Hello Again!!!!

I have had out of town guests for the last 2 weeks, and have barely managed to get out to weed the garden.  Of course I am so damn grateful for an excuse not to weed.  I have learned that I absolutely, positively, do not want to weed.  I take every opportunity and excuse that comes along to get out of weeding.  It is particularly wicked in my garden because it had not been planted for several years before I moved in with my partner, and the garden plot, although still visible around the perimeter, was overgrown with wild grasses.  I don't know how many of you have any experience with wild grass, but it takes hold and is almost impossible to get rid of.  The roots are miles long, and the grass grows fast and tall.  So, when I go out to weed, I am not merely picking little weeds around the peas and beans, I am taking a hoe, and digging 2 ft deep trenches, chasing the grass roots around the garden.  I disagree that cockroaches will be the only thing to survive an apocalypse.  The planet will be covered in wild grasses, second only to the cockroaches.

My partner tilled the garden twice before we planted.  Evidently all that did was chop the grass off at ground level.  There is a veritable highway of tangled roots beneath the surface.  When I am out there sweating and hoeing and trying to pull up the blasted grass, he lovingly assures me that next year will be better.  He says he will till it several more times.  My guess is that it will take a hundred years or so to get rid of the grass.  So I have fabricated a new plan in my mind.  I am going to do 15 minutes of grass hunting each day.  Before I die, the garden should be in good shape for the next generation.

My peas are thriving.  We will have some food in about 2 weeks I think.  I have noticed the local farmer's markets have peas already.  I got started late, but I am going to get peas.  The beans got attacked by slugs, so they were not doing well.  I put down some slug pellets around the rows of beans, and I fertilized everything, so now the beans are also doing well.  Here's a shocker...the popcorn is coming up and growing quite quickly.  I am a popcorn addict, so I cannot wait to see if it actually pops.  

The biggest surprise for me is the chili peppers.  They are all healthy and big, and staked up and growing like crazy.  There are even a couple of peppers on some of the plants.  For the life of me, I never knew it was warm enough here to grow chili peppers.  I have this image in my mind of the red and green chili peppers grown in the southwest.  I am excited and very surprised that we can grow them.  I am excited because they look so pretty in the garden.  I do not eat peppers of any kind.  I don't like the taste of bell peppers, and I definitely don't like spicy heat.  My partner is growing them and he loves them.  I am happy to have the color in the garden.

The potatoes are also doing great.  I have no idea when to cover them and let them continue growing below the ground.  I look at the pictures, and read all the stuff but I cannot tell if it is time to cover them up.  I have about 5 inches of dirt around them.  I am thinking that today is the day to cover them up.  We'll see.  I will have a better idea next year.  I am going to use the straw to cover them and let them grow.  Some of the books say I can cover them with a tarp.  I think that the straw will provide insulation and some aeration.  I don't know if that is necessary, but it sounds good to me.  Plus, it is prettier than blue plastic covering my  food.

I have noticed something pretty amazing when I am out there hovered over the plants, pulling the weeds.  Each type of food has it's very own look-alike weed.  It is incredible...down the row of peas are some weeds that grow and appear very similar to the peas.  Same thing with the beans...and the onions and corn.  It is truly inspiring to see.  But alas...the poor weeds have no hope of survival because of my discerning eye.  I am quite proud of myself that I am able to tell the difference between a weed and food.  6 months ago that would not have been the case.  This reassures me that I am learning and am not totally garden-impaired.  I may get the hang of this in a couple of years. 

I am still waiting for the feeling of "one with the earth".  I am not there yet.  I am still struggling to understand it all.  I don't like bugs.  I am terrified of snakes, and worms still make my stomach queasy.  There are these black small jumping spiders all over the garden that I have to fight not to squish.  I don't know if I can ever get to the point that I will revere all the creatures, but I am definitely grateful for the food I am growing, and I appreciate the value of composting and recycling.  That may be as good as it gets, so to all of you naturalists...I apologize for my irreverence.  It's a curse.  I am working on it though.

Until next time...
Karen

Worm Poop

I have been doing some studying about composting.  We have a box behind the greenhouse that is a composting box.  Evidently (I don't know because I didn't put it together) it has a screen on the bottom.  There is no bottom because the compost material is supposed to attract worms to come help compost.  I had no idea.  So the composting is complete when the material in the box is dark,  "moist yet crumbly to touch" and has an "earthy smell".  It took me a while, but after doing a lot of reading,  I think I understand that the finished product is worm poop.   I read that I can buy worms to add to the compost pile.  They help aerate it, and they eat the garbage...the end result is what they poop out.  I guess that is cheaper than the zoo doo, but it takes a lot of freaking worms to produce a pile the size of elephant poo.  So maybe zoo doo is a better, quicker deal.  I am contemplating all this.

I think that with zoo doo...I miss the opportunity to recycle my unused garbage and put everything back to earth, rather than in a land fill.  Philosophically this makes a lot of sense and feels right.  But practically, I am OK with sprinkling zoo doo for quick results.  I am going to ruminate on this.

Some of the issues I have with the whole composting thing is that  I cannot compost any meat, dairy, or greasy foods that attract pests.  This is a nice, clean word for rats.  At least that's my guess.  Pet poop should also not be used in the pile.  I can put "green material" in the pile.  That consists of veggies, and grass clippings and yard waste.  For every amount of green material, an equal amount of brown material needs to be added.  Brown material can be wood chips, hay, twigs, wood ashes, dried out leaves, or dried out lawn clippings.   Organic brown material can include:  clean cotton or wool rags, DRYER LINT, string, rope, untreated hair...where will THAT come from?  and paper towels with no grease on them.  I have two bails of straw that were supposed to be for the garden over the winter.  I could use that.  Or, I could become obsessive and start collecting dryer lint and scooping hair out of the sinks, and the vacuum cleaner bag...(not a chance of that happening). 

After I add the brown material on top of the green material, I can mix it up.  Then on top of that I add some soil.  It introduces microorganisms to speed up the decomposing process. 

Before I even begin, 3-4 inches of twigs needs to be added to the bottom of the pile to promote air circulation and avoid odors.   Avoid odors?  We have rotting food and worm poop.  My guess is if I don't want odors, don't compost.

Once again, I have questions.  The book says the material cannot be too hot or too cold.   OK...in Arizona, 90 degrees is a warm day.  Here, 55 is a warm day.  So I am guessing if I see icicles or steam, I have missed the mark.

  Too moist is also a problem.  It should be "moist".  Alrighty then, moist it is.  Not wet, not dry, moist. 

This composting could be waaaaayyyyyyy more trouble than it is worth.  It sounds as though I could conceivably spend my days running around collecting green and brown material, and mixing garbage inside a bin.  The bottom of the bin has an opening for removal of the composing material.  I am envisioning a huge pile of moist, dark rich composted stuff when it is all done.  Wrong again!  It looks from the pictures that this 50 gallon bin will produce about 3 tablespoons of composted material.  Enough for a small petunia.  This is why I am having serious doubts about cost effectiveness and time spent with this whole composting thing.

Zoo doo is looking better and better.  I know myself well enough to know that I am going to have to try this, and see what comes up.  If it doesn't work out, or turns out that I suck at composting, I will entertain the thought next year of having a load of zoo doo delivered.  The only thing stopping me right now is that I will have to get out there in my hip boots and spread poo all by myself.  As fabulous as he is, I don't think I could talk my partner into shoveling s*** for me.

I will keep you "posted". 

Karen

P.S.  I don't know if I am spelling Zoo Doo correctly, so if anyone knows...please enlighten me.

The Gate

I would like to announce that my gate is finished, hung, and keeping the critters at bay.  It is beautiful.  It is a double-sided gate, meeting in the middle of the opening.  It comes together correctly, and has a slide bolt latch.  I carefully slide open the latch, and push on the gates...it opens inward, and voila!!!!!!   There are my two tiny rows of greenery.  It is a gate that could keep out an armoured tank.  I love the gate.  The gate posts on each side have a pointy topper to cover the top of the post.  It looks like a little castle gate out there.  Very cool....best in the neighborhood.  Too bad it's out back and no one can see it.  I knew it would be fabulous.

I was outside trying to pull weeds on Saturday, and I had to stop after a short while because I couldn't tell the weeds from the food.  I can find the bean sprouts, so that's no problem, but there is a row of tiny green stuff coming up in one of the popcorn rows.  It is surrounded by grass and weeds, so I cannot determine what's what.  That worked out just fine for me, because I still have not become one with the earth, and I really hate pulling weeds.  I hate that sweaty sticky feeling...the one where you are so hot and miserable and tired that it feels as though bugs are crawling all over your scalp?  You know the one...well, I am ecstatic to have a reason to quit.  I will need some new excuses for next year when I have learned to tell the difference between food and weeds.

I transplanted the tomato plants that were in the greenhouse out into the garden.  I put the tomato fences around each plant, and now it is starting to look like a real garden. 

I noticed in my mounds of squash and pumpkin...lots of green sprouts coming up.  This dark, rich, moist mound of dirt that I planted the seeds in, came out of a large planter that was not in use in the back yard.  It sat under the bird feeder, and I am pretty sure after looking in the books, that I am sprouting sunflowers in the squash mound.  The seeds fell out of the feeder, into that pot, and now I have transplanted them into the garden.  Sadly, there are so many of them I am going to have to take them out.  I am going to try to replant them around the edge of the garden so it will look like all those perfect gardens in the magazines.

I am not sure how wet to keep the ground, but on the days that it doesn't rain, I have been watering the garden.  The salad bowl lettuce is the same size as it was 2 weeks ago.  I don't know how big it gets, but maybe I should pull some up and eat it, and see how it tastes.  I can always plant more...right?  All of the peppers in the greenhouse are sprouting flowers, so I think the peppers will be fine finishing their life out in the greenhouse.  I have some new information on composting, but that is for tomorrow.

Until tomorrow,
Karen

Beans Beans......etc. etc.

The grass is starting to take over the garden.  I was muttering to my future husband about the grass and saying that I think it is good for the garden.  I launched into my thoughts about it protecting my food, and he said in his gentle quiet way:  "I think that actually it sucks the nutrients away from the food that is trying to grow".  Damn.  So I have a new plan....Saturday I will be pulling grass and weeds out of the garden. 

I went outside to look at ground and see if I could tell the difference between weeds and whatever may be growing.  I'll be darned if there aren't rows of green bean starts emerging from the soil!!!!!  How fabulous is that!!!  Food!!!! It's growing!!!  WOO HOO!!!   I can hardly believe it.  I am so excited I might dance around a little where no one can see me. 

I noticed something interesting when I was looking at the bean starts.  I know they are bean starts because as they pop up out of the soil, they have little teeny white hangy down things that look like they might be something important eventually.  That's not the interesting part.  The interesting part is that I planted all the seeds in a straight row.  Those  sprouts are coming up not in a straight row.  Some are a couple inches to the right, a couple inches to the left, and some have 2 little sprouts coming up in one spot.  No wonder it has taken so long to see them.  Most of them are not growing straight up...they are taking a detour underground.  I wonder what causes that?   I know they are from the seeds  I planted because in the dirt close to where each of these sprouts is popping up is the white skin of the seed, laying on the ground open.  Very weird.  Not at all what I expected to see.

 So gardening is not the neat little rows of food that I expected.  Not that I care.  I am a slob by profession, and so I don't care if it is neat or not, I am just surprised.  I have taken occasional hits about my messiness, and lack of "organization".  I always argue that I can find what I need.  I know where my stuff is.  In my world, if you can find it, you are organized.  So it is quite affirming to discover that this beautiful garden of mine works under the same universal principal.  Neatness plays no part in nature.  The beauty of what we see, and the miracle of growth is not neat and tidy.  But it is miraculous nevertheless. 

We are supposed to have another 70 degree day today.  I am sitting at my dining table looking out at the water, and the trees and all the lavender that is blooming, and I am getting ready for the day.  It is a shorts and sandals outdoor day today.

Until tomorrow...when I am almost sure I will have more to say,

Karen

The Greenhouse Proper

That greenhouse is a whole city unto itself.  It is totally self-contained and it is like walking into another universe to go in there.  It smells good, it is warm and sunny.  I can feel the plants growing and the quiet is amazing.  I could make this my version of  a man cave.  I just need a bit more room for my computer, a mirror, some music, a place for my books and I am set.  There is always one vent open so it doesn't get too humid.  Now with the shade blanket on...I have to admit, the temperature stays very warm and steady.

I still have the peppers and the tomato starts in there.  It is still so cold around here (50's and 60's most days) that I don't dare put them outside.  The peppers are in big enough pots that they may be able to stay in there.  The tomatoes, however, I don't think will grow anymore until they have more space.  I am just waiting (patiently) for the sun to come out on a regular basis.

I went out to the garden last evening to look around again.  The peas are doing well.  The bunching onions are still little threads of green.  The salad bowl lettuce looks like it hasn't done anything since I put the starts in the ground.  All the seeds I planted a little over a week ago are still seeds.  My guess is that I am a bit impatient (shocker), and it is still a little cool for much activity.  I am hoping the seeds are lying in wait for summer and will begin to sprout as soon as the sun comes up.

I read about a woman who raises everything in her greenhouse.  She gets lots of good food, and it survives and thrives in the greenhouse.  I have decided that I am going to get a huge 30 gallon pot, fill it with soil and plant three or four different kinds of lettuce, and leave it in the greenhouse.  I am going to get another big pot and take a crack at growing some cucumbers.  I am going to just leave them in the greenhouse and see what happens.  I have planted the pumpkin and summer squash and am anxiously waiting for the summer squash.  The book says it is a cool weather crop...so I am waiting for the green to appear.

I have begun looking at some composting information.  There is a composting box thingy out behind our greenhouse.  I don't remember the details, but evidently there is stuff I can dump in the decaying garbage to help it break down into something really stinky that I can put on the soil after the garden is done growing.  I have to read some more to see if it would be like fertilizer to put it around the plants.  Someone also told me that I could add some sort of worms in the whole mess and they eat all the garbage and then what I have left is some very nutritious worm poop for on the garden.  Yummmmmmm  sounds delicious. 

I think that the Woodland Park Zoo still sells Zoo Doo.  Is that just hysterical or what?  What a fabulous recycle idea, and I bet it is great for the dirt.  I am thinking if we get some giant animal poo like lion or elephant poo, it will keep the small herbivores out of the garden.  I mean what raccoon or deer is going to want to risk being eaten by a lion or smashed by an elephant foot?  I am liking this concept. I wonder if they deliver?????

Until next time...
Karen

The Shade Blanket

We had our second sunny day!  In the aftermath of almost killing the tomatoes, my partner decides he is going to put the SHADE BLANKET on the top of the greenhouse.  Shade blanket?????  Shade blanket??? On top of a structure whose sole purpose is to collect sunlight, radiate heat, and provide a warm tropical environment for my food that hates the cold?  I cannot wrap my brain around this one.  I think at first that he is joking.   He has a wicked sense of humor that mocks stupid things, so I am thinking he is joking... that he is asking me to come help him, and when I get up to do it, he is going to be laughing hysterically, catching me in yet another joke.  Wrong...yet again.  He is terribly, soberingly serious.  My turn to laugh hysterically.

This is a silver colored square thing, made of some flexible metallic stuff that is a blanket.  It catches on every corner, or every sharp edge.  We wrestle it onto the greenhouse, and that is that.  I must admit that it does keep the temperature at a tolerable level.  Who knew?

The next project is a gate.  We have been using a piece of fence netting across the gate opening until my partner can get the gate built.  He is very meticulous, linear in his thought processes, and works at glacial speed.  He contemplates everything he does for quite some time.  We have had the lumber for 2 months, and he had to contemplate the wood, and how it would go together to make a beautiful gate. One day, he said he was going to go outside and work on the gate.  He was outside for about an hour before I went out because I didn't hear anything.  He was standing in front of the gate opening, staring.  The wood in the garage had not been touched.  He had a tape measure in his hand.  I stood there for a couple minutes and he finally looked over at me and said "I am brainstorming the best way to build the gate".  I had to stifle a scream. 

The really fabulous news is that the gate, when it gets done, will be beautiful, perfect, and exactly the right size.  There will have been no wood wasted trying to get it right, and no last minute trips to the hardware store because he will have everything he needs and then some.  Once he begins working, it will go quickly and work perfectly.  It is the planning and contemplating, the measuring and re-measuring 45 times that I cannot watch.  But I certainly feel very grateful to have him building my gate.

I will be sure and let you all know how it turns out.

Until tomorrow.....and hopefully more sun,

Karen

Weeds

Another beautiful day in the northwest.  Today I was going to go out and pull up the grass and weeds in the garden.  I have noticed small spikes of green stuff coming up all over the place.  So I get on my gardening clothes, and out I go.  I get out there and realize that my lack of interest in yard work in the past has now got me handicapped. I have no idea what is a weed and what may be a tiny sprout of food.  I know where I planted seeds, so I know where not to pull up grass and weeds....I just have to wait until something I can be sure is food surfaces, then I can get rid of the stuff that is not.

So I begin pulling up the grass that is springing up all over.  Well....I pull on a grass blade and it snaps off.  I know enough to know that those pesky roots are down there somewhere and I better get those if I don't want to be back out here next week pulling up the same grass.  Have you ever SEEN the roots to those tiny pieces of grass that are no wider than a piece of string and maybe an inch high?  They have 10 foot long roots!!!  I am winding my way around the garden area, digging 2 in deep burrows, following one root.  Geez.   I rethink this plan really quickly, and here is what I come up with:

From my science classes in high school, I remember the word symbiosis.  The definition is "close and often long-term interactions between different biological species".  OK, this is it.  This is how it is meant to be in the world of nature.  Then I read further:  "this relationship can be mutualist,  commensal or parasitic in nature".  So here's what I'm thinking.  I have a one in three chance that this relationship is mutualistic.  Those grasses and weeds serve some purpose of protection for this food.  They provide a distraction for the enemies of my food.  I think I will be done with this futile exercise in weeding.  That is my story and I am sticking to it.  (However, I am reserving the right to change my mind if necessary).  I could be totally wrong about this whole symbiotic thing.

I feel much better now that I can go sit down and have a cup of coffee, and rest easy that those weeds are out there protecting my food.  I am going to relax and enjoy the sun.

The garbage bowl on the kitchen counter is near full.  I can no longer postpone my research on composting.  Until next time...

Karen

Sun at Last

I woke up to bright sun, birds chirping, and a warm feeling in the air.  For those of you who live in sunny climes, you may think we are all nuts, but this is the firsts 70 degree day in months.  We have had a long, cold spring.  It is June 4th and this is the first sun. 

Here is the nuts part.  In the northwest we go about our lives dodging raindrops.  Most of us don't even notice when it is raining.  We have learned to do everything we need to do, both inside and out, in the rain.  We are seriously light impaired.  So when the sun comes out, if it hits 50 degrees, we all drop what we are doing, get our shorts on, and go outside.  We can not afford to waste the sunlight doing stuff inside.  So everything gets left as it is...and out we go.  This is the only area in the country where you will see people wearing socks with sandals.  We love shorts and sandals in the sun, but we don't want our feet cold.  We are really a bunch of geeks. 

I jumped up and made coffee and ran out to the garden to see how everything was.  It was 92 degrees in the green house.  How the hell did that happen?  I opened the door, and checked all the hot crop plants.  All the soil was moist and they looked great.  So I guess these plants really do like that heat.  Wrong again!!!

This evening my partner went out to close up the door to the greenhouse and check everything, and two of the tomato plants were almost dead and drooping over the sides of the pots.  OK...so it has been too cold, now one day of sunshine and they look like they have been run over by a truck..what gives?  How does anyone ever grow anything?  They got a good dousing of water and we will see if they survive my abuse.  I also put the hanging tomato out on the front deck to hang about a week ago?    It seems to be doing fine, but these other six plants I am going to put in the ground.  I am not sure how to know when that is going to happen.  The books say when the "ground is warm".  Is there a such thing as a dirt thermometer?  Because when the "ground is warm" tells me absolutely nothing.

So we had a fabulous day in the northwest.  Sunny, breezy, warm and beautiful.  Hopefully it will dry out and the green we will now be seeing will be from flowers, trees and grass, and not from the traditional green moss and mold hanging off everything.

I am looking forward to another fantastic day tomorrow.  It should be up into the high 70's again.  Yipee!!!!

Could someone let me know what "warm soil" is? 

Karen

Control

I went out to the garden this morning to see how everything is coming up.  It is slow going, but the things that are showing are growing.  Peas are getting bigger, and the lettuce has perked up.  The green onions which used to look like little threads are now taller and fatter and looking like they may survive.  There is no sign of the beans, and it has been a week.  Crossing my fingers.  I begged them this morning to pop through the dirt, but I don't have much faith in that approach.

The last couple of days I have been making notes, drawing diagrams of the garden and pondering  what I will do next year.  I have also been pretty vocal about not planting in a timely manner this year, and by god, next year I am going to be on time and get everything in on time and do it right.  Then my soon-to-be husband said:  "Honey, you could not have planted earlier.  It was too wet and cold, and we couldn't till the garden until we did."  SMACK!   Brick to the head.

I am from the city.  I have lived my life in control of my environment.  I control the temp of my house, where I go, what I do, who I do it with blah blah blah.  I have also had some control over who comes in my house.  Living out in the country all kinds of critters feel free to march right into my house and help themselves to whatever is in the house.  I was eating lunch the other day and a mouse came out from under the refridgerator and looked around, helped himself to some crumbs and went back under.  He probably came in when the door was open, or found a sliver of space somewhere to come in.  I got spiders, bugs, and flying things that help themselves to my space also. 

It hit me that in all my research, planning, ruminating, and intentions, that I was at the mercy of the weather in regards to this whole gardening thing.  So I have been missing that whole Zen thing when it comes to the garden.  Patience, and adaptability.  I just have to wait until the time is right.  It is going to do what it is going to do.  I had to learn that lesson when I had children.  I realized how much I DID NOT have control over someone else.  Here it is again:  I got no control over the weather.  It is amazing how my false sense of control permeates all that I do.

So...I am going to wait and watch, and learn the technique of gardening, and apply the philosophy of patience...we'll see how I do at that.  I will try to approach this next phase of maintaining the garden, and composting with patience.  Wish me luck...I certainly need it.

Karen