Wonkybusker

Garden Update

There are winners and losers in the garden.  The tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants are very happy.  The tomatoes have already needed staking.  The leeks are doing alright.  The green beans have some leaf damage but are overall okay.  The summer squash are happy.  The winter squash is being eaten, as are some of the cucumbers and the melons.  I planted a large container full of radishes, carrots, and corn and that hasn't worked as hoped.  The radishes have lots of green but no bulbs and have blocked the light for the carrots while the corn seeds were eaten by the birds.  Some people thought growing container corn was a silly idea anyway.

We lost our main strawberry bed last year but the other beds are doing well and we're actually getting a decent amount of berries.  The slugs and squirrels are getting their share too, unfortunately.  The oldest grape vine looks like it will produce grapes for the first time.  Our cherry tree will once again give us a few dozen cherries but no more.  One apple tree will give us some apples.  Our plum tree has developed black knot.  This is very sad.  We've cut out the infected parts and will have to keep close tabs on it to see if the problem persists.  Hopefully, we won't lose the tree.

I'm still hopeful and we have a lot growing in the garden.  But sometimes nature can show you how little your best laid plans mean.  We'll see how the rest of the season goes.

March

Earlier in the month, we went to Cancun.  We mostly enjoyed the sun and the beach, but we also took a trip to the Mayan ruins of Tulum.

My garden is gearing up for the season.  This year I'm trying to grow leeks as well as the usual suspects of tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants.  My cilantro seedlings are doing surprisingly well.  My spinach, on the other hand, has been dug up by squirrels trying to find acorns in the pots.

Frisbee season has started again.  It's been nice to get out and run around.  We even had gourmet club last weekend and it was good to see everyone again.  The theme was Jewish food in honor of Passover.  I'm so happy it's finally spring.

We're Back

The Japan trip was fantastic.  I've posted pictures and will soon add captions.

And now that we're home, suddenly it's the holiday season and we're in the rush to get everything ready for Christmas and work done before the end of the year.  I'm getting my wisdom teeth removed on Thursday just to add another twist to the month.  Fortunately, most of my present shopping was done before I left, so there's one less thing on the to do list.  Here's wishing you a very happy holiday season!  I'll post again soon.

Check Back in December

I am not happy that it's been so long since my last post.  In fact, I have many things that I should have posted, including some really nice pictures from our trip to Assateague Island.  And yet, things have been busy and I've had other projects.  And, unfortunately, this post is not the end of that trend.  I'm going to be busy through the end of November.  However, if you remember to come back in December, I promise I will devote time to catching up with my blog posts.

Time for Doctor Who

And what better way to celebrate the new episode than with a drink we've called the Tardis:

And the garden has produced it's first butternut squash:

Hints of Fall

Yesterday was the first day that the breeze felt a little cooler and the sun seemed a little bit lower in the sky.  The winter squashes have started forming on the vines.  Fall isn't quite here but now I feel like it's on its way.  Last week we went down to North Carolina to enjoy some time at the beach and then up to the Chesapeake Bay. I'll have to post pictures later.  Unfortunately, I missed the opportunity to take a picture of Loki's first meeting with a crab, but her checking out fish is also entertaining.

That was the last trip of the summer and now I'm settling in to a weekend of canning.  We have lots of tomatoes and peppers to be turned into salsa and sauce and the farmer's market has cucumbers on sale that are just begging to be pickles.  Sadly, one of our tomatillos is just about dead so, without a partner to cross-pollinate with, its healthy companion plant may be putting out all those flowers for nothing.  I'm already planning improvements for next year.

In the meantime, Chris and I are busy planning our trip to Japan.  I'm trying to learn Japanese and just finished a book on kanji.  I'm hoping that the more I can learn now the more I'll get out of the trip.  I'm also planning to read the Tale of Genji, which is considered by many to be the first modern novel and depicts life during the Heian period.

It's Hot Outside

Supposedly the heat wave has broken.  It's still hot out.  The garden seems to like the heat, though, as long as we turn on the water every now and then.  So far we've picked about a dozen cucumbers, 6 japanese eggplants, 3 yellow summer squashes, and 1 cayenne pepper.  We have a number of tomatoes that are in the process of turning red but aren't there yet.  It's late for them.  Last year, we had tomatoes in June.  But this year we have corn!  The corn hasn't grown very tall yet but it does have ears on it, which is very exciting.  I'm just hoping the harvest keeps coming.

How to Choose a Nursery Veggie Plant

When choosing perennials, I tend to go to the garden store and choose the largest and healthiest looking plant I can find in the size pot I can afford.  It has done me well.  However, this past weekend I went to the garden store to fill the holes in my vegetable garden caused by cut worms, suddenly wilting tomato plants, and other casualties, so my perfect plant search followed different rules.

With veggie transplants, bigger is not better.  If it already has flowers, pass it by.  It has taken me a while to admit that this is true, but these annuals have a life cycle and you don't want a plant that is already at the flowering and fruiting stage.  This will result in a smaller plant and less fruit in your garden.  Look for small and healthy.  Vine plants should only really have one true leaf before transplanting.  That way, they aren't root bound yet and will thrive once in the garden.

So I looked at the poor picked over veggie plants and chose the best ones I could find.  They were 40% off, so I got a few extra, just in case.  This morning, it looks like they're settling in well.  Let's just hope no more calamities strike my garden.

Goodbye, Lonesome George

I'm glad we got to meet you, if only briefly.

Here We Go

And the garden issues for the year are forming.  The cucumbers are looking a lot better after I pruned and sprayed them to treat their case of powdery mildew.  On the same day I also picked 5 cucumbers, so I'm hopeful they'll get through this.  But now a few of my tomato plants are wilting with no reason and growing lots of extra root initials (I think from stress).  I pulled out 3 plants and got rid of them.  Maybe that will save the rest.  I haven't even gotten any tomatoes yet!

Garden Lessons

Peas just aren't worth it.  They're a pain to trellis, the pods are hard to spot, shelling takes forever, you have to plant a lot to get a decent side dish, and they need their own space since they come just a little too late for me to want to harvest then replace with a summer veggie.

Bell peppers aren't prolific enough to justify the space.  At least they haven't been in our garden.  Ditto with eggplants.

Melons do not succeed in our garden, for whatever reason.  I blame the bugs.

Cabbage and other cool weather crops don't like DC weather and get eaten by bugs.

Potato plants also don't give a whole lot for the space they take up.  But they are fun.

Fresh lettuce is great but cleaning the leaves is time consuming and starting them from seed can be tricky.  Some of the seedlings will die for no apparent reason.

Ready for Summer

The garden is coming along nicely.  I picked our first cucumber on Sunday.  I'm already picking the raspberries and wineberries and the blackberries in the park are turning pink.  We have lots of green tomatoes and lots of flowers in the garden.  Now, I wait.

Yesterday, we went out to see the parade of the tall ships out of Baltimore harbor.  Unfortunately, we were not in the right place to view the parade and only one of the tall ships came our way.  It was still a beautiful day on the Chesapeake Bay.  I'm a bit sun burnt this morning.

The Pride Before the Fall

Now is the time when the garden is promising and exciting.  Everything is growing!  There are cucumbers and tomatoes just a week or to from ready to eat.  Any time now a groundhog should attack or who knows what.  For now I've stopped the cut worms so they've eaten some but not all of the corn.  I've wrapped the vines with tin foil so the vine borers can't get at them.  And I've sprayed the leaves with a homemade organic bug spray.  And now we water and wait.  I want a tomato!

Post Hunt 2012

Yesterday was the 5th annual Post Hunt.  I've been looking forward to this one for a while because we had to miss the last two.  This is a zany puzzle-solving scavenger hunt that draws thousands of people for a fun afternoon and is one of the best events all year.  We had a great team and really enjoyed the hunt, although there was a lot of ground to cover this year.  We scoured the streets for 10 foot tall bowling pins, found the dreaded red number, went to the web (well part of the team went and part of the team found a really nice shady bench to sit and wait), used our knight moves, and found the palindromic number, with time to spare to stop for lunch.  We were off to a great start.  However, after finding the right page in the magazine for the endgame, there were a few mis-counts that led to frustration and we did not win $2,000.  If fact, although we eventually counted accurately, we didn't even get as far as calling or texting 202-degrees.  Ah, well.  There's always next year.

Fox

We have a neighborhood fox that comes at night to bark at Loki.  Fortunately, she doesn't bark back.  But it is the weirdest noise.  I recorded it today so you could hear it too.

MAH00004

 

 

Strawberries

May 5th the first ripe strawberries were plucked from the garden.  Sadly, we need to put down some straw because the bugs are finding them before we are.  However, I'm still happy to have red, ripe strawberries outside.  Other than lettuce and herbs, this is our first harvest of the season.

Spring Projects Never End

We don't have that many sunny spots in our yard.  You'd think we'd get to a point where the gardening would be done.  For some reason, every time I check something off the garden list, something else gets added.  Wait, there's a little more room in that corner.  Or, I think that spot may actually be sunny enough for another berry bush.  My wish list is long.  Maybe first I need to be successful with what I have planted.  My lettuce has not been impressive this year, despite patiently growing them from seed.  I haven't even picked any spinach because it's been so small.

On the plus side, the veggie garden is more protected.  There's a new fence with features to make even the groundhog steer clear.  And, we have a fox now.  Well, we have a fox that stops by at least weekly to bark at our dog.  The fox barks, not Loki.  It's a very strange noise.  Hopefully a resident fox will make little critters think twice about coming near our yard and stealing our plants.  It hasn't stopped the squirrels, though.  They've already been taking bites out of our green strawberries and leaving them around the yard.

I hope we get some red strawberries soon.  I've held off on buying the ones in the grocery store in anticipation of the ones growing in my yard, but I'm getting impatient.

Seedlings

The snow peas are up in the garden, the fruit trees are flowering, and my seedlings in the window sill are starting to really look like healthy little plants.  Hello, spring.

Bracket Broken Beyond Repair

Chris has already won our March Madness pool.  I'll have to wash the dishes for a week.  That's what I get for picking Murray St. to win.  But if you can't pick who you want to root for, that's no fun.

I'll post pictures of my windowsill soon.  Spring has come early and my seedlings are no exception.  Outside the fruit trees are budding, the strawberries are spreading, and the berry bushes are getting their first leaves.

So what will be growing in the vegetable garden this year?

Polybig Tomato

Principe Borghese Tomato

Manyel Tomato

Brandywine Tomato

Trip L Crop Tomato (the seeds were free)

Roma Tomato

Tomatillo

Red Bell Pepper

Cayenne Pepper

Dusky Eggplant

Ichiban Japanese Eggplant

Basil

Cilantro

Lettuce

Spinach

Minnesota Midget Cantaloupe

Sugar Baby Watermelon

Blue Hubbard Squash

Acorn Squash

Eight Ball Zucchini

Yellow Squash

Picolino Cucumber

Spacemaster Cucumber

Snow Peas

Corn

Leeks (maybe)

Cookeville Photography

There are a lot of great photographers nearby and you don't even have to look in Nashville.  To find the photographer  in your area in Tennessee that's right for your event, you need to consider a number of things.  For instance, if you're looking for a wedding photographer, do you want a photojournalistic style or something a bit more artistic?  If this is for a family portrait, do you want it to be formal or informal?  If you're looking for a fun Cookeville photographer with an artistic eye, I would recommend Furman Photography.  I have a couple of his pictures hanging on my wall and I love them.  Check out his work at http://www.georgefurman.com/.