Strawberries

This was my strawberry plant before Unidentified Animal ate all of the strawberries and flowers the plant was growing. Unidentified Animal (my guess is rabbit) also dug all about the garden bed over the course of 3 days, presumably looking for bulbs, carrots, or whatever Unidentified Animal eats.

Since our fence is apparently not Unidentified Animal-proofed (is any fence?) and since we're trying to teach our dogs not to hunt Unidentified (or identified) Animals, we decided to use a harmless animal repellant.  We chose Havahart Deer Off based on price, application, reviews, and toxicity to animals.  It basically smells nasty to squirrels, deer, and rabbits.  The stuff apparently dries on sprayed surfaces and stays for a while.  While you're not supposed to spray it on edibles, I sprayed all over the mulch and raised bed walls, as well as all over the grass surrounding my garden and at the base of our fence where a rabbit could easily squeeze under.  So far--- so good.  No more flowers have gone missing and no more holes have been dug in the mulch.  Sorry, Unidentified Animal. I would have shared my strawberries, but you got greedy and ate them all.

Bye bye bunny,

Christine

June Garden Update

Good evening blogspot,

I have been off enjoying life (i.e. working a new job, decorating the house, walking the dogs, and exploring the local area with my husband) so much that I have neglected my poor blog, despite all of the gardening I've been doing.  Here's a photo update to be followed with at least a few more regular posts.

I've had a few successful beginnings this growing season.  First off, my yellow bell peppers have begun to flower.

If you look carefully inside of the flower you can see the beginnings of  a greenish bell pepper.

Fleurs Fleurs Fleurs

From the top left, clockwise: lilacs, petunias, knockout roses, impatiens, and azaleas.

Things I have learned in growing these plants in zone 7:

• Knockout roses don't get their first blossoms until mid-May.
• White azaleas take longer to blossom than pink and purple varieties.  My neighbors have had blooming azaleas for 3 weeks now.
• Impatiens require more water than petunias.
• You have to remove the dead impatient flowers yourself or else the plant looks crummy.

Stay sunny!

Christine

Transplant Pots

I took these pictures back in March when it was actually useful to transplant.  Now that it's May, it's a little late but maybe you can tuck this away for next year.

Biodegradable Transplant Containers

You will need:

• Scissors
• Newspaper
• A bottle
• Tape or liquid glue
• Soil
• Seeds

Soil pictured far right. I'm pretty sure I was sitting on the seed packets.

Instructions:

1. Wrap the newspaper tightly around the bottle. 
2. Glue or tape the paper to itself to form a cylinder. If you use tape, you'll want to remove the tape later when you transplant into the garden.
3. Slide the bottle out of the paper tube carefully
4. Fold one end of the paper cylinder closed and tape or glue shut.  
5. Cut of the excess tube. You want your pot to be about 6-8 inches tall.
6. Fill with soil.* 
7. Plant seeds according to seed packet instructions. Water, etc. You're done!

*Note: With some plants, like tomatoes, burying the plant stem partially helps the plant develop a strong root system. To aid this, don't fill up your pot all the way to the top with soil.  Leave 1-2 inches free so that when your plants grow past the top of the pot, you can add more soil to the pot to bury the stem.

Finished tube for tomatoes. 

Window sprouting line-up. The ghost peppers belong to my husband. They never did sprout.

Stay sunny,

Christine

Cicadas

So the cicadas are coming this year in Maryland.  I was planting petunias in the front garden this evening and uncovered about a dozen of these suckers a mere 2 inches under the soil.  Gross.  On the bright side, cicadas are harmless.  If anything, they aerate the soil on their way up.  Also, our dogs will loooooove eating them.  And yet, I still don't look forward to picking them out of my hair.

Win some, lose some.

Christine

Hardy Har Har

It's good to know
That when it snows
I will have lots
Of parsley.

What I Learned

I've learned a great deal from my first year of gardening. Some of these lessons are specific to gardening in Maryland, others are universal.

Lesson 1: Furry Leaves make for Furry Fungus

The biggest gardening foe I faced was fungus. My pumpkins, zucchini, and cucumber all suffered moldy fungal growths that halted growth and shriveled produce. Maryland gets irregular and sometimes heavy rains and high humidity- the perfect growing conditions for fungus on the backs of leaves. I doubt I'll grow any more furry leaf veggies.

Lesson 2: Some Plants Need Lots of Space

I really should have done a bit more research on pumpkins before growing them. If I had, I would have learned that pumpkin vines will take over your entire yard and make it really hard to mow the grass. My tomato plants also grew far too big. Next year I will only be planting one tomato plant instead of two.

Lesson 3: Don't Let Plants Outgrow Pots

This no-brainer is brought to you by my bell peppers. I bought several plants mid-May . The gardener recommended they hit the soil within a week. It took me a while to build the raised bed garden, so the plants didn't hit the ground until mid-June. As a result, only the super hardy cayenne pepper flourished.

Hopefully these tips help. I'm planning out next year's garden now with some exciting new plants as well as some garden staples. I'll start sprouting the first seeds in March, though there will be a few posts before then regarding garden prep and a surprising herb that is currently toughing it out in the garden.

Keep on growing,

Christine

RIP Aconcagua Pepper

Oh well.

I came back from our honeymoon and all the peppers on the plant were dead and the leaves were droopy and falling off/nibbled to bits.  I'm thinking bugs, based on all the nibbles.  Aconcagua peppers are not really common in Maryland- I doubt I'd try them again. 

See you all in 2 days,

Christine

Back in the Garden

After a hectic-fabulous wedding and 2 week honeymoon in paradise, I'm back to the garden!  While I was gone with my husband, my father stayed at our house and promised to water the plants.  That's right, the same dad who ran over all of my tomato plants each year with his lawn mower, despite the fact that they were in cages.

It was a leap of faith.

I came back with most of the plants intact.  Unfortunately, a storm raged through our area and snapped two branches off of my cayenne peppers.  These branches were laden with fully grown but unripe peppers- all of which are still green.  Thankfully I was able to salvage every last one and pick a few red ones while at it.

Hot hot hot

When cayenne peppers are green, they aren't as spicy.  I'll be using the green (and mostly green) peppers for salsa and all of the red peppers for crushed red pepper flakes.  We just got a food processor for our wedding, so I'll be able to crush up the dried red peppers.

Since this plant has been so fantastic and they die every year, I'm going to save the seeds of 2-3 peppers and try to replant next year.  If this variety is this successful when I put the plant in the ground 2 months late.. well.. next year I'll be swimming in peppers.

Stay spicy,

Christine

The Peppers of Leggett Farms

California Wonder bell pepper from the craigslist sale in May.

After making me feel like a terrible gardener for months, my pepper plants finally decided it was time to make some peppers.  As you can see above, that bell pepper is well on its way to being on my plate.  The healthy bell pepper plant has 3 peppers growing on it right now, the other two being much smaller than the one pictured above.

Click for more peppers!

Humbled by Cilantro

I probably should have read up on how to grow cilantro.  Apparently cilantro flowers pretty young in its life and, once it flowers, the leaves lose their flavor and it stops growing.

I love flowers.. normally.

There are all sorts of techniques for delaying flowering.  If I'm honest, I don't even really like cilantro that much.  It's not really worth it to me to grow something so short lived and fussy.  Apparently the dried seeds from the flower are delicious as well, so I'll probably harvest the seeds and then call it quits on cilantro for good.

Fun fact: Cilantro is the same as coriander.  Two names, same plant.

Re-Re-Re-Roses

Time for a break from regular vegetable posts.  About a month ago, the last rose on my rose bush dropped to the ground and the tips of the plant turned purplish read.  "Oh no!" I exclaimed.  "What is wrong with my one and only rosebush? Is it a blight? Is the soil too acidic? Is it too much nitrogen, is it not enough nitrogen?

Well, if plants could talk, mine would have said..

Seeing Even More Red

Four. Four cayenne peppers.  So, what do you do when you have 4 freshly picked cayenne peppers?  You string them up and dry them!  Once they're all dried up I'll chop them up super finely and they will be red pepper flakes.  Stringing up the peppers is kind of a no-brainer.  All you need is a needle, thread, clear tape, a sun-facing window, and, well, the peppers. 

Seeing Red

!!!

The first tomatoes are almost ready!  They're very nearly perfect.  You may notice that the one on the left has some brown cracks near the stem.  That can happen when you over-prune the plant and cut back the leaves that protect the fruit from sunlight.  Oops.  It's harmless, just ugly.

I've already decided what I'm going to use the fruit for-  caprese salad!

Giant Leaves

I had no idea that zucchini leaves got this big!  Seriously, the leaves are bigger than a personal pizza, many of them are over a foot from base to tip.  By comparison, the cucumber leaves in the top left corner are about 3-4 inches from base to tip. 

So much for planting parsley next to the zucchini...

And the lilac said, "Finally!"

We FINALLY got the lilac in the ground.  Here's the short version on how to plant a lilac shrub:

1. Buy a lilac shrub. 
2. Call your local utilities company to find out where power/electric lines lay in your yard.
3. Ask your fiancé to dig you a big hole.
4. Reevaluate.  Ask your fiancé to dig you a bigger hole.
5. Procrastinate 2 weeks.
6. Cover the bottom of the hole with a layer of garden soil mixed with peat moss/compost.
7. Gently tease out the roots of your lilac plant. 
8. Place the lilac in the hole so that 1-2 inches of the plant peak above the earth.
9. Surround the plant with the same garden soil/compost/peat moss mixture.
10. Build up the area around the plant with more good soil.
11. Cover everything in mulch.
12. Water heavily with plant food immediately after.  

 There you have it. How to plant lilac.  

New plants take 2-5 years to flower, so hopefully we see them closer to 2 years.  I won't be pruning the plant until it gets to be 6-8 ft tall.  Right now, it's about 4 ft tall.  The rule of thumb with pruning a lilac shrub is to cut to the base any stems 2 inches in diameter, and never cut more than 1/3 of the stems.  It will be quite some time before I have to worry about that!


Stay lovely,


Christine

Pumpkin Paradise

I'll say it once and I'll say it again- pumpkin flowers are beautiful. Also, they're enormous.  This is yet another male flower from the pumpkin plant on the right.  No lady flowers yet, but it's only a matter of time.  Pumpkin, zucchini, and other squash typically produce male flowers for a few weeks before producing a lady flower, perhaps to alert local pollinators that there are lovely flowers blooming in the area.  The male flowers don't last nearly as long as the female ones, simply because the female flowers later become pumpkins and the male flowers do not.

I may have underestimated this hybrid

The above photo was taken last week.  I am 5'11.  The tomato plant, for all its zigzagging within the wire cage, is now taller than me.  Today I measured and it's about 4 inches taller than me.  This is with me pruning back 90% of the suckers, bottom leaves, and burying the plant a total of 8 inches underground from its original root system. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I highly recommend Burpee brand Big Boy Hybrid, available at Giant Food and other fine retailers.  Especially if you're looking for a shade tree...

Stay fruity,

Christine

Exceeding Expectations

Look familiar? This is my garden immediately after mulching.  The tomato plants were huge! The pumpkins were finding their soil nice, and I planned to put some herbs in front of the zucchini on the left.  Well, I don't think I can do that anymore...

Perspective

Some of my plants grow better than others.  I bought the cucumber maybe a month and a half ago and, although it flowers and I assist in pollinating it, it doesn't seem to grow at all.  I planted the pumpkin maybe 2-3 weeks ago and it was the same size as the cucumber.  Maybe the cucumber needs a little more shade? I hope so, because it's about to get it!