Mid May 2017

Hello, again, my friends and followers!

So it looks like I get back a little quicker this time.  Lack of energy is par for the course with Cushing's so it is a bit difficult to keep up with quite everything I would like to.  That being said I haven't ignored my garden.  Things are going slowly in part because of the continued cold spells which have reached down into the Eastern United States.  I've seen YouTubers remarking about this unusual aspect of the weather this year and showing how to protect vulnerable plants from the cold snaps, which go well below freezing up in the North.  My problem is that the temperatures are just low enough to slow growth down some.  That means there are some harvests that will wait for the fall.

A friend purchased and had two mini greenhouses sent to me and I've put one to use for my shoots and seedlings.  I'm going to have to wait to make some room in another place to set the other one up.  The thing is I don't really want them in direct sunlight all the time because the UV rays break down the plastic covers and I can end up having to replace them every year.  So I'll be keeping them in partial to indirect sunlight, which should be alright for my planned use of them anyway.  I forgot to get a picture the other day of the greenhouse set up the other day.  So we'll see if we can do that next time.  However,

This is from inside the greenhouse and these two cups have Mellow Yellow Tomato seedlings in them.  This is an acid-free variety which isn't easy to get but grow well in my climate and produce fruit abundantly.  I'm growing them for the folks in the house who like the taste of tomatoes but whose stomachs don't handle the acid very well.  They produce a medium to small tomato which is quite tasty, unlike most modern hybrids.  They were developed in Southern Florida by a university down there.  As you can see, they are doing quite well.

To the right are my dwarf Tiny Tim tomatoes planted with, in this case, Genovese Basil.  As they grow I'll keep the basil pruned so it doesn't overgrow the tomato plant and we'll get the benefit of the companion planting along with some fresh basil from the pruning for use in the kitchen.

To the left is a volunteer Genovese Basil plant I'm happy to leave right there in the container it started up in.  That container was given to me with a hybrid tomato plant in it the owner didn't have the time to take care of.  This year, though, the basil popped up.  So this container is taken, folks!

Believe it or not, I was looking for something in the closet and saw these poking up.  I'd placed some sweet potatoes in the closet a couple of years ago and forgotten them.  I'd been wondering how I was going to get some sweet potato plants to plant and there they were.  So I placed them outside in some water, as you can see here.  They are doing well and the leaves are greening and filling out.  so they'll be ready to go soon.

One of my Aloe plants is flowering.  And below that is the carrots in their container.  I decided to harvest the carrots:

I know it's not much, but I've been trying to get some carrots to grow for years and this is the first success with the rainbow carrot seeds I was using.  I've sown another kind among the brassicas and lettuce.  They will serve a triple purpose if the Lord prospers my efforts.  As for that bed:

I planted basil towards the border of the bed and that's what we can see coming up amongst the wood sorrel here.  It looks like I'm getting the first germination from those.

But the basil isn't all that are starting to come up.  So things are going if a little bit slow.

So that's it for now.  I hope you are doing well with your gardening or that I can inspire you to take it up.  It is something we all need to learn how to do and do well.  So, as always:

Smile!

Welcome to Garden 2017!

And the old man remains standing, we think this is this Habanero Pepper plant's third year.  We pruned away the dead parts that didn't make it through the winter and he is ready to face another year and season.  He'll get a bit of TLC through the year and we hope to have a couple of more to join him soon.  We're looking to get some Habanero Jelly out of our efforts this year as we plan to make our own since the source for pepper jelly we had died a few years back and the stock of what he left is gone.  We'll also put some Jalapeños as well and some sweet peppers.  Those are just a few veggies in our plans for this year.

This is a look today at a good bit of our garden in its infancy right now.  These are some of the containers with seedlings in them already growing.  The cups contain tomatoes of the Creole, Zapatero, Black cherry, and Rio Grande varieties.  To te left in the picture are two of the first three planters we started Tiny Tim Tomatoes in with Genovese, Thai, and Dark Opal Basil seeds in them.  there will be more of those for a staggered planting meant to keep us in tomatoes until the big boys start coming in.  We have several trials ongoing on some other stuff and will let you know if they succeed.  Now for a little old news.

To the right are two of the plants from over the winter.  The left one is an Aloe Very which is coming into bloom and we're permitting it just to see what it looks like and maybe get some good pictures if we're lucky.  On its right is a five gallon container we planted with carrots in the Fall.  They are just about ready to pull and we're looking forward to that.  Carrots are one of the veggies we've had a tough time growing and getting to any kind of size.  But it looks like maybe we've been blessed this time.  While we've already scattered some carrot seed in among the lettuce we've sowed seed for, this is a pretty good lesson that for us carrots may be better planted in the Fall for a Spring harvest for us.

The same thing could be said for Garlic, which we also planted in the Fall using cloves from bulbs purchased from our local grocery store  They seem to be doing pretty well off as well.  The few checks we've made showed us they were not ready yet.  But we'll probably check again today to see what we've got.  We'll be happy if everything comes up fine because we do love garlic in our food and nothing beats the cloves.  We were happy to see these grow!

To the right, here, is a volunteer Sweet Potato plant which has taken root from the vine.  There are several more, giving us an idea we'll get into in a later report.

And here are the bunching onions.  Those are from a stock started five years ago by our housemates and which we keep dividing every year and keep replanting some while eating the rest.  So no seed cost there.  On to the rest.

The French Marigolds we thought killed off by the last cold snap didn't completely perish and we're already getting some spring blooms going.  That is a plant that will stick around through the year so we're looking forward, God willing, to some more beauty because those tend to sprout flowers with different color schemes of burgundy and gold.  We've also planted some Sugar Baby Watermelon seeds in the back of the planter, where there is some room so that we'll have vines cascading down the back and into the garden beyond to join the party we plan to have going soon.  Ours is a long-term plan to build soil with some short-term benefits in the way of vegetables and fruit.  Nothing is wated and everything towards that long term goal.

This container has two kinds of volunteer plants going.  There are some morning glories of one of the so-called Moon Flower varieties.  The other appears to be Amaranth, which I'm going to have to move out of the container to get what I intend to do in that bed.  I do have a place to put them in the planned scheme of things so we'll see if they are.  If they are we should have a beautiful front garden this year.

The same variety of Moon Flower is also growing in the bed around the bottom of the container as well, though, one has to look kind of closely to see them.  Yesterday we sowed some California Bluebell and Purple Coneflower seeds in a layered scheme from front to back in that bed.  We will plant what we think are the Amaranth seedlings in the other front bed at the back and will put Jalapeño Pepper plants in front of them.  The Amaranth would be Love Lies Bleeding and we think the combination across the front will look nice if everything turns out fine.

Yesterday we also sowed seed for Chinese Cabbage, miniature Bock Choy, Giant Red, Butter Crunch lettuce along with one of those tiny varieties of Lettuce we can't remember the name of at the moment and we sowed carrot seeds in among them since the brassicas tend to get along well with the carrots.  We also sowed all three varieties of Basil mentioned earlier at the front part of the bed as a border.  We're not done planting by any means, but we now have a good start on the garden.  Oh, the Brassicas were planted so the smaller ones are at the part of the bed at the front of the house and work their way towards the faucet in blocks of larger plants.  We did this hoping to have a pleasing effect when seen from the street out front.

We do have volunteer morning glories in the usual spot and we have some beans growing as well in the spot they really liked last year.  One of the good things about the containers for a small garden which makes the cost worth it is that we can grow different kinds of plants in the same place in the beds year after year and only need to rotate the containers, not the plants, from year to year.  That's what we do with some of the plantings.  With the other beds we amend.

So, that's our start on the year.  And as always:

A Look Around The Garden

Before going onto more areas it might be a good idea to take a look around the garden to see where I'm at right now.  To start the ball rolling, this is what I have to work with:

So what I have is the raised bed out front and next to it then some of the beds on the side of the duplex we see on the right.  thanks to the generosity of those next door I also have all of the back yard next to the back fence.  So let's start there:

So, you get to see one of the reasons I can garden.  I use an old chair from the short time I was confined to bed by my back.  but what we also see is the work table I share with the housemate who prefers to grow flowers.  The biggest feature in the garden here is the Seminole Pumpkin plant, which grows all the way across the back space from the left to the right and climbs right up out fence.  The size of the leaves which mostly get partial light are awesome!  And that's just the one plant.  On the left we see one of the trellises I put together this year for my tomatoes.  The Pumpkin Plant is in the grow bag the vertical part of the frame on the left is.

This is a closer view of the same trellis taken not long ago showing the growth of some of my tomatoes at that time.  were going to take a look at a couple of closeup photos of them next.

This is the same trellis now:

 

 And close in to see some of the tomatoes on one of the plants.

And this is one of the cluster of flowers on another of the plants.

This is at the center of the back garden and these are Tiny Tim Tomatoes I have in a five gallon container along with some Genovese Basil.  these are the tomatoes I'm currently enjoying.

This is a potted set of Rainbow Coleus plants I am keeping on the worktable as an ornament at the moment.  They're a little something I put together because my wife loves Coleus.  A little later I'll save the seeds and plant again next year to keep them going for her.

Moving along to the next area, the one at the back of the side of the building:

These are some Aloe plants a neighbor gave me when i happened upon them dividing a ton of them for his sister.  So he asked me if i would like some and gave them to me.  Next to them on the left is a container of lettuce I'm growing for cut and come again harvesting.  And to the right we see some leaves from a Scarlet Sage plant.  Behind that we find:

This is the other trellis I made and it has both pole beans and tomatoes running up it.  For some reason the beans gave me plenty of flowers, but no beans.  I don't know if it was already too hot or what went I planted them.  I'm hoping to do better another time.  In front of those we find:

Bunching onions!  These were originally planted in that green container several years before I got started and then left alone until I started gardening and the ladies spread them out in the container.  I've enjoyed them for several years now and decided to divide them up and planted some in the other container and some along the front of my other bed.  Planted behind them are Morning Glories and we can see some French Marigolds to the right.  Those are part of my efforts.

This is the bed at the front of the side.  It is planted along the lines Dr. Lind Scott-Walker of the University of Seattle, WA, recommended to me when I first planted this bed.  The near part is oriental vegetables with Chinese Cabbage and Bok Choi planted, the Cabbage in front.  My lettuce and carrots are n the distance there and some of the lettuce is bolting.  As you can see I do have some weeds i plant to do what is called a chop and drop on. But the real problem children are the grass rooting its way in and Dollar weeds doing the same from the other side.

 Now we're around front and see the 3x5 raised bed which is a little underutilized right now.  It does have peppers, the ones in the back are Habenro Peppers and in front of them are some California Wonder peppers I think.  In the front corner is a small patch of Spicy Oregano.

Another view of the of some of the peppers and the sweet potatoes planted beside them.  The Habanero in the pot is in its second year of production and popping with fruit.

And those are containers of Beauregard Sweet Potatoes and the red one in the back has my Moon and Stars Watermelon plant.

 I failed to mention when we were around back that I have another kind of Sweet potatoes growing behind the Pumpkin plant.  They are volunteers from some I grew last year I'd grown from one Sweet Potato I bought in the store.  I also have Bee Balm, three kinds of Basil and a Tiny Tim Tomato plant in the same bed.  The Tiny Tim was a volunteer which sprang up in the front bed and which I transplanted to the back.

 The flower at the left is a Seminole Pumpkin flower.  The Seminole Pumpkin is the variety the Indians grew right here in South Georgia and took South with them as they fled the forced deportation to the West.  After they became the Seminole and started profiting from gambling the pumpkin became a wild plant which grows in the Everglades.  I got the seeds for these from a gardener on E-bay who is growing them and selling the seeds to those interested in keeping this old variety going in gardens.

And the red flowers are an attempted close up of the Scarlet Sage Flowers.

Well, that's it.  That is my small garden I am working with and how I'm doing with it right now.  So I wish all of you the best and as always:

Smile!