After the storm

Sunday May 11th

We had a terrible storm pass us last night, the worst of it being just to our north. The town of Pitcher, 13 miles away, was hit by a tornado. Thankfully, Jan and I are safe but 6 people lost their lives. I was up and out early this morning checking to see if we had sustained any damage around the property but there was none. This time we were lucky, others were not.

OK, time for an update on the veggies. All this crazy weather is certainly affecting what's growing and what's not. As the saying goes "April showers bring forth May flowers" but there is a limit!
But before we do a tour lets start the day off right with this....................


Scrambled duck eggs on lightly buttered toast, Ringtons tea and the crossword.

OK, lets get out there.

Plot 1

Plot 1 onion patch

The onion patch still has Carrot Beetles in there, I see them every time I turn over the soil.
I dug up the volunteer potato plant as I didn't want to supply them with anything they like to eat. In their place I planted, yes you guessed it, a few onions.
The sunflowers are coming along but are probably wondering where the sun is?


Sunflower in Plot 1

Plot 2

Plot 2

I've planted out a group of 3 watermelon plants and stuck a few Pole beans in around the base of an upturned tomato cage. This worked last year so we'll try it again. The 3 watermelon plants look a bit lost tucked away on their own over at one end.................


Watermelons in Plot 2

Plot 3

Plot 3

Thankfully there's a little more progress here but still slow. Bell peppers are looking well and the 2nd batch of radish are almost there. Hey, even the carrots have made an appearance.........


Carrot in Plot 3

Plot 4

Plot 4

Bushy looking turnips and though some look pretty weary underneath some are certainly forming........................


Turnip in Plot 4

Gosh, I may even get a little spinach this year...................


Spinach Plot 4

Plot 5

Plot 5 spuds

These look good but I remember how good they looks last year before the Carrot Beetles moved in so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. The new floating row covers seem much sturdier than the last and the plastic pipe/rebar method is a winner. I'll replace the others this way in time.

Plot 6

Plot 6

The tomato plants have not had the best start to be honest. High temps when they were planted out were followed by high winds when they were at their weakest. Then it got pretty cold. But, having said all that, they are still hanging on in there and even the one that snapped clean off at the top during the high winds has rallied. It now has new growth but will have to work hard to catch up.

Big Red

Giant Beefsteak with friend "Basil"

Old Virginia

That it. Now to Barbeque.............................................

Spring Cleaning

Saturday May 10th

I decided to have a tidy up around the front of the house and clean out the flower beds a little. Next weekend I plan to blow some of my "stimulus tax money", pick up a few bedding plants and make a start. Weather permitting!


Curly Parsley and Oregano.

The 2 surviving herbs are growing well but I'll have to pick up a couple more at the weekend. I'll not need any Basil though, having grown quite a lot from seed. I have Basil seedlings occupying almost every windowsill in the house


Strawberries.

I've had to move both hanging baskets containing the strawberry plants due to the huge amounts of rain we've had. They were looking very soggy and some of the lower leaves were turning brown at the edges. I thought a few days shelter may cheer them up a bit so they are now on the patio until things brighten up.


Forsythia

This has been in a pot on my office windowsill for a couple of weeks while I got a window of opportunity to plant it.(In other words, some fine weather).
It's out now and almost got blown away last night with the high winds. This plant seems to need a lot of water, a couple of days without and it looks stressed. Well, it's certainly come to the right place.


Bed 1

Last fall I added compost and mulched all the flower beds with grass clippings. It seems to have certainly helped to keep the weeds down and the soil was loose and easy to turn.
Bed 1 got a good clearing out of any old roots etc then turned. I then planted 2 of the Geraniums which had wintered in the guest bedroom. This bed gets pretty dry in the summer due to being sheltered from any rain and abutting against the outer kitchen wall.


Bed 2 "Starboard Side"

I put this bed in a couple of years ago and it seems a successful location for some plants. It gets the sun until just after lunch and benefits from any rainfall coming off the house roof, especially the right hand end. The Beacon Silver Lamium shown above wintered out here and has come back in force this spring. I love these flowers.


The bees seem to like them too..............


...and it hides Mr Toad's summer residence "Toad Hall" at the back.


Bed 1 "Port Side"

The left hand end is always a little drier but the plants still flourish. In the centre, the 2 White Flowering Dogwood saplings are covered with new leaves, as are the Eastern Redbuds at the right. I plan to leave them here until next spring then plant them out in the garden somewhere.


Bed 3 is ready for a couple more plants.

The Pink Creeping Phlox has almost lost it's blossoms but has settled in and grown these last couple of weeks. I expect the flowers to return in the fall.
The Chrysanthamum is on the up and up. If it grows as well as it did last year I'll be delighted.


Bed 4

This bed never does as well as Bed 3 but the White Creeping Phlox, which is in it's third season, seems ready to repel any boarders.

Up with trees!

Monday May 5th

In the aftermath of our lovely, sunny weekend here in NE Oklahoma I managed to get out and construct my new floating row cover over Plot 5 which houses the potatoes. I'm trying to keep these plants covered because I REALLY want to grow some spuds this year after 2 years of failure through bad planting, over watering and Carrot Beetle attacks.
I bought flexible plastic piping which I cut into 7 foot lengths and some 24 inch lengths of Rebar.
I sunk the Rebar into the soil until about 8 inches was left above ground then put the pipe over it to make a hoop. I used my newly purchased cover material, which is of a little heavier quality than the last lot at around 1oz weight, and fastened wooden lats along the sides as before. This time, instead of using nails to fasten the 2 lats together I used short screws so that, if the material ripped, I could easily seperate the wood and replace the damaged covers.


New floating row cover design




Inside Plot 5

I'm really pleased to say that the young tree saplings I planted are looking good.
These were all sent to me free when I joined the Arbor Society and I urge you to join too by visiting them at http://www.arborday.org/.
The trees are guaranteed to grow and they will replace them free of charge if they don't.
You can't get better than that. UP WITH TREES !!
The following pictures show how mine are doing and I'll keep posting updates on their progress.



Sargent Crabapple



Washington Hawthorn




Crepe Myrtle




White Flowering Dogwood




American Redbud




Goldenraintree




After all this gardening activity I decided to make my speciality dinner of Spaghetti Bolognese.
I'm the "Guest Chef" on my wife's cooking blog this week and you can see the recipe soon
here



Mick's Spaghetti Bolognese and Garlic Bread





Oh, by the way. It's raining again.................................

More storms

Saturday 3rd May

It was a busy weekend as we had to go on the "Full Retail Experience" on Saturday.

Both my wife and myself hate shopping so to help brace ourselves for the shock we had a lovely lunch out at Java Dave's in Grove. Then we went into battle and didn't get back home until around 6-00pm.

But Sunday I was up early, without Alvin's assistance, and got out in the garden.

Staked Peach Tree

I wire staked the young peach tree as it had a pretty bad lean on after the ice storm. It looks well and has lots of little peaches forming but whether they'll form to full size is another matter.

The old peach tree has once again been hit with Peach Tree Curl and so I'm not expecting anything from it again. Both these trees will need spraying early next year if we are going to be in with a chance of fruit. To be honest I'm finding fruit trees a bit of a pain in the arse and won't be planting any more, thats for sure.

I had to get the grass mown as it was looking like a jungle so I broke "Herbie" out of the garage and set about the task. It's usually a 4 to 5 hour job....


One man went to mow..........Herbie and friend, straining at the leash.

So I mowed........................................

And mowed...............

And mowed some more...................

Then it was time to look at the veggie plots.....

Plot 1

Plot 1, now the "onion patch"

A couple of the sunflower seeds have broken through here as well as this volunteer potato plant.

Volunteer potato plant in Plot 1

Plot 2

Plot 2 waiting for seedlings

I'm probably going to plant watermelon and cucumber in here, I have the seedings ready to go in. There's also more sunflower activity going on as seeds sprout and break the surface.


Sunflower seed breaking through in Plot 2

Plot 3

Plot 3 with fancy new floating row cover supports.

Things may be slow but are coming along here. The second crop of radish looks good and a few lettuce plants have sprung here and there. I'll go into the new floating row cover design later when I have more time.

Plot 4

Plot 4 looks nice and green.

Plot 4, my smallest plot, is doing well. The turnips are growing strong but you never know if your going to end up with lots of leaf and nothing under the ground. I need these for my egg swapping plan so I hope they do well. Spinach continues to s-l-o-w-l-y grow. The 3rd batch of radish which was mixed with carrot seeds are coming through. The idea is that the radish come through first and break up the soil which makes it easier for the carrots. No carrots in sight so far though. But the first radish harvest is in and refrigerated.

Radish, best picked early before they get bitter.

Plot 5

Hilled on the left, mulched on the right.

I added more earth to the hilled plants and more straw to the mulched ones. I also decided to make a new floating row cover for this plot so I can keep it covered for a while. I need to make it higher to give the plants room to grow. The new material arrived this weekend so I'll get it started this Monday hopefully.

Plot 6

At last, the tomatoes are out.

The tomato plants finally went out Tuesday evening. Then the temps plunged down to around 38F to 40F. I'm glad the floating row covers were in place. Wednesday night still not too good although it didn't get quite as cold. Terrible storm Thursday night with winds reaching 60mph. Radio going off throughout the night so not much in the way of sleep. Friday morning I expected to find both the covers and the plants gone but everything held although I lost one tomato plant, snapped off at the top. Oh well.

I'll be digging the cages out of the shed on Monday, removing the covers and from then on they will be on their own

Reward for all the hard work.

When at last the work was done it was time for a couple of cold beers and a barbeque of sausages, baked potatoes and my wife's "Grilled Cheese and Tomatoes.

Empty Nest

Sunday April 27th

The empty nest.

They've all gone.

I miss them already.

I hope they all do well in their new homes.

All the tomato plants have been handed out, 25 in total. 12 Giant Beefsteak, 7 Old Virginia and 6 Big Red. I’ve asked everybody who received them to give me feedback, good or bad.
Later, when the plants had all gone one of my co-workers approached me and said they would buy any spare tomatoes that I had. They didn’t want any plants, they just wanted to buy the tomatoes from me. This got me asking myself what I was doing here with this small project of mine, and what I was trying to achieve.

The first year I grew tomatoes I had a bumper crop. I didn’t do anything special, it was just one of those years. I had spares so I took them into work and left them in the lunchroom, along with a small moneybox, and asked people to donate whatever they could and the money would go to the local Humane Society. The tomatoes were popular, money was left in the box and everyone benefited.

I then thought that, if I could get more people interested in growing their own heirloom tomatoes and encourage them to save the seeds I would be doing my bit to propagate these old varieties and help spread them around. Also, I hoped that when people ate them they would realize how tasteless and overpriced the ones were that they were purchasing from Wal-Mart and such.
Last year I gave away around a dozen plants and one person did actually save the seeds, grow more plants and pass them out to THEIR friends and relations. Hey, some went to Oklahoma City. I was proud!

This year I’ve tried to expand the project a little by growing more plants, but the idea is still the same. What I want from all this is information. Feedback on what works and what doesn’t in this area. I hope to find out which varieties work best and build on it. Maybe some of mine will fail to bear fruit, maybe all.
But perhaps if we are lucky we will get some of each type so we can exchange seeds between us if necessary. I’d prefer to pass on spare fruit to people who didn’t have success with their plants (but at least tried) as an encouragement for them to try again. By doing this they would get seeds from the fruit too, and hopefully grow their own the following year. All that I’d request would be the same small donation for the Humane Society.

Early start

Saturday April 26th
As usual, I received my weekend early morning call from Alvin at around 6-30am.
After a hard night out hunting he comes and sits on the window ledge outside our bedroom and
wails to be let in.


Alvin. Better than any alarm clock.

It's a lovely sunny Saturday morning, a little on the cool side, but ideal for gardening. I've made a list of things to do so after a couple of cups of Rington's tea it's time to start...........

Plot 1

Plot 1. Corky's Winter Onions and even more onions.

There's been a radical change of plan here, I've decided to make this the onion patch. I didn't want an onion patch, I didn't need an onion patch but it's because of this little chappie...


The dreaded Carrot Beetle.

This is a Carrot Beetle and a whole swarm of them literally fell from the sky one evening in late spring of last year. I thought it was hail-stoning and went outside, armed with flashlight to investigate. I discovered that it was the noise from them hitting the shed wall, bouncing off and falling into Plot 1. By the following morning they had disappeared so I forgot about them.
Big mistake Mick!

That year I'd planted my potatoes in there and they were coming along great. Fine healthy plants with the promise of a good crop. I'd screwed up the year before, planting them in a location that ended up shaded as the trees over them flourished and cut off the sun. I had compounded the problem by overwatering. But these looked well. I was a happy man.

Then one of the plants fell over, then another, then another. No sign of disease or wilting. They simply fell over on their sides. I dug around and found scores of these black beetles huddled around the stem of each plant, about 2 inches below the surface, chomping away at my precious spuds plant stems. It was as if someone had taken a pair of scissors and snipped them through. I lost every plant.
I dug the plot over and got as many out as possible (but obviously not them all), moved my Pole Bean plants to the other end and got on with life.

So today, when I dug the plot over and found them still here I had an idea. I called round at Corkey's, picked up a dozen duck eggs from Mr Corky and liberated a few Winter Onion plants from their garden. These I planted along with some white onion sets so now any beetles that are still in there can eat onions if they like, not that they will of course. Perhaps by next year they'll be gone. Watch this space. But now I've lost room and will have to do some shuffling around.
Once the onions were in I planted my row of Sunflower seeds along the back.

Plot 2

Plot 2. Sunflower seeds are in. Watermelon later, hopefully.

The Red Onions along the front look a little on the wet side to say the least and I may lose them through rot. But who cares, it looks like there's going to be no shortage of onions this year.
I dug over the rest of the plot and planted my second row of Sunflower seeds along the rear edge.

Plot 3

Plot 3. Bell pepper and not much more here.

The Bell Pepper plants seemed to have settled in well and a few Romaine Lettuce seedling have popped through though not many yet. This plot seems to be really slow on the uptake this year, carrots, lettuce and radishes either not appearing at all or struggling and I dont know why? Hmmm, perhaps a change of plan is called for here too?

Plot 4

Plot 4. (l to r) Turnips, Spinach, Radish. Potted Basil hardening off.

The Turnips and Radish are doing fine. The Spinach plants are sparse but trying their best. I'll be pulling the Radish soon so maybe I'll try a few more Spinach seeds before the temps get too high. I let the potted Basil harden off a little as I worked.

Plot 5

Plot 5 showing traditional and deep straw mulching methods.

The potato plants are doing well. I hilled the front 5 in the traditional way and gave the rear 5 a thick covering of fresh straw. I raised the height of the floating row cover to give them a little more room and better air circulation.

Plot 6

This African Blue Basil will join the tomatoes in Plot 6

I gave this another forking over and weeding. The plan was to put the tomato plants in today but the forecast for Sunday night is pretty low so I'm going to wait until Monday. Then they are going in. Period! I also have an African Blue basil plant to put in with them as this did especially well last year and attracted lots and lots of bees. It grew like crazy and I ended up hacking huge sprays off and placing them in a vase on the dining room table so we could enjoy the aroma in the house. I also have some Spicy Globe which I've raised from seed. Although this doesn't have the same strong aroma as the African Blue it's better for cooking, having a strong spicy taste.