The squash is starting to overwhelm

In the past week I've harvested four eight-ball zucchini and a couple costata romanesca. Two of the eight-ball sort of got away from me visually so they're way bigger than eight-balls! The tendrils from all of the winter squash I planted are going nuts and making me reluctant to venture too far into the garden. It's difficult to get to the other end because of all the squash obstacles.

The current crop of spinach is finished, as are the peas. The pole beans are just starting to be pick-able, and I finally found some teeny tomatillos!!! Maybe I'll get some after all this summer. I have lots of tomatoes on the vines, both cherry & others, but all are still green. I used some of my dill, basil, and chives to flavor some homemade salad dressing, and I can still smell the dill on my fingers - love that smell!

The cabbage worms have arrived via their mother the cabbage moth, and are, as usual, voraciously chewing their way through my cabbage plants. They were late this year so may not do as much damage as usual. I've killed about 40 or 50 so far, and have also harvested one head of cabbage that didn't look too heavily chewed on.

I'm going to try some season-extending techniques this fall with row covers and hoops, so I can get some greens (spinach & lettuces) a little later. It'll be an interesting experiment that I hope works. I don't know if I'm quite as ambitious as Eliot Coleman (http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/) to try to grow throughout the winter, but at least will try a few months in the fall & spring. It'd be great if it succeeded as it would mean home-grown salads in November!

Once again this spring I planted some morning glory seeds, and in the image is the resulting lovely flower. They don't like the heat we've gotten this summer, a little more than usual it seems, but appear to getting accustomed to it and are blooming now. Some of the m.glory seeds from two summers ago have germinated also (volunteers), so I have morning glories popping out in lots of places.

Harvesting continues....

This year has been extremely productive for certain vegetables - spinach, lettuce, squash (eight-ball zucchini & costata romanesca), radishes, swiss chard, onions, peas, and probably more that I'm not remembering. It's great having a salad with more than half of the ingredients "locally" picked! I have some small raspberries that I hope will ripen before the first frost. And lots of tomatoes too, plus tomatillos, which I haven't grown before. There are dozens of little blossoms on the tomatillos, but I see any little tomatillos yet. Since I haven't ever seen one growing, I may be missing it due to lack of familiarity....

My cabbage plants aren't being chewed to pieces yet by cabbage worms, and for a while I was noticing that the cabbage butterflies were nowhere to be found. But they have now found the garden, and I expect to start seeing little dastardly caterpillars any day.

I planted about 8-10 squash plants this year which may have been a mistake because now I have squash tendrils winding everywhere in the garden and blocking the sun from other vegetable plants.

My perennials are doing pretty good, depending on which garden they're in. The front garden is still low in nitrogen and is sort of weeny-looking, but everything else looks good.

Caddy, the 16-year-old dog, slows down by the day. Since her mobility has declined we seldom walk beyond the Veteran's Center, which means I haven't been around Home Lake for a few months. Wildlife observations are in decline as a result. When I was at the Rio Grande SWA last week though, I did see a couple hawks and a cow elk - the latter I have NEVER seen at the SWA. It was great to take my first run after the SWA re-opening on July 15; it always feels like I'm seeing the area for the first time.

Rain, weeds, rain, weeds, rain, weeds

It looks like the land of Russian thistle here; if there were more weeds I could easily identify I'd list more. Over the past week we've gotten nearly 3/4 inch of rain, which for this high, arid desert seems like a lot. I'm seeing growth in plants that haven't done a thing the past 3-4 years.
All of my yarrow are blooming, rabbitbrush is just beginning to put on beautiful yellow flowers, Russian sage is looking great, as are gaillardias, monarda, Mexican Hat, and more. Jupiter's beard, planted less than five weeks ago, is blooming. My Scarlet Runner pole beans (planted just for the hummingbirds) are climbing rapidly and beginning to flower; nearly endless squash blossoms but I'm not doing a thing with them. By the way, I had my first cheese-stuffed squash blossoms at Rino's Italian Restaurant in Salt Lake City back in late June - was very yummy. I'm pretty sure I don't have the patience to make something like that.
Lettuce, greens, Swiss chard are all being harvested in abundance, kohlrabi in less abundance but still good.
I purchased 35 lbs. of canner tomatoes at a local greenhouse and will be spending quite a few hours making "Firey Salsa". My recipe includes jalapenos, onions, garlic, lime juice, red bell peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, vinegar, & salt. I found this recipe in Parade magazine (Sunday Denver Post insert) a couple of years ago, and it has become my favorite salsa recipe.
Whew, that's all for now.

Amazing what a little rain can do

My blooming perennials seem unusually vivid and early this year, don't know if it's my imagination or real. The pasque flower (lower left) and basket'of'gold (upper left) had great displays, and the latter is still blooming. We had about an inch of rain over a two-week period in late May/early June which may be the reason. I love going outside and hearing all the little pollinators zipping and buzzing around. I saw a beautiful bumble bee today - searching for an ID site I came across http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=10749, which is a USDA site that advertises a wallet-size bumblebee ID card. Unfortunately, I didn't get a close enough look at the bee to be able to ID it - all I remember is that it was big & yellow, with an orange band in mid-body area.

At the end of last year I realized it was short-sighted NOT to plant some pollinator-attractor plants in the vegetable garden, so I put three Russian sages in a corner; realized this spring that wasn't the best place because they were outside the irrigation system I'd set up. I moved them more into the thick of the vegie plantings and on a drip line, but now they're being slow to grow because of the adjustment I've forced them to go through. Maybe by next growing season they'll do what I have asked them to (bloom & attract bees/flies)!

Wow, time flies during planting season

Can't believe it's been nearly a month since I've written. We were on vacation and then I spent every waking hour (or so it seemed) outside in the garden. When we returned to town on June 1, the yard and area looked like WI, because RAIN had actually come down during our absence. Granted, not much rain, but for here it was significant - over the course of 10 days about 1" total. So nothing died from lack of precipitation.
WE've already been fortunate enough to harvest greens and spinach, and radishes will probably be ready within a week. I madly planted annuals, herbs, and many more seeds this past weekend - the seeds that went in were more carrots, various green beans, more lettuce & greens, parsnips, sunflowers, more kohlrabi, and don't remember what else.
I'm in Cortez working this week, and indulged in a shopping spree to Four Seasons Greenhouse this evening. Some people shop for clothes, some for expensive cigars, but Marianna goes to greenhouses to spend her money.
I have vowed to stay away from perennial plants that have failed in the past - that list is getting mighty long. Ice Plants are at the top of the list, along with Alpine Poppy, Colorado Gold Gazania, and at least a dozen more. Am getting weary of spending money on plants that last only a season, and then kapoof! they're gone.
Bruce emailed me today that we have a fledgling robin and a parent hanging out in the yard; let's hope Caddy the pooch doesn't find them.

Seedlings, blossoms & growth, oh my!

So much is happening in the garden! Lots of perennials are coming up that I wondered about over the winter - various penstemons, baptisia, agastache, evening primrose, much more. My little trees (serviceberry mostly) are starting to put on little buds. Lilac is about a week or so away from flowering. Cinquefoils putting on little green leaves, as are the fernbush, apache plume, alkali sacaton grasses. What a great time of year.

So far my spinach, sugar snap peas and mixed greens are poking their little heads above the soil. My tomatoes indoors are about 8" high, and all my other indoor transplants are doing great!

The image to the left is my Nanking cherry, which I planted for the birds' benefit, though it is still too small (2' high) to provide much of that. It has the most beautiful pink & white blossoms.

I haven't set up the irrigation system yet so am doing all of my watering by hand, but since the soil is not yet dried out it's not a lengthy task.

I tried to get my cold frame set up last night but the automatic opener device always causes vexing problems so I'm not finished there yet. My cole crops will go there when it's ready to go, so I can make room indoors under the lights for other seedlings.

It's transplant time!

I planted many brusselsprouts, cabbage, and broccoli seeds, indoors, a couple of weeks ago. I planted them in very small pots, and was planning to transplant them to larger pots once they developed true leaves. Tonight, I judged many of them to be ready to repot, so I filled a bunch of 2x2" plastic pots with moistened potting soil--luckily it's now warm enough outside in the evening to do this somewhat messy job outdoors on my work table--and prepared all the necessary other items, consisting of one chopstick (to make the hole), a plastic fork (to remove the little seedling from its dirt bed), a container with water, and strips cut from a yogurt or cottage cheese container to serve as plant markers/identifiers. The latter is a great way to reuse the many yogurt containers I have on hand.

Not all of the seedlings are large enough yet to transplant, so after this evening's efforts, I have 18 newly-transplanted pots of mostly brusselsprouts with a few red cabbage thrown in. Yet to transplant are more brusselsprouts and then some broccoli seedlings - those are growing more slowly than the other plants. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find space under the lights for everybody.......I hope to be able to move the cool-weather brassicas to my cold frame after a couple of weeks so I can make room for the annual flowers I'm growing from seed also.

The lights setup I have is shown in the image - it works really well. It's a large, four-shelf shelving unit, and the metal slats are perfect for hanging fluorescent lamps on. I have enough lamps (4) for only two of the shelves to be functional for growing. I put two lamps side-by-side so the plants get complete coverage. I could improve the light distribution by using aluminum foil as sort of a curtain over each of the lamps to reflect the light back to the plants, but I haven't gotten it that much together. I have all the lights on timers, and they're on from about 6AM to 10PM, so 16 hours. Believe it or not, plants need the night time hours to do their own thing (they don't really rest, they actually do plant activities, whatever those are); what I've read is that they should be in the dark at night, just like we are!

Just finished seed order!!!

Wow, kind of a $ splurge tonight. I decided to go wholly with Johnny's Seeds this year for all my new vegetable & flower seeds. First I went through my seed stockpile armed with a seed viability chart, and got rid of a few packets based on age. Then I have 3 or 4 other packets (parsley, nicotiana [had that since '02 and not once planted it!]) that I'm going to do a germination test on versus automatically reordering. I think I've only done a germination test once before. I'll wet some paper towels, then spread several seeds out on the towels, then roll up the paper towels and put in a plastic bag. The test in our house will be keeping it in a warm place as is recommended. Depending on how many seeds germinate, I'll either use the seeds or toss them in the compost pile. My seed-starting reference book recommends waiting a maximum of three weeks for most seed varieties to germinate.
My purchase tonight includes green beans, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, parsnips, peppers, tomatillos, kohlrabi, beets, chard, lettuce mixes, melon (haven't grown these before), cucumbers, sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, and joe pye weed (very iffy here).
I went a little crazy with ordering sunflowers - they're such enthusiastic plants, and the birds & bees love them so!
What Fun!