Invaders and Heat Waves

Looks gorgeous doesn't it? An entire crop of potatoes -red and russet - mixed with towering horseradish plants to ward off pests, specifically Japanese beetles.

Apparently it doesn't always work. Deep in those green leaves these little guys were busy munching away. These are the dreaded Japanese beetles. The last couple years our area in Virginia has been inundated with them. Twenty miles away, my dad picks 2-3 ice cream buckets a day off his plants, then feeds them to his catfish. He refuses to plant horseradish in his potato fields because it spreads. (I for one appreciate the fact that there's at least one plant I will not be able to kill, no matter what).

This year the horseradish isn't working completely, although (so far) I only have a very few beetles. My technique is to pick them off and drown them, usually while swearing. So far, the only bed they've shown up in is the volunteer potato bed. They must be nearsighted, and haven't located the new potato bed, 8 feet away.

Can you pick out the three separate companion plants here? This is in the new potato bed, right next to the compost bin in the middle. On the far left is a Heavenly Blue morning glory, in the center are the large,broad leaves of the cucumber, and on the right, the long narrow leaves of a potato plant.

The idea is that the morning glory will grow up over the compost bin making a column of gorgeous blue flowers, shading the cucumber while providing them an additional trellis to climb, and eventually covering the full-grown potato plants, shading them from the late summer heat. Both the morning glory and cucumbers have a shallow root structure, so they won't interfere with the potatos and their underground crop.

The heat wave this week means I have to cover the broccoli so it doesn't bolt. The gauzy covering mixed with lots of water means I should get a few more rounds of broccoli yet. (For these plant shade cloths, I go to Walmart and get their $1.00/yard gauze. This was originally white, but several years of use and our Franklin County red clay have dyed it a nice tan-cream color).

The blueberry countdown is started: the five-year plants are loaded, the four-year plants have a modest crop, and the three-year plants are growing and establishing themselves. To guard my blueberries against deer and birds, I randomly sprinkle compact discs around the plants- mostly the ones AOL use to send out for free, but I've been know to pick up cheap ones at yard sales. This is why the Greatest Hits of Guy Lombardi are in my garden, along with 500 Hours of Free AOL.

And for anyone who is wondering, no, we haven't finished the pond/water system yet. The best laid plans have been run amuck by car repair bills.

Project Completed

Old Puppy Cabana, at the height of its glory

New, improved Puppy Cabana, 99.9% finished:

Lower to the ground, lower roof for more shade, more natural look, with deck still needing to be treated (too humid today).

Side view. Still no puppies test-driving. Perhaps if I leave their yard, and walk discreetly around the garden, they will try it out.

Broccoli needs to be picked before it flowers. The cuke plants in the milk jug are exploding, and will need to come out soon.

The gourds are up. I fear this will be one of those years when ALL the gourds come up.

The volunteer potato/horseradish rows are growing by leaps and bounds. The horseradish is companion-planted with the potatoes to ward off Japanese beetles. Neither of these plants needs special water or soil, they just seem to grow no matter what.The big wide horseradish leaves also shade the potatoes so I lose very few to sunburn (sunburn is what happens to potatoes laying on the surface, and results in green patches. Don't eat those potatoes. They will make you sick.)

This is the planned potato bed, the one I actually planted this year. The compost bin is in the middle, and it has three cuke plants around it, which so far haven't done much of anything (last year they loved it here. Fickle things).

My much-neglected rose bed. Every year I fully intend to clear it out, add to the colors with new rose bushes, plant strawberries in with them, and straighten up the little wrought iron fence that really is there,but you can't see (for all the weeds).

And every year I spend so much time, effort, energy on the food beds that the poor roses get left behind. But they bloom anyways, in spite of needing trimming and pruning.

This year they did get banana peels planted at their feet, which may account for this display.

Drifting back nonchalantly back to the puppy yard, I spot Max trying out the new deck.

If it pleases Max, the rest of them will be a breeze, since Max is the grouchiest Scrooge of all pups.

Max has cleared the way for Chewy to test the other end of the deck. Apparently it's a good spot to sit and dream of rabbits to chase.

Or of blogs to write. All he needs is a laptop.

If I Can't Garden In the Rain...

I can at least walk out to the greenhouse, and pick lettuce for tonight's salad.

On the way, the broccoli has flourished in the rain. It's added at least another 3" in height in the last two days. The bok choy has exploded as well, finally reaching that turning point where the possums can nibble on it at night, without killing the plant (thereby leaving some for us, on the off chance we might want some boy choy for ourselves). The plastic jugs for the most part are no longer needed at night, but I'm leaving them out just in case.

Out in the greenhouse, the garlic has sprouted. I wasn't sure it would, since these cloves were from last year and they were accidentally left in the greenhouse over the summer, not the best idea, since hot and humid is not considered optimal storage for seeds/garlic cloves.

Remember this little cauliflower from a week or so ago?

Look at it now. Another 3-4 days and it will be ready to pick.

Even the green pepper and tomato seedlings are blooming.

Planting in wet heavy soil is not recommended, but if I don't get some clear sky here shortly, we may have to push the envelope, and plant irregardless.

Remind me in July of how fustrated I was with the rain.

Ask Not Whom The Garden Calls....

How sits the garden today, 4-19-09?

We are having our first "safe" spring rain as I type, meaning one that can fall on the outdoor plants, with no worries that it will freeze overnight and hurt their tender leaves.

Yesterday was spent mowing (after fixing the riding mower and finding out we lost the charger for the push mower), doing a little trimming of branches, and putting slightly taller legs on the water barrel platforms (more on that in another post).

But today it was all-important to set out the broccoli seedlings, covering each one with a milk jug.

YES - a plastic milk jug. Cut the bottom out, take the cap off the top, set it over the plant, making sure you work it into the soil a little to keep it from blowing away. Look down inside and you can see the little broccoli plant.

For those of you who try to go plastic-less, good luck with that - I can't do it. But my rule is to reuse as much as possible. Meaning that we get our milk in plastic jugs, then save them to fill with water and stack in the greenhouse over the winter. They form a wall that collects heat and helps to keep the plants warm over the winter (solar greenhouse - no other source of heat).

As the winter wears on, I use one jug of water at a time for watering, and by the time spring comes along, the jugs are all empty.

At that point -reached this afternoon -I can use as many jugs as I need for protecting set-out seedlings. This is called "hardening" the seedlings - they need the fresh air, but they also need protection from wind while they build up their stem strength. The plastic jug serves as a little hot house until they grow up just a litte.

As plastic goes, milk jugs generally just under one year - meaning one winter in the greenhouse, and one cycle of serving as miniature greenhouses. After that they go brittle and disintegrate.

Cat litter plastic jugs can last several winters in the greenhouse (useless as plant covers), as can the new Lipton Green Tea and Arizona Tea gallon containers.

One winter I used the large Sheetz Slushie glasses (with the domed lids) - they make wonderful individual greenhouses and can hold up at least 2 seasons.

Speaking of using plastic, one day my DH came home with stacks of bread racks that were being thrown away at work. We've used them for various things, including shelving in a root celler my parents built (perfect holding apples and potatos that need circulating air), and today I used them in place of finding free wooden pallets.

This particular project is the gourd bed. First the grass was mowed very short yesterday. Today we added multi-layers of newspaper (2-3 sections deep), wet it thoroughly, then set the bread racks on top, upside down, and with a 6" gap between racks. Around May 1st, I'll fill in the gaps with the least expensive top soil, then plant gourd seeds there.

Gourds love poor soil but need airy spaces to protect the gourds from dampness. In previous years I've just let the vines run willy-nilly, and set scrap boards under each gourd. That works okay, but last year I tried wooden pallets, and that worked much better.

Unfortunately, the pallets were already weathered badly, and this year they just need to be burnt (but it's okay, the ash will go on the garden too). However they can be replaced with the plastic bread racks this year, which are indestructible.

There are several reasons I plant gourds: 1) I have visions of becoming a great creative gourd craftsperson (this will never happen, mostly because I suck at crafts); 2) I LOVE the smell and feel of gourd vines - they are soft and fuzzy, and give off the aroma of baking bread; and 3) growing gourds this way breaks down the soil underneath, and allows me to enlarge the garden the easy way. The earthworms come up under the newspaper, and literally break up the soil for me, then in the fall I add a few layers of mulch, and by next spring, there's a new planting bed ready to go.

Today was also "fence rotation" day - the tomato bed is moving where the old potato bed was (and the potato bed has moved to where the old cucumber bed was). The fences had to be moved as well, so they are ready for tomato planting in a couple weeks.

I've tried every sort of tomato support, including the idea of "no-support", which turned out badly, with poor fruit taste -it was musty and something short of "rotted" tasting. I've used the cone-shaped wire cages, made round wire cages, garden stakes with string lines between them, plain wooden poles, and one year I ever designed a PVC support that could be put together to fit each individual plant. None of them worked as I wanted them to.

One year I was visiting an Amish farm up in the mountains and saw their very simple idea. They used large (6" square) grid fence wire, and just strung it up between garden stakes. The tomatoes are planted on alternating side of the fence. I've been doing that ever since. The large grid means you can reach through and pick tomatoes if necessary.

There were surprises waiting in the greenhouse today too - this approx 5" across cauliflower, and buckets of bright green lettuce.

Some of these beautiful plants were transplanted outside, some into other large buckets, and some came in for dinner - fresh romaine salad with bacon quiche!