In the Midnight Garden of Nothin' Growin'

What do you do when your garden is a complete and abject totally dismal failure?

You harvest the only two things growing: cherry tomatoes and armloads of mint.

And beg your parents for fresh veggies.

And, instead of wasting water on the sad, sad remains of wasted delinquent plants - you regroup and start planning the fall garden, which will lay the groundwork for the garden next spring.

A quick rehash: my normal garden site was inundated with the Evil Wiregrass. This spring, that site was covered with black plastic to bake out the said Evil. Meanwhile I decided to try straw bale gardening as a temporary solution.

The good news: none of the plants in the straw bales has been eaten by the various bunnies, deer, groundhogs, or neighborhood dogs.

The bad news: it's because the plants are either dying or dead, and not even the groundhogs will touch them.

There comes a time when every gardener should be smart enough to throw in the trowel, and give it up. This would be that time for me.

Straw bale gardening works for a lot of people. Didn't work for me.

Global warming works for a lot of people. Isn't working for me. What should be a May/June growing season has accelerated into a late April/May growing season, followed by two months of searing hot temps. Spare me the "global warming is a myth" emails - I am permanently entrenched in the camp of your opposition, having seen the evidence for my own eyes, for more than a few years.

Even the mint is two months ahead of itself, which considering the lack of rain, is pretty much unexplainable.

The one bright spot is that the cherry tomatoes are all container grown, and are as sweet as they can be.

What's coming out of all this is a decision to cut back on the backyard garden next year and pull the veggies in close to the house, in containers. The big growing space out back is going to be replanted with large herb beds - plants that do well in heat without extra watering (herb is simply code for "weed" after all).

And gourds. That's the third crop that's doing well this summer - the gourds are deliriously happy out there - they *LOVE* the black plastic.

So let me know if you need any birdhouses, dippers, or carved out bowls. I'll have plenty to go around.

Gourds Gone Wild

Remember these? From back in late May?

And then they grew into this in mid June?

And then in mid July, they were off and running?

Well, it's all over now. The vines have died down and dried up, and all that's left is gourds. These are birdhouse gourds. About half are dried, and the other half are on their way.

Once dried, these make great bowls, bottles, maracas, and, of course, birdhouses. Easyto grow, drought tolerant to a degree, and they have huge green leaves that smell like baking bread.

My personal favorites are the bushel gourds (get up to 3 feet in diameter -we make permanent jack o' lanterns out of ours) and dipper gourds (long extended necks that can be trained to wrap themselves in spirals).

Couldn't find seeds for either this year, so we grew the old-fashioned favorite: : birdhouse gourds.

Perfection

The only word to describe that very first tomato off the vine. This time it was a Golden Jubilee (last year Mr. Stripey took first place). An absolutely perfect tomato, still warm from the sun.

In spite of all the mistakes and problems this season, a few plants are cooperating. The gourds have finally kicked in (for awhile I thought this would be one of those years they just didn't come up. Ever). I love gourds - the leaves are the size of dinner plates, soft and fuzzy, and smell like baking bread.

Although the hollyhock flowerbed has peaked (it needs to be re-seeded), and significantly fewer plants come up each year, there are still stunning blooms appearing. Originally, the bed colors were pink and dark black, but over the years they have morphed and in-bred to this dark pink bordering on maroon.

Finally, it wouldn't be summer without my favorite flower -morning glories. I've planted and replanted so many times that the colors have inter-mixed and now appear in blue, purple, white, pink, and petals with stripes of every possible combination.

Fortunately, something goes right in the garden each week. Otherwise, after last week I'd have been tempted to pave it all and paint it green.

Of course, the wiregrass would still come up through the concrete.

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.

One Way To Plant Gourds

After trying several different plots of gourds over the years, this year I'm returning to the idea that worked best, but using a twist on it in order to accomplish two things at once.

I have an odd corner of the garden that I want to convert into an open, grass-free area (the idea is to build a permanent pergola over it, and have either a brick or pea gravel floor, thereby creating a sort of shady refuge I can rest in while gardening).

I also love growing gourds, and that means they'll do the hard work for me. To do this, I mowed the area till the grass was very short, then laid down a thick layer of newspaper, thouroughly wet it with the hose, then laid these discard plastic bread racks over it (turning them upside down). In previous years I've used wooden pallets and they work just as well, but this year I happen to have bread racks.

I left a 6-8" gap between the racks, filling it with bags of the cheapest top soil you can buy. If you have fill dirt available, it works great. Gourds hate good soil.

After filling the gaps with top soil, sprinkle the gourd seeds in the gaps, and lightly water.

Sprinkle them fairly wide apart (6-8") because in my experience, either none of the seed will come up, or *all* of it will come up. Gourds do not transplant well, and they grow incredibly fast. The upside is that (assuming they come up -one year they didn't) come July, this will be a mound of huge green leaves and vines that will kill all the grass underneath, and give off a wonderful smell similar to making bread.

The gourds will be able to sit on top of the racks, protecting them from dampness and insects, plus harvesting them is much easier.

There are many different kinds of gourds - my favorite is the huge bushel gourds that can grow to the size of coffee tables. We dry them (takes a year), hollow them out, then use a dremel to cut designs in them. After coating with a clear coat of sealer, we have permanent pumpkins to use at Halloween.

This year I've only been able to find birdhouse and dipper seed. Usually I hang the dippers on the fence along the puppy pen. Last summer, the pups grew some beautiful dippers on that fence (the dippers grow inside the fence as well, but the pups don't bother them at all).

Gourds are easy to grow - they love poor soil, and don't need watering (although the more water they get, the thicker their walls will be). And you can do strange things, like putting small fruit inside bottles, and letting the bottle shape the fruit, then break the bottle and let the fruit out.

I'm easily entertained. Give me a square gourd anyday.

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!