1 post tagged “garden”

My raspberries are now hip high.

The hard freeze wasn't as hard as predicted, so nothing got freeze damaged.

I harvested mints, lemon balm, lavender, roses, basil, rosemary, bay leaves, jasmine flowers, violets, the last of the redbuds, the last of the asparagus, the early baby lettuces, and a swathe of horsetails.

In a week or two, I'll be harvesting spinach, carrots, radishes, lime basil, and maybe some early pea tendrils, in addition to mints, lemon balm, sage, rosemary, basil, lavender, roses, and lettuces.

It will be a couple of weeks before the tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, and potatoes are ready.

And a while longer before the squash and parsnips are up and harvestable.

This year, I seem to have a very good garden, and I am pleased with it. Next year's will be even better.

And when I start gardening in the back yard, there will be even more and better yummies growing.

I use a modified form of the Square Foot Gardening method pioneered and promoted by Mel Bartholomew. His Mel's Mix for soil is unbeatable, and I use it for all my gardening and for repotting indoor plants. But his 4'x4' beds are too big for me. I do 2'x8' beds instead, long and narrow, and I intend to make the ones in the back yard curvy. I also "stack" his beds in short pyramid forms so I can grow on multiple levels. So far, the highest I've gone is 2 levels, but I plan on going up three levels.

This year, I put in a strawberry bed, just a few plants, but I'll expand it next year. Next year, I plan to put in a blackerry bed, and I may grow blueberries, too. If the potatoes do well this year, I want to grow sweet potatoes. I love sweet potatoes.

Last week, a friend asked me out to dinner at Outback, and I ordered the potato soup (which was their "walkabout soup" of the night and a side of baked sweet potato, and shared a half order of cheese fries. It was a yummy meal. Potatoes, potatoes, and potatoes - it appealed to both the Indian and the German in me.

I plan to put in a small outdoor seating area in front, and surround it with these raised beds, of cutting flowers, edible flowers, and more herbs, in the front yard. I may put in a street screen of forsythias with a low carpet of juniper so I don't have to mow along the street anymore.

The backyard, I still plan on putting in an edible labyrinth garden with a gazebo in the center. I will grow grapevines up the gazebo. The Zombie Maple is getting a new dress of wisteria vines. And where my son's current scrapyard exists, I'll put in a mini orchard of apples, apricots, figs, Meyer lemons, and cherries. Of course, that will not happen until I remove all his car, bicycle, wagon, lawnmower, airplane, and motorcycle parts, which means borrowing his truck from his father to haul all of it off to a metal scrap yard. Whatever money I make from that (probably less than $20.00) will start the orchard off.

The only thing I dislike about where I currently live is that we are not allowed to have a compost of any sort. I do cheat by having a small indoor composter, but it's just enough for the indoor plants and not enuogh to support the outdoor gardens.

I ran for mayor last time, in the hopes of being able to loosen some of the home owner restrictions, but the incumbent won. Ah well, maybe next time. It's not as if I spent any money on the campaign, so I didn't lose anything and I gained a lot of new friends. For me, it was a win-win situation.

Except for the compost. I lost out on that issue. This time.