I LOVE MY NEW MULCH!

There's really nothing of value to say here. I just love my newly mulched beds at the front of my house!

I was kind of going for a Japanese feel to our plant choices when we first landscaped this area. It was inspired by the two gangly rhododendron that refused to come out of the ground, even when lassoed with chains and pulled by a truck. Since we had to give up moving them, I decided they had a bonsai flair about them, so I surrounded them with low growing complementary plants with silver and burgandy colors to them, like Japanese Barberry, Blue Star Junipers, and a Cutleaf Japanese Maple tree.

I REALLY wanted an authentic stone lantern to finish the look, but hey - you can't be $30 at Bed, Bath and Beyond for a fake one. It's even got a solar powered light in there! The grass is blue sedge, and the burgandy creeper in front of it is called Voodoo Stonecrop.

This is my show-stopper spring perennial flower on the front walkway called "Helleborus" or Lenten Rose. Everybody loves these guys and they are so easy to grow. They are a perennial evergreen for part to full shade areas, and the prickly leaves make them deer resistant. In my zone 6, they start blooming in March and are in full swing by April. Eventually the flowers fade to a pretty dusky green color.

The purpose of this bed is to hide the various septic pump equipment, like the lid to the tank and weird pipes and stuff. I made this my pink and blue bed, although it's too early in spring to really know that at this point. The main features are the three hydrangeas in the middle, along with some dicentra ("bleeding hearts"), astillbe, spirea, columbine and some grasses. This bed actually looks better now, since Tom, my official workhorse, has since edged all around it.












These are baby astillbe, which look kind of like furry snakes - surrounded, of course, by my gorgeous mulch.








Last but not least is my 173 Brunswick Pike memorial bed, replicating the garden I had in my very first house either by flat out stealing the original plants (it was a long 9 months before that thing sold) or finding the exact same plants already in place at the new pad. And just like at my old house, I still can't get anything but weeds to grow up that damn trellis. When this bed grows up more, it will have lots of shade friendly plants, since I seemed to have absolutely no sun where I used to live. Some good shade perennials here are lungwort, Jacob's ladder and dead nettle.

And now for the final tie-in .... doesn't my mulch look great?!?!?

Potato Woes

I forgot to mention potatoes in my spring garden line-up, which is not surprising. Potatoes and I have a sordid history. One of us in this relationship is just not giving 100%, and for my part, I'm blaming the potatoes. Even with my best efforts, my potatoes tend to not live up to their potential. The potatoes, I imagine, would likely complain about my lack of consistent watering and general laissez-faire gardening style. Still, I'm not giving up just yet. Homegrown fresh potatoes are out of this world, and completely unlike anything you can get at the grocery store. So in 2009, I'm attempting three different planting methods that I haven't tried before.

1.) Trenching

This is the method I got from the handout at Agway where I bought my potato starts. Apparently potatoes don't appreciate being plopped into dense, clay-like soil and just left there. The proper way to treat them is to build up the soil around the plant at the stem, giving new potatoes room to form. In my raised bed, I dug two trenches about two feet apart, and planted potato starts around a foot apart in the row. As the sprouts grow, I'll pull down the dirt from the sides of the trench to keep the plants covered. Hopefully this will improve crop yields.

2.) Mulching

I knew there were other methods of growing potatoes, so some quick internet research resulted in a great page from Irish Eyes Garden Seeds. This page has complete start to finish potato growing tips, including two alternative planting methods. Mulching is when you prep the planting bed like you normally would, but instead of trenching, the potatoes get placed on or just below the soil. Mulch, like straw or shredded leaves, gets placed on top 6 to 10 inches deep. Continue to replenish as the stem grows, and harvest normally.

I don't have a picture of this method, but I don't have high hopes for it either. The only room I had left for them was out of the fence perimeter and solidly into the wilder parts of my yard - groundhog/mole/vole territory. Also, because it's not within reach of the hose, these guys are going to be subject to the watering schedule of mother nature herself. So, uh, yeah. Good luck out there potatoes!

3.) Cage/Garbage Can Method

The above link at Irish Eyes Garden Seeds calls it the cage method, and this eHow article talks about growing potatoes in a garbage can. Either way, this is a great method if you have space constriction, are growing vegetables in containers, or have problems in the past with diseases in your soil. As a member of the Solanaceae (Nightshade) family, potatoes are prone to the same diseases as peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant. To avoid passing these diseases through the soil from one year to the next, you should not plant potatoes (or any other family member) in the same spot for three years in a row. If you have a small garden, crop rotation by these standards is pretty much impossible unless you are using containers.

Since my potatoes religiously die back early from some kind of disease and have a low crop yield, I'm overly excited about this method. I took the hints from the Irish Eyes Garden Seeds article about planting in containers 18" across and at least 2 or 3 feet tall. I put finished compost in a layer at the bottom, and put dried chopped leaves on top. The trick here is to keep the pots watered well, which is not my strong suit. Wish me luck - and greater attention to detail.

OK, I have so many entries in my head to write, but I really ought to be taking advantage of this coolish morning to get some work done. See ya!

Check Out My Tools!: Must-Have Garden Supplies

That's right, it's product promotion time, but I still don't get any money for this stuff. And because of that, you can wager that I legitimately mean what I say!

My favorite spring garden supplies are as follows:

Reusable velcro ties & bamboo poles

Check out my adorable pea trellis! Bamboo usually comes in 5 or 8 foot lengths so it meets many large scale needs, but can be cut down to any size. It's sturdy, attractive, plentiful and cheap. Combined with reusable velcro ties, you can make all sorts of great garden trellises. Here's a link to a simple bamboo trellis from Organic Gardening magazine.

Using plastic zip ties will give you a tighter connection, but I really like the velcro ones instead. I've had the same ones now for years and they are still going strong. Plus I'm not great at building stuff, so I usually need to reposition the bamboo multiple times and that means going through multiple plastic ties. The velcro adjusts quickly, and then you're off and running!

Wall-o-waters

How do you get the earliest home-grown tomatoes on the block? These guys right here. Each wall-o-water is like a mini greenhouse. A series of tubes is connected in a circle. Fill the tubes half way with water and place in the garden for two weeks to heat up the soil beneath. After two weeks, plant your tomato, pepper, eggplant or other summer crop in the wall-o-water and fill the tubes the rest of the way. That's it. The water in the tubes absorbs heat during the day and releases it at night, keeping your plant at a consistent cozy temperature. By the time your plant grows too big, nighttime temperatures are safe for those tomatoes to be out of the bag anyway. Using wall-o-waters will give you a serious six week head start on summer vegetables. You can easily have an early (with wall-o-waters in late spring ) and late (without wall-o-waters, and planted at the proper time) planting, which can give you a solid harvest from late spring to frost! These are easily found in any garden supply catalog, but I'm not sure you will find them on the shelves at garden store. But they should be!

Soaker Hoses

Good watering is key to a successful garden, and the best way to do it is to send the water directly to the roots of the plant where it belongs. Regular sprinklers waste water by sending it flying into the air to be lost to evaporation or to land on the entire plant as opposed to the soil. Too much water on the leaves themselves can lead to disease and mildew problems. Also, when a lot of water hits dry soil fast, it initially tends to pool up and run off. That's more water literally down the drain.

Using soaker hoses is the "set it and forget it" method of watering. You don't need to move a sprinkler around, or stand there endlessly with the hose nozzle doing it yourself. Lay your soaker hoses out so that they snake all around your garden beds. Connect your water supply and let the hose drip water slowly to the base of your plant and directly to the roots. Leave your water supply on long enough (depending on your soil type) to water 1-2 inches, and do this once a week. To determine how long that takes, put a shallow plastic container with inch measurements on it under your soaker hose and see how long it takes to fill. Again, these are reusable for many seasons and come in 25, 50, 75 or 100 foot lengths. They are easily found at any big box store or garden center.

That's all for today. I would be putting down new mulch right now, if not for the rain. It won't be long before I hit you with my next topic about the BEST organic method of dandelion weed control! Stay tuned!

Bring It On, Spring!

Early in the week, I got the news. Friday's forecast called for 65 degree temperatures, followed by a weekend of rain. You know what that means? It means that I plant seeds Friday and walk away smiling, and mother nature is stuck theoretically dragging 50 feet of hose all around the yard doing the watering. Sweet! Let's go zone 6, time to mobilize!

Laura's Comprehensive and Probably Still Too Ambitious Spring Garden Plan

Peas: Apparently, the specific date peas should be planted depends on your religious affiliation. If you are extremely religious, peas are planted on St. Joseph's day. If you are only moderately religious, but have a solid appreciation for holidays that allow for excessive alcohol consumption, then St. Patrick's day is your pea planting time. If you are a secular granola crunchy hippie, then March 15th is your day. Regardless, all these bits of advice seem to be different ways to say the same thing: plant your peas in mid-March, as soon as the ground can be worked.

When did I plant peas? I threw seeds down on March 21st, in between grocery shopping and picking Sophia up from school, because that's when I finally got around to it. Make your own assumptions. And of course, I planted two different varieties but didn't keep track of which went where, and accidentally dug them up a week later when fertilizing the beds. Let the games begin!

Garlic, Onions, Shallots: These bulbs got planted in the fall and are coming up nicely! Three 4x4 beds of garlic gave us enough harvest that we finally ran out only last week. All these can be planted now for fall harvest as well, and you can get onion sets and shallot bulbs at most big box home stores. You might have to head to Agway for the garlic though. You can try planting store garlic if you like, but those are generally sprayed with a chemical that prevents them from sprouting, so it's a bit risky.

Root Vegetables - Radishes, Turnips, Beets & Carrots: Except for the carrots, I always have easy success with this cool weather crop group. Carrot seeds don't seem to like the fact that I'm going to forget to water them regularly while they are germinating, while the others seem to be more flexible about this. That's why I like planting seeds right before the rain is due! The other seeds I pretty much just broadcast around the plot, rake or poke them into the ground and then thin as necessary.

Lettuces & Greens: My favorite thing to do is to buy a mesclun salad seed mix and lightly cover the seeds in the ground in a 2x4 foot patch. In a few weeks, you have a colorful mix of salad greens that will grow back if you cut them an inch or two above the soil line when harvesting. Easy & fresh salad all spring and early summer! If you want to be really particular ( I won't mention any names, but someone in this house meets that description), you can buy the greens separately and make your own mix. Mesclun mix usually has endive, mustard, radicchio, lettuces and a variety of other random colorful greens. This is a great beginner gardener crop, and it can really save you some money when you compare the price of seeds to bagged grocery store salads. My other favorite spring planted greens are spinach, arugula, swiss chard and bok choy, which I usually plant separately instead of mixed together.

I thought I would take it easy this spring, and not start too many summer vegetables under lights in my basement. However, the above scheme does not sound much like taking it easy. Check back for further status reports!