I'm back ...

and it is time to sort out what needs to get done.  I have been dreaming big this year with this veggie garden -- but most of those dreams have been on hold since my grams passed.  Thank goodness for the rain -- at least my plants have been watered! 

And my husband helped me get Mel's mix into my final raised bed last weekend.  I can't forget that.  However, planning a party for 125+ with my adoptive family group this Sunday means I won't be gaining much momentum until next week rolls around.  So what will I attack first?

• the may raised bed plantings.  My seeds are good to go but my seedlings...?  I was really enthusiastic about starting seeds indoors -- especially for basil and peppers.  But I can't say my efforts paid off.  Nothing is really growing. I think it is time to give up the ghost -- and find a way to buy those basil and pepper starts. 

• seed the patches in my wildflower garden.
• plant kiwi.  I am good to go on this one.  My trellises are made and the plants are purchased.  I just need time to set the trellises in the ground properly.
• plant melons.  This is a whole new task.  I was going to plant them in my final raised bed and then realized that the East side of my house was not going to give them the heat they need to grow.  So I have decided to move them to a sunny spot in the corner of my front yard.  I will build a "room-divider" trellis for them there.  So I need trellis supplies, building time, grounding the trellis time, and seeding -- plus rearranging what is already there.  Lots of work and it should get done asap if the melons are to have a chance.
• plant sunflower house.  How cute is that?!  Can't wait to see the kids play in August.  Unfortunately that means clearing/leveling and planting a space for it now....

I think that is it.  Maybe I can try to squeeze in the first three this weekend -- and finish them on Monday, if necessary.  Then I can dive into the melon project, then the sunflower house.  Hopefully I can get all this done by the end of the following weekend.  Then I can start tackling....

• my hanging planters.
• my watering system.
• my fruit tree espalier.
• my trellis for the small raised bed.
• my blackberry trellis.
• my worm bin.
• my snail barrier on my 2 foot tall raised bed.

And in good news -- I had my first harvest a week or so ago.  Choy sum (below) and mustard greens.  They contributed to a very tasty stirfry.  Looking forward to when the harvests are abundant.

Set back

My grams died yesterday.  I never lived near her but we were close.  When I was little my grandparents lived in a 1950s suburb tract house with a train track that ran along the back of their yard.  Grams had a raspberry patch that ran along the train easement and she used to make jelly every year.  She also kept a veggie patch.  It buffered the yard from the raspberries and trains.  She battled rabbits and squirrels a lot.  Or maybe it was my grandfather who liked to terrorize squirrels with the bb gun he kept in the dining room for just such fun.

Anyway, although I didn't spend time by her side learning to garden -- I figure she is my link to the gardening gene.  Born in 1918, she was one of those Depression era people who worked hard, lived simple, saved more than spent, and shared what she had.  Her parents were failed homesteaders -- which might explain why so many of my gardening experiments go awry....

I don't recall much of her gardening life but I do know that it ended nearly 15 years ago when her raspberry patch was collateral damage in a track cleaning project.  Her heart wasn't in it as much after that -- and then her health declined.  Not so rapidly at first.  But in the end she physically just wasn't the person she used to be. 

I wish I had lived closer by.  And I am sorry that we won't get to talk to each other anymore.  For now, I am going to go spend some time in the company of family.  I won't be able to post for a while (my guess is a week.)  Best wishes Grams.

internal saturday

Funny how things have been chugging along so steadily that finishing my bamboo bed plantings and removing yard waste counted as a slow day.  All told though, I spent too much of my day in my head.  I have been trying new things with too little information and second guessing my warm season planting plans. 

The kids and I tried sprouting seeds as if completing a seed germination test this past week (diggin food has nice pictures and video here.)  Since the basil sprouted (their tails weren't nearly as long as the ones in Willi's picture), we potted them up.  I am not sure this will work.  We left them with little bits of paper towel attached.  Not a big deal because I have heard the sprout roots can go right through the towel -- but I don't know if the leaves can go right through and I didn't know which end of the sprout was up at planting (it is easy to lose track with three helpers under the age of 6.)  I wish I had kept track of what was going on so I could learn from our effort.

And in the second-guessing department, I am sure my melons will be unsuccessful if I plant them as planned .  Only two of my four varieties mature in 85 days or less (important in the Pacific NW) -- and even these might need more heat than the east-facing wall I intended to plant them under will provide.  So now I am thinking about moving the melons to a location with more afternoon sun.  But where?  My best bets are in the front yard.  And the best of the best locations is in the spot I was going to make a sunflower castle for the kids.  So what to do...?

For now I will shoot for a good night sleep (unlikely, we have a sick sleeper who has already been up several times) and will try more action and less worry tomorrow.

New growing station

As I was dealing with my indoor pest problem, I also ran across some interesting information on seeds starting and heat by Travis at The Westside Gardener.  Basicly, he is pointing out that seedlings might grow lushly with good light and heat but in the Pacific NW those seedlings are not going to meet heat when they get put into the ground; therefore, it is better to raise your seedlings in a cool location with good light.  Doing this will make your seedlings 'hard' from the start.  (Though he warns about starting truly hot seasoned plants like peppers too soon as they suffer from temperatures under 45 degrees.)

What Travis said made sense to me.  My previous growing station was the same as my seed starting station -- in the window of my warm kitchen (in fact, a down right hot kitchen on sunny days thanks to south facing skylights.)  Now I have invested in a real shop light and moved my growing station out to the garage.  The seedlings will still be protected from the weather but they will not be lulled into thinking they live in a hot climate. 

I am hoping my efforts will make a difference.

Plants under attack!

Found this big (little) guy attached to the stem of a watermelon seedling a few days ago.

Maybe a fruit fly?  But then a few hours later I spotted some more.  Big ones, little ones, brown ones, green ones.  I found them on my seedlings.  I found them on my herbs.  Especially on the red sage that I bought to plant in the front yard.  And I should have known better.  One of the things I love about the garden blogging community is that so many people are writing about what they are up to that I get a really good sense of what I should be thinking about as a beginner.  And just a couple weeks ago Thomas at A Growing Tradition posted on his run-in with aphids and shared that it makes sense to quarantine new plants before bringing them inside so pests are not spread.  Well, if I had only listened....

I still don't know what the creatures were but I could only assume they were up to no good. The only thing I could think to do after noticing these winged things all over the place was to spray them with soapy water (it was dinner time and I had no time to run out to the store.) 

Can you see their tiny carcasses? 

In other bad news, I found my first slug in the raised bed veggie garden.  One of my choy sum leaves was riddled with holes -- and sure enough there was a teeny, tiny slug roaming around underneath.  I smooshed it and hope that it was a lonely traveler but know that is not likely.  I am going have to accelerate my hunt for copper tape or foil to use as a deterrent.  I heard that you should use copper that is at least 4 inches wide -- but all that I have found so far is 1 inch wide (and expensvie at that!)   

Weekend roundup

Garden events, like the weather, were mercurial this weekend.  We had great gusty hours and calm hours, overcast, rainy, and sunny hours, warm and cold hours.  The espaliered pear tree survived the windstorm with its flowers -- though I don't think my cold frame did much to secure that result.  It probably got a bit more battered for being 'protected.'  Again, I needed a more thorough effort.  In this case, I must finish installing the espalier guide lines.  If the branches had been secured to them, the wind probably would have whipped by them, no issues.

Anyway, with the help of my dad who was visiting from out of state (I am not sure why anyone ever visits, we always put them to work!) I managed to get a few things done in the yard.  All the bamboo got put into the ground, the fruit bed was weeded (the seeds from the wildflower garden on the other side of the fence appear to be migrating), seeds and seedlings were set out in the raised bed, a new light station was begun in my garage (more in on that when I complete it -- as of now my timer doesn't work right...) and many egg hunts unfolded. 

When I pulled off the remay to set out the starts and seeds this afternoon, everything looked more robust than it had on Thursday.  One of those deep grins grabbed hold of me when I spotted the start of flowers on my choy sum.  I have never eaten this pac choi relative before -- but they say you can pull the whole plant to add to stirfries once it flowers.  Looks like the first taste of our efforts on Scaredy Cat Farm are around the corner. 

try, try again

Once again I underestimated the strength of the shelter I built.  The wind hasn't been as bad as predicted, but it has been consistent.  By mid-afternoon, half the plastic protecting the pear tree had freed itself.  Staples were not enough.  Now I am trying to supplement the staples with lathe -- so far it is holding up.  Hopefully everything will remain snug this time and I won't have an update in the morning...

battening down the hatches

They are predicting winds from 40-60 miles an hour this afternoon so I put some extra clamps on the raised veggie bed to secure the remay and encased the pear tree in plastic to shelter its flowers.  Now it is time to wait and see....