Garden Tour

A couple of folks have commented that I have not been blogging quite as often this spring, well, they're right.  I have been weeding this spring.  Three plus acres of lawn, fruit trees, vegetable gardens and flower gardens can be a bit of a time suck., then there are the chickens, cats, dog, parrot, family...oh yeah, my commitment to getting fit and...

Enough excuses, today I will give a tour of what I am up to.  I am sending my assistant for a nap, so that I can walk around to take pictures.

Aggie, my editorial assistant, critic, and lap warmer.

Out the front door and a bit to the left are the irises, divisions from the irises in my mom's yard in MA.  They really like the horse poop, I'm going to have to divide them this fall.

A little farther back in the bed are the peonies that are just now opening, they came with the house, a nice little surprise!

Heading south into the front yard veggie garden are the sunflowers that survived the chickens scratching.  They have really come along in the past two weeks.

The okra has just come up, near them and then there are the tomatoes...

They aren't very impressive, yet.  A little warm weather and there will be a jungle.  I'm using my mom's idea for using electrical conduit for tomato trellising, she has had hers for nearly thirty years, so I'd say the idea has been tested.

The stuff under the floating row cover is thriving.

Russian red kale, broccoli, head cabbage, flowering mustard spinach and bitty eggplants.

Swiss chard and Lacinato kale

Head cabbage that gets progressively smaller down the line.

The Asian cabbages loved the heavy rains that we have had, they doubled in size overnight and then went to seed immediately.  So, I've been pulling the plants and cooking them.  Blanching is necessary, they are bitter and do not pass the "kid" test.  I've start putting eggplant, basil and beans in their places.

Watermelon

The Sugar baby watermelon have just surfaced, August will come and they will be yummy. I planted just a couple last year and kicked myself for not planting more--they were fabulous.

Heading toward the back yard, I pass one of the Chicago Figs.  They do not seem pleased with the severity of the winter, the tops seem to have died back and it is coming back from the roots.

 

Chicago Fig

 

Near the back door I have the babies that  I just took out of the cold frame.  The tomatoes are waiting for me to drive a half hour to a store for the one piece of conduit connector that I haven't been able to get yet.

According to the book I just finished reading Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson
the tomatoes I have there, currant tomatoes, are the richest source for antioxidants of all of the tomatoes analyzed by research, so far.    It's an interesting book, it goes through most of the varieties of apples on supermarket shelves and evaluates them nutritionally.  If you are a golden delicious apple eater, she has bad news for you.

Crossing the back yard, I pass the medlar tree that was planted last summer. It has several blossoms, I can't wait to try the fruit, so I hope a couple make it through.  It is supposed to taste like spiced applesauce.

The back veggie garden is doing well, despite the low light issues.

radishes

beets

leeks

potato

unripe strawberries

There are a few issues back there though.

 

 

 

The vole invasion

The voles are helping themselves to the parsley again this year, I bought a new plant at the farmer's market last night.  I'm going to sink a pot into the ground and hope the voles can't figure it out.

The fruit trees and plants are doing well.  When the new plants came in earlier in the spring, I looked at the bundle of tree seedlings and thought: We spent all our X-mas gift card on a small bundle of sticks, but those sticks are now putting out leaves and growing.  A few were slow starting and we feared the worst, but they were just waiting for a little warmth, like the figs.

Sea Berry

AU Roadside Cherry Plum

The cherry plum arrived this week and at first I was not pleased, it was substituted for a Meteor pie cherry, since the nursery had a complete failure of that variety.  Once we did some research, we found that much of its parentage is pie cherry and that it is resistant to all sorts of nasty diseases that are common in humid places, like this one.  In the end, it is probably better.

The fruit trees that were on the property when we bought it are coming along, we'll see what kind of harvest we have this year.

Pear, unknown variety

Plum, unknown variety, plagued by nasty diseases

Finally, a little success story, this rhododendron was completely covered with honeysuckle when we moved in, we didn't know it was hiding under the mass.  After three springs worth of yanking, this is how it is thanking us.

Time to get going, I have a friend coming over to make kimchi and brined grape leaves with me and I have just discovered that the garlic all has a funky blue mold growing on it. 

Copper trees, Stink Bugs, The Bay Bridge and The Holy Grail--Is that Random Enough?

The weather has been teasing us, it has been warm, even sunny.  I drove with my windows open a little yesterday, but winter will win again.  Maybe a bit of snow tonight and a some more on Tuesday into Wednesday.   Spring is peeking through the blinds, but hasn't come in yet.

Despite the glorious weather, I had an indoor activity planned for yesterday.  I took an art class with a local wire sculptor, Devin Mack. The first time I met him a year ago,  I watched him create part of a large, detailed sculpture of a female trapeze artist while hardly even glancing at his hands.  He stood staring at some place in his brain and bent each piece into place. The spine and ribcage emerged as I watched, completely recognizable as human.

I just took a moment to look to see what he has on-line, and I found a time lapse video of him making The Aerialist at AnnMarie Sculpture Garden. I wasn't aware he was being photographed, and lo and behold thirty seconds into the video I appear for two  seconds, wearing the same polar fleece I am wearing right now.  At Devin Mack's Website you can watch him create the trapeze artist without him having to consult any reference or drawing.

Winter Tree, 20 gauge copper wire sculpture

Anyway, my point in all this is that I took the class and somehow ended up seated between two others who also volunteer at the sculpture garden, whom I had seen, but never really met.  They both like to write, they are both into gardening  and art and when a classmate referred to her progress creating a wire tree she referred to it as a shrubbery and the three of us giggled and started talking about Roger the Shrubberer, and how we were "getting better" and "going for a walk" (Monty Python  and the Holy Grail references, for the uninitiated).  I thought I had been transported back to high school for a moment or two.

My tree sculpture from the class isn't quite finished, it needs a bit more crimping on the ends and balancing of the branches, but here it is.

Bug Hunters in Repose

Speaking of trees, later this week I will be taking a  class on growing fruit  in the Chesapeake Bay area. The class not going to be much like the art class, more of a series of lectures with me scribbling notes furiously.  There is one section on beach plums which will come in handy when my trees/bushes arrive in a few weeks. After listening to so many people moan about how hard it is to grow stone fruit here, the section on variety selection for the area will either tell us that we have selected well or rather badly. The segment on brown marmorated stinkbugs (Maryland's imported version of cockroaches and Japanese beetles combined, as far as I'm concerned) may also prove to be useful.  The nasty little things suck on fruit and mess it up and invade my kitchen as insectoid kamikazes sometimes diving at the lights, sometimes our heads. They do provide the a bit of entertainment as the cats bobble and hop about to chase and eat them. They don't seem to mind the taste. The big, tough, hunting dog barks at the  bugs then pounces and eats them, which is on par with the rest of her hunting skills.  

They are predicting snow the day of the class, which won't be fun since to get to there I will have to cross the Bay Bridge, which is on the list of the scariest bridges in the US.  It is like being on a road suspended  high in the air by nothing, you see nothing off the sides, just a jersey barrier and then nothing (for five miles), add wind, heavy traffic, and crazy, aggressive drivers trying to make the experience as short as possible by driving as fast as possible, and it makes for an all too memorable experience.  I'd rather drive the George Washington Bridge in NYC on a Friday night, in the rain/sleet (like I did last December) than take this one on a sunny day.

The chickens are blissfully ignorant of the coming snow, they are scratching in the flower bed, exposing the just beginning to sprout daffodils.  They have become much more productive now that the weather has improved. I was able to take a frittata to a potluck yesterday that contained fifteen eggs with  a few eggs left over and then found three more this morning, one still warm.  Time to to check behind the hedges to see if there are any that I have missed...

The Cherry Blossom Pink Bubble

Spring has arrived in full here, the weeping cherry is in full bloom, the crab apple is just a few rays of sunshine off of blooming, the dogwood has and the quince, the early riser has peaked.  The seeds have germinated (except the cantaloupe and eggplant) and some seedlings have their second set of leaves.  The cold frame is full to protect them all on chilly nights, all is quiet and growing.

After yesterday's event in Boston, it makes me feel like I'm living in a bubble.  The closest thing to violence around here yesterday was when the cats decided that the dog had done something horribly wrong, just standing there in the kitchen, then on some cue they growled, hissed and chased her to the living room.  The only things that make the bubble tremble are the military aircraft from a nearby base that fly overhead from time to time and the groups of Harley's headed for the beach..

I've walked through Copley Square along Boylston Street, I've taken the T from Kenmore to Park, many times, it is a place with shiny buildings and Copley Plaza with goods so expensive that I was afraid to even look because I felt like I had "poor college student, raised in the woods, quite clueless" written on my forehead..  Those memories are many years ago (mostly the 80's), almost a different lifetime it seems.  I'm sure that many others would prefer to remember Boylston Street that way.

Far from Boston in my little bubble, we know that there is a man with a bad haircut in Korea posturing about nuclear war, we know that the son of a friend finished the marathon well before the blast and left, we know about all the earthquakes and crooked politicians, but we are in our bubble and we also know that the local feed supply store will be receiving a shipment of Buff Orpington chicks and maybe some Barred rocks on May 10th and we think that temporary quarters could be established for a few little pullet puff balls. We also know that a box with a gooseberry plant is due any day and that the apples and the rest of the blackberries should be here mid-next week.  There is much darkness in the world, but here in the bubble it is cherry blossom pink.

Shoveling the Manure and Other Social Dilemmas

I recently was confronted with a dilemma, I went to the local horse rescue to collect horse manure (completely decomposed, smelled like soil) in Rubbermaid tubs to put in the gardens and around all the new fruit trees and plants.   I looked like I had rolled in the pile not shoveled from it, I was doing my little fertility rite, I guess, for Easter Sunday.  I stopped my little, weighed down XB at a light, and hearing a friendly horn toot I looked into the car next to me, it was filled with the family of my daughter's friend, all coiffed and dressed up for Easter Mass. They waved.  I moved to wave back, but I froze half-way. I stared at the manure smeared hand in front of me.  I rolled down the window and wished them a happy Easter instead, laughing at myself.
 # 1 Who totes manure in a little box car? 
#2 How obsessed can I be with gardening to do this several times a week? 
#3 There I am in the small-town, upper-middle class burbs,  looking like I just rolled in poop. (We're the bitty'70's house in amongst the housing bubble McMansions.)

 I figure that if they know me, they understand, and if they don't, I provide some interesting stories, my service to the community.  I figure when the yard in producing all sorts of home grown fruits and veggies in a few years they might stop shaking their heads for a few minutes.

In the ground so far:
1 peach tree (came with the house-seriously diseased, but the Plant Doctor has put his studies to work, now we wait)
1 plum tree (also seriously diseased, may or may not make it, it is looking a bit better this spring)
1 apple tree, unknown variety with golden apples, came with the house, planted in the wrong spot too close   to the woods, produced 2 apples last year which we guess the deer ate.
1 crab apple serious fireblight issues, no fruit last year, but it is beautiful in bloom, which should happen  very soon.
Many, Many raspberry plants along the woods, very yummy and prolific
1 Lapins dwarf sweet cherry, planted right after we moved in last year
1 Stella sweet cherry planted about a week ago.
1 Montmorency pie cherry planted about three weeks ago
2 Nova Spy apples, planted about two weeks ago
2 Chicago figs planted in the fall, 1 still in a pot, negotiating with spouse as to its final location

Due any moment:
1 Hinomaki gooseberry
2 Apache blackberries (thornless)
3 Triple Crown blackberries (thornless)
1 Five in One apple tree
1 William's Pride apple
1 Enterprise apple
1 Liberty apple

We tried to focus on trees that would take the longest to mature first, but threw in a couple of things that will give us a little bit of instant gratification. As you can see, I have a few more holes to dig and more poop to spread.  In about three or four years, we should be buried in fruit from June to October.