I Used My Rain Barrel Today

I used my rain barrel today. It was quite comical. There I was pulling weeds from my back garden when I glanced over at the barrel and noticed about an inch of water inside. So, I slid it close to the squash and then dumped the water out near the squash. Yes, in this heat and through my neglect it is still alive (barely) and so is the cucumber.

One day I promise I will actually find some time to fix that rain barrel so that it can collect more rain if it ever rains. Between kids and work and laziness there after I’m too pooped to go out in the garden and it’s so hot outside and the mosquitoes are evil…. Yes, I know, “Excuses! Excuses!”

My accomplishments in the garden are as rare as the rain here, but like the rain when I’m out there I’m pouring.

The Pumpkin From A Green Thumb

I have a green pumpkin sitting near my window. My neighbor who gave it to me said it would turn orange in a few days. I have yet to see any harvest from my garden.

I also passed by her house the other day and noticed her orange tree, filled with green oranges. Below it a line from the mailbox to her house of flourishing plants. Sure there were weeds throughout, but it was all thriving.

My hope is that one day I will have the time and the green thumb to make a garden flourish. Well, I don’t have a problem with herbs and I don’t have a problem with a variety of other plants, but vegetable plants are so fragile and the heat and humidty in this region…

How then can she and the neighbor across my street and a few other people I know manage to make their vegetable gardens grow so well in this temperature? Is it time? They all are quite a bit older than me and have a bit more time (no kids to tend to) to garden than I do. Is it experience? Because they’re older they have learned over time what works and what doesn’t. Is really green thumb and only a few people have it? Maybe I have a light green thumb.

I’ll figure it out eventually…

The Cucumber Loves These Recent Rains

Almost everyday this week it has rained. I don’t mind. It cools down the heat and reduces the humidity and the sound of the rain is soft and drizzly. It is wonderful to listen to, especially in the morning when all the bugs and birds are singing in the rain. I swear I’m hearing ducks, but I don’t see them anywhere out my window. Maybe I’m confusing them with the odd croaks of frogs. 

On another note, during the few trips I’ve ventured outside in the rain to take the kitchen scraps out to the compost bin I have noticed how fast the cucumber plant is growing. It has tripled in size. It looks like we will have another year of cucumber salads and snacks. Luckily,  I love cucumber. I just wish some of the other vegetables I worked hard to plant would grow too. 

The unidentified squash I accidentally grew is also growing and very quickly thanks to the rain. Half of it dried up last month because of the intense heat so I was happy it recovered so well and quickly in the rain. At one time it grew so quickly and heavy one of the thick stems broke and this squash goo oozed out of the stem. I’m not sure if this happened during the heat or the previous scattered rains or this weeks rains, but I’m sure the weather here is really frustrating the plants. It is definitely frustrating me. 

I noticed the broken stem while trying to catch what appeared to be a stinkbug, a beautiful red orange bug with black spots and black legs. That is the second one I’ve killed recently. The other stinkbug was crawling within the mint.

The mint is growing very well too, but not just because of the rain. It just seems to be a very invasive plant. I don’t mind that either. In my miserable looking garden I will take any green I can get. The rain is helping out. For a week or so the heat was burning all my plants to a crisp, including the ones in the front even if I watered them. I almost lost my fig. All the leaves browned and withered and when I thought it was completely lost the rain came to the rescue and leaves grew back strong and green. 

So, for now this miserable gardener is quite cheerful for the abundance of rain (no hurricanes please) and the resilience of my wonderful, often neglected, plants.

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Its Hot and Humid… I am a miserable gardener

 I haven’t watered the plants. I feel guilty, but I’m too much of a wimp to go outside unless I have to, like going to work. Early this morning on my way to work it was already in the 90s. It is almost 6 pm now and  it is still hot. My poor plants are thirsty and droopy. There is no water to give them from the rain barrels because it hasn’t rained in days. I also haven’t fixed the barrels to receive water directly in the top holes but even if I had there still has not been rain. Tomorrow I will try to be brave and venture out in the early morning before work to water my plants. Or I will just have to do it in the late evening, but that will only bring in more bugs….. right now I’m not sure what to do….  Did I mention how hot it is even indoors? Maybe in about an hour I will go water my plants and then stand under the water hose myself. Cold water sounds great! I’m thirsty too.

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Depressed Gardener

 

My backyard garden looks sad. The only thing growing are the seeds I threw into the garden several months ago. The rest of the garden, the part I put an effort into looks miserable and the soil…. looks like concrete. Right now I’m out of compost and I can’t afford to go buy healthier soil to mix in at the moment so I’m afraid we wont get much this season. I will also need to read up on how to make my soil healthier and if I ever remember I need to take a sample of my soil to a garden center. Maybe next season….

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Caterpillar Hunt

Giant Caterpillar

Yesterday, taking advantage of the fresh breeze, the darker rain clouds and the fact that my husband could watch the baby I took a step outside to work in my front garden. As I pulled out weeds I reached towards a dead leaf on my bolted lettuce plants and pulled my hand away as quickly as I realized it wasn’t a leaf at all but a huge fuzzy caterpillar. Not long after I found a pretty green and white caterpillar on my parsley. Then I found the tiniest caterpillar I have ever seen on another lettuce plant. I collected them all and put them in a jar. I hated to kill them knowing they would turn into butterflies, but I hated to let them loose knowing they were already devouring my plants. If only my plants were stronger. I left them in the glass over night, the temperatures stayed cool especially in the shade thanks to yesterday’s heavy rains. I checked in on them this morning. They ate half the leaves I left in the jar for them and the giant caterpillar left huge droppings in the jar. The same dropping I found near the lettuce leaf the day before. It’s cruel to leave them in the jar, but I really don’t want to kill future butterflies. I also want my plants to survive. This is something I will have to think about, but I don’t have long to do so.

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Greenbeans and Soybeans in my garden!

For the past week I have worried the lack of rain would kill my plants too soon or leave them too weak to fruit. I know this is terrible, but I only water them when I know rain wont be coming. Today I watered them and transplanted a few more seedling into the back yard garden. As I messed in my garden I noticed that the soybeans had several small soy pods hanging from the stems and that the green beans had 2 pods. These are plants I grew from seed in toilet paper rolls so I was very proud to see them begin to fruit especially when they haven’t received the amount of water they deserve. I also transplanted the store bought tomato seedlings (right in the cinder block holes) into the garden in the back and each plant has a small tomato growing on it.

Next year…no next growing period I plan to start some plants indoors. My only concern is that I have no shelving units to put the pots on. I will need to find a solution. As of now I start them and leave them on my patio bench, but I often run out of space or some of the plants don’t get the same amount of sunlight. I would love one of those rolling shelving units I saw a gardener use on YouTube. It was perfect for growing seedlings.

I would love a rain barrel too, but so far the three people that have let me know they could give me a plastic barrel or two for free or at a discount haven’t come through. Oh well! I will have to keep trying.

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My Roses

The potatoes are in their temporary pots. I used empty cardboard oatmeal containers. They were the perfect size. I placed one potato in each yesterday afternoon after weeding my garden for the first time in about a month. I had to take advantage of the sun and the warmth. I knew it wouldn’t last, but it was enough to give me a chance to get in my garden and see what survived the freeze and what didn’t. I was amazed at how resiliant many of the plants are. There are green healthy leaves and stems growing everywhere and my roses….my roses will bloom lovely this year.

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The Cold Is Still Here And So Is the Brocolli

This week the cold has come again (cold for this area anyways), but it hasn’t beat the brocolli. The florets just keep growing. I’ve never seen brocolli grow before. I’ve always seen it cut and ready to buy at the grocery store. I had no idea they could be such tall plants. I can’t wait to taste. My youngest daughter is the most excited about the brocolli florets. She came in screaming in excitement about it the other day.

 
The lettuce is growing slowly but well alongside the brocolli too. I forget what type of lettuces we planted but we have about 3 different kinds and the cilantro, rosemary and parsley look amazing.  These are such green plants in such a dreary time of year. I only wish we had them in in raised beds instead of my flat garden in the front yard.

Did I tell you I have lillie’s ( I think they’re lillies) too. They came with the house and I had no idea, but one day I saw these pretty bright green grass leaves growing in the corner of the garden by the front porch where the shade hits. A few days or weeks later ( I can’t recall how much time passed) in the center of these long leaves there is a long stem. Some time later beautiful white flowers bloom from that stem. It was beautiful.

Last  year I finally figured out what the little nubs on the plant were. So I broke some off and planted them in a pot. Now I have about 5 growing (more than double the first few years) on their own in the ground and two more in a pot. I can’t wait until they bloom.  

The rest of the garden looks like crap because of the freeze, but I can tell, despite their appearance that some of these plants have a good chance of a come back. There will be plenty of pictures to post then.

Pictures by G.C-H 2010

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My Neighbor and I Just Traded Garden Food

My neighbor G and I just traded food. She stopped by to give me washed mustard greens from her garden and I snapped off a few twigs of rosemary from my rosemary bush for her. I wanted to tell her about the CSA, but most people are turned off by the expense of the CSA especially if they already grow their own garden. I decided to hold off on that conversation for now. A few minutes later I came inside and looked at the mustard greens then realized I forgot to ask her how to prep them. I haven’t had much luck cooking or preparing leaves for eating other than the store bought romaine and such.

However I had had more luck with squash this time around. Just the last week I baked a whole chicken with olive oil and rosemary. On the side I made a butternut squash casserole (very much like the sweet potato casserole except with more of a butter taste to it). Opening and chopping and trying to peel a butternut squash was a new and learning experience. I saved most of the seeds to plant for next year.

Some squash is much like a potatoe and some squash is much like a cucumber or catelope. I printed the recipe for butternut squash casserole from daily green.

I printed another one for sweet potatoe fries and another one for winter squash. All the recipes are so easy to make, tasty, sweet and from the Daily Green.

I am really enjoying the vegetable and the service from this CSA. There really isn’t anything for me to complain about. There is even a chance volunteering for free veggies next season. This will help me keep the cost down, something my household really needs. He wants us to grow more of our own and let go at least of one CSA which I’m fine with but we have yet to build raised beds and finish prepping the ground for January’s seeds. Between his 60 hour or more job and my work and mom schedule it is still difficult to find time for the garden. About once a week I tend to the gardens for a few hours and the rest of the time I just watch and scan for bugs or problems walking past the garden when I dump the kitchen scraps in the back yard or when I wait for my daughter’s bus in the front yard. The baby in my arms most of the time.

At the same time I really don’t want to let go of my CSA. I enjoy supporting our local farmers, helping the environment and I love reading their newsletters. These farmers really care about their crop and they enjoy watching it grow. They put a lot of love into it. Then they enjoy sharing their grown love with people. They are very giving people.

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