crafty_packrat | Entries tagged with gardening

Today I pulled up most of the mint in the over-run flowerbed. I managed to preserve the apricot-colored daylilies and the black-eyed susan, but everything else I tried to get rid of. I'll probably use my cutters on Wednesday to cut the saplings that have managed to sprout. Hopefully by Saturday, it will be clear enough that I'll feel safe planting the seedling tomatoes and chile peppers I've got growing in pots right now.

Also, I managed to slice up my finger while making caprese sandwiches, so, that's a thing. Otoh, I managed to do the heel on my latest sock project, so that's a thing.

Repotted my late tomato seedlings today (unknown variety, Abraham Lincoln, & Mortgage Lifter). Hopefully most of the them will survive. One of my buena mulata hot peppers is looking wilted, so I may lose that. I do have seed, so I can try starting a few more, but it's pretty late for hot peppers.

I went to the hardware store and bought 3 tomato cages this afternoon, as the Roma tomatoes were just spreading on the ground instead of growing up, and the tomatillo are getting tall, but that means they'll start spreading out soon. I may buy another cage or two next week, because some of the hot peppers are getting big and listing weirdly too.

I pulled some of the milkweed by the rose bush, and planted more marigolds by the tomatoes and hot peppers. If there are more marigolds available at the farmer's market this weekend, I'll buy another flat or two.

I still have to pull the flowerbed that has gone entirely to mint, but it's not going to be fun at all.

I went out of my friend Pseudonym A's house today and helped her with her garden. She bought this last year, and we put in some fall vegetables on Labor Day.

Today, we ripped up the landscaping cloth from two flower beds, put down better soils, mixed some of the underlying clay up, and then planted one of the beds with candy roaster squash, pie pumpkin, pickling and regular cucumbers, and two kinds of melon. I also planted a corn and a succotash been in each mound, so at least they should be identifiable when those sprout up. I looked over the cabbage, kale, and cauliflower that we'd put in along the wall last year -- most of them were bolting, but they'd done pretty well, so she could definitely place more brassicas in those places.

We swung by her local Lowe's and picked up petunias, three flats of marigolds, six strawberry plants, some potting soil, and black mulch.

Back at the house, we paused to have some lemonade, then spread most of the mulch in the pumpkin bed, potted the strawberries in a multi-pot that the previous homeowners had left, ripped up more landscape cloth from under what might be a camellia, planted the petunia, and then planted the marigolds as edging in that bed.

Lastly, I scattered a lot of different flower seeds -- nasturium, foxglove, sunflower -- and some radish and green pea seeds -- then mulched it. That bed is just going to be catch as catch can this year, I guess.

Afterwards, we sat in the sunroom suitably distanced and ate delivery Japanese food. I might be sore tomorrow (it was about 6 hours of work), but it was a lot of fun.

Current Mood: accomplished

Ham steak, sandwich steak, 4 flavors of lemonade, a gallon of lemonade (well, the concentrate for it), 4 flavors of kettle corn, plums, nectarines, pears, pawpaws, beef borek, spinach borek, roasted beets, extreme chocolate chip cookies, nasturtiums, basil plants, Thai chili pepper plants, a lemon verbena plant, 3 Cheese Steak handpies, 3 Mexican Street Corn handpies, an All & Oats bar, a Chocolate You're a Little Salty square, a Very Berry Doodles stack, a buttermilk cake slice, a Loaded oatmeal stack, and a chewy ginger stack.

I met up with my friend A Psuedonym To Be Decided Later, and hit the Ace Hardware for garden supplies: a trowel, gloves, some green bean seeds, 3 bags of garden soil, a bag of dehydrated cow manure, and some fall vegetable seedlings -- cauliflower, kale, chard, red cabbages, pak choi and another basil.

She and her mother have just bought a house, and while there is a backyard, the beds in it have been neglected. We spent an hour or so pulling overgrown morning glory vines and general trimming; I found 4 pots under all the vines, two of which were medium-sized strawberry planters. The beds, as it turned out, are a thin layer of bark over landscaping cloth over unpromising red clay.

We made do, scraping holes in the bark and mounding garden soil and composted manure over the seedling roots. I gave her a couple of chili pepper seedlings, a tomato seedling, and a pair of Mexican sour gherkin seedlings. I scattered my bag of crush crab-shell fertilizer over all our plantings as well, and then watered them. Hopefully some of them will do well and she'll have a small fall vegetable garden.

Then I took a quick shower, changed my clothes, and we drank from the gallon of lemonade and ate delivery salads. All in all, a productive day.

Current Mood: tired

I went to water my hanging planters today, and discovered that someone had abandoned several plants on the wall -- I'm sure they abandoned them, because they left a box of powdered plant fertilizer behind.

I've taken in the Jamaican thyme, the African violet, and the snake plant. I'm not even going to try with the poinsettia, as they are altogether too finicky for houseplants, in my opinion.

The violet looks sunburned, and probably needs repotting; I'll see what I can do. The snake plant looked a bit wilted, but it's hard to kill them so should be alright. The thyme needs repotting and trimming back; I could probably split it into three plants if I cut the leggy parts off and got them to root again.

I don't suppose anyone local wants a snake plant, or a violet? Or even a Jamaican thyme?

Apple and apple berry strudel, fava bean spread, pita bread, greek almond cake, greek olive oil cake, pink lady apples, vegan-cheese popcorn, brown sugar popcorn, bacon-cheddar quich, buttermilk cake with caramel icing, and a wicked bar (bar cookie with chocolate chips, coconuts, butterscotch, walnuts, dried apricots and dried cranberries).

I dumped most of last year's pots into the flowerbeds this morning, and discover the soles on my Blundstone work boots have deteriorated to the point where they fell apart like rotten cardboard. Hopefully I can get new soles put on them, because the boots themselves are fine.

The first of the seed catalogs arrived today. Southern Exposure Seed Savers Exchange. I'm tempted by the Abraham Lincoln tomatoes, as I've grown them before and they are excellent slicers. I really need a bigger garden for corn, but I had fun with the Oaxacan green corn I grew this summer.

Made jam tonight. It's a very simple recipe.

1.2 lbs hulled and chopped strawberries
1 cup honey (in this case, Killer Bee from The Bee Folks)
1 tablespoon lime juice (Nellie and Joe's Key Lime Juice is excellent!)
5-6 sprigs of thyme (lime-scented cultivar 'Lime Green' Thymus x citriodorus')

The yield tonight was 3 half-pint jars.

Current Mood: accomplished

Pint of snap peas, 3 quarts of strawberries, a bottle of applejack vinegar, Greek chocolate cookies, pita, tzatzik.

I got up and ripped out the mint and larkspur this morning before it got hot or began raining. I planet six corn plants, three Trail of Tears bean plants, and three candy roaster squash. The beans will be fine, and I have hopes for the corn, but I'm going to keep an eye out for the squash. Curcubits transplant poorly.

I also repotted the 5-color Chinese pepper and the cayenne pepper plants into larger pots, and replaced one of the shishito peppers that didn't make it with a fish pepper. I also had to repot my French lavender, since the pot wasn't draining and was terribly waterlogged.

I put a stonecrop and a sempervivium into hanging baskets. Hopefully they'll be able to cope with the heat and way hanging baskets dry out so easily.

I'm going to weigh out and macerate the strawberries for a double batch of the honey-sweetened strawberry/lime/thyme jam.

Current Mood: tired

A friend and I went to Behnke's today for the orchid clinic. My tiny phalaenopsis orchids are just grocery stores plants, but the woman running the clinic said they were in fairly good condition -- one of them had a purple-ish 'blush' which is common to healthy orchids with high anthocyanin genentics. She changed out the sphagnum moss and said that the one that had already lost its flowers might send out a new spike as it is still flowering season and it did have a terminal and axial bud visible.

So now I have more information about keeping them alive (including don't water until the sphagnum is dry and crunchy as dry Cheerios), so I hope to keep these little plants going. They're certainly a bit of bright cheer -- along with my begonia, which is on its second year -- in the end of winter.

I did pick up a few pansies and johnny-jump-ups to put in the flowerbeds. They won't survive when the summer heat comes, but they'll be a bit of color until then as well.

Also, I did actually smell a wallflower in the greenhouse. It smelled amazing, like a fruit candy!

Pink lady apples, probiotic raspberry yogurt smoothie, cream, cubalaya eggs (peewee sized, so small batch baking!), pastrami from Urban Butcher (oh nom nom nom!), onion, a head of hydroponic lettuce that I immediately stuck in a pot of dirt, and a six-pot of johnny-jump-ups for

hollimichelle's front flowerbed.

Current Music: GrooveLily - No Room In Your Bag

Started artichoke and cardoon seeds today. I may have time to vernalize the artichokes, but if not, then someone will get to eat them next year. I'm trying to decide what else I should start, since I only have the one seedling heat mat -- maybe celery and strawberries? Or more pepper cultivars. I want to start peanuts and butterfly weed (asclepias) as well, but I think those will do fine without extra warmth.

Someone threw half my mint pants, my primrose, all of my smaller strawberries, and my smaller shadbush into the trash and recycling bins today. I managed to rescue a bunch of them, but I'm pretty pissed off.

I'm really afraid it was the groundskeeping staff at my apartment, who have been around pruning (badly) and I generally haven't trusted since they planted rows of boxwoods all over.

So now I have to decide whether it is worth complaining to the housing office, or whether they'll say it's my fault for leaving my outside plants outside over winter.

Cameo and Jonathon apples -- the Cameos are huge, for cobbler, and the Jonathons are small, for lunch -- onion, turnips, an espresso chocolate cookie, and a 4.5lb stewing chicken, with its feet still on, that will be made into stock overnight and then into chicken and dumplings.

Also picked up seed at the hardware store: bluebonnet, bambini viola, foxglove, snap pea, fava bean, radicchio, artichoke, and cardoon. If I plant the artichokes this weekend, I can vernalize them next month and get a harvest this year. Also found out that Baker Creek has Truly Tiny Bananas among its live plant offerings, and am really tempted to get a pair, as they'd be extremely fun to grow, not to mention tasty.

Bought eggs, bison ranch steak and hot dogs (for possible cookout), asparagus, a pint of strawberries, lemon verbeena plant, bell pepper plant, cinnamon basil plant, and rosemary plant.

I went with my neighbor last Saturday to the The Big Plant Sale at Green Spring Gardens. I picked up the horehound I wanted, two more breadbox poppies, three scented geraniums (two Attar-of-Rose, one Chocolate Mint), two Hopi dye amaranth, two mints (spearmint and chocolate mint), pineapple sage, creeping thyme, elfin thyme, Mexican oregano, an obedience plant, and a native foxglove relative.

Sunday I planted and repotted all of the big plants and some of the small ones, including one tomato I got at Sheep and Wool, and some tomatillos and green cotton I grew from seed.

Monday I was sore.

I transplated the Raspberry Lyanna tomato yesterday, and transferred some of the cucumber and peanut seedlings to actual pots instead of jiffy-pots yesterday. I put four nasturiums into the hanging basket -- hopefully that's early enough for them to develop a decent root system before temperatures get scaldingly hotl.

Today, I planted some hollyhock in some of the planters.

I'm still waiting for more of the peppers to get larger before I put them in the hanging pot. All of the solacaneae are vulnerable to sun scald, so I'm hoping they harden in the next few weeks and then I can really set them out.

The community garden area looks pretty vacant right now, though the parsnips and carrots I planted last year have gotten huge and are about to flower -- oh well, that's what happens when you forget to pick root vegetable. The kale from last year is dead, but it self-seeded and there are a billion kale seedlings growing in that patch. I might also plant some squash, melons, and cassabanana over there to see if anything sticks.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Menomena - Strongest Man in the World

Cameo apples, lemon bougatsa, pain au chocolate, redbud jam, ground pork, and a dill plant.

I've gotten two of my three seed orders, so I may plant some peanuts, tepary beans, cowpeas, and popcorn later today -- maybe some easter egg radishes and early lettuce, too. I'm going to dedicate the larger garden plot to legumes, maize, and curcubits this year, since it was all solanaceae last year.

Next week is Maryland Sheep and Wool, and I hope to pick up some horehound plants and maybe a breadbox poppy or two since I have no luck growing it from seed.

Pink lady apples, 1 lb of quark, scratch cheese, golden thyme, majoram, and rosemary (for the guerilla gardening project), and Girl Scout cookies. Also, a St. Joseph's Day pastry from the gelateria -- also bought a cone of their cherry blossom gelato, but maybe next time.

Started container eggplant, green chile, container tomato, purple tomatillo, and sweet bell pepper seeds over the seedling heat mat. Transfered some peas and fava beans to small container -- I'll plant them next weekend if they continue sprouting well, but since we may have snow on Tuesday, nothing before that.

Not sure where I'm going to put the cucumber and cassabanana plants yet, but they'll be the next on the seedling mat after this batch.

Also, went to Urban Butcher yesterday. The meat cellar is impressive, and their brunch menu tasty. Definitely recommend, though they have almost no vegetarian dishes -- several fish and shellfishes ones, but a vegan is straight out of luck.

Current Mood: cold

Eating and baking apples, locally tapped fancy grade maple syrup (for an attempt at maple marshmallows), 4oz of mushrooms, a mini-quiche, and a framboisine.

Also picked up canned sardines and salmon at the Whole Foods -- the idea of getting more vitamin D in my diet might be a non-starter, considering how expensive fish is, especially sustainably harvested fish.

Made pitas, though they puffed poorly -- my oven runs about 50 to 100 degrees cooler than whatever I set it to, according to my oven thermometer. I might have to try the skillet method. I'll make quinoa with salmon and chard; the recipe is pretty tasty.

Also, the celery seeds I planted two weeks ago have sprouted, and I have teeny tiny celery plants growing on my windowsill. I'm not planting them for at least another two weeks, though, because our weather has been up and down all month and we're likely to have snow again on Monday. I started fava beans and sweet peas today -- if they sprout I'll put them out next weekend. In a few days, I'll start some of my pepper seeds, and maybe some tomatoes and eggplants too.