Best garden tour ever
Posted on 7 June 2010 | 3 responses
Permaculture garden on the side of the river levee. The summer squash are already producing, and look at that fennel!
(Photo by Dave Larzelere)
The very best garden tours take you to real people’s real gardens, where you can talk to the gardeners who created them and do the work. The tour I attended yesterday may be my favorite of all time. Just five gardens, but incredible variety!
First, the permaculture garden created by Holly. The large mixed ornamental/edible garden with terraces on the side of the Sacramento river levee just vibrated with life and fertility. I loved to listen to Holly – she’s incredibly knowledgeable about permaculture, but even more than that, she seemed so attuned to that space and those plants that she knew exactly what they needed to thrive.
Mine was second, then Elizabeth’s back yard garden. I loved it. She had curving beds carefully situated throughout the back yard to take advantage of sun and shade and lots of wonderful plantings and whimsical accents. I also really liked her outdoor dining area–so comfortable and inviting that I just wanted to plop down and stay.
Dave’s large garden was a revelation to me. He chooses beautiful, vigorous, waterwise plants and just sets them free. He has a deep backyard with a winding path through the middle and a riot of beautiful plants, such as huge purple butterfly bushes, that have been allowed to spread and intermingle in a completely natural way. This whole approach made a deep impression on me. I doubt that I’d ever be able to relinquish control that much, but I just love the beauty of what he’s created. And I’ll definitely think twice before I pull up a volunteer next time.
One of Karen's two large, beautiful koi ponds.
(Photo by Dave Larzelere)
Finally, Karen’s garden was amazing. She grows all edibles — bananas and kiwis and avocados and every fruit tree imaginable, plus she has gorgeous koi ponds in the backyard, a freestanding music/band room that she built herself for her own rock band and her sons’ bands to practice, a beautiful mosaic-tiled sitting area in front (she did it herself), murals she painted on the garage wall and a “Monet” mural she’s painting for the garden gate, a beehive, a bat house, and on and on. She’s a whirlwind of creativity.
Karen's beehive. She attended beekeeping school to learn how to care for them!
(Photo by Dave Larzelere)
June garden, April weather
Posted on 5 June 2010 | 6 responses
Tomatoes lower left and upper right, basil, eggplant & beans lower right, squash and beans upper left. Leek flowers in background and nasturtiums here and there.
After a long, cool, wintry spring, we may be about to jump headfirst into summer. The forecast says the temp will finally reach 90 today, weeks later than our normal first 90 of the year.
Except for some powdery mildew on my roses and crepe myrtle, the cool, wet spring doesn’t really seem to have done any harm. In fact, I think my tomatoes are better for having a chance to get settled in and growing well before that first blast of summer heat. They couldn’t look healthier, and the two cherry varieties (sungold and sugar smack) have reached the seventh rung on the tomato cages, about 36 inches. They were about 12 inches high when I did the last blog update, 17 days ago!
Every tomato plant has set little tomatoes, and the sungold has several of those long clusters that make me so happy. Normally, I would have found one or two ripe sungolds by this time, but it looks like that’s still a few weeks away.
Everything else is growing just as well. I pulled out the peas and planted an assortment of other pole beans on that long trellis. The other trellis is all Blue Lake pole beans, so on the new one, I planted 1/4 each Spanish Musica, rattlesnake, purple pole and French gold. If nothing else, it should be colorful!
Elsewhere in the garden, things are looking good. The raised planter on the side of the house (pictured in my header) is overflowing with color, dominated by the snapdragons I planted for winter color last fall. They just sat there looking uncomfortable until about a month ago, and now they’re blooming their heads off. It will interesting to see how long they last in the summer heat. My back fence is completely covered with white star jasmine blossoms that perfume the whole garden, house, and probably the neighbors’ as well now that it’s finally warmed up. That’s only fair, considering the cold suppressed the citrus blossom smell almost entirely this spring.
About a year ago, I joined a yahoo group of mostly women gardeners here in East Sac. Tomorrow we’re having a private tour of one anothers’ gardens. I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of them and showing off my own.
Jasmine keeps growing over this sun and a matching moon plaque. Occasionally I remember them and prune away enough to expose them again.
Summer garden progress
Posted on 19 May 2010 | 5 responses
The peas should probably be classified as winter/spring garden plants, but this year’s cool weather has allowed them to linger on and on and on. I love sugar snap peas, but I’m beginning to tire of them! Also, I think I probably should have shopped more carefully for the seeds I used. I bought a package of “Suzie Irwin’s Squirrel’s Choice Sugar Snap Pole Peas” at my garden center, and I seem to have an assortment of the sugar snaps I expected mixed with snow peas and regular garden peas. I won’t buy that brand again.
When I take the peas out in a few weeks, I’ll plant a second crop of pole beans. I NEVER get tired of green beans.
I planted tomatoes May 1, when they looked like this:
I measure the growth of my tomato plants by the squares in the cages, which are about five inches. When they were planted, they just barely reached the first five inch mark, but now they’ve more than doubled in height. Two and a half weeks later, the same plant looks like this.
(That’s Fat Lizzie doing her head-down badger walk in the background.)
I planted six California Wonder pepper plants, three gold and three red, about a week ago. The plants were small, but they seem to be off to a good start.
My Blue Lake pole beans are just getting their second set of leaves after a cruel attack by snails (Sluggo to the rescue), and my lemon cucumber and green and yellow pattypan squash seeds just sprouted in the past couple of days.
I also planted three eggplants, even though I’m not all that fond of eggplant, because they are such beautiful plants. I do like ratatouille (well disguised eggplant) and I can always leave them on the neighbors’ porches.
Planting tomatoes
Posted on 2 May 2010 | 4 responses
I order my tomato plants from a company only 80 miles or so away. I don’t start them from seed because I don’t really have a place indoors to do it, and because I have room for only one or two of each of five or six varieties.
I used to buy them at local nurseries, but one too many times I got tomatoes that obviously weren’t the variety labeled. I don’t know if it’s the fault of the nursery, or the wholesaler, or careless customers, but it made me crazy.
Anyway, Natural Gardening Company has a wonderful selection of varieties and strong, healthy plants. They arrive at my house just one day after they’re shipped, in beautiful condition.
This year I planted 4 Carmellos, 2 Sungold, 2 Sugar Snack, 2 Big Beef, 1 Pruden’s Purple, and 1 Persimmon. I planted them two to a cage on April 29, almost three weeks later than normal, because of our cold rainy spring. In my experience, it works better to wait than to set plants out too early — they really don’t like the cold.
I know most people would tell me that it’s a terrible mistake to plant them two to a cage, but I tried it several years ago with one cage and had wonderful results, so I’ve been doing it successfully ever since. I also don’t prune suckers from my plants. With Sacramento’s hot sun, I think the extra leaves help protect the fruits from sunburn.
I usually get my first ripe tomatoes (a few sungolds or other cherry size) by June 1. This year I think I’ll be lucky to have any by mid-June.
The summer garden. Finally.
Posted on 27 April 2010 | 2 responses
Purple cabbage - so beautiful to look at that it earned its keep without ever producing even a tiny head of cabbage
Over the last couple of days, I’ve removed most of the remaining plants from last fall’s garden. The potatoes are all scrubbed and distributed in my refrigerator and those of a few neighbors. The sugar snap peas I planted in February are still in the ground with zillions of pods just starting to fatten up, and I’m waiting for two small patches of leeks to flower, so I can refresh my dried leeks and lavender arrangement. Everything else (except a short row of shallots) is gone, and the beds have been prepped for planting.
My vegetable garden, all ready for planting summer vegetables
It’s late. I normally plant my tomatoes on or near April 10, after I’m sure the soil is warm. This year it has been so cold that all I did on April 10 was email Natural Gardening and ask them to delay shipment two weeks on my tomatoes, peppers, and basil.
One and a half boxes will be devoted to six big cages of tomatoes (top right and lower left), peppers and basil will share the box at top left where the peas are growing now, the first crop of green beans will grow on my new bean fence in the box at lower left, and somewhere in the spaces left I will have pattypan squash and lemon cucumbers.
It’s cold, rainy and windy today, but the 10 day forecast shows nothing but sunshine after a few showers tomorrow morning. So now I’m just waiting for the UPS truck to deliver my plants and the rain to stop.