Gardenation - Fall Planting is done!

The sunflowers finally bloomed and then immediately died; this is the only picture I have of them! It's been raining so much, the garden as a whole has hardly needed any effort from me at all, and sometimes I forget to even check on it. Which is why we're half-way through August before I set the seeds for the fall planting. ::facepalm::

The cukes are as gone as if I'd dug them up--they seem to have just evaporated since they stopped growing. There was one cucumber and it was bug-riddled; I should have picked it the day I saw it instead of waiting to see what would happen!

The zuke is gone without a single fruit. Next spring, I'm planting earlier and I'm planting more than one, and maybe then they'll fruit. There were flowers all over the place, but not one turned into anything. I also think I'll give them their own pots; this one ate up all the water and nutrients, and nothing in the pot with it did anything until it was gone! I think I'll keep them close, though; the rest of the plants seemed to like the shade those huge prickly leaves gave everything.

The lettuce is all but done. One went to seed, most evaporated, and one is still hanging on but doesn't taste all that great anymore.

The basil is looking really sad and the mint is down to one branch, but that one branch looks amazing. None of the other herbs even came up. Both of those were pre-grown when I got them; next spring, I'm getting nursery-started herbs! Lots of them! Enough where I can use them regularly instead of just once or twice a month!

The lily and the jade plant are doing just fine; I'll bring them in when it gets properly cold. This week has been in the 70s and it's glorious after a whole summer of super-hot 90s and high humidity because of all that rain.

The roses are doing just fine. I need to look up how to over-winter them, but they're meant to be cold-weather tolerant so I might not even have to bring them in most of the season.

Nasturtiums are almost done. Next year, I'm planting more, and I'm eating the crap out of them while they're huge-leafed and tender there at the beginning of spring.

Peppers and tomatoes never grew more than 6 inches and are still there but aren't doing anything. They're coming from the nursery, too, next spring, and I'm starting the special varieties indoors weeks beforehand.

The compost is coming along quite nicely. That bottom box is closer to dirt every time I look at it, and the top one is already weathering down. I haven't even gotten to the third box in the stack yet! Maybe I won't have to buy much dirt this next spring when I do my planting. That'd be great--that means more money for plants and pots to put them in.

Seeds I planted out just now:

• Bulb and Bunching Onions in the long planter where the zuke and cuke were
• Arugula, Parsley, Salad Greens and Mesclun Greens in the lettuce pot
• Beets and Spinach in the Nasturtiums pot
• Arugula in the tomato pot. 
• Bush beans in the new pot my brother found at work.

I wanted to plant cabbage and cauliflower, but they take a lot of space and I don't have anymore pots for them right now. I also wanted to plant carrots, but I seem to be missing every single pack of carrot seeds I ever owned, which is weird. Next time.

And I joined the Arbor Day Foundation last week because they were having a membership special where if you filled out a survey, there were ten trees and two crepe myrtles with a 10$ donation. I used to be a member ages ago, and I like supporting trees like that. I also like getting free plants for my garden. They said they'll send them "at an appropriate time for your region" which I figure is soon, for overwintering, or not until, like, March for the spring planting. But sooner or later I'll have two crabapples, two dogwoods, two golden raintrees, two hawthorns, two redbuds, and those two crepe myrtles. I'm excited! I haven't decided whether I'll find somewhere I'm allowed to plant them in the ground or pot them up and cart them around until I can settle somewhere permanently. Probably the second option. That's usually how I go.

Cat Update:

While I was gardening, I let Binka come out onto the porch and get some air, and she immediately started hunting the tiniest bird I've ever seen that make the biggest racket ever as soon as it saw her. She's so cute and strange when she hunts--she meyows every three seconds, flaps her tail around, makes these funny chattery noises by clicking her teeth together, and then complains when the bird flies away and I make her come inside.

Did you guys do any Fall Planting? What're you adding to your garden? What's your wishlist? Share!

Garden Report - End of May

The last couple days since the sun came back, the garden has been going bonkers. Did I tell you about the fantastic Asiatic Lilies my sister got me for my birthday last week? They're just gorgeous and they've been popping open like firecrackers since the day I put them out there. As of this morning, all but two are open; I'm hoping more buds will grow and they'll keep going longer into the summer. I need to see if there's, like, lily food I need to get for them or something.

In that first picture, too, you can see the garden-gift I got myself: a planter with sunflowers, two bush-type cukes and one zuke, and (still unsprouted so far), green onions along the front. They came up in about a day and a half--even the seeds are all we need to grow right now. I planted the sunflowers because they're supposed to attract labybugs, which, with roses, I thought would be nice to have, since I've already found a few aphids on them. 

And look at these nasturtiums! There's more competition in that little pot, so there's smaller leaves--but so many more of them! And look at all the flowers! You can't really see in that picture, but there's literally fifteen more buds waiting to pop open, and they last for ages. That first one went on for over a week! I hope the bees are doing their job; I'll leave the faded buds there and see if seeds grow in, and then I'll plant them next time, or in the fall, and get even more!

The rose is still trying to open, a little more each day, and it looks like it's going to be pink instead of red, but what a gorgeous pink it is so far!

I can hardly wait for the veggies. If the cukes grow, I'll be making pickles (if there are lots of them) or salads (if there are only a few). And I only planted one zuke because I know how prolific they can be, and I didn't want a whole fall of eating only variations on zucchini. I don't know how all those things will do in that one little planter together, but we'll see!

Here's what my GardenGate reminder says I should be planting out in June (and which I should have already started inside and haven't):

• Luffa
• Marrow
• Okra
• Sweet Corn
• Sweet Potato / Kumara
• Tomato

I hear you can eat luffa when it's small, but it's a big-ol' vine and I just don't have the space, so that's not happening here or now; I'll add it to the calendar for some other year. I think marrow is an overgrown zucchini, so check there. I don't like okra. I did dig out all my fun corn seeds from my seed stash, and I plan on planting some of them just to see what happens; that's probably next week or the week after, though, because this week's free money is already spent and I'm on a budget. I need to get something to plant them in. I grew sweet potato once sort of by accident; one sprouted in the closet and I decided to keep it. It got HUGE. I am super-curious about the bag-style planting of potatoes and other root veg, so I might try that some other time. And it pains me that I don't have any tomatoes; maybe I'll go by a garden center next week, too, and get a few that are already sprouted.

Goals for this week or so:

• Get the compost going outside
• Find something to plant corn in and get planting
• Maybe plant some bush beans

How's your garden going?

May Garden Update

May is almost done, and I have a free minute and a lot of enthusiasm, so here's the update!

After the fiasco of moving everything outside, where most things died, those that didn't came back like powerhouses. The nasturtiums have gone mad.

They're huge and trailing all over the place, and as of yesterday, there's a flower! (the yellow one up above). This morning, I found a bud for what looks like a red or orange one, too, and that's great--even if I never have enough to eat daily this year, I'll get seeds and then I can grow more!

The roses, that were barely sticks last month, when they came in the mail at the end there, are all leafy and there are buds on them, too! Two on the one that should be yellow and orange, and one on the red one. If I remembered which ones they were. It might be the reverse; we'll see soon enough! The greener-leafed one is well over two feet high now, and the red one is smaller, but just as leafy and sturdy-looking.

The basil is getting a little chewed on by some bug I haven't caught in the act, but is responding by putting out more leaves, so I'm happy.

The strawberries never did come up.

Of the peppers, two survived. They should be either baby bells / gypsy peppers, or carnival peppers, since that's all I planted, and they're about eight inches tall now. They'd stalled out for a while, but we had a lot of rain this week and last week, and they've started growing again. And just under the leaves, one of the other sprouts seems to be a tomato plant! The only tomato I planted was Tiny Tim, so the fact that it's only four or so inches tall doesn't bother me.

The lettuce looked really sad when I put them outside, but they've since gotten quite lovely, and almost fill in their bucket. I added more seeds to cover more of the dirt there, since they'll be sheltered by the bigger ones' leaves, and they're starting to sprout, too.

The jade plant didn't like living inside--too dark and dry, I think--and looked really sad, but perked up almost immediately upon going back outside, and now you can't even tell that it lost most of its leaves and some of its branches this winter.

All in all, a pretty great start on a garden, I'd say, since I haven't actually kept a garden in years now.

Up next:

- For my birthday, I'm going to buy myself some tomatoes and maybe some citrus and / or berries if Big Lots still has them super-cheap

- I might look into getting another rose bush, if I can find a cheap enough one that looks interesting

- There's honeysuckle blooming ALL OVER this city--the whole five mile radius that I live in and move through just wafts with it--and I took some clippings to see if they'll root

- I also took some camellia clippings that had great flowers this past winter, to see if they'll root

Gardening - Free seed catalogs

Here's the list I stole wholesale from Better Hens And Gardens, which is one of my new favorite loves in blogdom.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seed - bills itself as “America’ s Top Source for Pure Heirloom Seeds” and they produce a beautiful color catalog filled with open-pollinated, non-GMO seed.
High Mowing Organic Seed - certified organic, non-GMO, heirloom, open-pollinated, and hybrid seeds.
Johnny’s Selected Seed - non-GMO, open-pollinated, organic, and hybrid seeds. Johnny’s wasn’t taking requests for their 2011 catalog yet, keep checking back.
Pinetree Garden Seeds - offers heirloom seeds and hybrid seeds – this will be a new catalog this year for me.
Seeds of Change - certified organic, heirloom, and hybrid seeds.
Wood Prairie Farm - certified organic seed potatoes.
Seed Savers Exchange - ”Our Mission – Since 1975, Seed Savers Exchange members have passed on approximately one million samples of rare garden seeds to other gardeners. We are a non-profit organization of gardeners dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds.”
Bountiful Gardens - “Heirloom – Untreated – Open Pollinated varieties for sustainable agriculture”.

And here are the ones I'd add to it, that I also love:

• One Green World - Based in the Pacific Northwest, and they sell plants rather than seeds, but they are a fantastic catalog with really great prices--they even have things like Tea, Shipova, Medlar and all sorts of native plants you never see anywhere.
• Le Jardin du Gourmet - Everything you could ever want for a kitchen garden, in seeds and sometimes even in plants!
• Bountiful Gardens - Heirloom and open-pollinated seeds!
• Stokes Seed - Another one of the ones that's been around since the 1800s, lots of great stuff.
• Gurney's Seeds - One of the lower-cost ones, good for getting all your basics out of the way before you start investing in the really fancy stuff, and sometimes something really awesome.
• Henry Fields - One I just found this season that looks cool.
• Park Seed - A really nice website!
• Burpee - A classic seed company, with a great catalog.

I ordered a bunch of new ones, too, so I'll let you know how they look when they come in.

What catalogs do you order seeds from? What plants do you plant every year? What plants will you never plant again? And, most excitingly, what plants will you plant for the first time this year?