The Garden Chronicles - Week 1
Hi, all. For a long time I've wanted to make a photo record of my garden growing from start to finish, and I've decided to give it a try this year. I thought I'd share some of it here on a weekly basis as I go.
Please note that I make no claim of being an expert gardener. It's just a hobby for me, so this isn't intended to be a how-to blog or anything. I'm not much of a photographer, either, but I'm hoping this might turn out to be an enjoyable distraction for at least a few people, in light of the pandemic.
My garden isn't huge, and I don't plant an entire seed catalog. I stick to around 15 kinds of vegetables, just what I already know I like to grow and eat. Mostly small quantities for eating fresh, but some for the freezer as well. I'll try to include shots of the produce as time goes by.
You can never know how a garden will turn out, of course. Some years are better than others. I'll try to make a good effort, and hopefully this year's won't be a complete disaster (fingers crossed). And yes, I know there isn't much to look at so early in the season. The first several weeks will be fairly uneventful. Sorry about that.
I hope the date stamps aren't too annoying. I did that on purpose. It's meant to be something of a visual diary, after all.
Alrighty then, meet my beloved little pile of dirt (and my yard, and my dog)...
It's that time of year again.
Redbud.
Mystery apple tree.
Polly the dog.
Turn off the flash!
Inspecting the perimeter the next day.
Enjoying the sun.
Asparagus coming up.
Zoomed in.
Tilled, raked over, and ready to go.
The difference a little overnight rain makes.
Trellised peas coming up.
Zoomed in.
Front yard.
That's all for now. See you next week!
I'm gonna come steal that asparagus, so lock up the dog for me, please?
What's that shrub growing staked in the corner of the garden?
She wouldn't hurt you. She'd probably pee herself greeting you. Not exactly a ferocious beast. And that asparagus is heaven when it first comes up.
Those are thornless blackberries in the corner. I don't know how I forgot to mention that. I wish they were seedless instead.
There is a thornless kind? The wild ones around here will latch onto you.
Yeah. Got em at Lowe's I think. Maybe 16 years ago. Still producing well enough.
Ah cool. We use to collect and eat the wild ones as kids. Now they are more of a nuisance. haha
Can't wait to see the progress.
As of now though I might have to fight Sandy for some of the asparagus.
I am very intrigued by the existence of thornless blackberries. Mine are wild, have thorns, and many also have poison ivy growing on them. Do you know how much poison ivy leaves resemble blackberry leaves? A lot.
I despise poison ivy. It tends to grow along the fence lines, and sometimes when I mow, little bits of it get blown back up on me. Not fun the next day. Doesn't happen all that often, though. The wind has to be just right.
Thorny wild blackberries and wild roses grown along the fence lines, too, and they truly suck to brush up against while mowing. I really need to go clean them out again. It's been a few years.
In another two weeks or so it'll be coming out of my ears. I have about 80 feet of it in all, along two sides of the garden.
Both grow around the edge of my yard. The blackberries I don't mind, as I gather those to eat. The multiflora rose, though - that stuff is tough to get rid of. I've cut, sprayed, pulled, dug, and it always comes back. Sometimes even out in the middle of the yard, and then my poor pup steps on it and gets stuck by the thorns.
The older I get, the worse I react to poison ivy. Like two courses of prednisone react. And there are times when I can't even figure out when I've been near any.
What I hate the most is this big honey locust that grows just over the property line (it has those giant, dangerous thorns all over it). It likes to drop bits of dead branches on my side of the fence from time to time. They've poked a few holes in my mower tires, and accidentally stepping on them could put a spike through your foot. I hate that thing.
Sorry to hear about the poison ivy reaction. It bothers the hell out of me when I get it, but nowhere near as bad as that. I actually think it was worse for me when I was younger. My other allergies have gotten less severe as I've aged, too. I can almost make it through the entire fall season now without scratching my eyes.
We have honey locusts, too, and they're so invasive. My garden is 3 raised beds, because my yard has very little topsoil. The locusts send roots up through the wooden bottoms of the beds. A few years ago, I pulled a root, trying to get it out of my strawberries. It was like a loose thread in a hem - it ran the length of the bed, and pulling it uprooted most of the strawberry vines. They still haven't come back as full as they were.
Ours have thorns, but I don't think they're as big as the thorns yours have. Different varieties, I guess.
Now that I look, it might be black locust. I'm not much of a botanist.
I don't know for sure, but I think black locust still has a few thorns, but nothing like honey locust, which can look like a demon tree out of a horror movie sometimes.
About the only thing I know about black locust is that it's supposed to be some of the best firewood you can get.
It burns really hot. My neighbor brings me firewood in exchange for letting him cut some of my trees down for his sawmill business. He's always cutting down locust on his property, to keep it from overgrowing, so he brings a lot of that. It makes so much heat, it will run you out of the house.
How long have you had the Asparagus in? We started some and I couldn't figure out why they kept they barely came up. Then I saw a groundhog back there and it all became clear to us. After a stern eviction notice, I hope they come in better this year.
Was that one of those eviction notices that goes past him at about 1100 feet per second? We just had asparagus for dinner tonight. Really good the way my wife fixes it.
I like the thorny ones. I 'fenced' my back property line with them. No trespassers without screams...
Black locust is some of the hardest wood that grows in North America. The trunks grow pretty straight and they're also rot and bug resistant so they make great fence posts. I have a 'grove' of mature trees [100'] on my property and have used them for fencing. One of my neighbors loves them for making chairs and I give my elderly neighbors across the street at least a half a cord every year to use as 'overnight' logs in their fireplace for heating. They are murder on chain saw blades. I've only taken down 5 in the 15 years I have lived here and still have plenty to spare. When they bloom the fragrance is wonderful.
The row on the left side was planted as crowns 7 or 8 years ago. I used seeds from it to start plants that went in on the other side the next spring, so the right side is a year younger.
Was the groundhog just eating shoots as they came up or was it digging up roots?
Nope. The wife made me trap him/her and move him. Filled in his condominium and he never came back. He/she didn't much like the horse radish though...
When I was growing up, my parents rented a farm. The landlord told Dad he could cut any tree for firewood that he wanted, except the locusts, because he wanted those for fence posts, so Dad left them alone. I like the smell when they're blooming, but I made the mistake of cutting and bringing some inside once for the fragrance. It overpowered the house.
He/she was doing both. Also digging up peonies and dining on them. I had a windfall of 60 peonies from a grower friend and put them in a plot. Carnage ensued. After that I planted them and then laid down chicken wire. That kept out all of the vermin and gave me a shot at getting enough to give out to everyone the next year. Giant pink peonies!
Something is eating my tulips and phlox. Pretty sure it's deer. They're in the flower bed right under the living room window, but the deer don't seem to be deterred by that. Bastards.
Once they are finished flowering on my property, the white petals fall and it look like it's snowing in summer.
Try some cayenne pepper spray. I use it on clients properties to keep dear off of trees and it works. It has to be redone when it rains though...
Will it get in my dog's eyes if he runs through the flower bed?
Mr Giggles has been getting fresh asparagus from the store. He brushes it with olive oil, adds salt and pepper then grills it. I eat it like candy.
It's the smell that deters them so your dog won't much like it either. Dear are notorious for eating tulips. One of my clients put in 100 bulbs in the fall and had to stand and watch as the dear bellied up to the buffet. They eat them down to the quick, just as they do hosta. There is a product called Liquid Fence that's based on the smell of 'rotten eggs'. One warning, do NOT apply it on a windy day or your family will be repealed by YOU. It STINKS! It also has to be reapplied after it rains. It does work though. I saved a clients weeping mulberry tree from deer with it.
I have the rotten egg stuff. I don't know that I want it that close to the house, near a window that I leave open a lot. I'll try the pepper spray.
It's a spring delight, isn't it?
oh yeah
Mr Giggles bought some deer and rabbit repellant. I can't describe the smell but it would definitely gag a maggot.
Imagine cow manure, on a hot day, and a tiger pees on it. Then a chicken added its own stench to it.
Just finished my first asparagus of the year, bought not from garden. Bacon and asparagus and a cold beer, a great dinner. I will have to move my asparagus patch because I have to get a dead tree cut down and bucket truck will have to drive over them.
And just now friend brought me a plate of pork and collard greens, from his Easter cook out. Have to eat those greens now! I'm stuffed and happy.
It takes a while for asparagus to get established, doesn't it?
Glad you ate well today.
Yes, the third year is a full crop. Before that it's just a 'taste'.
I did smoked baby back ribs and asparagus yesterday. I'm adept at cooking both.
What kind of wood? I just cut down a dead Cherry tree and was wondering if it would be good for smoking pork.
Be careful with cherry, most of it is good and makes a good flavor but there is a bad kind. Neighbors got some kind of cherry wood and smoked meat all afternoon, something in the smoke made them sick and they had to go to hospital and that is when we found out about bad cherry wood. I had to do something that afternoon or I would have been there with them. We had smoked and grilled with some cherry wood for years before that. I think it is some kind of wild cherry that is bad, just want to warn you
Mine is domesticated but I will wait for it to dry until the fall.
It was the smoke that made them sick, the meat was taken to a party and nobody else got sick
Thats quite a back yard !
Thanks, John, but it's actually the front (the house is set way back from the road). The back doesn't have enough open sky for a garden.
You're lucky to have such a great amount of sunny space for a garden...My experience with gardens is pretty limited. When I was a little kid during WW2 my mother planted a Victory Garden about 12' X 8' behind our garage, and I watched her do what it needed, and then it wasn't until I was about 40 when I had my own home that I and my ex-wife planted a vegetable garden of about 20' X 10' on the sunny side of our house and it did work out pretty well - planted a couple of apple trees as well that did bear fruit. However, since those days, even at subsequent homes with yard space we never did it again. These days my present wife and I are apartment dwellers. She grew up on a farm that her older brother now occupies and she really knows her vegetables. She can wander through a wild field for half an hour and come back with a meal for us of edible greens. The funny thing is that about 20 years ago I was given an aptitude test, and the result was that I was best suited to be a farmer.
It's cool that you remember Victory Gardens, Buzz.
I've been told stories about how one of my great granddads would plant this huge field of potatoes every year in order to fill up racks in the basements of every family member who lived nearby. Apparently he did that for years and years, well after the war. The kids in the family at the time always got enlisted to haul them out of the field, bucket after bucket, when it was time to harvest them.
I think it was a lesson learned during the Great Depression or something, that you can never have too many potatoes in the cellar or basement.
From what I've heard, my family ate LOTS of potatoes back then. I've heard more than a few stories about that.
My grandmother mentioned Victory Gardens, but for them, it was just a way of life. They were farmers, so the Depression and WWII didn't change much about the way they ate, except for rationing of flour and sugar during the war. They raised their own fruits and vegetables, preserved them for winter, slaughtered their own meat, milked their own cows, and hunted. They didn't have to buy much from the grocery store back then.
We used to have a pretty big garden growing up, and I remember days in late summer when the house felt like a steam room from canning the corn, beans, and tomatoes. We had a pretty big potato bin in the basement, too.
My grandma always had a big garden when I was a kid. I sometimes had to help with the hoeing in the summer, and I remember hating it. I've figured out a way of doing it that makes it cake for me now, but back then? Forget it.
It seems like they were doing lots of canning, too. I was hardly ever over there when they were doing it, though.
It was picking green beans and peas that I hated. Bending over in the hot sun for hours. I hadn't yet acquired a taste for either, so I was pretty resentful that I had to help pick them.
Picking beans seemed to be a never ending task and then I had to go to my Aunt's garden and pick them
Growing up where I did we used to make bank being a manual ground cultivator working the sugar beet fields.
I eat lots of potatoes, prepared many ways: baked, boiled, roasted, fried, mashed - to me it's one of the most basic of foods and a comfort food. I think that if I were limited to only one vegetable, I would choose potatoes.
I never met a potato I didn't like.
My wife asked me what two things I would want to eat on a deserted island and I chose potatoes and eggs.
LOL. Two major ingredients of an Egg McMuffin breakfast.
You'd be surprised by how much will grow well in partial shade.
Polly thinking...kill the wabbit..kill the wabbit.
Seriously, it must take forever to mow your lawn.
About 3 1/2 hours on a good day. I don't usually do it all at once, though. Especially when it's hot.
It is beautiful though. I think my whole front yard could fit in your garden.
Life in the burbs...
A flowering Redbud is the kind of tree I was thinking about planting in my front yard. Pretty and not real big.
I have a domestic redbud in my front yard, and some wild ones in the woods behind me. The domestic one is pretty when in bloom, but I'm not crazy about it late summer and fall. The leaves turn black.
That doesn't sound very attractive. May be a good look for a Halloween. Haha
I had a Maple there that fell after a storm. Was looking for something small that won't loom over the house, like the native Live oaks and Magnolias. They get huge and shed tons of leaves.
I was thinking of a Redbud variety called Rising Sun. I showed pictures of it on Mac's article near the bottom.
If you should decide against the redbud for whatever reason, then an ornamental crabapple might be nice (the ones with no fruit to mow over). I have a couple that have already finished blooming or I would have shown them off. One of them is the taller little tree to the left of the redbud in the second picture.
Mine bloom all white, but I'm pretty sure you can get them in pink and white, and red and white as well. The leaves turn a really pretty golden color in the fall, if it doesn't freeze too early, that is.
I found it. That's a beautiful tree.
My favorite Redbud is the Forest Pansy. It has very dark bark, almost purple. The top of the leaves are green and the bottom are purple. It grows more horizontally but it still gets about 20' providing partial shade.
I will check it out. Thanks.
20' I think would be fine. I just wanted something on the smaller side.
Most of the Redbuds get to 20'. The Forest Pansy is hide too. It needs a zone 6 so I get to cheat because Lake Michigan keeps us just that little bit warmer.
The only thing I worry about is I need something that can tolerate a zone 9/10
The Forest Pansy will do fine in those zones. Just remember, Redbuds are 'sub-canopy' trees and do better when they have afternoon shade. If they don't, their colors will not be as vibrant and will not last as long. They will also need more frequent watering for the first 2 years if in full sun. I use tree gators for young trees that aren't close to irrigation.
Ah, thanks. My front yard faces south, so full sun all day.
I will follow this series with great interest. My tomatoes are growing in the window
My strawberries have their first blossom. I hope this cold snap didn't hurt them.
I'm afraid I'm going to be a little behind on my tomatoes and peppers this year. I usually get transplants from a greenhouse, but it looks like they're closed for the foreseeable future because of the coronavirus.
I've tried starting things in the window before and didn't have the greatest results, so I made a little outdoor planter box out of scrap lumber. It's covered with floating row fabric to protect seedlings from rain and wind. I'm going to start everything in it this year that I don't sow directly. Tomatoes, peppers, early cukes, early zukes, different kinds of lettuce, etc. I'll probably show it off in the next post when it has something in it.
The 'box store' hardware stores carry 3 and 6 pack vegies starting about Mother's Day. Some individual plants in 4" pots too. Lowes, Menard's, Ace and Home Depot.
If I can find a variety I like later on I might get some. I think I'm still going to have a few of my own going, though, just to be on the safe side.
All of my heirloom tomatoes and peppers have come up so now the war starts to keep the kitten from digging them up or eating them. They go out in the greenhouse in a week or so since I don't want to heat the whole damn thing just for starts.
My challenge this year is having a 'kiiten' that is a master of disaster. I have to figure ways of starting plants while keeping a mountain goat kitten from getting up on the shelves and 'nipping them in the bud'. She gets a look on her face that tells me that I have to be at the top of my game...
What a lovely piece of property ! I look forward to watching your garden grow.
I'm eating fresh grown Michigan asparagus as I type. steamed because that is the way I prefer it, 3-2-1 baby back ribs as the side dish.
Morning..Wow you have a fantastic property and garden..Looks lovely and I to will follow your progress..We are in Autumn now but yday was more like winter. Turned the heater on last night as the air has that chill to it..Thanks for sharing your photos...I enjoy seeing and learning about plants that I have never heard of or seen before across the Pacific...Pats for Polly...
Hi shona. I don't know how many new plants you'll see. I grow pretty standard stuff. Nice to have you here from down under, though. Stay safe and enjoy the cooler weather.
I hope the koalas are going to make a comeback after the bushfires, having lost so much of their food source (or so I've read). It broke my heart to see them being rescued from smoldering ground, with burns on their feet and faces.
Yes it was heart breaking and totally devastating..But there is some good news...Quite a few have now been released back into the bush. Some will never be able to be returned so will live out their days in Sanctuaries. I get them here out the front of my house regularly and we all watch over them..
That is just adorable!
Yes he is a big male..been around for yonks..(years)...However not seen him for awhile but there are few younger ones around so the "old guard" may have gone...
If there are young ones showing up, hopefully the population comes back strong in a few years. How many young does a mama typically have each year?
I don't know what I'd do with myself if I had that much cuteness living in the wild around my house.
Are they scared of people or can they be kind of tame and friendly? Will they come up and eat out of your hand or anything?
Yup. How do you resist grabbing them for a cuddle, Shona?
No they are not that scared of people..But if cornered they will have a go at you which is fair enough...We tend to leave them be and not disturb them..No we don't try and feed them as you will always get some moron that would harm them. We also go and hold traffic up if need be so they can cross the road safely. Not that we get many cars here which is good..so we keep an eye on them and we are very protective of them. Where I live in Victoria we have not had many bushfires and the main problem here is there are to many and they are over grazing the gumtrees. Which is turn kills the trees they need. So they get shunted around the State to other areas to reestablish there...
Umm when you see the size of their claws that does tend to put you off abit..
Big claws. Yes, that'll do it.