May 15, 2010: The Garden, Mid-May

Would you believe I now have 39 tomatoes planted, with four more to go? I have two more spots in the garden, and two more pots, then I'm out of space for any more.

Two pots left to plant with dwarf tomatoes.

I'll be planting two of these into the garden, and I'll have to find homes for the rest of them.

My neighbor, Pat, bought a juicer. She says we're going to make lots of tomato juice this year. I'll be wanting quite a bit of salsa, too. If all these plants live, I'm sure there will be more than enough tomatoes for the two of us!

Mr. Granny's Gartenperle (top), and another of the same variety (bottom), have quite a few blossoms. Other early bloomers are three Sibirskij Stambovyj and two Minigolds. It looks as though we may have early tomatoes this year. Last year I harvested my first tomato on July 16.

The cold weather didn't hurt the tomato plants at all. I've often read that one shouldn't plant them until the nights are consistently in the 50s or higher, but these went through nightly temperatures ranging from the mid thirties to low forties, and they not only survived, but they grew at least 3" and thrived! Some of them had a bed sheet thrown over them at night, a few of the smaller ones got milk jugs covering them, but the majority just braved the cold, stark naked. Those in the 5-gallon buckets and large containers fared better than the ones planted directly in the ground.

It never ceases to amaze me when I look at the garden photos I take at least weekly. It seems like everything grows so slowly, until I compare pictures and see how far it's come in just two months.


I'm getting some nice lettuces, now that I've protected them all from the birds. I have plants in several stages of growth, from those sown inside in March, to those sown outside in April, and new seedlings started in soil blocks about every two weeks. As I harvest or thin the plants, I replace them with more seedlings. The remaining radishes will be harvested this week, and a tray of Drunken Woman lettuces will be on hand to take their place in the garden. Those ugly, squiggly, light colored things in the center photo are alfalfa pellets. They work great as a non burning fertilizer for the greens, but they aren't very photogenic!

It's difficult to tell the actual size of the lettuces by looking at a photo, but the larger ones have leaves about the same size as my hand.


The Gonzales cabbages are growing well. Silver curly ribbon helps keep the birds away. Notice the one on the right, with no silver ribbon, has ragged, bird eaten outer leaves.


The broccoli and cabbages elsewhere in the garden have been royally munched on by birds.


Strawberries

Raspberries


Potatoes


Peas


Hot Peppers


Corn. I have three of these half barrels of corn. Each is supposed to have seven plants, but I accidentally thinned out an extra one from this barrel. Not to worry, I transplanted a few of the thinnings into the squash patch, where they are growing very well. I guess that makes my squash patch a "two sisters" garden!


The cilantro has bolted. I'm hoping the blossoms bring in more bees to this side of the garden.

Last fall, Cheryl sent me some bulbs from her gorgeous yellow lilies. I planted them next to the garden shed, and protected them from curious pups by surrounding them with folding wire fences. Annie managed to go over the fence, dig up all the bulbs, and scatter them out in the grass. I gathered up all I could find and, since we were getting ready to leave for AZ for the winter, I just plopped the bulbs into a big pot and covered them with potting soil. When we got back home this spring, I removed them from the pot and planted them by the back fence, with a taller wire fence barrier to keep Annie out. They are surviving, thriving and getting ready to bloom! Notice the birds have nipped off the tips of the leaves. I'm beginning to hate birds :-(

I hope this new flower garden grows well. I have blue morning glories to climb the fence as a background for pink Sweet Williams, light yellow lilies, scattered seeds of snap dragons and zinnias in mixed colors (that may or may not grow, I'm only seeing a few seedlings popping up), hollyhocks in pink and white and Shasta daisies. Nearby I've planted blue bachelor button seeds in a container, and have tall cosmos that will be shades of pink in another container. There are marigolds and white alyssum scattered here and there through the garden, as well as several volunteer borage plants. I also scattered seeds of forget-me-nots, but I'm not seeing anything there yet. This will be the most flowers I've ever planted in with my vegetables, so I hope the birds and the butterflies will feel welcome here.

The prettiest flower in Granny's garden.

May 14, 2010: Meet Leona!

Leona Lemon

Last month I took advantage of the $20 worth of free plants from Springhill Nursery, and ordered the Improved Meyer Dwarf Lemon Kit for the price of shipping only. It arrived by UPS today, small (as I expected it to be) but healthy, and showing new growth. I immediately planted her in the enclosed potting mix, in the enclosed pot (which happens to match my patio table and chairs), gave her a good drink of water, and christened her Leona. Why Leona, you ask? Well, Mr. Granny's mother was a Meyer. The lemon tree is a Meyer. Mr. Granny's mother's name was Leona, which begins with an L. Lemon begins with an L. Makes perfect sense to me that we should name her Leona.

May 13, 2010: The Neighbor's View of the Garden

While walking back home from my neighbor's house, I looked over at my garden. It looks completely different, prettier I think, than it does from my side of the fence. Well, except for that patch of grass clippings in the center of the back yard. Mr. Granny removed the mulcher from the lawn mower yesterday, and made sure he mowed in circles to throw all the clippings to the center. He never got around to raking them up, and I was too busy to do it, so there they sit.





As soon as it cools off a bit this afternoon (yes, it finally warmed up!), I'll be planting my determinate varieties of tomatoes in that bare strip of ground, next to the fence on Pat's side. I'm out of room in my garden. I think I did well to get 25 (I think) tomato plants on my property. I'll put another 7 on her side of the fence.

May 11, 2010; Run, Don't Walk to Jenn's

If you think I looked, uh....comfortable.... in my gardening apparel, you "ain't seen nuthin' yet!" Jenn, at Gamine's Garden has posted some very sexy garden photos. Run, don't walk, to Jenn's, and see the latest in high fashion gardening ensembles. It's what every well dressed gardener should be wearing for the 2010 growing season.

May 11, 2010: The Good, the Bad and the Horrible

The Good.....

The raspberries are full of bees! Bees are good. It's been years since I've seen this many bees in the garden.

The Bad.....

There are wasps/hornets in the strawberries. Wasps/hornets/yellow jackets are pests in the berry patch, and I've had problems with them stinging the dogs in the past.

The Horrible.....

Bird damage. Sparrows, to be exact. Virtually all of the beets have been ruined, and most of the lettuce (except what is under the netting) has been chewed to pieces. Yes, I'm positive it's the sparrows, I watch them do it every day. Today they moved in on the baby carrots, and I'm wearing myself ragged trying to shoo them out every few minutes. I'm afraid next year I'll have to put wire over the entrances to the bird houses, rather than encourage the birds to use them. The damage is worse every year, and I absolutely will not cover my entire garden in netting.

May 10, 2010: Mother's Day Love & Harvest Monday

What a wonderful Mother's Day I had! It started with brunch at my youngest daughter's house. Mr. Granny and I drove over to West Richland to spend the morning with Amy, Bryan, Alicia and Alicyn. Grandbaby Alicyn was so happy to see us, and full of kisses for her Grandma and Grandpa. We were served hot biscuits with sausage gravy, a casserole of hash brown potatoes, eggs, bacon and cheese, fresh mixed fruits (melons and grapes), deviled eggs, apple and cherry turnovers, orange juice and coffee. Everything was so good, Mr. Granny threatened to go back the next morning for leftovers.

We returned home in the early afternoon, and I went out to the garden and planted the first four of a dozen Quadrato Rosso D'Asti peppers into the garden. These have been well hardened off, but I want to see how they respond to transplanting before I put in the rest of them. I think our cold weather has passed, but I'm not going to bet the farm on it.

While I was in the garden, my youngest son, Scott, and his family showed up with hugs, lovely roses and card. Shortly after they arrived, here came my older daughter, Shannon, with three of her children and that new great-grandson that I wasn't able to hold and spoil on their last visit, as I had the flu. I made up for it though. We headed straight for the squeaky rocking chair, and spent the rest of the afternoon getting acquainted. They had also come bearing gifts and candy.

Great-grandson, Remington J. Ripley, at 7 weeks of age.

Later that evening, son John came with lovely red roses for his Mom. So my day was filled with good food, beautiful flowers, lovely gifts and, the best gift of all, my loving children and grandchildren.

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This week's harvest................

I'm not surprised that Annie and Otto both love fresh veggies, as they have been my garden companions for their entire lives (which is only two years). I doubt it's unusual for dogs to enjoy the things they like to consume from the garden, such as raw green beans, peas, carrots and strawberries, but I am surprised at their latest rage.....radishes! Annie is especially fond of them. She stands by me at the kitchen sink, poking me on the leg with her nose, begging for "just one more radish". Otto seems to like them too, but he's more fascinated with playing with them than he is with eating them. So my harvest totals for the past week include the 23 ounces of radishes (cleaned weight, no tops) that I put in the refrigerator, but not the ones that went to my two little beggars.

The first of several handfuls of radishes that were harvested this past week.

Eleven ounces of spinach were harvested for some wonderful salads. Mr. Granny likes his with ranch dressing, but I ate all of mine with sweet green onions, dried cranberries and a sweet balsamic vinaigrette.

I'm using the thinnings from the Walla Walla sweet onions, which are sizing up nicely, and the flavor is fantastic.....sweet with just the right amount of "bite". Five ounces of onions (cleaned and trimmed weight) were added to this week's harvest total.

Salad fixings for the week.

Oh, man, I shouldn't even show these next photos on my blog! But this is what I look like when I garden........if I'm not in my pajamas and slippers, I'm all about baggy jeans and wonky sweaters. Alicyn was looking at my garden, from a safe distance behind the fence. Later she wandered over to the corn and tried to "weed" it. Luckily, no baby corn stalks were lost in the process. I caught her just in time.

Psssst, Granny, watch your posture! And buy a new sweater. And wear the tight jeans.....you know, the ones where you have to lie on the bed to get them buttoned. And for heaven's sake, comb your hair. You never know when someone will take your picture! ;-)

To date, the harvest total for 2010 is 7.25 pounds. Please visit Daphne's Dandelions to check out what other garden bloggers are harvesting.

May 6, 2010: Hurry Up, Warm Up!

Annie and Otto spent a good part of Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning barking at the "ghost" in the garden. We'd done our best to cover the tomatoes, in this bed and behind the shed, with sheets. It was impossible to get this big tomato structure under cover, but we did what we could and none of them froze. The smaller tomatoes were covered with milk jugs or left uncovered, and everything lived through the frigid nights except one basil plant. Tonight is supposed to be our final night of possible freezing temperatures, and by Saturday we're supposed to get back to near normal.

I want to give DaBeardedOne a special "thank you". As soon as he read that I was worried about my tomato plants freezing, he emailed me with the offer of two of his floating row covers. By then we already had the sheets on the plants, so I didn't take him up on his offer, but wasn't it nice of him! He's such a sweetheart. In the past, he's also offered to build an extra bed or two at his place for me to plant my excess tomatoes and peppers, as well as a spot for me to compost, since I really haven't much room for a pile here. So thank you, David...I'm happy to have you as a friend.



Warm weather can't come too soon for the tomatoes that are still waiting to be planted. Aren't they lovely? Much nicer than last year's plants that nearly died from being over fertilized. These got nothing but a weak fish emulsion (1 Tbsp. in 2 gallons of water) every two weeks. Thats a 36-oz. coffee container for size comparison, so you can see about a foot of stem will be buried at planting time.



The pepper plants are all doing well, too. Many of them have already been planted in containers, but I have a dozen of the large red bell peppers waiting to be planted in the garden, and quite a few to be given away or planted in the neighbor's little garden.



This is how I wrenched my back! That big tote, the laundry basket and the black pots are all quite heavy, especially right after the plants have been watered. I'd already moved the basket and pots into the shed, and bent down to pick up the tote full of tomato plants....that was what did me in. That's why Mr. Granny is in charge of them now.

I got my Washington Enhanced Driver's License today, so I can now get back out of Mexico! For those who weren't following my blog last January, you can read about Granny and the Border Patrol here.

May 4, 2010: Thank You, Mr. Granny

I tease Mr. Granny on here a lot, but he really is a pretty good old guy. Yesterday, when he saw I was in such pain with my back, he moved all the seedlings into the shed, then came inside and cleaned the kitchen and washed the dinner dishes, while I soaked in the tub and then went to bed with the heating pad.

This morning he told me I walked like I had a board up my butt, so he moved the seedlings back out to the sunshine, cleaned up the wind storm mess from the front yard, mowed the lawn, helped me mix up a garden cart full of compost and peat moss for the tomato containers, and did the grocery shopping. He even brought me back a bag of jelly beans! Then he moved the seedlings back to the shed for the night.

Thank you, Mr. Granny. I'm glad I've kept you around for the last 48 years. Besides that, I need you to open the childproof cap on the ibuprofen bottle.

Predictions for the low thirties are now in the forecast. The local news says 31F tonight, which would equal the all time low temperature for May. If it gets that cold, my tomato plants probably won't survive. We do seem to have our own micro climate here, as our temperatures are usually a few degrees higher than the published ones. I hope that holds true for the next few nights. Between the pulled back muscle and the weather, Granny is beginning to get depressed.