Busting at the Seems

Before I go into detail as to why there is seem busting,  I wanted to go into a little more detail on the pea greens.  I sow a specific variety just for cutting tendrils.  One needs LOTS of peas to thickly sow them in this manner.  Last year I bought three or four standard packets of the Dwarf Gray Peas.  This barely got me anything for cutting.  Then I smartened up and bought the big bag I posted yesterday.  Now I can sow lots of thick rows for cutting.  I also sow peas for peas, two separate things in my garden.  Harvesting young growth results in a sweeter, more tender green, and the Dwarf Gray is said to be the best variety for greens.

The rows shown above are on there third cutting or so, and they are getting a bit unruly.  As a matter of fact the kids complained last night the greens didn't taste good anymore, so it is time to rip them out and sow a fresh batch.  The best part about sowing peas for greens is that in a couple of weeks you are harvesting what you sowed (if you soak those peas before planting), it is practically immediate gratification in the garden.  This year I put them anywhere there was bare dirt.  Some of them are there just for their nitrogen fixing abilities.   Some I yank and toss in the compost pile, some I just turn into the soil.

Okay, now on to the rest......a few years ago I planted a beach plum.  I had never tried (or seen) a beach plum, or tasted the jelly that is made from the fruit, but I love any edible that remains small in size so I went for it.  I was told it did not require a pollinator.  This information was not correct, and so this year I ordered two bare root plants through mail order......you see, this winter I tasted Beach Plum Jelly.  I was immediately hooked and now I must get my tree to bear fruit!   The newbies arrived recently and are just sticks.  Here is the larger of the two pictured below, it is just starting to leaf out:

This wee thing is not going to get me plums is it?  No.  So yesterday in a moment of delayed genius, (note the sarcasm), I called a local nursery rumored to carry the plants.  Sure enough, in stock and flowering, so off I went to buy one.  I am afraid it may be too late however.  My plum began flowering over a week ago, and now we are in this lousy rainy weather pattern, so I don't see the rate of pollination being very high, if anything at all.  But check out the blooms on my new little beauty:

Gorgeous.

If only there were bees buzzing about.  Sigh.  If you have been following along with me you now realize this is my fourth beach plum.  Not sure where to put it.......but the good news is that it won't be picky about it's sight.  And some day if all goes as planned I will have enough tiny plums to make delicious jelly.

Stay with me now, the troublesome part is coming folks.  My little guy was insisting on walking around the nursery while we were waiting for our plum to be brought up.  We went to the closest greenhouse, and what was it filled with?  Low bush blueberries.  It was a sign from the heavens.  We just HAD to bring some home.  The thing about low bush blueberries is that I am a little obsessed.  I have fantasies of landscaping the entire yard with neat little blueberry hedges.  They are so pretty, and of coarse tasty.  They stay nice and compact.  We picked out as many as we could carry, and here they are waiting for a home along with the new plum, and the old plum behind it (most of it's blooms now gone).

There is more.

Wait for it...........

Yuppers, I have officially gone mad.  Where oh where am I going to put these new crowns?  I only bought five.  Just five.  But still, must now find/create/steal them a home.  But more asparagus is never a bad thing right?  These are the Purple Passion crowns.  At least they are suppose to be.  The farm carried two different varieties and these were in the purple box, but the bunch was not specifically labeled as many others were.  Again- in my delayed thinking I now realize I should have pulled five crowns from a bunch that was labeled to insure somebody did not pick up a clump of Jerseys and put it down in the Purple Passion box.   Now I am paranoid and worrying over the variety of crowns I hold.  I kill me.

My husband commented that we are running out of room.  Yes we are.  But my goal is to have lots of stuff to eat growing at home, and by golly I am achieving it!  Personally, I think we ran out of room some time ago, and now I am just plain pushing it.  Wouldn't it be so freakin' cool if I really had no front lawn some day?  Just edibles?  There are people out there who have done it.  And I like it.  (Honey if you are reading this avert your eyes. )

Garden Tour

My camera bit the dust on our last homeschool field trip to see the Herring Run over at the Cape Cod Canal, so I had to go out and replace it (which I was not happy about), and I missed out on taking so many cool pictures.  Grr.  It is stuff like this that consistently keeps me over-budget.  Anyway, this time I went for one of those 'tough' cameras that is water and impact resistant.  I figure with all the traveling my little point and shoot does this should help add some years to it's life expectancy.  The bad news is I don't like the camera.  It is very different than what I am used to and I can't seem to photograph how I want to in macro mode, which is what I love when out in the garden.  I think the long term solution is to eventually cave and buy a digital SLR for my fun photog needs, and keep this functional clunker for the trips to the beach, hikes, and general travels with the kids.  Sigh, now that I got that all out lets move on to the actual garden tour.  I have a few more May flowers to throw in from yesterday's post, the first of which are some Lilly of the Valley which perfumed my sleep last night from my nightstand.  I never take advantage of their gorgeous scent as I should, and there is just no excuse for it!

My husband (and the wedding party) wore these tucked in their tuxes at our wedding, the little white bells are so sweet and will forever remind me of that day.

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Two of my rhubarb crowns and plopped in amongst this walkway planting, can you find them?

(Hint:  they are to either side of the orange tulips, one is under a cage.)

The other crowns I received from Johnny's look dead to me, and the roots are rotting underground.  Johnny's had advised me that they are fine, this is normal, that they will take a month or so to break dormancy.  I sure hope they are right cause it doesn't seem 'normal' to me!

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Yesterday I took a huge leap of faith and planted the tomatoes out in tomato alley.  The soil was warm so I decided to go for it....here they are all tucked in under row cover for added night protection:

There are some cocktail straws tucked in along the stems to hopefully keep the cutworms away, and a dusting of Fertrell Feed-N-Grow and Azomite went in beneath them.  I totally forgot the aspirin this year in my haste, stupid, stupid, stupid.   Maybe I will just crush some up and scatter the bits around the whole bed for good measure.  I don't know if it really does anything, but I read long ago about some grower putting an aspirin and a fish head in every tomato planting whole, and swearing by it.  I forgo the fish, but the aspirin is easy enough.  :)

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Here we have peas (2 sections), and fingerling potatoes (under straw) in the tall bed.  In the background is the garlic bed, and a peak at the wildly growing asparagus bed to the left.  Further beyond that just outside the fence is the new blackberry patch, and beyond that (where the dirt piles and toys are if you squint and concentrate on seeing them) is the future home to the pounds of wildflower seed I have sitting in my family room.

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The coldframe is probably just about ready to be moved, everything inside is coming along nicely:

I am not quite sure what happened to the second row of lettuce that I sowed, it is nice and thick in the front, but then just sort of peters out.  Did something eat it?  I don't think it washed away or I would have it growing elsewhere, correct?  Garden mysteries.  There are 2 rows of carrots and lots of weeds tucked in amongst the lettuce....oh, and a big old parsley plant from last year.  The other interesting part about these two rows of lettuce is they were sown on the same day, quite a difference in growth between the two varieties huh?

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Below are the sweet potato slips.  It appears I have lost/am losing one or two, but the rest appear to be growing.  It is quite warm under that black mulch and row cover, sometimes I wonder if it could be too warm......

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In this bed I have some transplanted spinach along with directly sown herbs, carrots, broccoli, and asian greens.  It is the future home to beans or cucurbits...or maybe both.

The bed just to the left in the above photo is my last empty space.  Crazy how fast the new square footage went this Spring, I still have onion and leeks sets to go in the ground as well- and I have no clue where they are going to fit!  Today I plan on transplanting out the remaining peppers inside 'walls o water' (I did 2 yesterday), and sowing my melon and cuke seeds indoors.  I need to hammer out a plan for these melons, cukes, squash, and beans that have yet to be sown.....space is limited.  I think I am going to be planting the leeks and onions in between the peppers, it at least looks good on paper, and that was the plan I came up with this Winter so I should stick with it right??   (The only problem is the winter rye and pea shoots growing in that bed.  The bunnies have helped some with the peas, but the damn rye refuses to die!)

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I threw together some new beds in front of the shed last week for the extra strawberries I had, and my new herbs.  (The strawberries were hung last year, but they didn't do that well so this year I moved them to my half whiskey barrels; the left-overs went in these beds.)

Between the 2 beds there are 3 varieties of mint, oregano, cilantro, pineapple sage, 2 varieties each of rosemary and lavender, garlic chives, and a few basil plants thrown in for good measure.  I finally have 'an herb garden' in addition to the plants tucked in around the kitchen garden.  This is very exciting stuff!  :)

OK, this post has gone on long enough, and my little boy just rode his bike for the first time without training wheels on without me there to witness it..... I am off to be his cheer-leader!

Garden Happenings

Potatoes going in Grow Bags, I believe I have 10 bags in all.  The bottoms were filled with a mixture of compost and potting mix, the seeds set in, and then covered with more mix and straw.

Here are the LaRatte Fingerlings in one bed, I planted this and another one slightly smaller.

The new grape and arbor was added onto the original behind the asparagus bed.  Behind the grapes is a new bed for 5 blackberries, and two raspberries....we are still in the construction phase as the canes have not arrived yet.  Still needing to find a spot for my second currant and rhubarb that is coming.  AAGGHH! Runing out of room!  So frustrating when we have almost 2 acres of land.

Some micro greens from today's thinning.  Beets, Radish, Chard, Arugula, and Hon Tsai Tai....YUM!

How cool do these currant buds look?  I had never seen them before, it is reminding of grape clusters.

I decided to use this tub as a planter for my 4 lowbush blueberries.  They remain quite small and only require a foot a piece, so this is snug but should do.  If not I will just transplant at a later date.

In addition to all the expansion and planting I sowed some more seeds today as well.  Things are finally coming together nicely thanks to a good friend who brought over a couple truckloads of dirt/compost for me.  The new beds are almost full, I am off to hill and cover the sweet potato bed up with black mulch...those slips will be here before I know it!!!
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Edit:  Those micro-greens made a mighty fine pizza topping for lunch!

New Arrivals

The order I placed over at Edible Landscaping arrived today. After Travis was done with his inspection I opened her up......unfortunately, the item I have been pining for arrived damaged, but hopefully it will recover and will not need to be replaced.

Notice the top of my poor little fig down in front of the container rather than up on top of the stem where it belongs. Also included in the order is an ornamental citrus called Flying Dragon, and a Blanca White Current. The fig will not be winter hardy in my zone 6, so it will spend the summers on the deck and come in inside for the coldest months of the year. (It's pot has been patienly awaiting it's arrival, visible in the backround of the photo along with all the other stuff.) I have some work to do.....

Beach Plums

This is a subject I know nothing about so really I had no business bringing home a five gallon container with a wee one inside. Beach Plum you ask? The farmer said it is a hardy variety, that it will tolerate some shade (though produce less fruit), has a very distinct flavor, and makes a very good jelly.

These plants, prunus maritima, grow everywhere along the North Eastern Seaboard and there is a project through Cornell and the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension that is trying them out for horticultural production. The fruits ripen in September and can be eaten right off the bush or used to make jellies and syrup. After reading up on this I have learned to 'treat it' like a plum and prune it like a peach. Huh. The one pictured at left is being pruned into tree form, they are quite bushy and rambling when growing in the dunes. I figured for $6.50 its worth a shot at homegrown beach plums for snacking though their performance when grown for horticultural use thus far has been less than stellar. (I will post a picture of our latest addition to the edible landscaping soon.)

http://www.beachplum.cornell.edu/

Fruit Plantings

After doing some work to the house we were left with one mess of a side-yard. My husband was hoping to avoid having to mow the slope and I was hoping for some fruit to pick so we came upon the idea of doing some edible landscaping. Luckily this is a popular topic these days or we may have ended up with more hydrangeas and the dreaded grass. This has been a fly by the seat of our pants thing and getting the proper hours of sun required for these fruits is questionable. So far we have planted 2 dwarf apple trees and a variety of small fruits. I have noted the varieties below along with a few links to help me through out the season, I already can't remember what is what. We hope to have a ground cover of strawberries and a blackberry/raspberry bramble hedge when all is grown in. (Shown above: alpine strawberry, our progress in the side yard to date, blackberry flowers)

GROWING and VARIETY NOTES:

Canadice Red Seedless Grape - site preparation, pruning & trellising:

(trellis on the garden 'to do' list)

• ensure good drainage (sandy loam best)
• grapes prefer Southern Exposure
• pH 5.5-6.5
• amend planting site with bone meal or rock phosphate
• pruning determines vine health
• http://extension.unh.edu/resources/representation/Resource000576_Rep598.pdf
• http://info.ag.uidaho.edu/Resources/PDFs/CIS0790.pdf
• http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2003-12-01/Sensational-Seedless-Grapes.aspx

Growing Blackberries:

• fruit is ripe when it goes from glossy to dull
• tip erect canes back mid-summer
• primocane varieties fruit on first year canes
  

FRUIT VARIETIES 2009

Dwarf Liberty Apple on pajam/M-9

Dwarf Spitzenburg Apple (Thomas Jefferson's reported favorite) on pajam/M-9

Apache Blackberry

Ebony King Blackberry

Navaho Thornless Blackberry- prune to 6 feet; upright, mid-summer fruit; good flavor & yield

Heritage Red Raspberry

Jewel Black Raspberry (2)

(?) Latham Red Raspberry

"Mounding" Strawberry (17)

Honeoye Strawberry (25)- has been called a 'foolproof' strawberry plant, great freezing qualities; early-mid season producer; best flavor occurs in med.-light soil.

Cabot Strawberry (25)- huge, excellent flavored mid-season berries, first fruits may split or be rough; may space closely, less likely to run

Alpine Strawberry (3)

Jersey Blueberry (2)

Toro Blueberry (2)

Bluecrop Blueberry (2)

Canadice red Grape

From Bell to Berry

Muffins, pies, pancakes, and smoothies all made better by blueberry the superfruit. Blueberry bushes also make for some great edible landscaping with their pink and white bell shaped flowers, sweet fruit, and fall color. They can be grown as a tall hedge if the right varieties are chosen and are a favorite among the birds.

We planted 3 varieties (6 bushes in total) this year, all high bush:

Toro- Large, firm, mild tasting mid-season producer. Nice fall color.
Jersey- this variety is a late season producer offering up some medium size sweet dark blue berries. These are my favorite for muffins. Also provides beautiful fall foliage.
Bluecrop- Better for fruit production than for ornamental value. Produces large sweet fruit, mid-season variety.

The bushes were planted in a space intensive manner. They will grow together into one large bush of 3 varieties if all goes as planned. I have seen this method used by folks on the West Coast who grow them in half whiskey barrels. Below is a great link to a variety chart for anyone interested in using blueberries for food or landcaping.http://www.fallcreeknursery.com/Nursery/VarietyChart/

Edible Landscaping

Typically I do annuals in my whiskey barrels that border the drive, this year I opted for a combination of flowers and food in the 3 barrels that get full sun. Last weekend each barrel received 2 squash varieties, chard, and a mix of flowers with the sunflower intended to be the tall (24-36 inches) focal point in the center.

BARREL SEED LIST:

• Marina Di Chioggia Squash


• Baby Blue Hubbard Squash
  
• Butternut Metro PMR Squash
  
• Swiss Chard (Bright Lights)
  
• Sunflower (Bashful)
  
• Snowdrift Marigold
  
• Nasturtium (Jewel Mix & Trailing)

The dwarf sunflowers should be the only non-edible out of the bunch. Nasturtium flowers can be stuffed with a soft cheese (who knew?) or used along with the leaves to provide a peppery punch in a salad. Not sure if all marigolds are edible, will have to double check this variety before adding it to our plate. I am not usually a fan of edible flowers but I will try anything once if I can stuff it with fabulous cheese.