Spring Garden, and..."What the heck!"

When I moved into my house last year I fell in love with the garden space it has, and the two big cottonwoods that give partial shade to some of the garden. (Though have been hating the pollen from those cottonwoods for the past two weeks)

There are five beds in my garden. Three of them have wonderful soil, one is okay clay/sand, and the final bed is pretty much clay concrete. Of the five beds, two are currently in use, one mid-way through tilling and already sprouting up taters, and one growing field peas (and weeds) to try and fix the poor clay soil that is there. The last bed is fallow at the moment and will become a summer/fall garden plot once I get the chance to plan it out. All of them are watered using drip hoses (ye olde basic black sponge hoses). The beds are just the right length to run a hose all around the edge of the bed and then up the middle.

Now, on to each bed in turn.

The first has:

• wintered garlic (a little over a foot tall now), 
• spinach (Bloomsdale Longstanding--just planted, and three plants overwintered) 
• sunflowers (Mongolian Giant)
• bush beans (I think they are Blue Lake, but I don't really remember)
• A few carrots (Nantes hold-overs from winter)
• Cucumbers (Lemon)

Adding to that list will be tomatoes (Cherokee Purple and Siberian), Peppers (California Wonder Bell and Big Jim), and some corn (saved from last year) to provide a little more shade. The transplants are only about three inches tall right now and are really fragile--I repotted them into bigger containers, but I want them more wind resistant (not to mention less likely to freeze) before I plant them outside. (Note that the hose is not in my standard configuration due to fail on my part)

The second bed as it stands right now has:

• Corn (Posole)
• Pole Beans (Rattlesnake Snap)
• Bush Beans (Blue lake I think)
• Sunflowers (Mongolian Giant)
• Beets (Bull's Blood--planted late, but we will see if they grow)
• Cucumber (Pickling)

I am not sure what I will plant in the small section between the beets and the peas, but I think there will be room for some melons or squash and still have room for the plants to sprawl. (On the note of watering, this bed you can see the end of the buried watering hose--that keeps the water from evaporating)

Bed number three: Po Ta Toes.

Last year I pretty much had to pick-axe my way through the dirt in the potato bed. After many hours of tilling, lots of adding straw, and more tilling, I planted basic Yukon Gold potatoes and kept them covered with straw as they grew. After a good crop last year, I decided that I would give the soil a year to rest--but nature has other ideas.

This morning I went out to till the ground out there and found quite a few potatoes that were sprouting and ready to start more taters. Not only that but the soil was no longer just hard-packed clay. Instead of the concrete-like substance from last year, I now have pretty darn good soil. Not great, but definitely more happy than I ever though that it would be. The potatoes, along with the straw, water, and worms seem to have done their jobs!  Anyway, I remembered a bag of organic potatoes that was trying to sprout in my pantry. Those little taters are now all cut up and drying out a bit before I plant them out with their kin in the tater plot sometime later today or tomorrow.

Here is a short rant on potatoes--seed potatoes are best, but organic works well too. Some people refuse to plant anything except seed potatoes due to risks of transferring diseases to new soils. I am a little hesitant to pay $15/lb plus shipping just to get $3 of potatoes at home. Instead, I go to either my local farmer's market and buy from the nice people there, or I pick up a big bag of organic taters from the supermarket. Neither of these are sprayed with any kind of anti-rooting hormones, and they have not had to be sprayed to within an inch of their lives to keep root rot out of them. Both grow incredibly well, with relatively low risk. If you positively want to be safe, go with the seed potatoes, otherwise organic works quite well.

Alrighty, rant finished. Back to the beds.

Bed four--that bastard clay square

 This bed has issues. It is square (not a problem), small (meh), being invaded by Trumpet Vine (I HATE that plant), and has about 100% hard-packed clay. Last year I planted viny things in it and the plants flourished. The soil did not. I even made sure to add in some compost and organic matter. No love. There just was not enough plant matter and deep roots to aerate the soil. While the plants grew very well, they also took out more nutrients from an already depleted soil. Dang.

Now I need to find a way to fix all the problems--and that involves good old rotting plant matter. I picked up some seed for Field Peas to try to get some Nitrogen back into the soil as well as to break of the clay.  Once the peas (or the weeds that are growing with them) are mature but not seeding, I will till all of the greenery into the soil and let it sit. Every few days I can spray it with water, and VOILA! there should be much better soil next year. Should. I hope. I doubt that I will plant anything there judging by the state of the soil right now, but I may end up with some melons there, since the plants really love that area.

Finally, bed five--all fallow

I am leaving this bed fallow for the first part of the season and plan on planting it later on with summer/fall goodies and letting one other bed have a break. Last year this bed had lots of beets and garlic, so it is not too taxed, but I still don't need quite that many plants to tend right now. 

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Now for a quick information session named "What is THAT?!"

 

So, what is this little cocoon of goodness that attached itself to my vines?

The answer: A Praying Mantis Cocoon

I absolutely was amazed at how many of these little cocoons were all over my front porch area. I love praying mantises because they eat almost every bad bug in my garden that I can think of, and leave the good bugs (like ladybugs) alone.  If you see any of these hard little brown things hanging from your siding, overhang, plants, etc, make sure to leave them alone. Eventually these will turn into pest-eating machines! (Until then they sorta look like turds...)

Spring--It has Sprung!

Well, it has been a long (and quiet) four months since I last updated. Now that I am getting around to gardening it is time to get this blog up and running again. (Especially since it beats working on actual work) If you look really hard at the first photo you will notice tons of daisies sprouting up of nowhere. Yup. I got April Fooled--My mother brought down silk versions my least favorite flower (daisies)and stuck them all over the front yard! (Complete with daisies in the potted plants)



So, after all that fun, what new perennial additions have found their way into my yard?

• Three raspberries
• Two Semi-Dwarf Peaches
• One Italian Plum
• Two more grape vines

What does that mean? Lot of holes. Too many to do in one day. In fact, it took me and my husband about two weeks to get everything in, mostly due to a bad case of Trumpet Vine.  Now I don't normally go out of my way to kill pretty and non-spiky flowers, but Trumpet Vine is the one exception. It spreads by runners, is highly destructive, and is nigh-impossible to actually kill--even with contact herbicides. This is the one case where I had no problem turning my husband loose with a can of generic RoundUp. We shall see if it is actually dead, or just mostly dead.

So all that aside, I have new bushes, and all of them are holding up well. The 40-60mph winds have not been doing the new babies any favors, but the 80 degree days do tend to make them happy.  Even the birds are enjoying it, especially since the new trees mean that water is readily available to them.

In addition to the trees and shrubs I went ahead and planted strawberries in one of those new-fangled Topsy-Turvy Strawberry Planters. I wasn't sure if it would hold up to the wind without bashing the poor plants to pieces, but so far it seems to have weathered the storms quite nicely (as long as I remember to water it).  I have had bad luck with strawberries down here in the desert--I could get the greens to grow, but the berries never would form. It looks like this year I may have found a way to grow my strawberries and eat them too!

Are you planting trees? Bushes?
Do you have any suggestions for the evil that is Trumpet Vine?
Or are you still digging out from snow?

Ode to Compost

Dirt. Soil. Organism-rich horizons.
However you put it, I like it when I can see rich black dirt and plop baby plants or seeds into it.

New Mexico has no dirt. But we do have sand. Lots. And clay. Lots--but never interspersed nicely together as that would be too nice for drainage.

Having said that, my personal weapon against the lack of dirt is through a plethora of compost.

Ode to Compost
Thou art sweeter than a summer's day
And far better than any sand or clay.
But take so long for to become
The substance that I know and love.


We get a box of fruits and veggies a week through our CSA, I have a little bit of grass at the new house, and there are all the non-seed/spiny weeds that just BEG to be food for my future crops.  Why put all that wonderful goodness into our landfill when I can lazily toss it into our compost bin and ignore it for a while?  After a few months (or many months since the compost bin is done on laziness and neglect rather than by quicker methods) I strike gold!

We just moved into a new-to-us house, with gardens out back, grass out front (more on that later) and flowers all around.  The old house had a compost bin full of scraps that had been working for some 9 months now. My dear housemate gave me the best present in the world in the form of two big bags of perfect-plant-food from the bottom of the bin.  The rest of it we just tossed back in the composter to give it some more time.  As for those two bags of goodness: one I spread over all the garden beds to give a little umph to the babies since it is warming up here again for the summer. The other bag I am saving for when we transplant three grape vines (and hopefully two fig trees) from my parent's house.

Now back to dirt--and where compost comes in.

It occurred to me when I was digging up various plots in the garden that there were definite zones in my property:

• sandy (water runs into and right out of it)
• clay concrete (water sits on top of it and tilling it requires lots of work)
• fertilized soil (not much of this)

I also noticed from what was left behind that this was a gardening house that used traditional fertilizer and pesticides to grow and kill plants.  That explained why I had not seen any weeds in the property (that and it was wintertime) until the hedge mustard decided to try and take over--they were kept at bay with various sprays.

I don't mind pesticides as a last resort, but I would much rather try starting out with improving the whole area and putting in plants that are stronger than the pests to be semi-weed-free. This poses two problems--I only have one of me and  a third of an acre to keep free of spiny/sappy/poisonous invaders,  and that I want to squeeze as much produce as I can out of what I do plant...with as little effort as possible and no commercial fertilizers. 

So I spend some money now on a bale of oat straw, a few bags of commercial compost, and what I can get out of my own bin so that eventually, several years down the road I can have an easier time growing what works here in the desert...but in good soils.

Now back to that grass. I am in a desert and green grass is a bit of a pest to keep green, mowed, and not taken over by russian thistles or other plants.  I am tempted to rip it up and ... then would have open dirt with more thistles.  Instead I am going to try a method that has worked so far in the past and may work here: neglect.  I plan to occasionally toss some water on it if it looks really really sad, but otherwise ignore it and just keep it mowed--weeds and all. I do make weekly sweeps for thistles and other weeds since I am allergic to them and want them out of my property.  (Mostly I do the weed sweeps to prevent the evil puncture vine, or goathead, from invading. That plant is my arch-nemesis.)  We will see how this experiment works.

I hope to be free of frosts from here on in, even though three days ago we had a low of 34. Today the high was 90 degrees, so I am hoping that the weather makes up its mind and leaves us with a little more spring time coolness before the real heat settles in. I am prepared for the evil heat though, and the summer plants are in the ground (with watchful eyes for frost). The watermelons and squash, along with the tomatoes, up and starting to look large... the pepper plants even have their first flower buds.  Unfortunately the peas and carrots are also just starting to look good and the heat is just about high enough to kill them off before I get anything off of them!  At least I can say that the garden is a success as I have spinach, chard and radishes from it in my salads now.

As a side note on salads--I am trying an experiment by replanting the root stock of spinach plants that my CSA sent me. They were thinning out their fields for the second crops to come in (like tomatoes) so they plucked and sent me the whole plants. I chopped off the leaves (and should have left one or two on them probably, but we will see) and planted them in my garden by where the other spinach is happily growing. I am hoping that at least one of the six plants takes root so that we have more home grown spinach from what otherwise would just be tossed in the compost bin.

Well, that was a rather rambling post... oh well, at least it was a post at all! I hope to have pictures of the happy garden up here in a few days now that college classes are out for the season and moving has calmed down. Until then, happy gardening!

Spring Garden is In!

Of course, when moving into a new home the first thing that NEEDS to be done is to put in the garden... well...maybe not need per say, but it definitely is more fun than packing and cleaning houses!  Today was my day to put in my spring garden in the nice pre-made beds.

Two of the beds were put to sleep for the winter with compost and covered, the other three needed some love in the form of weeding and tilling.  While I am far from finished planting (since I still have three beds that I can fill), today was very productive and I am no longer behind schedule.

"Behind schedule? In March? How can that happen"

Here in the high desert, spring is the very short time between February freezes (mid teens at night, 40's in day) and May sweltering (60's at night, 90's in day). It is windy, moody, and in general a wonderful time of year for being outside without a long sleeved shirt, but not quite ready for shorts--except for that whole wind and moodiness I mentioned. For example: In the past two days it drizzled, then snowed, then just went to 40mph winds--all over the lunch hour. Today it was in the low 70's, sunshine, just enough breeze to be comfortable--in short it was beautiful.  Welcome to spring in Central New Mexico.

Now that you know what spring really means here, you can probably guess that most "spring" plants don't have long to live before being blown away and dried out by the wind, or getting too hot and melting in the sunshine... unless they freeze to death...  I tend to stick with organically grown seeds when I can get them, and I attempt (though am rarely successful) at finding heirloom or non-hybrid varieties of plants. This is the middle of nowhere, and shipping can be painful for a small packet of seeds.

The garden so far has my transplanted perennials: rhubarb and artichoke, along with a chard plant that refuses to die. To the right of the photo are a bunch of snow peas (the trellis is just visible), some radishes, and the artichoke.  This little bed is only about 2 feet by six feet, but is great for these babies.

The next bed is much bigger, about 10 feet by 4 feet.

This bed was all ready to go and only needed a little tilling to get it ready for planting. It now has garlic (planted at the other house last November), spinach, lettuce, onions, scallions, beets, and radishes. I was given the onions, and leafy greens by a friend who bought too many. I babied them along till I could plant them outside. Here is a closer look at the greener side of the beds (before putting in a soaker hose)

Those babies look pretty sad now, but I think most of them will perk up

I planted most of the seeds pretty close to each other since I am not too worried about pests or having to walk between rows.  I also installed a soaker hose in the large bed so that I do not have to water from above...and can be lazy.  

I do have two more large beds to plant... something in. Carrots, peas maybe, who knows what else. I may leave them alone and just have them ready to plant the summer vines later on in the season.  In addition to those two, there is a 4 foot diameter stock pond (now filled with soil) that will be the potato and marigold place. Why marigolds? I hear that they keep away some of the pests that like to eat my taters!  I even have a bag of organic potatoes that are desperately trying to sprout under my countertop, so I figured that I could put them to good use. That will have to wait for another day, as it was plenty of work to get the garden mostly up and running.

 The two beds that still needs some loving

The best part of this garden is it is an excuse to play in the dirt outside. I remember helping (or hindering) my Great Grandfather in his huge garden long ago, now I am putting some of his knowledge to work for my own garden. (Memories of him in his garden always hit me whenever I am in a shady garden with trellises--all good memories. Tasty too!)  Maybe if he and green thumb is watching he can keep an eye on me and my garden--probably shaking his head and saying "no no, you're doin' it wrong"... but a funny thought anyway.

Are you planning on gardening this year? What are you planning on planting--or are you somewhere that you have already planted?

Yesterday we went around fixing fence to make it able to hold dogs in; it held, but the dirt underneath it is too soft. Today was very sad when my roomie woke up to find our little girlie Dax missing. She got a call about an hour later from animal control saying that they found her, shot by one of the chicken farmers. She was not a 500 feet from the house and was on public property. It made me really mad, but I realize that the farmer is just protecting his flock, but a simple look at her tags (which is how animal control found us) would have gotten her home safely.

That meant that we have been fixing fence, reinforcing it with long logs to keep the dirt and fencing down, and posting signs around the property letting people know to actually shut the gate and let us know BEFORE they come in the yard. I miss our old pup (she was nearly 10) and now she is buried out in the back yard under a new tree. My roomie is taking it much harder, since she has been with the dog since they both were little. It is very sad to lose Dax, but at least I know that she died quickly and now we know that we REALLY need to keep the boys locked in tight. They both managed to get out this morning, but they are both home bodies and did not roam. Now there is no easy way of escape, short of someone opening the gate.

I may have blisters from shoveling and fencing, but it is worth it to prevent what happened to our little Dax from happening to the other two. Now it is a game of waiting for Bear to find a new spot to dig, scold him, and shore up the area.

(And as a side note I also got a lot of the thistle and sticker plants killed while taking out my frustrations on vile plants instead of people... it served to add to the blister but helped me mentally. Now my hands are torn up, and I am tired, but in a good way after a rather stressful morning.)

I guess that I never will be able to get that new photo of Dax. I will find one somewhere. I will.
****EDIT****

And I did:

Dax, born 1998, Died June 26th, 2009