Till 2014

 We each took a turn tilling over the garden - it still needs a bit more today, but we have begun to plant at the outer edges.  The lemon balm, oregano and mints came back from last year, as did some Icelandic poppies that never bloomed last year.  The two areas that are not tilled have those plants and gladiolus bulbs in them, and will be planted with more herbs and annual flowers for the year.

I got my usual sunburn from the first pass - and these are pictures of Mark going over it the second time.

We might have the corn and tomatoes in by the weekend - the fish fry fair starts tonight, and it sounds like we'll try to see what is at the flea market this morning.  I work the rest of the week after today but have the weekend off.

Planted yesterday:
English daisy perennial plant (Esme's Earth day plant)
calendula
marigold (large and small)
lettuce
two cocozelle zucchini seeds, as they were left in the package...
sweet basil
lemon basil
cosmos (two colors)
watermelon california poppies
zinnias (several)
morning glories (several)
moonflower

ordered some more evening primrose in pink and some tall blue delphinium for the 'try mes' this year... but other than that and the yellow tomato (of which I have one seedling so far) the 'try mes' are not a large part of the garden this year.. yet... yet...

Stomach stuff bag turtle toy

Esme asked if I could make this toy she saw in a TV commercial.  I haven't gotten his shell made yet, but she is downstairs playing with him 'eating all the toys' already.  I still need to do the embroidery on his 'hands' as well... but that will take a while to do.  I designed him so that he could at least eat the zebra blanket from her bed, but definitely not what I was sure the commercial items had in them that would allow them to eat a LOT of things... he is just a toy with a bag in it, like the whale I wanted to make once and might still make.

We also went to the park today, fed some ducks and played with another girl.  We had ice cream sundaes and played in the garden some.  She has had a pretty good day - we both got some sun.  I planted the Japonica striped corn and the whipporwill peas today. 

Yesterday planted : (had a clearing out of every seed packet that I thought might grow... )
Smoke signals corn
Hutterite beans
Kenearly beans
columbine, gypsophilia (baby's breath)
african daisies, gloriosa daisies, gallairdia
marigolds, small and crackerjack type
chives
pyrethrin robinson's red chrysanthemum (painted daisies)
lettuce (2 types)
salvia, pansies, snapdragon, campanula bells,  hollyhocks
shackamaxon beans, wax beans (dragons lingerie and golden wax)
pink hopi corn
coleus
shirley corn poppies
cushaw squash
connecticut field pumpkins
king of the early beans (I thought these had to be them.. hope so)

Still have to do :
more corn experiment if I can find room..
transplant the cotton plants outside
plant the pink evening primrose I got in the mail
get the transplant tomatoes large enough to go outside

Bits of this and that

Our garden from the back


same place from the front
Those cornstalks are not entirely dead - and they are supporting some beans as well.


florida speckled butter pea lima beans


A place I cleared and reclaimed to plant more corn


pimento peppers on the go again


The volunteer zinnias


An interesting 'double petals' specimen in the volunteers


collecting sunflower heads to dry for seed


some purplish ones in the mix

I cleared a space for more corn - my hands looked like a warzone when I was done. I hope there is enough time left in the season to get something out of it. Also planted a few new beans and some more packaged purple zinnias for Esme because hers did not come up. I was treated to a display of bravery between the hummingbirds - fighting and swooping at each other in the honeysuckle. Harvested a few small things... mostly just doing maintenance today. I should make soup - I have a counter of small tomatoes and black eyed peas and a pepper that needs to go in there. I took some dried sunflower heads and got the seeds out of them - bringing some to Grandma for her stash. I am afraid there are only a few stalks of sorghum out there - so might have to plant a bit more.

Planted:
white kernel sorghum from storeroom
a few sunflower seeds - to test
red marigold head seeds - to test
Incredible sweet corn (85 days)
Lina Sisco bird's eggs beans (2nd run - 1st produced some, then died)
Kentucky Wonder brown seeded pole beans (2nd run - 1st died)
Purple package of zinnias

Clearing out and making new garden space

Spent hours out in the garden pulling up cornstalks and breaking the soil again for new plantings. I pulled out over ten rotten tomato vines that had nothing more to do and tomatoes that were long since done for weeks ago. The smell was atrocious - but it is all outside the garden in the compost areas now. Esme tried to help a bit more this time - mostly by claiming hills of dirt and sand that were 'hers' and also she chose a handful of kidney beans (of all things out of my pile that I showed her) to plant in two little rows, tuck in 'for the night' and water down. I doubt we will be in need of any fresh kidney beans but with the loving care, we will see what comes of them.

I found two types of beans out there in pods still clinging to cornstalks - I had overlooked them before. There were three pods of Jeminez, which I thought had died completely, and three more pods of Kenearly yellow eye beans hidden underneath a tomato vine and winding around a sunflower stalk. I had to be careful not to pull the cornstalks that the Tennessee Greasy Beans have a hold of - they are late and not very well positioned but going strong towards producing something.

Also planted: brown Mississippi silver crowder peas, Kenearly beans (second round), Jeminez beans from the one moldy pod I found out there, in hopes that it will grow. I planted more Mayflower beans and a few Dragons Tongue found in the same condition as the Jeminez. I planted some blue field corn in a few hills only as an experiment to see if that would help the lodging at all. It is probably too late to get anything out of it at all.

I have fence line area cleared to plant more of my Shackamaxon beans. The two (two!) times I have planted them this year from seed they have come up and died not too long after crawling up and looking like they would start to flower.


Positives this year: Bosnian beans, King of the Early Bean, Mayflower bean, Kenearly, Pinto, Florida Speckled Lima Bean, Lemon Boy Tomato, Black Krim tomato, German Queen tomato, Zephyr zucchini, Dark Green Zucchini, Strawberry Popcorn, Sunflowers (all), Zinnias (all), Red French marigolds

Mediocres: Lina Sisco bean, Jeminez, Roma tomatoes, Pumpkins (all), Peaches and Cream corn, volunteer yellow grape tomatoes, Dragon's Lingerie and Dragon's Tongue beans, Hutterite beans

Failures: Maria Amazilitei's Pole Bean (lost all), Shackamaxon, Sweet Dumpling squash, field corn trials :(

will need to rebuy seed for :King of the Early Bean, Jeminez - neither of them produced enough saveable seed to rely upon for next year.

Corn planting stick and Esme comments

I think we are ready to plant the west field with field corn, but we are not going to till it again.  The earth there is just too hard for the moment.  It has been broken with the tractor but not tilled fine and deep.

I am going to make a corn planting stick today, which is a simple but useful tool.  A piece of plastic PVC pipe large enough for the seed type to go down, with one end cut at a 45 degree angle, and a piece of electrical tape taped around the bottom at the proper depth for planting that seed.  You will need to 'measure' it against yourself to find out how long it should be to have the bottom on the ground and the hole at the top at a comfortable height to work without bending. It keeps from having to stoop and make a hole for each seed but would not work too well in wet soil.  The sharpened end makes the hole, squidge the pipe back and forth and lift it to loosen the soil that is driven inside the pipe, drop the seed down the pipe into the hole, cover up the hole with your foot.  Continue to the next seed all the way down the field.

ACTUALITY: Like all good things - it can be improved upon.  We made an 'advanced' corn planting stick by cutting the top of f of a two liter bottle for a funnel, heating up the screw top end and putting it into a 3/4 PVC coupling, then attaching the coupling to a 3/4 inch PVC pipe.  Then we duct-taped it down well.  Using the stick was different than I had imagined it, as well.  I had to scrape the ground clear with the pointed end and make a furrow with it, as the earth was very rocky and hard and there were sticks etc in it. I did have to bend down several times to throw sticks and rocks out of the way and spent a lot of time 'chicken scratching' with my feet to even up the better soil that remained.  Once I had a clean furrow I used the stick to space the seeds evenly without bending over and covered up the furrow with my feet.

We are waiting for the temperature to get a little higher today before going out.  It is 50 now and an expected high of 70 today.  The other night was expected to be the very last frost.  Next year I will check the 'long schedule calendar' for frost dates - but I am glad to have a month headstart on everything that we have done.  Esme has had a bath for her sinuses and is playing with kittens.  They are getting big enough to pounce and wrestle each other now and usually come running to their dish when they hear a cat food can open.  They are definitely Pogo's children - when they open their mouths nothing comes out.  They are supersonic mewers.

Greenhouse seeds are not up yet - it has only been three or four days.  Our golden hubbard (sometimes called red hubbard) seeds have come, and I am trying to decide if I will put those in the little garden or out in the west field.  I need to plant a Jarrahdale or two from last years's seed, as well.  They are both maximas, as is the table queen that is already planted in the little garden.  I actually had an image of my Mayflower beans come to mind this morning when I was waking - not quite a dream, but a memory.  I have been intending to plant some of those few saved seeds from the plant that survived last year - but have not done it yet.  Reading The Resilient Gardener before bed, beans and squash wandered often through my mind in between sleep.  I enjoyed her anecdotes about her ducks, dropping pumpkins from heights to crack them (instead of risking trying to cut the terribly tough skin with a knife, and all of the different experiments and record keeping she had done while she bred her varieties.  I doubt I could ever keep that good of records of which plants produced which seeds with which qualities!

Aren't we just terribly stylish in our outside in the garden clothes?  And the Christmas decorations are still up because Esme really likes them.  Remember it was 50 degrees or so when I started, ie the sweater and dockworker knit hat was deemed necessary attire.  That is the sweater I made last year and it is extremely warm, even without a collar, and tpants made of a thick cotton material that has not torn when grabbed by thorns or on my knees weeding in the garden.  Esme hadn't put her coat and hat on yet, or that would have been quite a sight to boot.  She did grab a tray of seeds and told Daddy to take a picture of her posing with me and the corn planting stick.

Planted today:  Strawberry popcorn, 5-10 days germ. 100 days maturity, field corn blue/yellow in the west field, golden hubbard squash (6 seeds) in the west field.

Esme comments from the last few days:

I can't spell that word Mama. (for I can't remember that word).

He is pirates, the hand, he is pirates, on your yarn, pull the string on the boat like pirates.  (she was unravelling my knitting yarn hand over hand pretending she was pulling a boat in).

Mama, I offer you a gretchen. (ask you a question) In the big town, a truck with a man and it (sings).  ((long description with hand signs and large gestures showing how an ice cream man has a truck with a slide up window and he has people line up and hands them ice cream one by one and they eat it))  And now it's GONE!  Can you take me there?  Please?

We are ladies.  You are a lady, and I am a lady, too!  We make cakes and foods and then we bite them LIKE THIS and are happy! (said before she went to sleep at night days after we had made her cake for Grandma)

Mama, put on the batteries on this door please?  And then it go sing and you fix it go sing please?  But Mama, you are STRONG, you can do it, come on.  Please?

Mama, I will bring you this, your beans, and you will be happy?  (no - those are seeds, I don't need seeds right now - we put those in our garden)  But, you eat them, they are your beans!  (we want those ones to grow and make more)  Oh, haha, okay.

When we said we might go look at a donkey for sale in the paper to see if we liked it she started off on this conversation:  We like donkeys.  But, I don't like horses, I am scared of horses.  Horses, your hands, they will EAT them, LIKE THIS (pretends to bite off both of her hands and sucks them into her sleeves of her shirt).  But, donkeys, they are nice.  You can pet them, like this (pet something in midair and pretend to look at it adoringly).  We like donkeys.  //what?//  Mark and I both just rolled our eyes at that one.

No, Baths are for morningtimes it is night time all dark outside! (screamed at the top of her lungs as I had suggested she take a bath at 3 am because she was crying her sinuses were blocked and a drink had not helped).  She did calm down after another drink and eventually fell back asleep until 7 when I did talk her into a eucalyptus bath, which helped a lot. 

It is morningtime, it is blue outside (the sky), and it is hearts (a shirt she sees) and pants like go to work (my jeans).  I see them.  It is no work, you don't go to work today.  You going to stay HOME.  (yes, I am going to stay home today, yay!)  She expected a fight on that one like usual, and wasn't quite sure what to do when she was right and I was staying home HA.  

Mama, you find it please I need three. (she had three).  You have three, one two, three.  No, the three, she is there, I move it, you look I can't find it anymore!  (I looked under the cabinet and there was a fourth of what she wanted, pulled it out).  This is not the bumblebee lady, she is more, find the bumblebee lady more please?  Apparently there was a fifth to that toy set, too -- but I could not find her and she was very sad.

And we are thankful for it

Remember what I said about every morning? This was what came in from our garden today. And we are thankful for it. But tomorrow morning I do have to skip the early show and harvest in the afternoon. That one insanely early day a month. Growl.

notes: The Jarrahdale squash 'test subject' seed did sprout. So those seeds are viable. That is good news! I don't plan for it to do much this late in the season, but knowing that seed is good goes a long way, especially if I trade it to anyone for other seeds. I also planted about a dozen more Mississippi Silver seeds out in the garden, in open places near supports the mature plants are on now.