then that harvest will be gone.
The hoop house held up real well in the storm. High winds ( 30-40 mph) did not seem to bother the plastic and the snow was blowing so much that little accumulation on the house occurred. But we still have a few more months of snow and wind to endure. The snow did pile up on the greenhouse and because the glass is old, I pulled snow off twice in this storm. I don't heat that space, but a sunny day will cause the snow load to slip off. Snow did not slip this time. The drifting as noted in the pictures, made pulling the snow off a bit easier than usual because I could stand on the drifts.
Outside gardening is over, but we are still growing. The first of the Amaryllis are showing nice flower stalks and we are forcing Paper whites. The paper whites are one of the easiest flowers to force in the house, because a bulb is like buying a flower ready to go. Three or five bulbs will make a great show for over two weeks. We have returned to growing sprouts in the basement as well. I have grown three batches of sunflower sprouts recently and let me review how I do that.
I wash the sunflower seed in water with a couple of sprays of Clorox. Afterwords, I rinse them off and let them soak overnight. The next day I drain them and scatter them in a plastic tray that does not have holes. I have been putting a small amount of potting soil in the tray before I scatter the seed. I then pat the seed on that soil bed ( less than a half inch) and mist the seed before I put a dampened sheet of newspaper over the seeds. I use a plastic dome over this and put a bath towel over that. At one time I was putting the tray on a heat mat but that just seemed to promote mold - ugh.
For the next several days I spray the paper and check for germination. Usually in three to four days the roots emerge and then you must be vigilant about water and air. Take the newspaper off and begin to give the seedlings light. I have them next to or sometimes under the florescent light bank that I have in the basement for a few plants that I winter over. Keep the growing seed mois,t and add water the the tray. In less than two weeks you will have a nice crop of spouts.
I then cut half of the tray and clean them as some of the seed coats do not fall off the cotyledons as they grow. Cleaning is in a sink of cold water and then I spin the sprouts in a salad spinner and bag them into plastic and store in the refrigerator vegetable bins. Expect a week on the cut sprouts and let the other half of the tray continue to grow and harvest them 4 to 5 days after the first batch.
Sunflower sprouts are great in salads, sandwiches, wraps, soup or just eaten by the hand fulls. They and other sprouts such as alfalfa, mung bean, radish, and broccoli are something we grow most of the winter. The key to success is constant rinsing of sprouts grown in jars and constant moisture for spouts grown in trays. By the way, sunflowers as a field crop are not treated for insects so in reality you can share the 50lb bag with the birds and still have great sprouts in the kitchen.
When you are done with the tray, toss the roots on the compost pile. The birds might find the leftovers good and if you have chickens they will appreciate the winter greens too.
Happy Gardening

A Few Last Garden Harvests

2010-11-21T15:44:00.021-06:00

Cardoons are great plants
Cleft grafting on apple - think about this for next spring.
Tomato grafting is an interesting experiment for the home gardener.
Cardoons tied up for blanching in October
Today's harvest for tonight's meal.

Cleaning the cardoons.
Scraped and sliced stems.
Into lemon water they go and then they will be blanched.
The cardoon dish ready for the oven.
Spinach seedlings in the hoop house that will be the 2011 harvest.
Cold frame lettuce
Napa cabbage that the slugs just love - but we harvest the head anyway.

It may say fall on the calendar but the seed catalogs have already started to arrive. This year by November 16th I had two! - Stokes again was here first but PineTree was in the mailbox too. So November catalogs mean the countdown till the 2011 planting season has begun -"Boy Howdy!" I can hardly wait.
I got to teach a class in plant grafting at Fox Valley Technical College last weekend and I was really excited about the enthusiasm of the class I had. We discussed hard wood grafting and did some practice scion cutting and cleft grafting. I brought apple watersprouts for the practice. Now would be a good time to think about grafting some different apple varieties on that apple tree in the back yard. You would have time to research your choices, learn about grafting and maybe find a class to sign up for that would make your spring grafting experiment successful. Grafting is also a way to renew a tree or save an old favorite apple from another tree onto a branch in your back yard. you can go to the May 6th, 2009 blog entries to see the grafts I put on that season. This season I did not graft any new varieties onto the trees but I think next spring I will be back at it.
We also discussed vegetable grafting and tomatoes were part of that the topic. I think that this grafting is a bit more difficult than hardwood work, but still, as a way to experiment, I find tomato grafting a real challenge. This is the activity I would like to find a class in so I will be checking the Extension sites of both Missouri and North Carolina to see what they might have as classwork next season. Both have done such classes in the past and the North Carolina site has good information about the process. This too might be good winter reading and then you can plan to try tomato grafting next season along with your apple grafting.
The garden is still producing fresh produce. Today I harvested Daikon radishes, Napa cabbage, and Cardoons. Cardoons are on the menu tonight - AuGratin style; however, the Internet shows them as a crispy fried treat too. I harvested three heads that had been tied up for blanching for several weeks. I cleaned the stalks, scraped and pulled off the tough parts and thorns, and put them in lemon water and then blanched them. I am cooking them casserole style with onions, garlic, thyme and cheese but there are many good recipes on the net -Google 'cardoon recipes' and look at the images too. This is a great vegetable and a beautiful garden plant. Here in Wisconsin they are usually an annual but with some protection I have had some return to make seed heads the second year. We also ate these immature flower buds just like artichokes which are a close relative of cardoons. Several seed catalogs have the seed - put them on the wish list for next season.
The pictures this week show some of the hoop house and cold frame plants that will hopefully survive the winter for harvest next spring. The Napa cabbage was ravaged again by the slugs but a little salt in the cleaning water and they are done for - no escargot in the salad please. As you note we are back to alternate weeks with posts during this slow growing time but with the seed catalogs arriving the thoughts of next seasons garden slowly takes form and the excitement of another growing season builds.
Happy Gardening

Drying Apples - Good Snacks

2010-11-01T13:57:00.022-05:00

Hooray!!! The hoop house is still standing after three very windy days.
The squirrel bungee feeder - this should be fun
The wild arugula blooms late in these short fall days.
Hoop house spinach for spring 2011 harvest.
Some mixed greens sprouted in the hoop house.
The celeriac is still growing nicely in this protected environment.
Diakon radish and Nappa cabbage in a cold frame.
The garden put to winter rest with its drainage ditch down the center.
An experiment next to the house (Caution - windows do not work well for cold frames.)
The apple drying picture - coring the washed fruit.
I slice thick as you can see.
Into the lime or lemon water to prevent browning.
Then they get drained before going onto the trays.
Space the fruit so that its flat on the tray - try of avoid overlapping.
A dusting of cinnamon on some of the trays for an experiment.
The fruit in the foreground is dried red grapes - they are really good - nothing on them at all.

We had a barometric pressure reading last week of 28.88 - some sort of record and the winds that followed that low pressure were intense. Luckily for us the hoop house is somewhat protected by a few trees in the neighbor's yard and I think the large spruce tree helped deflect some of the wind. Anyway we still have a hoop house. I took precautions and unplugged the automatic venting system for the greenhouse so that the winds would not destroy the vent as wind has done in the past.
The spinach and other greens are sprouted in the sheltered environment of the hoop house and so with some luck we will have spinach in March or April of 2011. The celeriac plants have a mulch of straw around them as I want to see if they will keep longer and be useable later in the season as they did not grow real large. I did not plant all the space in the hoop house but left enough room for Arugula and early lettuce plantings in the spring. One needs planning for food.
The garden has been rototilled but this season I do not intend to plant a cover crop of winter wheat for several reasons - the large amount of straw that I used as mulch last season has been tilled into the soil and because of the lateness of the time I am really not sure I can even find seed. So with that in mind the garden will be open this winter. I did ditch to space because I want the rain and snow-melt to drain through and thus I have a ditch running the length of the garden. I put straw at both ends to slow the water down and stop any erosion of my soil. The only things left in the garden are the parsnips for next year, some salsify as a root crop test, the Daikon radishes in a cold frame and the Nappa cabbage in the cold frames. The Daikon radishes are real sweet for this late in the season. One other frame has spinach and lettuce inside hopefully for next spring.
With all the apples harvested I have been drying them. Dried apples are easy and a home dehydrator is the quickest way to get the job done. Ours has 6 trays that I fill and the fruit dries overnight. Our process is to clean the apples and usually not peel them as they have all been in bags for the growing season and have no pesticide residue on the skins. Plus, I can't prove it, but I feel they skins are more tender than on unbagged apples. To keep them from browning, I put the apple pieces in a water bath of lemon or lime juice - usually one lime for a couple of cups of water. The cut up fruit is dipped in the water and then put in a strainer to drain and then put on the dryer trays. This year I tried dusting a few of the trays with cinnamon - we like them. The dehydrator is set for "fruit" and if I fill the trays in the afternoon they are ready to bag up by the next morning. We had someone calculate our electricity cost for this process and it came to something like 25 cents per 6 trays of fruit. When the apple pieces have dried, I put them in baggies and store them in a cabinet over the ovens. Certain people here really love dried apples so they seldom last the whole winter. I have reconstituted them with hot water to use in cooking but mostly they get eaten as dried fruit.
As you see with the season winding down, so have the entries. I looked at the statistics for this blog and was amazed to see the distant places that have located us and the large number of hits the blog has gotten over time. I sure hope we have helped you in some ways and we do enjoy sharing our garden and techniques with everyone.
Happy Gardening

New Hoop House

2010-10-17T16:04:00.024-05:00

The new hoop house is up and planted with spinach, lettuce, radish, mustard and kale.
Rebar rods, 'U' galvanized clamps help secure the PVC conduit to the 2x4 frame.
I used two clamps to secure the PVC to the base.
I used the glue that is labeled for this PVC conduit.
This picture and the next show that I brought the base plate into the first hoop.
I had to do that so that I could build the frame for the front end.
The back end is another hoop plus a wood frame. I think I like the front better.
Both ends done and ready for a door and covering.
Because the house goes down hill the door opening was not square - kind of a challenge.
The plastic is secured at the base with lath strips screwed into the base.
Lath also help secure the covering to the front and back making a nice closed space.
I planted spinach in three rows.
Instead of seeding the whole row I used a dibble and space spinach clumps 2-3 inches apart.

This weeks mystery plant was a surprise to me too as I have waited all summer to see this....

The new hoop house, season extender, is up and planted. The total cost is somewhere less than a $100 as I did have some materials left from other projects that I used. I got gray PVC conduit instead of the white plastic because it cost less than the other pipe and I liked the fact that I did not have to buy another fitting to stick them together - the conduit has male and female ends for gluing purposes.
I used the ten foot conduit and only cut about 6-7 inches off each end to make a hoop that was 74 inches high and fit nicely between my 2x4 base frame. I used rebar rods and galvanized 'U' straps at the base to secure the hoops to the frame. I used 1x2 furring strips as side and top braces and attached them to the pipe with zip ties. The ends were each different as I wanted to see which seemed to work best for closing off the hoops. I think I like the front closure method better than the rear closure for two reasons - first, the front does not need another piece of pipe and it was difficult to get the bend correct to fit under the existing pipe at the rear; second, the front seems more stable and has more staple points for attaching plastic. Both ends are from other Internet sites that show this kind of plastic hoop house.

(Look at them here: doorgarden.com/10/50-dollar-hoop-house-green-house and also at www.albertahomegardening.com/how-to-build-an-inexpensive-hoop-style-greenhouse )

I used one 20ft x 25ft sheet of 3 mil plastic to cover the house. What I liked was that this plastic sheet allowed me to double the covering - (not planned but it just turned out that way - what luck) - so I think the structure will better withstand snow and maybe allow the snow to slip off better. The plastic was secured to the base with lath strips and dry wall screws. Snow was the biggest problem with the old structure I had - snow stayed on the roof and had to be pushed off. We will just have to wait and see what winter will bring to this season extender.
So to summarize - the new hoop house is a 10 ft x 10 ft space with 2x4's as anchors for the two pieced PVC conduit hoops. The braces are 1x2x8 and the end boards are 1x3's. The door is also 1x3's and is covered with a sheet of heavy plastic I have been using to make apple labels. A friend gave me several sheets of this stuff a long time ago and so out of the basement the heavy plastic came to serve as a nice door for the hoop house - (Thanks Linda L.) The skin is a 20x25ft sheet of 3 mil plastic and the ends are covered with pieces from an 8x25 sheet of 4mil plastic. The whole structure was secured with zip-ties and drywall screws.
The only thing I forgot to do was to paint the PVC as some discussion says the plastic against plastic seems to degrade. So I put duct tape on the hoops after the fact today and will wait to see how that works.
The space has some plants already in place - celeriac and some greens but today I planted spinach, lettuce, greens, and some kale seed I had left from last year. I also left some space for arugula and lettuce for a spring planting. Hopefully the weather will hold and I will get some germination in the next two weeks. The spinach I planted in the cold frame a while ago is sprouted and the lettuce transplants have perked up too.
Along with finishing and planting the hoop house I got some of the other fall jobs done. I drained all the rain barrels; dug the bonsai into their winter locations; picked the apples - mainly because the robins are attacking the fruit through the bags. I had a number of apples that were really pecked badly and that allowed the German wasps to get on them too. So the best solution was to pick them all. I pulled all the tomato posts last week and hope to till the garden soon.
Happy Gardening

Warm Weather for Garden Clean Up

2010-10-10T17:00:00.027-05:00

Pride of Burma Ginger - a new plant for us.

The Pineapple Sage blooms with the short days of October.
The garlic patch planting -plant now for a next summer harvest.

The finished bed.
A late planting of lettuce in a season extender cold frame
the cardoon tied up for blanching.
I harvested "babies" from this mother plant for wintering over under lights.
Here are the newly planted starts.
The Red Italian Dandelion is a chicory that I hope will winter over.
Look at those thorns on the Purple Devil.

Nothing on this plant is edible.

The return of warm weather helps make fall clean up easier but also makes one wish for more growing days. I finally got some late lettuce planted in one of the cold frames. I also was surprised when I looked in the seed box for spinach seed - seems there is not too much. Spinach is a great last crop to sow in the fall as the seed will germinate in the cool nights and then just hold through the winter for spring growth. So I will have to go on the search for some more seed as the three packets that I have just will not do as I planted one in the cold frame with the lettuce.

I also got the garlic planted. Hardneck garlic is a fall planted crop that will be harvested next summer. The pictures show that I am only planting one bed instead of two like last year. I had more garlic of one kind than another so I figured that I would just mix the cloves and not bother to worry about two separate beds. The garlic all ends up eaten or planted anyway. I used my dibble to punch the holes and planted the cloves about 2 - 2 1/2 inches deep and talking with some other gardeners I think next spring I will give the plants a good shot of blood meal to help push them along. They seem to think that garlic is a heavy feeder and needs fertilization so I will try. I sure would like bulbs as large as the ones I saw again at the Door County Fair in August.

Along with the planting I took out all the cucumber vines, melon vines, tomato plants and peppers and sent them all to the city compost pile. Just as matter of practice I don't compost any of those plants. I want to move the tomato planting so I will pull out all the "T" posts this fall and reposition them next season in the new patch. I removed all the potato vines too and sent them off as well. The egg plants, when I pulled them, had huge root systems as did a few of the tomato plants. The 'Red Peach' along with the 'Green Doctors', 'Tomatoberry', and I think 'Red Alert' all had substantial root systems this late in the season. While the other tomatoes in the rows were easy to pull out as they had few roots holding them in the ground. The grafted plants were not as heavy on the roots as they should have been. A few of the cherry types also had the very last tomatoes of the season. The 'Green Doctors' and 'Red Alert' had the most and a yellow variety also had fruits but I just can't remember the name of that yellow variety, as the plants were in the rows that got replanted and the records don't show exactly what they are - too bad because they were good.

I also tied up all the cardoon plants in order to blanch the centers before I harvest some of them. Hopefully they will be on the menu for Thanksgiving or maybe sooner. Some of the plants might winter over and then next season they will grow flower shoots and make what look and taste very much like mini-artichokes. What fun.

We are having beef stew tonight. The base is tomato juice frozen from last years tomatoes; with onions, potatoes, carrots, and celeriac from this years garden.

Last week I started a new batch of 'Spider Plants (Chlorophytum conosum) for the house and for next years outdoor plants. I like to have 'Spider Plants' in the house all winter. They will take the low light and help clean the air, and next spring, the plantlets will be a supply of new adult plants. I have been making new plants this way for a number of years. These plants are day length sensitive and that is what makes the off shoots appear in the fall and spring. Get one from your local grower and next spring make some more.

Also last week we got a new house plant - a 'Pride of Burma' ginger (Curcum roscoeana) from the Plant People Floral here in Green Bay. Sheila Hansen is the floral manager and she has a very nice variety of green and blooming plants. This ginger is tall, as the pictures show, and the orange flower is bright and really a great plant for this Halloween season of orange. I hope to keep the ginger growing upstairs as long as possible then move it to the lights in the basement and then see how it fares.

Two other plants from this summer need some up dates. The Italian red dandelions are a "YES" - a chicory as their scientific name says -Cichorium intybus - so that explains the blue flowers and now the hope is that they will also be perennial and come up next year too.
The 'Purple Devil' (Solanum atropupurean) is truly a devil to get rid of as the thorns show. I scraped off the bottom six inches of thorns before I cut them off and threw them to the trash. The other name for this beast is 'Five Minute Plant' and I agree one does spend at least that much time marveling at the downward facing thorns that can go through leather work gloves easily. Nothing edible on it and I think that this one is not going to reappear in the seed list again unless I want a spite fence.

As guest speaker for the Introduction to Horticulture class at Fox Valley Technical School last Wednesday, I had an involved group of students and really had an excellent time. I can't stress to them too much what a good career path I think they have chosen. We talked about how much everybody likes" pretty" and everyone eats food, and that horticulture seems to work at satisfying both of those needs - "Good Luck" students - hope you stick with it. Thanks for getting the 'mystery plant' correct too.

Happy Gardening.

A Living Roof in Green Bay

2010-10-03T21:05:00.002-05:00

St Mary's Hospital Living Roof. A 22,000 sq.ft space with 16,000 sq.ft of living plants.
This roof has both aesthetic and environmental benefits.
The area is open to anyone - drop by for a visit.
The sedums and alums are grown in trays in a very porous soil mix and are thriving.

At home, this eggplant was a little too bitter for a second trial.
This is a little pepper but it packs a lot of heat units.
This was last weeks ending pepper harvest.
The potato harvest out in the sun to dry before storage.
On a recent Door County bike ride we saw this amazing mushroom tree.

This weeks mystery plants - grown from germinated seeds in a fruit.

Recently my garden club visited the "Living Roof" at St. Mary's Hospital Medical Center at 1726 Shawano Ave. in Green Bay. This is the largest living roof north of Chicago covering apx. 22,000 square feet. This roof is in part of the mission of this hospital to respect "not only people but the environment we live in." I was really delighted to see this structure. Corrine Vercauteren spoke to the group about the reasons and benefits of this roof. She is the person in charge of the Environmental Service for St. Mary's. The Sedum and Alum species that grow on the roof are well suited to the zone 4 conditions they endure. Additionally the roof collects 99 percent of the rain that falls on the roof and diverts the water to two cisterns for later use and use in the other gardens that surround this hospital.
The roof was planted in trays and notably, should the hospital decide to build on this site, the roof can be removed and reused atop any future construction. This was truly a well thought out project and has many advantages as compared to a conventional asphalt roof; especially in that this roof will outlast an asphalt roof. St Mary's Hospital is working hard to fulfill its environmental stewardship role and definitely demonstrates "Reverence for the Earth".
If you are ever in the area stop by and take a look at this structure - it is well worth your time.
We are possibly looking at frost soon so the last of crops have been harvested. Potatoes were dug yesterday and the last of the egg plants were harvested and eaten tonight. The fig tree is in the green house and will probably go from there to the basement for its winter sleep. Today there were 8 rip figs - what a great treat. The apples are going to stay on the trees as long as possible. Last year I picked them all and was not happy that some of them were not as mature as another week or two would have produced. This year I am resisting the urge to harvest at the threat of frost and will wait till really dangerous low temperatures threaten. That should allow the late fruit to mature and store better. Besides the fruit seems to just taste better when it comes right off the tree.

Happy Gardening

Kansas City, Mo Adventures and More

2010-09-19T17:44:00.040-05:00

Orchids grow on the palm trees in the Kauffman Memorial Gardens.
The great produce at City Market, Kansas City MO
How about these for the grill?
Black Eyed Peas - Real southern food.
Fresh ginger - something new in a farm stall for me.
Boy! were these beautiful.
Roasted peppers - they looked real good and smelled great.
One of the three aisles of farm produce.
Part of the Kauffman Legacy Park.
Blues are so hard to get good pictures of.
Butterflies on the milkweed - this shot took some waiting.
This is the official garden cat sunning in the greenhouse with palms and orchids.
The University of Missouri Extension service is located in this complex.

Ash flower gall mites are quite cosmopolitan and these trees have the galls bad.
These apples will be harvested and stay in the bags for the best storage.
Nice apple in a footie but as you see the bag is starting to tear and so it is not usable again.
These are part of the row of "All Red" potatoes and a few "Inca Gold".
Chipmunk damage to my melon.
I just cant say enough about the success of these "Earth Box" planters.
The biggest banana tree I have ever grown.

We went for a visit with our son in Kansas City, Missouri recently. We got to see more of the city than in our last visit as this time we were able to visit City Market with all the growers in for the Saturday sales. We saw great garden products - got some seedless watermelon, some fresh ginger, and best of all wonderful fresh figs. This is a great market with three double rows for the local growers and various markets of ethnic origin on the perimeter. The Italian deli was tempting and the spices for sale at the Middle Eastern market gave off wonderful smells. We got some Iranian watermelon seeds for a snack and some great tea. This week's pictures will show the market, our visit to the Kauffman Memorial Gardens in downtown KC and some of the harvest that we are doing here in Wisconsin. Should you like another perspective of Kansas City try my son's blog at: http://awiscoboyinkcmo.blogspot.com/
While in KC I got to make a call on the University of Missouri Extension and speak at length with Marlin Bates, Horticulture Specialist about the tomato grafting programs that have been offered by Missouri Extension.UM Extension is very fortunate to have specialists on staff who are knowledgeable about Asian high tunnel growing and vegetable grafting. The information Marlin shared with me about grafting programs that they have presented to regional growers gave me good insight as to the specialized focus of this type of vegetable production. Marlin and I also talked about Viburnum borers and Ash flower Gall mites. A very big "Thank you" to him for sharing his time.
Just a brief note abut the Kauffman Gardens. Although they are a small garden, and notably the final resting sight of the Kauffman's themselves, this garden is a gem - well maintained, colorful even this late in the season, and well identified. The gardens are an oasis of peace in a busy city scene.

Back here in Wisconsin, fall is upon us. The apple harvest is going nicely. I pick a few ripe fruits each day. The bagging results on the footies are not good. I do not see them as protecting the apples as effectively as the plastic bags. They have allowed some coddling moths into fruit and they will not be usable for a second season as they seem to deteriorate in one season - I would guess its UV deterioration. Plus they are not as readily available as plastic, are a bit more time consuming to apply, and I have some signs of apple scab on footie fruits that I do not have with plastic bags. I really don't know for sure why. So as a result I don't think I will be searching for a good deal on 'footies' this spring.
Potatoes are still green and growing but I have dug some anyway. The "French Fingerlings" we had the other night oven roasted were nice. Today we are having some Inca Gold and All Red quickly cooked in the microwave. We are not big potato eaters much anymore but having fresh spuds from the garden is hard to resist.
The melons are a real bust. Most of the vines were hit hard by fast-moving powdery mildew and then cool weather brought growth to a halt. Also I have rodent damage on some fruit as the pictures show. If I get the new hoop house built this fall maybe we can use that structure in the summer for melons and see if that helps hurry them along.
The fig tree is giving us one or two ripe figs each day and the peppers growing in the "Earth Boxes" are an amazing success. I think I will get another one of these planters and put all of next years pepper plants in these and none in the garden. Finally, the banana tree is just huge! Take a look at the pictures of this great plant with the yard stick to help you get some idea of just how happy this plant has been this year - too bad frost will make short work of it soon. We will hope for such a happy plant next year.
Happy Gardening

One of the many fountains in KC, MO. ( PS if you go back to the Canada fishing entry; I just got that wilderness waterfalls to post too....)

Tomato Blight for me too

2010-09-05T20:48:00.009-05:00

Ripe figs from our tree are a treat.
Probably the worst tomato patch I have ever had.
We had NO beans this season - good thing I did not plant all my seeds.
These red dandelion flowers look exactly like blue chicory flowers.
You can see that the ones in the lower right are really blue.

After my return from the Canadian fishing trip the tomato patch looked pretty sad. What looked like a late blight had hit the plants hard and it took some time to clean up the plants. I removed all dead leaves and any green leaves that looked really infected and any old or damaged fruits. They look pretty poor but we are still picking fruits and maybe we will still have tomatoes for a few weeks to come. I sure will miss them when they are gone.

Most of the melons are still green. The Minnesota midgets were over ripe when I got home and so no taste test there. The vines growing on the trellis seem to be less infected with powdery mildew than the plants on the ground. With our cool weather for the last few days ripening will be slow. I sure hope we get some soon. However, Stinky - our Chicago Brown Turkey fig - is producing several rip fruits each day. What a treat to come home from Canada to ripe figs. As the weather gets cooler the fig tree will retreat back to the greenhouse and then later into the house as we do not heat the greenhouse except for one month in the seed starting season.

My son and I spent most of the day painting the inside of the house so tomorrow I want to start some fall lettuce and get some radishes planted in a cold frame plus get some more clean up in the garden done. We are going to take down the old hoop house and hopefully put up a new one this fall. Initially I was going to try one made of metal poles but I think I am going to try one made of plastic tubing mainly as a cost factor. half inch to one inch PVC honed in the middle and anchored to the ground with plastic stretched over the top and some sort of permanent ends seems to be the plan. I will again search the web for some plans I know I saw once before.

The Italian red dandelions have some flowers on them and they look exactly like chicory flowers - blue petaled. I was expecting a yellow composite but that's not what one plant that is blooming has so I need to go back to the seed package or the catalog and see if their is a scientific name to check the genus and species.
Happy Gardening

Fishing in Canada Again

2010-08-29T17:42:00.010-05:00

Pure Canada
Pike on a fly - barbless catch and release.
See the other fisherman in the tree?
This is why we like kayak fishing - close to the water and the fish.

I just got home today from a great fishing trip to Canada where a plate of my tomatoes were a hit at the camp cookout night. (The garden was under the care of my wife and she did a great job with its care - Thanks Honey.) A good friend and I drove last weekend all the way to Ear Falls Ontario (700 miles)to stay for a week at Woman River Camp. We had a wonderful time! Our camp hosts, Paul, Debbie and ValerieAnn could have not been more helpful and compared to the other camps I have been to these people understand completely how to run a fish camp and make you feel at home during your stay. We caught and released over 200 Northern Pike in our week stay and the spinning poles and fly poles got a real workout. There is nothing more exciting that catching a 30in pike on a fly rod while floating in your kayak inches from the water and fish = fun, fun, fun.
Happy Gardening (fishing too)

An Art Fair Weekend

2010-08-16T19:24:00.021-05:00

Swanstone Gardens Celebrate Nature Art Fair August 2010
Some of my beads

Some of my display tables for the fair.
Do you know this sweet plant?
A tobacco harvest - just trying....
This is our first harvest of the transplanted beets - they were very good.
The trenched fence that is now backfilled and protecting the yard.
I like the look of the black fence.
Later this fall this area should get a cement slab too.
Queen Red Lime Zinnia
These are so lovely.

I participated in a three day art fair at Swanstone Gardens just up the road from home. Friday was not the best weather warm, close, and very buggy but Saturday and Sunday were just great - breezy and sunny with a nice crowd all day long looking at the art and other things for sale. I like this art fair and from what I can see people like what I offer. Besides gardening I work in glass and make beads. I have been doing this for almost ten years. Lampwork, as my beading is called, is great fun and glass is such a wonderful medium with vibrant colors and endless possibilities for shapes.
The other activity this week was our fence. We had taken out the split rail fence and had contracted for a black vinyl chain link fence to be installed. With all our rain I was not sure how we were going to get the job done. Monday the crew arrived and dug the post holes and cemented in the posts. That night we had a downpour and because I was burying the chain link in a trench those trenches filled with water and I mean filled! Tuesday was drain day as the contractor deemed it too wet to work - yes it was too wet. I think it took most of the day to drain the water out of the trenches. The east side needed to be siphoned and the west side I had to ditch to get all the water out. Late in the day the water was gone. Wednesday the fence crew returned and we were fenced by noon. I have always had the garden fence but now with the back yard enclosed I no longer have to fence the garden and I really like just walking into my garden space at anyplace I want.
At the art fair I had a small flower display of zinnias and they were a hit. They are called Queen Red Lime and are from Johnny's Select Seeds. They are tall plants(40-50in.) but the flowers range in size and are a mix of green and red and I am really fond on these. They are really pretty and people would touch them at the fair and said "Oh these are real!" So the pictures try to show you what they look like.
Happy Gardening

Blue Ribbon Fair Time

2010-08-08T18:25:00.029-05:00

Entries at the Door County Fair / A nice garden display
Yummy Reds - easily worth a blue ribbon
Great potatoes and in the Open Class there were some larger white types.
This was the greatest number of field corn entries in a long time - what a job to judge.
A very nice adult entry for a planter.
One person's flower entries - now that's a competitor.
This is my worst bean crop EVER - weather and critters.
The melons have started to set.
All these peppers are from the 'Earthbox' planters.
This is the blue ribbon fair garlic - huge.
Our garlic harvest of the first bed, there is a second to be dug yet.
Not too bad a size - for planting in October of this year.
Green Grape, not a small grape but nice size for salads.
Country Taste, nice flavor and good for BLT's.
Valencia, a nice yellow.
Grubs Mystery Green - sweet but soft.
Eva Purple Ball, this is really a pink type with good tomato taste.
Our Beakly apple.
These are the Lodi apples from the fair.

The season of the county fair is upon us and I was only able to judge one fair this season. I really enjoy judging Junior Fair face to face as these are the gardeners of the future and helping to develop their skills is most fulfilling. I had some really nice garden products to judge this year. Of all the items some stand out. The young boy with his fresh picked raspberries, the teenager with some of the nicest potatoes I have seen and the young man who was knowledgeable enough to be able to tell me how his Roundup ready corn was developed genetically. In the five years I have been asking entrants how their corn was produced he is the first person to be able to explain that this crop is genetically engineered seed. All three were outstanding entries and they all got an extra Best of Show ribbon for their efforts. Congratulations to them.
More tomatoes have begun to ripen and we have had the first of the Purple Smudge (not that good), Eva Purple Ball which is really pink but good, County Taste which is one for growing next year again, and Grubs as green variety that is soft but flavorful. I have a picture of the Green Grape which is more round than to be expected for a grape and a nice size. The whole patch was pruned today meaning I removed many spotted and dried leaves and opened the plants up to more sun and air flow. We are back in a rainy period and so this season we are getting enough rain that I have not used the rain barrels or the gallon jugs for the tomatoes yet.
The "Earthbox" peppers are doing really good, much better than the garden plants. Most of the peppers we are eating come off those plants. Soon I should be able to get fruits off the garden plants but they are not producing as well as the potted ones. My wife, who is the pepper consumer says the Gypsy are good but not too flavorful so what I have gained in large numbers of fruits I have lost in taste. Sounds like a common situation in production.
The cucumbers are back to producing and we have small melons developing on the trellis plants. That's good because we are still waging battle in the potato plot with mice and voles. The four traps I bought have all disappeared so next batch will have to be anchored in place.
Our youngest son helped to get the old fence out and trench the yard for the new fence that is scheduled for instillation this week - weather permitting. The back yard is to be surrounded by a four foot black vinyl chain link fence that will be buried six inches into the ground. This should discourage critters from the tasty morsels of our garden. As soon as I had taken the old fence down and opened the yard, two rabbits appeared. One even found his way into the garden which I had surrounded with 24 inch chicken wire for the interim. They must have radar.
We had our first fresh apple of the season, an early Heritage variety called Beakly - a 2008 graft and the one that was in last weeks pictures protected by 'footies'. Nice flavor and not soft as some early apples can be. At the fair I saw my first example of Lodi apples. As the picture shows, they are "huge". I will be looking for that scion wood next spring for a new graft. I also dug half of the garlic crop. As the pictures tell we had a good harvest and have enough larger bulbs to roast some. The biggest ones will still be the seed crop for next year. Once again the garlic at the Door County Fair was magnificent - must be the limestone soil or just the gardeners themselves as I again was amazed at the size of the bulbs entered at the fair. I think I will give mine a bit more fertilizer next year to see if that helps as one grower hinted.
One of my favorite stops is the poultry barn at the fair. I just love those chickens and this year the barn was full of crowing roosters. So enjoy the short video and maybe try to visit a county fair this season.
Happy Gardening

WOW!!! 1000 Hits for our Blog

2010-08-01T16:37:00.020-05:00

The August garden with cardoons aplenty.
Footie apples.
These banana leaves are really colorful this year.

Sugary.
Tomatoberry.
Sun Sugar hybrid.
Mangoes and my favorite limes - the small kind - much juicer than big limes.
The cooked jam is just this lovely color.
Our nice fig crop. We call this plant "Stinky" - if you have a fig tree you will agree.
Vole country.
Our Mystery flower - name this plant - it was on the seed list.

Thank you everyone - as of today we have had 1000 views of our profile so someone is reading our efforts.

The wet weather continues and too much water is just as damaging as too little. The beans, this year between animals and water, are not going to provide us anything. The tomatoes are looking rather bedraggled so I gave them a shot of low dose nitrogen today (dried blood) in hopes of some happier late growth. We are getting tomatoes and not too much cracking as the moisture has been constant rather than spotty. Three salad types are producing nicely. "Sugary" is right up there in the great taste category. " Tomatoberry" is a nice looking tomato with lots of fruit on the cluster but kind of dull tasting. Although, the other morning, cooked as a side for scrambled eggs they were good because they held their shape after cooking. " Sun Sugar" hybrid is a good golden salad type. Great right off the cluster with a nice sweet taste. I did have some green tomatoes ripe but no pictures for this week as, yes, we ate them all.

Apples are sizing nicely and I used some this week to boost the pectin in the mango jam I made . I made two different batches as mango's at the market were 2 for $1. The recipe called for 6 in each batch but I used 8 - I wanted nice think chunky jam. The first batch I followed the recipe with sliced limes and lime and lemon juice and the result was OK. The second batch got a new spin. Lime juice but not cut up limes in the mix and I added a portion of a vanilla bean while cooking and then took that out and scraped another portion of a vanilla bean and added the seeds just before I put the jam into jars. The second batch is much better, no harsh lime
aftertaste but that sweet mellow flavor that vanilla adds to anything. I had a peanut butter and mango jam sandwich today - good. The fig tree has a nice set of fruit and the banana tree in the patio pot gets bigger by the hour. I have had banana trees before but never were they this happy and so big by August 1st.

We are putting in a new fence around the yard -chain link- so I encircled the garden with chicken wire to protect young seedlings from marauding rabbits while the back yard is unfenced. Once the new fencing is in the entire back yard will be protected because we are burying 6 inches of the fence to eliminate critters hopefully. The potatoes are being attacked by voles thus the picture. Peanut butter under the trigger makes for better capture than on the top where the voles freely lick it off. Not so when the bait is under the trigger. Peppers and cucumbers are producing nicely and I took out one of the greenhouse cucumber plants and re planted with a different variety to see what we could get going into fall. The garlic is soon to be harvested so with that, cucumbers, and some Greek yogurt we are ready for Tzatziki.

Now for some local politics. I am attending a city council committee meeting on Monday to speak in favor of an ordinance change. The City of Green Bay prohibits residents from having a hive of honey bees on their property. However, last month my alderman proposed that the ordinance be changed to allow bees. So tomorrow I am going to the meeting to express my interest in that change. Urban bee keeping is on the rise. The University of Minnesota has 250 people already signed up for an October basic bee keeping class and another 140 plus on a waiting list. The city of Minneapolis just lifted their ban on urban bee keeping. Here in GB we are trying to change the ordinance to allow for a hive of two to be kept which would be very beneficial both to the environment and for vegetable gardens. Ironically, the honey bee is the Wisconsin state insect but legally I can't keep them in my yard. Even the south lawn of the White House has a hive! So I sure hope that the committee sees that bees would be a good new city resident and make urban bee keeping legal.

Happy Gardening
PS we have a mystery flower for quiz time this week...

Waterlogged

2010-07-25T10:09:00.019-05:00

Three happy team members.
This tropical plant loves this heat and rain mixture.
My transplanted carrots.
Yes, they are good.

These are the Red Peach the fourth week of July- they are over my head.
This is the largest container I used to be able to get - I have three.
The front walk with the pouring pot planter.

Next year I am only going to have Spider plants in each of the four pots.
A crop that came with the straw bales and all this rain. (not edible that I know)

Last summer was really dry but this summer has been a complete turnaround - overall that's a good thing to help replenish the soil moisture that several dry years has produced.

Now for something entirely different. The DOOR County Triathlon was a great success for us as the picture shows - the most happy team. Even with big waves I had a great time (fastest in my age group!) my wife's bike speed was her best - 2mph faster than she had ever done and our runner was happy with her time because the day had turned real hot and that made her run tough. We were all most pleased and look forward to this event next year.

Back to gardening.

With all the rain I have not gotten too much done as the ground was quite soggy and easily compacted so I have tried to stay on the boards and could not be doing much planting. We have plenty of cucumbers, peppers, lettuce and a few tomatoes. Cracking is a problem with all the moisture. On a sad note, the most recent grafting experiment ended is disaster - all but one of the grafts were lost. Back to trying to get this worked out. I think I am going to try to find someone who has done this and talk to them - there has to be something I am not doing right.
The grafted plants in the garden are doing fine and have set fruit. I have included a picture of my root stock plants (Red Peach) just to show how big they are. They have reached the top of the posts and are still growing so that is why I used them for rootstock - vigor.

I have spoken about using Cayenne pepper before but have had some questions again. Mammals can taste hot peppers but birds, because they have such poor taste buds, do not taste that well. Mixing the Cayenne with your bird seed to repel squirrels is one way to keep them out of the bird feeder. You can sprinkle it on the seed, or mix it in water and pour that mixture over the seed too. When squirrels sit in the feed they get it on their feet too and as they preen that causes them problems. So buy the largest container of the stuff you can find. I discourage the bunnies by sprinkling it on my crocus flowers in the lawn and around my new transplants in the front yard that is not fenced.

I recently got an email about a garden project that is interesting. Its called Vacant 2 Vegetables and is a vegetable sharing garden by a friend of my brother. Chris has a garden web site at GreenThumbDuJour.com that is full of interesting info and if you Goggle Vacant 2 Vegetables you will get a nice video that explains the project. Take a look - great sharing and caring.

I have included a carrot picture that shows how the transplanted carrots have done. I have more to transplant and lettuce, fennel, and some really late beans to plant as soon as I can get into the garden - seed dry and plant wet.

Happy Gardening

Grafting Again

2010-07-11T16:40:00.016-05:00

This is a great miniature hosta with loads of flowers - no I don't know the variety.
The purple devil plant - yes, that's the name from the catalog.
The Italian dandelions seem to have a different flowering process.
The tobacco loves this hot steamy weather - we are growing it for its flowers.
This seasons first ripe tomatoes.
This is the plant that I broke the terminal bud out of and it has recovered nicely.
Leaf spot.
Poor broccoli heads.
These potato flowers are really pretty.
The next batch of grafted tomatoes.

After the excitement of earlier this week things has calmed down. The lettuce has made a comeback but I had to replant most of the pole beans. I was trying a new variety of pole bean this summer but most of them were lost to the ground hog. I think I have maybe one or two hills and the rest I planted again with my old saved beans. I don't know what that variety is called but we like it and we should get a crop. The ground is warm so they have already started pushing up and should catch up with the few others quickly.
I picked the first tomato today but I am not sure which variety it is ( records, records, records?) I have a picture of the tomato that a few weeks ago that I broke the terminal bud off. The plant has replaced the leader with a sucker and has hardly slowed its growth. I have a fair crop of green fruits on most plants so we will have plenty of tomatoes soon. With all the rain, leaf spot has returned even with straw down so I have started to cut off the infected leaves. I never compost any tomato plant parts but take them to the city leaf dump. (I do the same with cucumbers.) Even if I cut off leaves the first foot up, the tomato plant fruit production does not seem to be affected. Some of this years plants seem more susceptible to leaf spot than others so that might be a consideration for whether a variety is grown again.
The broccoli is ready for harvest but I am not impressed with the flower heads. I don't know if it's the weather - too hot for broccoli - or just the variety, but the heads are small and bolting fast. We will have to see what the side shoots look like for the final decisions. We have also had peppers as a breakfast side with scrambled eggs - the variety is "Healthy" and they are an early harvest so they are not fully mature, but good.
The melons and cucumbers are finally happily growing up the trellises and I have flowers and some developing fruits. Even the zucchini have flowers and small fruits but watching the roadside, I see that the Chicory is blooming so that means Squash Vine borers are on the wing so its time to protect the plants. I will mound more dirt up around the stems, check the undersides of leaves for eggs and maybe dust with a bit of Sevin just as a precaution.
The potatoes are flowering. This years plants have particularly beautiful flowers as the above pictures can attest. Now in a few weeks we can try stealing a few new potatoes for an early taste of the corp.
I pulled out the pea vines and thinned the parsnips, planted more egg plants and the celery root and as the heading says, grafted a third set of tomatoes. This time I put "Green Grape" on the Red Peach root stock. I really don't think I will get fruits but at least I get the practice of grafting. I think all the tomato seed is on sale so I think I will buy some just to practice a few more times.
Susan and I are both part of a Triathlon sprint relay team, along with friend Mary Ann, this coming weekend in Door County ( you can check it out at www.doorcountytriathlon.com )and I also have an art fair to attend as an artist selling my original lampowork glass beads at the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum Art Festival in Neenah, Sunday July 18 from 10-4, so I think that there may be a brief pause in the posting so we can catch our breath after next weekends back-to-back activities.
Happy Gardening

Happy July 4th

2010-07-04T21:29:00.021-05:00

Door County water lilies
Brooklyn Botanical Gardens
Red Zinnia and a photo shop of the same picture.
'Packman' broccoli - a catalog quality picture
This little Trader Joe rose plant has really been a great buy even after 4 months.
These are the transplanted beets to date.
A critter is snacking on my carrots.

These are transplanted carrots.
I put cayenne pepper on these after they were eaten.

This lettuce is doing well under the trellis for the melons and cucumbers.

Sunny hot July weather sure makes the garden grow. After a quick trip to Kansas City, MO to move our eldest son, we arrived back to lush grass needing cutting and good growth in the garden even only after three days being gone. But in my absence an evil critter somehow got into the garden and the dandelions, broccoli, carrots and beans show its presence. I hope its a bunny and not a ground hog ( they are really tough to trap). The lettuce and pea vines are not eaten to the ground as in the last ground hog attack so I think (hope) it's a bunny. Now all I have to do is see it and then the chase is on. I figure it's a small one able to get under the fence someplace and now big enough not able to get back out so I'll help it out - PERMANENTLY.

I snapped suckers this week and did not break any terminal growth off. I have green tomatoes on several plants and the grafted plants are making a good effort to catch up with the other plants. The next set of scions and root stock is in the greenhouse and maybe in a week or so I should be able to try again. I should put out the watering jugs soon as I have rain barrel water but not enough gallon jugs to do all the tomatoes.

The beets are doing nicely and so are the carrots except for the ones the unknown critter ate. Fortunately, it did not eat them to the ground and only ate a few leaf stalks and that is why I am thinking - bunny. I planted more carrots today along with fennel, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and lettuce. I also planted another cucumber in a pot for greenhouse culture as the current plants seem to have run out of steam and are not putting on many new fruits so maybe it's time to pull them. I gave one a fertilizer shot in hopes of some new growth.

The cucumbers are finally taking off in the garden. The melons are still slow. I planted pole beans before I left and most of them are up. With the critter danger lurking, I will dust them with cayenne pepper religiously till the danger is removed. I buy the biggest containers of cayenne I can find as it work well to keep bunnies off transplants and spring crocus. One must reapply after rain. Some plants will show burning from the pepper but soon grow out of it faster than if the rabbits eat them to the ground.

I have again included some of the photos that were selected by the TGOA/MGCA convention judges.
Happy Gardening