Royal Wedding and Such

This has nothing to do with gardening.
I liked the fact that Kristin at Going County owned up to watching the wedding of William and Kate and I thought I would comment briefly on the wedding.
I did not get up early to watch it, and I have to admit that I'm not an Anglophile - I don't really care about the British one way or another (except to think that things tend to sound more sardonic and funny when said with a British accent. Also smarter.) but I did open up the picture gallery on SeattleTimes.com as soon as my inbox was cleaned out and all the fires were extinguished at work for the time being and relished all the photos.*
I thought Kate's dress was absolutely perfect - the designer couldn't have made a better style for her - flattering and understated, with a touch of bling from the borrowed tiara, lovely long veil and hints of lace...I was floored by how absolutely stunning she was.
The flower girls and the court resplendent in cocked forward hats, hand gloves and muted, distinguished dresses and suits.
It's like a modern fairy tale - illustrating the culture and history and properness of the British people.
I just thought it was wonderful.
*sigh*
30-something year old who just sighed at a Royal Wedding.
No matter how much dirt I get under my nails, how many fences I construct or toilets I install, I'm still such a girl sometimes.
And my, isn't that fine.

*I did, however, at 2:45am, send positive JuJu to Kate for a day that would surely be crazy, terrifying, exhilarating, and emotional. It's all I could do in a bleary eyed state of making a bottle and trying to find my way around in the dark.

Ladies!

Which is what I call to the ladies when they are roaming the property, peckin' and scratchin' and just generally being a chicken kind of fabulous.
I haven't named them, which is peculiar, as I name everything.
Maybe I know that fundamentally these ladies are producers - first of eggs and then of meat.
Maybe I still feel bad about giving my other herd of lovely ladies away during my pregnancy.
Maybe I've been balls to the wall tired and preparing for several different things that have nothing to do with farming and I've just overlooked it.

Yeah, I think that could be it.
Anywho - they have gotten big really quick. I got these gals when they were several weeks old and I think I will do that again - they were hardier, less fragile, and I was able to move them out of our second bathroom sooner. With the day old chicks, it just seemed like forever until their adult feathers came in. The wait is excruciating.
Also, I remain terrified that the heat lamp we use for chicks is gonna torch the homestead while we are out working or frolicking.
So overall - i'm pleased with the girls.
I will start adding Diatomaceous Earth and Cayenne pepper to their feed (I usually add it in layers in a big jug and then I can just pour the feed into their feeder without mess or measuring) to protect against intestinal parasites. Also, I need to get their nesting boxes ready - although I haven't seen them do the "egg squat"* yet, so I don't think laying is going to happen soon, but want to be prepared.

*For those of you who haven't witnessed the egg squat, it is hysterical. When you move to touch their heads or backs, they lean over and spread their winds out to the side like they are trying to flatten themselves against the earth. It usually shows up right before their start laying the first, and usually odd looking, first eggs.

Pot, pot and more pot.

No, not that kind of pot.
Silly.
I'm talking about my marathon up-potting yesterday to make sure that I don't lose any of those precious tomato starts that I fawned and worried over for so long.
They were getting a bit cramped in their little 4 and 6 inch square pots, so I scoured the backyard, garage, and side yard until I found enough pots to transplant a majority of the tomatoes into. Then spent the better part of an hour transplanting the little devils into more roomy digs.
I have 7 left over that didn't make it into bigger pots and I need to just cut the cord and let them go - either to well meaning people at work, or to the compost pile (which kills me).

 But I can't bring myself to do it just yet.
So there they sit, looking all leggy and left out in the hoop house (which, I might add, registered a balmy 75 degrees yesterday! Whoot!).
I also did battle with an overgrown clematis root ball, which, when dug up, looked very unsettling and creepy. The root shoots are rather fleshy and quite, well, plump, for root shoots. If anyone has read The Talisman by Stephen King (and if you haven't, please please please do - you haven't lived until you've met Wandering Jack and seen him flip to the territories...) there's a scene in there that these root balls reminded me of and I had to dispose of them quick as they were creeping me out.

My first run at little eggplants ended badly - they wilted and died. I don't think the soil was quite rich enough (or lofty enough to drain well - there was a lot of clay hanging around.) So, I started again, amended with composted leaves and regular compost, tossed in some topsoil and dug in the next generation of tiny eggplants. I feel like they don't want to be here - like I have to try and sell them on growing in my hoop house. They look unimpressed. Maybe I should give them a presentation about why growing in my hoop house is such a good idea....
"Hey there, have you ever felt buffeted by wind, encroached on by weeds...unappreciated in every way possible? Well, no more, my friend...." and then you bust out the white board and markers and really convince 'em.
Or maybe I'll just mulch them really well, cover them in burlap, make sure the snails don't get them and go from there.

And, fyi, still have NO idea what these are.
Arugula?
Why am I so confused?
I don't like Mystery Seed!
If anyone has any ideas, give me a holler!

Pixie Cabbage - I'm Smitten

Oh, how I love a new edible.

My Botanist Mother brought me an insert from last weeks Seattle Times that highlighted the new edibles for NW gardeners and people who have small planting areas.
And, alas, as I am both, I was ready to read.
Pixie Cabbage, offered by Renee's Seed, is frost and heat tolerant, fast maturing and only gets about 5 inches in head diameter - solving that pesky giant-head-of-cabbage-how-am-I-supposed-to-eat-all-this problem. You can grow many in one season and if you have cold frames, hoop houses or greenhouses it is a veggie that can last well into the winter growing season.
I wish I had known about this little darling when I was ordering seed. I think if my H sees one more seed packet in the mail he's gonna run screaming down the street.
I'll just have to sneak it in.
Hee hee hee.
A gardeners work is never done.

Lost and Found

Clearing out yet another part of the garden that has been neglected for way too long, I spied two herbs I thought had long since died out:
Oregano and Chocolate Mint.
I planted these many years ago and they just keep coming up every year - buried by weeds and other refuse that I haven't had time to clean up. But this year, the SOS and I have been doing some serious damage to the overgrown side garden. Eventually, what was once weed choked and looking to all the world like a vacant lot in a Stephen King novel, my side garden will once more be restored to glory. Albeit, somewhat more chaste glory. I don't have the time for a lot of maintenance, and so much of what will go in there will be:
(A) Succulents
(B) Drought tolerant, non spreading grasses
(C) Wood chip mulch
But for the time being, it is still in ruins - even more so since I started pulling things out, replanting what I want to keep and tossing what I don't.
I just love how oregano becomes a socially acceptable weed - don't you?  I once heard that the term "weed" is just a fancy way of saying "plant in a place you don't want". I can dig it. Literally.
But I digress.
So, anyways, I found oregano and chocolate mint and replanted into several containers so that I can move them where I want them. I didn't get a lot of the chocolate mint for two reasons - 1. It's not really "up" yet and so I just got the first early growths and 2. I was swinging the SOS around something fierce until I realized a wonderful smell and by then I had already trampled and/or ripped out a giant swath of it.
Oh, well.

But I did pick some rosemary (from the overgrown, woody bushes I HAVE to take out b/c they are WAY to big) and some oregano to dry inside and chop up.
And then I picked a small bouquet of Daffodils (I think these are not daffs, I'll have to consult my Botanist Mother), sweet woodruff and grape hyacinths.

And then, back aching and tot waking from a nap, I packed up the SOS, watered the potted up saved plants (among them, a creepy looking arborvitae that I hope I can get looking cute again...) and headed indoors.
Just when you think things are lost in a garden that nature is constantly trying to let grow wild again, a tiny touch of something you introduced pops up again.
And then you get to chop it up and add it to soup.
Bonus.

20 Yards

Hey.
Ever seen what 20 yards of free wood chips looks like?

I have.
And let me tell you - it's a lot!
I was doing yard work yesterday and I heard the awful, upsetting, teeth grinding noise of someone using a chainsaw to fell a tree.
Every time that happens I feel an intense and illogical desire to go and ask them if they know we need those trees LIVING to be able to breathe.
But, exercising great restraint and cautiousness unlike me when fauna is engaged, I decided to quit my tree huggin' bellyaching and make some lemonade out of those lemons.
So I packed up the tot and drove (I thought it was two streets over, turns out it was down the block - so much for that carbon footprint!) over to the house.
I just asked if they needed somewhere to dump there chips (I call them shreds - b/c they don't really look like chips to me when they're done) and they said YES!
So - two problems solved. One, the tree dude got to keep the money he would have spent taking this stuff to the dump and two, I got awesome free wood chips to line my garden paths, my front beds and a shady back corner of my property. Everybody wins! Except for the poor tree that is the center of all of this.
Only thing I'll have to do is make a screen out of chicken wire so pull out the biggest of the tiny douglas fir pieces that are mixed in with the chips. Small price to pay for a truck load of free chips.
I love free stuff that I can really use.

Making a Plan

I just read a killer article on high yield gardening in an email from Organic Gardening  (I don't know how I got signed up for this, I'm pretty sure my Mas got me into it, but I LOVE this email magazine. FREE and chalk full of helpful stuff - lot's of veggie growing advice, tools, information and fun articles. You can subscribe for free on their website.)
Anyhow - there are actually two killer articles - one on high yield gardening and the other on succession planting.
Admittedly, I have always had a tough time figuring out a plan. I'm just not a "plan" type of person. I feel like doing something and then I do it. Great for impromptu excursions to the beach or out to dinner, but not good for veggie gardening. All the literature says make a plan! Helen and Scott Nearing kept a series of loose leaf binders full of good information on their crops, yields, where they spaced some things, and how they built up their soil (among countless other things they recorded) but I'm just NOT that meticulous.
Sometimes I have a hard time labeling my different tomato plants. I just figure I like them all, so, you know, I'll wing it.
This year, as well as being the year of the worm, will be the year that I buckle down and make a *somewhat* detailed plan of how I'm gonna do this pea patch. I have the binder at home. Now I just have to fill it.
In order to get high yields - enough for canning and preservation, I need to not only stagger my production, but plant complimentary plants and utilize every spare inch of my 1/4 acre. (Well - not the front yard, b/c my awesome neighbors would complain). Also, keep amending my soil, b/c we can't have good plants without good soil! Good soil is #1!
Also, I do need to establish a designated herb area, as well as plant the beneficials like lovage, borage and calendula around my beds. They bring the good bugs.
I'm goin' horizontal and vertical. Things are gonna get real. I saw an awesome post on Laguna Dirt about Stephen Orr's gardens built for production, beauty and innovation - one of them was a wall made out of recycled roof caps, turned into little pots to hold succulents. Amazing.
Ideas like that make that hamster wheel in my head start turning and my H's eyes roll heavenward.
But I digress.
So this year, I figure I will follow some of Organic Gardening's advice about succession planting, planting certain crops together, and building up the soil to get some killer yields.
I'm excited now, but will be cursing myself come July while I hover over a water bath canner in a sweltering kitchen.
Oh, well. Best laid plans....

The Bane of My Existence

After foiling a teenager's plot to break into my garage (In broad daylight. On a busy corner of the neighborhood. With my car in the driveway. Because what else would a 16 year old do after school? Get a job? C'mon! That cuts into his precious down time!) I decided to go out back and yank some blackberry vines that have been mocking me for the last couple of weeks.
In searching for the best way to yank vines I finally decided today to bust out my pick, digger tool thingy and do some serious damage to the neglected back bed.
I bet it has an actual name.
Alas, I don't know what it is.
So I think I'm gonna start calling it my Secretary Of State.
Much like my Honda Rototiller is my VP - my right hand guy, the guy you go to get extra info, the guy you count on - the pick/digger thingy is like my Secretary Of State - she is the most well rounded of garden tools. A sort of "every-tool", if you will. Wanna turn over sod? Done. Wanna break through low lying branches? Check. Wanna hash through a garden bed that's been sitting for a couple years? Piece a' cake.
Too bad I can't put her in a pantsuit. 
Anyhow. There is nothing I LOATHE more than blackberry vines. A close second is english ivy of which one of my neighbors REFUSES to kill or even keep under mild control, thus it keeps creeping back through my privacy fence and trying to take over my yard. But blackberry vines I hate. Hate, Hate, Hate.
So busted out my SOS and went at it.
And 45 minutes later, the yard waste bin was FULL of blackberry vines and some wayward english ivy (it was a "twofor" today. Lucky me.) And not a vine remained. I swear at one point I even heard one particularly big "blackberry brain" (the part in which all vines spring forth) mewling tragically as I wrenched it from the soil.
Protest all you want, sucka, you're outta there.
I don't know what this bed will be. It's in the shade, so veggies are out. It's next to a fence, under a tree. A very difficult area, if you ask me. I may just clog it up with shade loving plants (I never met a fern I didn't like) but for now it will just be blissfully blackberry/english ivy free.

Garlic, anyone?

So I broke out my VP yesterday and turned over another bed.
In that bed was elephant garlic that I planted and has apparently been growing for the last...2 years?
I'm a bit confused. And I don't know if I can eat it.
Logic is telling me yes.
Logic is also telling me that if I hadn't have dug it out of there, it would just keep on reproducing until my bed was full of elephant garlic cloves.
It's funny how the  majority of veggie and herb gardening is about trying to control mother nature. That garlic wants to spread. It needs to spread. And it would, too, if it wasn't for all those meddling gardeners. So much of what I do every year (well, not the last one) is trying to harness what wants to run amuck throughout my tiny 1/4 acre. (Spellcheck is telling me that "amuck" is not a word. I think it is. So I win.) It's up to us green thumbs to curtail the crazy, reign in the wild, pull up the elephant garlic. I remember that it sent up glorious shoots almost as high as, well, an elephant's eye, that erupted into giant purple balls of tiny, delicate flowers. I know we are supposed to wait until those stalks die and fall over to harvest, but by then I was very pregnant and couldn't bend over.
Hence, elephant garlic in April.
Also, I think that I need to dry it for awhile, much like onions needs to dry in the open air for them to make that papery covering. So I put them on newspapers in my cool "catchall" room and there they sit. Stinking up the house like garlic (although today is much better).
I used to get a CSA share from Take Root Farm in Buckley, and when she harvested garlic and onions she put them to dry on her tables in the green house. She just cut the tops off and let them sit around for a while and they made the greenhouse smell like onion HEAVEN.

The Beauty of Burlap

I love alliteration.
I decided, after touring a KILLER farm on Whidbey Island last summer, to start using burlap to insulate my beds in my hoop house. To make roots happy and warm. To make the plants fuller, lusher, and eventually get higher yields (or, at least, any yields at all if this summer turns into a cold, rainy mess like last year).

So I started Annual Artichokes, which I have never done before, and put them in the Hoop House with burlap over them. It seems to be doing the trick as the artichoke plants have doubled in size in the last two weeks.
Feeling upbeat and heartened, I put some Purple Prince, Royal Chico and Red Zebra tomatoes in the Magic Hoop House and also some Peppercini's and Albino Bullnose peppers for good measure. Magic Hoop House already has an ongoing herb bed in one corner - now full of basil starts trying desperately to come back from a slug offensive that took many of them down to nubbins. (Freakin' slugs. Please.)*
So Magic Hoop House has redeemed herself to me after having to rebuild her three times and patch her up about 5 times after wind storms. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship with her and also with the burlap. 

*I bought Corry's Slug and Snail Death - mostly for the reality that it would save my delicate starts, but also because the name cracks me up in a way that Sluggo just can't.

Hydroponics, anyone?

I read a very interesting post on www.lagunadirt.blogspot.com about vertical gardens utilizing hydroponic technology.
I have always been interested in the art and science of gardening the hydroponic way. I don't really know how I would set up that operation in my backyard, but I'm having visions of lining our south and west facing walls with vertical lines of produce. Criss-crossing in a mod fashion, up and up the walls, utilizing every square inch of sunlit space.
Easy on the eyes and wallet - hydroponic gardening is one of the really good ways to garden when the earth is no good, the space is no good, or you just want people to commonly and all the time think that you are growing your weed out there. (I can never convince people that it's just tomatoes and peppers under the grow lights...wierdos.)
For a time, I was thinking that setting up a small hydroponic station in the house would be ideal b/c our growing season is long, but not long enough to keep us in greens all winter (plus a tomato now and then would be killer. Just saying.) But I don't think space, or my H's patience, will allow it.
So....maybe along one side or two of our house???
Thank you Laguna Dirt - loved the post!