December 23, 2013

My turmeric is getting bigger and has some real leaves on it!!  A second (of the three) root is also starting to break ground.  I hope that all three will sprout and will be big and healthy enough, by spring, to transplant outside.  I like putting a tiny bit of turmeric in my dogs' food, and I also like to add it to green juice.

December 18, 2013

Well, the snowfall we had last week knocked out my poinsettia.  I am pretty sure it will come back next spring, but it went from a beautiful bushy plant to a few sticks in a matter of days.

And the tomato plants are ready for the compost heap.

December 8, 2013

My turmeric plant is starting to unfurl its first leaf! 

NO idea what this is, but it survived the first snows and has promise!  This is growing in the pot where I planted pumpkin and got butternut squash.  It came up after I harvested the squash.

My baby blood oranges are also holding their own through the snow!  (Behind them, the miniature roses are being troopers, as well.  After what they went through at K-Mart, and their near death experience, a little snow is nothing to them!)

December 3, 2013

Wow, I kind of gave up on this blog.  Here I am, breathing new life into it (hopefully).

Turmeric!!  I planted some a turmeric root this year, and after waiting a very, very long time (months), it sprouted.  I babied it for another couple of months, then, after it had a few leaves, transplanted it into the garden, giving it a whole garden bed to spread out in.  Within forty-eight hours, the gophers had eaten it. 

So, this time, I planted THREE tubers.  And one finally sprouted!!    I will let it (and hopefully, its brethren) winter in the house, and then I will probably put it in an Earthbox to keep it safe.  I am hoping to be able to harvest some tubers by this time next year!

July 29

 Harvested the hollyhock pods for next year!

Also onion seeds

And the gophers and ground squirrels left me a few potatoes!

These are from the "dead" strawberry plants I picked up from K-Mart last year.  I am getting a handful or so of berries a week - not much, but a nice treat!

I planted this particular squash plant about a month after the others, and it is just now getting baby squash on it!

And here is my grocery store watercress.  It is growing in a very tight bunch, rather than the leggy plants that I bought.  I am not sure which is the healthier version, but as long as it is green, I am okay with it.

And do you remember the poinsettia that I left in the office over Christmas?  It was a stick when I returned, because no one thought to water the poor thing.  With a little TLC, and a little time in my magic garden window, it came back to life.  I transplanted it to a larger pot out on the deck, and it is looking beautiful!

July 19

The tomatoes are FINALLY ripening!

The cherry tomatoes (volunteer plant) started slowly producing about a week ago, but this is the first week for the "real" tomatoes!  And they are sweet, juicy, and delicious!

I have been eating tomatoes every day.  :)

I also harvested about half of the planted garlic, and I am prepping the cloves to preserve them.  New recipe, so we'll see.   I'll give you the results of that in my "Fluff and Feathers"  blog.










The plums and pluots are also ripe, and I'm trying to get them before the birds do.  :)  I

June 18

I haven't been good about posting, but there also hasn't been much going on in the garden.  The zucchini plant has been producing reliably, but everything else is still immature.  I am watching the one large bell pepper on my pepper plant, waiting for it to turn red.  Same with the tomatoes.

I did have one casualty.  I noticed that one of my two zucchini plants was looking a little wilted.  I touched it, and it fell over, a victim of a gopher.  Happily, the other zucchini plant has not been touched, but I was annoyed, because the one that was murdered was just starting to produce fruit.

My volunteer tomato plant appears to be a cherry variety.  Time will tell if they are any good!  The only cherry tomatoes I planted last year were hybrids.  I finally did find an heirloom cherry tomato, but too late to plant this year.

My rhubarb plant is going gangbusters.  I need to figure out what to make with it!  The only thing I know to use rhubarb for is pies and green juice!

The potatoes are also doing well.  No idea if I have any potatoes under there, with stealth gophers in the garden, but I am hopeful.

This is as far as the turmeric had come, prior to somebody (I think a bird) ate all the leaves.  It is now a little stick again, but I put a cage over it, and I am hoping it comes back.










The cantaloupe is finally starting to take off!

As is the grapevine!

And yet another volunteer tomato plant has appeared.  It isn't getting as much water as the others, but it seems to be holding its own.  It started much later in the season than the others, so it is much smaller.

And in the world of volunteers, my "wild" spearmint is also doing well.  I had some peppermint out there as well, but I think the spearmint choked it out.

June 5, 2013

First veggie harvest!!

I waited a little too long on one of these and it was pretty big, so I used it in my green juice this morning.  The other one is just the perfect size and will likely be steamed and eaten as part of dinner tomorrow.  :)

I have been "harvesting" blackberries and strawberries from my potted plants, but these are the first two items from my garden. 

June 2, 2013

Well, May was crazy and I didn't keep up with the blog.  I did keep up with the garden, but felt like everything just sat there and refused to grow.   Then I left for New York, and when I returned....

 Zucchini

Onion (with scallions behind it)

Tomato

Rhubarb

Wild volunteer tomato

Horseradish (newly transplanted from a pot)

Turmeric (started in the house and took FOREVER to grow)

Three-fer:  zucchini plant in the back with potato plant in the foreground, and Italian parsley in front of that.  (Long story)

 Bell pepper

 Hollyhock

 Potted strawberries

 Detail of strawberry

 Potted blackberries

 Same plant, more berries....

Potatoes (russet)

Still a disappointing showing for the lemon cucumber.

And no real signs of growth from the Charentais melon.

All-organic, natural bug repellent

April 27, 2013

Ooh, it has been a while, hasn't it?  I have been gardening, but the weather has been cool, so there wasn't much growth to report.  The last week was sunny, and everything seemed to jump-start, so here is the status thus far....

First, for those of you reading my ranch blog, you can see that I have been through a series of animal veterinary crises; subsequently, all the money that I have been saving toward my new big garden area has gone into Girl the Donkey's hoof and Riley the Dog's rattlesnake bite treatment.  Sigh.  Maybe next year.   I am thinking about starting with chain link sections, rather than putting in a permanent fence, so I can do a test-run without investing a lot of money into it.  If it doesn't work out, I can always use chain link elsewhere on the property.

The smaller garden is going gangbusters, however, now that the grey pine is cut down and the garden is getting full sun!  I also spent some time last weekend putting in a drip-line, so I don't have to go out there and move an overhead sprinkler around constantly.  The drip-line and a mechanical timer have lessened my work load considerably!!

I have decided that I started my indoor seeds too early.  Even though the same plants were available as plants from the nursery, seedlings and plants alike just sat there and did nothing for months, while the weather stayed cool.  So I really didn't get any advantage from starting the plants as early as I did.  I ALWAYS start them too soon, because I am so anxious for the gardening season to begin!  :)

Here is the current line-up:

 I *think* this is horseradish.  Long story, but I planted one a long, long time ago, in a pot, and this is what keeps coming up every year.  I transplanted this from one of the roots, just to keep it going.  :)

Cantaloupe.  One of those plants that just sat there for about a month, it is FINALLY starting to show signs of life!

Bell pepper plant. 

 Onion chives.

 Hollyhock.  This is a volunteer from last year's plants, so it will be fun to see what kind of flowers it produces.

The ubiquitous zucchini plant.  No garden is whole without one.  :)

Lemon cucumber.  Another one of those plants that has been just sitting there.

 Red chili pepper plant.

 Flat-leaf parsley.  Happily, this little guy is going crazy.  :)

 Garlic and scallions

Last year's rhubarb.  The ground squirrels love this thing, for some reason, and last year, they ate ALL the leaves off of it.  It somehow survives, and I am hoping to be able to harvest some stalks this year.

 Rutger's tomato plant. 

Cherokee Purple tomato plant.  It isn't doing as well as the other plant, and I even had to take a dead branch off of it, but it looks like it is bouncing back.

 The russet potatoes I planted are just starting to sprout!  :)

The asparagus plants are doing very well.  I am giving this this year to really get rooted in well, and next year, I intend to have fresh asparagus on the table!

Just outside the garden, I have my grapevines trellised and on a drip, and they are doing well.  Now if I can just beat the birds and squirrels to the grapes!

On the deck, the flat-leaf parsley I planted from seed is just now starting to show signs of life.

The blackberries on the deck are doing well.  Hopefully, by June or July, I'll have enough to snack on.  :)

The blood orange seeds I planted are all doing well.  I just finished laying new irrigation lines on the slope between me and my idiot neighbor, so I will be planting these out in fall.

And my little discount roses from K-Mart made it!!!  I have all three planted in a long planter, and they are green and happy and growing new leaves.

And now for something completely different (for all you Monty Python fans out there).  This little tomato plant is growing at the corner of my compost bin.  Considering that I had about five varieties planted last year, it could be just about anything.  I am letting it grow, just to see what I get.  :)

Hard to see it in this picture, but his is third generation dill growing up by the fish pond.  I planted some "butterfly and beneficial insect" forage mix a few years back and one of the plants was dill.  It keeps reseeding.

Water lilies (?) in full bloom in pond