Summer Recap

It is the beginning of September and time to look back on the successful and not so successful endeavors in the garden.  Although my attention to the garden has begun  to wain as usual, I have been more disciplined this year. Despite my efforts the garden looks tired and unkempt. 

All of the container plants have thrived through the summer except for my Mandarin Dream azalea which has been affected by the very wet weather in August and has mildewed leaves. The flower beds continue to be problematic and not one plant that I bought from Annie's thrived and most didn't even survive. Planning and implementing a perennial bed is clearly beyond my skill set. However in the clearly defined space of a pot or raised bed I am better able to make my vision a reality.

My vegetable gardening was very productive and quite a learning curve:

Corn - the heirloom variety I chose was beautiful plant and delicious but I had trouble figuring out the proper harvest time.

Winter Squash - of course took over the yard but was quite productive and I love the Delicata variety.

Eggplant - Next year I will only by the traditional black variety- love grilled eggplant with sauce and cheese

Peppers- yellow and orange grew well but the reds seemed to rot before they turned.

Tomatoes- heirloom varieties or trouble with a capital T...hybrids for me next year!

Cucumbers - some success...work in progress.

Corn a "Special Needs Grain"

My adventures in planting corn incorrectly started a few years ago.  I planted a nice long row of sweet corn and then was utterly bewildered that I wasn't able to harvest even one tiny ear of corn.  Well it turns out that corn needs certain growing conditions in order to produce a tasty crop.  Corn is a hermaphorodite because each corn plant has both male flowers (the tassel) and female flowers (silk from the ear). In order to help with pollination, corn should be grown close together in multiple rows or in circles. It also helps to give the  stalks a gentle shake to help nature take its course. I am experimenting with the traditional Native American way of planting corn this year called The Three Sisters.

The Iroquois people traditionally planted their corn crop with beans and squash. They called these three companion plants the three sisters.   Renee's Garden has a great webpage that explains not only how to plant the the three sisters but also why it is beneficial to do so: "Corn provides a natural pole for bean vines to climb. Beans fix nitrogen on their roots, improving the overall fertility of the plot by providing nitrogen to the following years corn. Bean vines also help stabilize the corn plants, making them less vulnerable to blowing over in the wind. Shallow-rooted squash vines become a living mulch, shading emerging weeds and preventing soil moisture from evaporating, thereby improving the overall crops chances of survival in dry years."

Our First Lady, Michelle Obama, who is working hard to improve the eating habits of young people just recently planted the three sisters with a group of Native American children in the White House garden.

Soul Satisfaction

                                                

 

I have to admit I have spent many a free moment gazing at a variety of catalogs or trolling the Internet looking for swag to buy.  I do love the idea of a well feathered nest so over the years I have wasted a great deal of money in the futile quest to transform my home into a page from the Pottery Barn catalog. Because I live with three kids, two dogs, two cats and two parakeets any simulation of a designer home is fleeting at best. However, the money I have spent beautifying my tiny city yard has been money well spent. Everyday that I get to spend in the company of my trees, plants and flowers is a blessing.

I see some strawberries in our future...

Some of the fondest memories I have of my childhood are the foods that my grandmothers made and grew. My grandma Smith, who lived an hour east of St Louis in Illinois, always had a strawberry patch growing behind the garage.  Every June, we picked fresh, sweet sun-kissed strawberries. I love California but by the time its strawberries have traveled 2,500 miles to my grocery store they are a little lacking in the taste department.  So when I decided  this year to add some raised beds to the middle of the yard in order to maximize my food growing space, the first raised bed I planned was a tiered square bed (I borrowed the idea from Gardener's Supply...wow, I forgot how pretty theirs was) dedicated to strawberries.

Milagro

Here is my handy-dandy cold frame. Made from recycled cedar, and two re-purposed glass doors from IKEA. I planted the bed in early November with arugula, lettuce, and spinach. They sprouted within a few weeks. I was all set to harvest through the winter, and then December turned frigid and my little sprouts shriveled up. In January, the whole cold frame was buried in snow.  I thought for sure my adventures in winter farming were over. Imagine my delight when I looked in the cold frame after the February thaw and so an abundance of fresh greens!

In Praise of Trees

I think that I shall never see anything more lovely than a tree... I apologize Joyce Kilmer for rearranging  the lines of your lovely poem but it is true I love trees in all of their amazing shapes and sizes. Two years ago Better Homes and Gardens or as I call it in my head (Better Homes Than Mine) featured a Seattle rooftop garden with a variety of trees planted in containers. It was a light bulb moment for me!

It turns out that many Japanese Maples love to grow in containers or at least they grow so slow that they don't mind being in a container.  Who knew that there are also a wide variety of mini fruit trees that can also grow happily in containers?

So here I am two years later and I might need a trees anonymous program. In containers, I now have 3 fruit trees, 4 Japanese maples, 1 compact hinoki falsecypress, 1 crepe myrtle, and in the ground I have 2 apple colonnade trees, 2 dogwoods, and 1 mystery tree. Yes, that's right 13 trees on 640 sq. ft.

A New Start

Three seasons have come and gone since I last posted on this blog. Last year's garden makeover was so successful that it was hard for me to actually leave the garden and write about it. I think I am going to have more to say this spring.