Gardening

Garden Musings

May 18, 2021May 18, 2021 LSieh4 Comments

Hello friends! I hope you’re getting excited to garden with me! It is that time of year, after all. Since we finally stopped having frost warnings every night, I was able to get some of the plants put in. However, I was only able to get 9 tomato plants and will need to go get some more. I was waiting to see if any of the seedlings came up, but it doesn’t look good.

I know I’ve talked a little bit about what gardening means for me, but I thought I’d talk a little more about it today. Feel free to scroll for pictures, if you don’t want the family history!

First off, look at this gorgeous iris!

Iris remind me of my Grandpa Ed. He was a great gardener and I think the iris at my parents’ house are descendants of his iris. I was too young to do much actual gardening with him, but I do remember playing outside in the back yard under various shady trees and admiring the garden. That’s also why I started growing rhubarb. I do remember making hats with the rhubarb leaves, with Grandpa’s permission, of course!

Currently my rhubarb has gone to seed, but I’m wondering if I cut it off if it will grow more. You can see it in the upper left part of this picture. It’s next to the strawberries which came back with a vengeance this year. Now I have to see if I can beat the pesky squirrels to them.

Both grandpas were actually involved in gardening or agriculture in some way. My other grandpa was a missionary and managed an experimental agriculture plantation in New Guinea and the Philippines. Apparently he enjoyed running around shirtless and wild looking. So wild looking and hairy in fact, that the native people asked him to put a shirt on frequently! They had raspberries growing in their UP backyard, some of which were transplanted to my parents’ backyard as well.

Mom is a spectacular gardener and Dad helps too, so I grew up getting to pick out special flowers and having my own corner of the vegetable garden to tend to. I think the garden grew a little bit bigger every year and now that all the kids are out of the house, it pretty much takes over the backyard there.

Our garden space is not quite as big, nor as nice looking sometimes, but I love it anyway. (Did I tell you that when the house next door was for sale, they very carefully only took pictures from the angle that did not include the cinder block beds filled with tomato tangles? 🙂 )

I shared our set up after making the third bed, but here it is with more plants added. Tomatoes! So far I have 8 tomato varieties: Sun Sugar (cherry,) Siam, Large Red Cherry, Grape, Cherokee Purple, Yellow Pear, a Yellow Globe (I think?,) and a mystery tomato that had a tag, but turned out to be just a price, not the name. I think it might be a drought resistant variety. I couldn’t find Mr. Stripey and forgot to seed save last year. If I find him again this year, I’ll do that. There are some seeds and seedlings planted as well, but I don’t know that they will come up. Carrots down the middle too!

Peppers, beans, and peas. If the beans and peas come up. Also carrots down the middle for later. I think possibly squash as well. I have to check tags again. So far I have some Carnival Pepper seedlings planted in between the plants. A lot of the pepper seedlings survived! Then I have cuc seeds planted along the side, but may replace them with plants if they don’t germinate. I have an orange bell pepper, a jalepeno, and a hot banana pepper planted. There’s a straightneck squash and an acorn squash as well. There may be shisito peppers as well, but they were from seed, so I’m not sure if I actually planted them or just imagined it.

Berry bushes! Onions that I have no idea when to pull, and squash. Something ate my original raspberry plant. I’m hoping it comes back. I also got a thornless blackberry plant. Possibly a dead blueberry plant. Not sure what to do with that one. Zucchini in the back corner.

The marigolds from the farm store were so pretty! I was going to get more at Home Depot, but they looked so bedraggled and terrible. They may be helping with insects eating the other plants, but the squirrels keep munching on them for a snack. Piggy will also not chase squirrels. We keep getting defective squirrel chasers. Cats, they would both chase, squirrels have a free pass. Piggy probably politely shares the tomatoes with them. *shakes head sadly*

Here’s the rest of the herbs to finish it off. The empty looking blue pot has lemon balm that came back. The terracotta pot has parsley. There’s blue cone flower in the black pot on the right, tarragon and rosemary in the grey pot, bee balm in the other blue pot, and “pet grass” in the tiny pot. Perhaps I can persuade Piggy to leave the other stuff alone.

3 types of basil so I don’t have boring Caprese salad (The Horror!) This year I have regular sweet basil, purple basil, and Presto Pesto (I think?) basil. That basil has a white outline and is thicker than the other basils. It’s not as strong tasting either, but that could be because it’s younger. In the grey container I have sage that came back, even after being outside all winter and German Thyme.

I have a plan to get more hot peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes, of course! I want to turn the strawberry planter into a tea planter instead. It didn’t work well with the strawberries. If I can’t find enough smallish herb varieties, I’ll put tiny fairy plants in it on the porch with some fairy garden things.

I’m excited to get started with the garden and hope that it will go better than last year. We have a watering system in all three beds, so that should make it relatively easy. I also have two buckets with some bok choy and rainbow chard in a big bucket, and a salad bucket with lettuce, spinach, and arugula! They just look like empty dirt buckets currently, so no pictures.

What are your gardening plans this year? Do you have any new and exciting things growing? Tell me all about it!

Gardening Setup

April 19, 2021April 18, 2021 LSiehLeave a comment

Hello and welcome to the blog post where I have garden fever and muse about how best to run off the squirrels! if you have any tips, please let me know!

We had a really nice weekend last weekend and ended up getting my third garden bed started! We need about 10 more bricks to make it two layers and are going to be getting garden dirt in two weeks. A friend who gardens as well has a truck and we’re going to be splitting a yard of garden dirt with her. I think the beds will like a nice soil refresh. I also put as many worms as I could find into them while we moved things around. We also got fancy and added pea gravel around the beds to keep the weeds down hopefully. We’re going to get another batch of it and make it a thicker layer around the front and on the sides of the garden.

Here’s the third bed. It’s positioned under the apple tree somewhat, so will be my shade loving plant bed. I’m planning on moving the rhubarb there too.

Sorry for the weird angle. I was attempting not to get the neighbor in the picture. He’s a little grumpy, so we try not to irritate him. This bed is one brick smaller than the other beds for ease of reaching across. I think it will work out really well. I think the middle bed will be tomatoes, as they seemed to do the best there. The last bed will be berries.

So far, I think my blueberry bush is coming back. I’ll have to get some more and am going to try to look for the bush varieties that might do better in the raised bed. My strawberries have come back as well, but I will be moving them into the planters, I think. My raspberries are growing new canes. I need to trim them down before planting them in the bed. I’m planning on trying to stay on top of them so I don’t end up with all raspberries. We may also get some black berries. The rhubarb came back on it’s own, even after I left the pot out all winter and it got snowed on. It seems to be very enthusiastic this year. As I have lots of rhubarb recipes, I’m very excited to see that.

We’re going to try making a pallet into a vertical herb garden this year. A certain Piggy likes to graze on my herbs as well as my tomatoes, so this might help with that. Basically, you take landscape fabric and staple it around the pallet, fill the cracks with dirt, and then go planting happy! It will hopefully work really well, but we’ll see. We got the pallet for free as it had the cinderblocks on it, so even if it doesn’t work out, it won’t have cost much.

I’ve started seeds for the garden and they seem to be working out. I used a bigger seed starting box this year and went all out with my seeds. I found a purple tomatillo variety, which will be fun! Also, several kinds of tomatoes, of course. I believe I have beefsteak, a bunch of container cherry tomatoes, pineapple tomatoes, and some other kinds I cannot remember. Also peppers, both hot and bell. We’re planning on planting the sprouting garlic cloves, but I will probably put them in pots. The onion we planted last year after it sprouted inside survived, but I have no idea how to tell when we should pick it. We have several other onions currently sprouting and my seeds are finally working.

I have also kept several houseplants alive both at home and in my office! I know that seems like a weird thing to brag about, but our house is really dark and seems to have a bad effect on houseplants. The one side of the hallway where we all have offices is slowly infecting everyone else with plant fever. It’s nice to have a window and to be able to keep the not pet friendly plants there. Three plants are currently calling my office home. The original aloe plant is thriving. It’s growing slowly, but it has developed two new shoots since I moved it there.

I also have a huge spider plant named Marvin, with a baby that has been christened Darvin. I’m going to pot Darvin soon, I just keep forgetting the soil. He lives on my bookshelf because he was too big to keep on that little shelf. I’ve hidden some of my lego creations in the leaves.

I have a Croton plant as well. I’m keeping that with no name as Croton sounds like an awesome super hero name. That one is being tricky. I think it needs to be misted regularly. I have repotted it into a pretty white pot, since the picture was taken.

My plants at home are a Christmas Cactus cutting, which seems to be having issues, a nerve plant which is super dramatic, and another peperomia- I killed the first one by overwatering. I also have a ZZ plant which apparently thrives on neglect. It needs watering once every three to four weeks. It also really likes low light, which is perfect for the house.

The coolest plant I have is probably the prayer plant. The Husband christened it Planty the Potted Plant after a character in Phineas and Ferb, a cartoon about these two kids and their secret spy platypus. It’s actually a wholesome and hilarious tv show and we all adore it. It’s put out another leaf since I brought it home and has two more starting. The neat thing about it though is that it closes at night time (Hence the name.) It’s super fun!

Here it is during the day.

The Husband has been notified that he should expect to see more plants when he gets back from his business trips now that he can travel again. I mean, I might be lonely and plants don’t judge (or beg for) the Nutella snack at midnight. 😉

Hope these inspire you for growing new things!

Gardening · Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Gardening

March 28, 2021 LSiehLeave a comment

“I always see gardening as escape, as peace really. If you are angry or troubled, nothing provides the same solace as nurturing the soil.”-Monty Don

“The cottage garden; most for use designed, Yet not of beauty destitute.”-Charlotte Smith

“Gardening is one of my enduring, favourite, and most rewarding pastimes.”-Jane Hawking

“When I go into the garden, I forget everything. It’s uncomplicated in my world of gardening. It’s trial and error, really. If something doesn’t work, it comes out, and you start all over again.”-Emilia Fox

“In the world at large, people are rewarded or punished in ways that are often utterly random. In the garden, cause and effect, labor and reward, are re-coupled. Gardening makes sense in a senseless world. By extension, then, the more gardens in the world, the more justice, the more sense is created.”-Andrew Weil

Canning and Preserving · Gardening

Canning and Preserving

September 19, 2020September 20, 2020 LSiehLeave a comment

Hello from Canning Central! I’ve been busy canning delicious yummy things lately. K2 reminded me that we “didn’t have to wait until winter” to use the things and I gave her a really funny look. In my head I have to wait until at least December! She is right though. It’s nice to have a shelf of home canned things, but even nicer to actually eat and enjoy them!

I joined a Facebook group about canning and it’s absolutely inspiring, but yet also altogether intimidating to see others’ canning progress. I haven’t posted there yet with my measly looking 5 jar haul. 😳 Luckily, I can post here, no matter how small my batches are.

Now, to get to the actual point of the post! The featured picture is my lemon verbena ready to be dehydrated for teas and other things. I used the arugula forest to make this lovely peppery pesto with parsley and walnuts.

The pesto is in the freezer for quick dinners later. I made this mimosa marmalade as well, for the fridge. It’s from the Little Jars, Big Flavors book.

I don’t have a picture of it, but did make cinnamon crockpot applesauce for the freezer, although we did eat some of it for dinner as well. I have more apples, so will make more after I make the apple chips. These were the not canned other things I made.

Dried lemon balm and lemon verbena (for teas,) dried sage, and freezer marinara sauce. The little jar is lemon verbena sugar.

I did can a marinara sauce from one of my canning magazines. A friend shared extra tomatoes with me, so I gave a jar to him and his wife as a thank you. Also, to encourage more excess produce sharing in the future. 😁

We have two kinds of salsa, although I would like to make more. I used the Ball Canning recipe for Jalepeno Salsa and this recipe for the Fire-Roasted Salsa. https://thehungrybluebird.com/fire-roasted-salsa-canning-recipe/

They are both pretty spicy. The Jalepeno salsa is more of an end spicy kick and the Fire Roasted is more spicy on the front end. We polished off the half jars that were left over pretty quickly.

I made another marmalade too. This one is a Citrus Vanilla Bean Marmalade. It was a pain to make and I was mad at it for being so much work, so haven’t tried it yet. It smelled delicious though. This recipe is from my Little Jars, Big Flavor book.

Three kinds of pickles were made. Garlic Chips and regular dill spears.

I also made one jar of kohlrabi pickles which are a fridge pickle. I haven’t tried them yet, but will soon. I also have no picture of them.

Tomorrow I’m making salsa verde and I have some more jams I wanted to make, so there should be a second canning post. It doesn’t feel like I’ve made much this year yet, but seeing it all written out, I guess I have after all!

Oh, and an update to the Squirrel War Chronicles! I was dismayed to find out that I may owe the squirrels a tiny apology, as I discovered a certain dog munching on my tomatoes the other day. She was going through the plants happily slurping the ripe ones right off the vine! Then when I yelled at her and started to go out to chase her off, she started eating them faster! She even hopped into the garden to snack in there! 🤨

We’re not going to tell the squirrels though, because they stole a bunch of other items. Or did they?! Piggy has no shame, of course, and is peacefully sleeping the sleep of the pure hearted. Dogs, man.

Anyway, enjoy the canning goodness and I’ll share the rest as soon as I have it done.

Gardening

Garden Update- Squirrel War Chronicles

September 1, 2020September 2, 2020 LSiehLeave a comment

Hello from the Squirrel War that’s being fought in my garden! Major players are myself, Piggy, and the Husband. Only one of the squirrels has a name- Steve the Stupid Squirrel. The rest are collectively known as several unladylike words, which I will not repeat as to spare my poor innocent Mother’s ears. 😉

We’re all doing our part for the war effort. The Husband valiantly throws rocks at the squirrels while outside. Piggy stalks squirrels across the yard and then chases them up trees surprisingly fast for such a little tank/potato of a dog. She’s been a big help. The other day I looked out and she was balanced on the cinder blocks munching on the grass stalks that I hadn’t weeded yet while the squirrels yelled at her from the tree.

I ended up spraying vinegar on the cinder blocks and diluted peppermint oil all over the plants and that seemed to help keep the critters away. The neighbors also live trapped a groundhog in their yard to relocate as they didn’t feel like sharing their pool or tomatoes with it. I think that might have been what was eating everything as well. We think we had a burrow in our backyard. We filled it in, after making sure it was empty.

My zucchini gave me one tiny squash and I think I have squash borers, so half the plant is dead. The other half still has flowers though. I do have tomatoes coming through finally. I had caprese with garden basil and three kinds of garden tomatoes today for lunch. There was a Lemon Boy, Mr. Stripey, and some unknown cherry tomatoes from one of my volunteer plants.

My cukes are coming in! I’m hoping to make pickles as part of my canning adventures this weekend.

I found a big one hiding in the vines while I was tying them up over the weekend and have been happily eating it up. I even made a cucumber gin gimlet!

We have harvested some hot peppers and there’s a bunch of these Mad Hatter peppers growing too.

I missed the first tomatillos, but we have more on the plant. I had to look up how to know when they were ripe.

The bell peppers are coming back, which is good. I don’t remember if these are purple or green. My tags didn’t stay with the plants this year, due to squirrel interference. 🤨

We even have strawberries coming back and rhubarb (in the featured pic.)

I’ve killed some herbs and need to look at what seeds I have to see if there’s any quick growing things I can plant. We currently have an arugula forest that I need to pick and save seeds from. It made delicious pesto, so I’ll be making more of that for sure. My tea herbs are due for a trim as well, so I’ll be drying those for winter time cold fighting teas.

I know I’ll have to supplement my garden produce with store produce when I start canning, but I know what to do differently next year.

Piggy is currently sleeping like this and it’s making me giggle. I thought I should share it with you, in case you also needed a chuckle.

Wish me luck in the Squirrel Wars and send extra zucchini!

Gardening · Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Gardening

July 19, 2020July 12, 2020 LSiehLeave a comment

“It’s been proven by quite a few studies that plants are good for our psychological development. If you green an area, the rate of crime goes down. Torture victims begin to recover when they spend time outside in a garden with flowers. So we need them, in some deep psychological sense, which I don’t suppose anybody really understands yet.”- Jane Goodall

“I grow as many of our vegetables as I can, because my granddad was a professional gardener, and it’s in the blood.”-Terry Pratchett

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”- Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely between the rocks. Also learn from holy books and wise people. Everything – even mountains, rivers, plants and trees – should be your teacher.”-Morihei Ueshiba

“You’ve got to invest in the world, you’ve got to read, you’ve got to go to art galleries, you’ve got to find out the names of plants. You’ve got to start to love the world and know about the whole genius of the human race. We’re amazing people.”-Vivienne Westwood

“A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.”-D. Elton Trueblood

“You can pick wild strawberries with your eyes closed, locating them by smell, for they are two parts perfume to one part taste. An hour of searching might yield a handful if you’re lucky. Wild strawberries can’t be encouraged, nor can they be discouraged: They come to you unbidden and unearned. They appear, or do not, by the grace of the sun.”-Hope Jahren

Gardening

Garden Update

July 11, 2020 LSieh2 Comments

Piggy has started chasing squirrels! This is very exciting for two reasons. 1- The squirrels were eating all the started veggies off my plants before I could get them! And 2- We’re most likely keeping Piggy! She’s captured the Husband with her ridiculously goofy snorts and many dog kisses. She’s quite serious in this picture, as she was supervising the rearranging and cleaning of my sewing space. I’ll do that update in a few days, when I can get things put away. It’s still messy. It’s in a better spot though, I think, so that’s good.

She does like to be outside and we were super excited when she started treeing squirrels. She’s not quite fast enough to catch them though, at least so far. Tonight she stalked one across the yard while it was on the cinder blocks for the garden and then charged until it was up a tree. I approve quite hardily!

I learned an interesting fact this year. Tomatillos grow the husk first and then the fruit grows after that and into the husk! So cool, but I was a little confused at first. Here’s a picture.

I have two orange Juliet cherry tomatoes starting to turn and a lot of green ones on other plants. My homemade cages are mostly working. I am pleased with them, so I’ll set them up next year too.

I have eaten my second produce from the garden too! A little radish! We had one lonely strawberry this year. I think they need some extra compost in the fall to keep them better over the winter.

I also used some of the rhubarb in a fun new quick bread recipe. It was pretty good. I have also been excited about having arugula in my salads. It’s fun to have something to make the salads a little less boring.

My hot peppers are growing, the squirrels stole one, but abandoned it in the garden, as usual. My other peppers keep getting eaten before they can grow.

My zucchini has a lot of flowers, but they keep getting eaten, so I don’t know how many zucchini I’ll get this year. It bums me out, I was going to make more squash pickles to share with Dad.

I made a scare bag to put in the garden, but I might need a few more. My Grandpa Ed used to put them in his garden and he was a fantastic gardener, so I’m hoping some of his garden luck will rub off on me. My rhubarb is planted in his memory as well, so I was excited to use it this year.

Some of my herbs are growing and I need to replace a couple of them. It’s been too hot and I haven’t been able to water them enough. I also transplanted a couple of the volunteer tomato plants into pots instead of in the middle of the cucumbers/carrots/etc.

We have a couple of interlopers that we are going to work on getting rid of. These are American Pokeweed and these are we think, Poison Oak.

My younger brother is staying with us for a little while and as it turns out, he’s immune to poison ivy! We’re all hoping this also applies to poison oak, although he will be wearing the necessary protective gear of course. He’s going to dig out the area by the apple tree that we had planned to turn into another garden space anyway. I’m thinking we’ll put two narrow beds in it to grow herbs or things that can be trellised. For now though, after he digs it all out, we’re going to cover it with landscape fabric and set up the blocks to hold it down. Hopefully it’s not gotten too far away from that area and into the ground cover a little ways over.

Piggy has been getting very itchy after coming in from outside and we suspect that might be why. We’ve got an itch relief spray for her and some wipes that seem to help.

We did have a nice interloper though. A big toad! Piggy found it and was sniffing it until I made her leave it alone. It hopped off into the bushes. Being so close to the river, we do get a lot of toads and frogs. I think it’s fun!

I think that’s all the garden updates recently. Everything seems to be taking a long time to grow and produce. I think we need to add some compost for next year to get the extra nutrients into the soil. Hopefully I will have some more updates soon!

Gardening

Gardening, Here I Come!

May 23, 2020May 23, 2020 LSiehLeave a comment

So first off, I was left unsupervised at a local garden store and I discovered their magical backyard area for the main greenhouse. Plus, I definitely want to support my local small businesses. So yes, I did need all these plants. 🙂

I ended up running out of potting soil for my last two herbs and my little fairy garden replacement plants because I had a lot of plants, but I’m excited to get the garden going.

I did plant seeds on Tuesday and next year I swear I will actually sort markers out, not just assume I’ll remember where things are. It’s going to be a squash and melon battle royale in the corner of one of the beds this year. I have two zucchini plants, a watermelon, and a pumpkin, I think…. May gourd have mercy.

Here’s the bed in question. I switched them this year, since I have had the tomatoes in the same bed for two years.

I have discovered that a true friend is one who will take extra zucchini plants off your hands, by the way. I could only get a pack of 4 plants, but would kind of like to have other things in the garden bed, so only wanted two. She’s also taking some sugar snap peas. The peas are getting their own tripod.

I’m using the same little trellis cage I used last year for beans and have three sets of cucumber seeds ready to go on a trellis, if they actually grow. All the vining things are on the right side of the bed, next to the path. I figured that would make it easy to reach them.

I have a row of carrots down the middle, since they grew so well last year. I added rainbow carrots, because you know I couldn’t resist. Across the front of the bed is arugula and little gem lettuce. There may also be swiss chard and a broccoli? Next year, I promise to label everything.

The peppers are in this bed as well. Nothing fancy, a salsa mix from seed, a poblano, a jalepeno, and a long cayenne pepper. There’s also a couple of bell peppers, one plant and a seed mix.

Now the tomato bed, is as usual, where things get interesting. 🙂 It’s also where I find another definition of a true friend, one who shares heirloom tomato seeds with me! She sent a Better Buy Yellow, a Casspian Pink, a Black Prince, and a German Ruby Green. I planted them all and am hoping they will all grow. I wasn’t able to get myself together to try seed starting again this year, so I have no idea if they will even grow in time, but I might as well try, I thought. Maybe, like the radishes, I might get some surprises.

I will admit that I buy tomato plants by name, not necessarily by what’s actually best for my garden or space. Kind of like my mother when she buys wine actually, so that must be where I got it from. 🙂 So in interesting tomato names this year, I have Mortgage Lifter, Lemon Boy, Pink Brandywine, Green Zebra, and once again, Mr. Stripey! I’m definitely going to try to save seeds this year, in case I can’t find him again. I have a couple of beefsteak and Sweetie cherry tomato seeds planted somewhere in the garden. Possibly next to the extra radishes. I also bought a tomatillo plant! I’ll be excited to try some slasa verde too!

I can’t forget my herbs, of course! I think I need more of them though. My thyme survived a little, but then when it froze again, it was no more. So far, I have flat leaf parsley, Greek oregano, spearmint, lemon verbana, lemon balm, and two kinds of sage, varigated golden sage and garden sage. I haven’t used all my dried herbs from last year, so thought I should try to go easy this year, but I really want more fresh ones to use. I get such a kick out of just stepping out to cut fresh herbs. Makes me feel all sorts of fancy!

The strawberries mostly survived. The ones in the specific strawberry tower did not survive, oddly enough. I think they may have been too dry. The others are growing very well, although I still need to weed them. We even have some berries started already!

I also bought some fairy garden plants to fix my fairy gardens from last year, a succulent to take to my office (hooray for windows!) and some flowers to go in the empty front bed so it looks like we’re doing something in there. I don’t have a good picture of the bed, as it doesn’t look pretty yet, but here’s some of the flowers.

We do have some glorious iris starting to appear. My friend gave us a bunch last year and I’m excited to see the different colors. Here’s the purple one that’s open right now!

So other than the sunburn I’ve accquired, things are looking good for the garden. The Husband rigged a sprinkler temporarily up to water the beds for us and it’s one of the shooting and turning ones and it looks hilarious. We need to get new hose couplings to make the other ones work. We’re going to venture out for mulch and more herbs tomorrow. I will attempt to be good, but you know once I get in the plants, the garden haze descends upon me and I have no idea how all those plants just jump into my cart. Honestly, it’s almost spooky! 😉 Yeah, the Husband doesn’t believe me either, but he sure likes the salasa that we have all summer.

I hope you’re able to grow some fun things this summer. I know it’s perking me up to plant and sow some hope for the future. Happy Gardening!