It's WAR

Something has been butchering the basil and marigolds...it took me a while to formulate a theory on why a creature would be chopping the leaves and flowers off my repeller plants and I've decided that it's probably the robins who are taking out the plants that repel the bugs that the robins like to eat. So I bought more basil and this GIGANTIC marigold (and a pack of smaller ones) and rubbed garlic all over the leaves and stems of everything that's been disturbed. Then I threw torn up garlic chunks in the bed that has been getting the brunt of the damage...it's the one that the dog can't get to.

We'll see.

Spring Rain

A weekend of rain is really bringing the flowers out.

Sitting Back

The garden is planted and almost everything seems happy...a few plants are being chomped on but a little soapy water seems to be doing the trick for the most part. It's too early for weeding so most of my time in the garden is spent laying in the hammock and soaking everything in until the mosquitos drive me away.

Fun in the Workshop

After weeks of gardening, the workshop had become a disaster. At long last the workshop was clean and we decided to make use of it...so while Jason was building a bird house, I decided to break into the bag of clay I bought last fall but realized I needed a specific tool to be able to pound the air bubbles out. So Jason and I made a wedging board out of stuff lying around: an old canvas that I cut from the frame; a guitar string from Jason's old guitar; and a peice of MDF that I had attempted to make art out of; and a few other impliments. While I was working on our first toad abode Jason finished the woodpeckers' new home...now all we have to do is hang it 15 feet up in a tree.

The Ultimate Companion Garden

This is what I aspire to...but with my touch. Who knew that a vegetable garden could be so beautiful.

Experiment Update

My experiment on growing used green onions and fancy lettuce from the grocery store has been successful after 12 days. The onions are at their original length and the lettuce has grown by about 30%! The next step will be a taste test.

On another note, it looks like all my little green babies have made it through the night...and the moth is still hanging out on the porch. We've got one more chilly night (fingers crossed) before the nighttime weather stays in the 50's and 60's.

I'm That Gardener

...that gardener. Dammit. I just went out and covered up most of the plants with pots or mulch because a good ole Okie howling spring freeze is blowing through tonight...and, of course, it will be 70 degrees tomorrow.

And so it begins with the neurotic maintenance. I really should have listened to the "don't plant before April 15th" gem of wisdom for Oklahoma gardeners. Next year.

New Momma

I finished planting our vegetable-herb-flower garden yesterday evening...three hours before it started hailing. I was sitting inside trying to talk myself out of being one of those gardeners who runs out to cover everything up. I felt a little twisted up. I had a taste of the dark side of gardening...the truly obsessive side that wants to keep all the tender little babies unscathed.

After it was over, I went outside (to take the pot cover off the ONE plant I new would not make it) to check out the damage. It wasn't bad. On my way back inside, I noticed a toad taking a dip in our little pond!

This morning, Jason called us all outside to look at this beautiful (and very cold) moth.

Hopefully it will have flown away when I get home.

Phase One DONE

With the help of Jesse and Tillie I finished the melon patch which has okra, basil and marigold as well as the cantaloupe. I especially love the curvy path between the two beds :)

Jesse and Tillie's favorite spot is definitely the hammock...until the strawberries and raspberries start popping out.

Easter

I know it's a bit early (10 days) to plant the seedlings but we couldn't imagine a more lovely way to spend Easter.

We enriched the soil in the squash patch, planted flowers and herbs between all of the vegetables and covered everything with mulched leaves from our yard. FYI, if you have a mulching mower then rake all your leaves in a pile and mow the crap out of it. I have never seen or bought mulch as good!

We also made a nice lounging area. It's my favorite space now.

New Tree

Jason and I planted our first tree...like every young couple in their first home should do. I believe it's a "Red Dragon" variety of Japanese Maple and should live quite happily under the shade of our Red Maple in the side yard. Now we have 10 trees (not including the teeny-tiny maple I bought Jason last year that isn't quite a foot tall), four of which are maples...three pecans...two fruit trees...and a partridge in a pear tree :)

The Cleveland County Farm Market opened today...Jason and I went NUTS. We mostly bought plants for the gardens and picked up a few goodies for the pantry.

I Couldn't Help Myself

I went to the home improvement store with a list. It didn't work out so well.

I don't think I went crazy but my impulse buys threw my plan for today out the window. It started with a fern. Then a rhododendron. Moon flower seeds. Lemon licorice. Jeez. While standing infront of the seed selection I struck up a conversation with a veteran gardener, which was really nice. I like learning new things through a dialogue with someone who's been there. I learned that winter wheat is an excellent 'green manure'.

Anyhoo, when I got home I went straight to work on my shady nook. My friends, Tara and Randy, have this wild shady section in their yard that looks like a forest floor and I decided that I wanted a forest floor in my back yard too...which is easy to do due to the six trees in our back yard. I added the fern, lemon licorice and rhododendron to the coral bell I planted on Monday...then raided my neighbor's back yard for the peonie that keeps getting mowed over. Then I added wild violets and wild geraniums (technically weeds - but pretty) as well as some baby spider plants and swedish ivy cuttings.

Although not technically a true wildscape, it looks wild and will be self sustaining once they all get over the shock of replanting.

Ready for Planting

Well, two full days of hard work leaves me feeling quite fulfilled. Now I REALLY want a wood fence!

The Cleveland County Farmers Market opens on Saturday...I have a feeling that Easter day will be filled with planting our new plot :)

New Plot

I've been watching how the sun settles on the backyard garden plot and realized that we needed a sunnier spot for the vegetables...the current bed will now be mostly for herbs and wildflowers. Next to the workshop is a wild rosebush and a stand of bearded irises that have probably been there as long as I've been alive. They are becoming the centerpieces for the new vegetable garden. I dug up a shovel full of dirt to see how fertile it was and four worms fell out!

I'm about to head back out to make the last push...I've been tilling it (mostly by crumbling the shovel full with my hands) with much care for the THOUSANDS of earthworms that are living there. I've been told that this plot has been a vegetable garden in the past.

My one new piece of wisdom about all of this is: when putting on sunscreen, cover EVERYTHING... not just what can be easily reached.

An Experiment

A couple of years ago my mom sent me a blog article about re-growing used green onions...so I thought I'd give it a try. The onion at right has been in the water for about 72 hours. COOL. Jason said "I wonder how much more it would grow if it were actually planted in soil?" So I just planted the remains of my last meal's topping...which got me thinking. We've got one of those fancy heads of butter lettuce that still have the roots. We've already gotten a family sized salad and a few sandwich toppings out of it so I thought I'd plant it too.

I'll keep you posted.

Childish Things

We bought a beautiful 16 inch wide ceramic bowl at our local home improvement store over the weekend after Tillie and I made the tiny toad wading pool in the front garden. I was able to spend the morning creating our backyard toad pool. My inner six year old is LOVING this. I used to make toad condos with pools and moss beds when I was a lassie and I see Tillie doing the same thing at six. I love that this particular flavor of strangeness is not necessarily genetic :)

The evenings this week will be hovering in the sixties so we should start seeing the toads coming out...and taking a dip.

My Mad Photoshop Skills

As of today, this is what our house looks like. The white siding is DRIVING ME NUTS. The patchy lawn is DRIVING JASON NUTS. We have alot of work to do for it to look like this:

This is what I envision our house to look like after a few of years.

Baby steps (sigh).

The Little Things We Do

It's almost time for the toads to come out of their burrows! I went to visit the Wildscaper Lady at K&K Nursery and she gave me some great insight into keeping the toads happy (as well as MANY OTHER WONDERFUL THINGS). Unfortunately we are not ready to create a full-on habitat where the toads can lay eggs and what not...so I made a little wading pool so they can at least take a dip. Tillie did some decorating. She's excited too.

The Squash Plot

Most of the soil on our property is in spectacular shape...except for the little plot that rests between the sidewalk and our new garden path. It's full of clay. I added some partially decomposed leaf litter and a bag of peat to help it along. Then I decided to transplant some clover patches from the grass free parts of our yard. I'm just winging it...I think I'll join a forum.

In my forum joining search, I came across my new inspiration - Garden Girl. She has converted her Boston property into a giant garden with vertical gardens, raised beds and a mini orchard. I like her style and she's already done what Jason and I are wanting to do, so why reinvent the wheel when we can learn from someone who's already done it...and there's a forum :)

Some other good news...I went to a local nursery (K&K Nursery) in search of some native plants to start our wildscape off with. I mentioned to the fellow who was helping me out that I wanted to keep the frogs happy and his face lit up. He said a woman works there that is wildscaping wise and I was told to have a block of time free whenever I came to visit with her because she LOVES to talk about it. PERFECT. I'm going back tomorrow.

Coming along

Okay, I think I am a seed addict. Every time I go to a store - it's not bags or scarves I look at anymore - but SEEDS...and little garden plants...and pretty pots. I'm hooked. The kiddos were out of school today so we decided to plant seven egg cartons full of seeds to add to the four peat pellet greenhouses that we did over spring break last week.

On another happy note...it looks like all the flower seeds and blooming bulbs I planted in the front yard gardens made it through the nasty weather over the weekend.

Now All It Needs is Plants

I'm glad that we decided to lay the path early...it looks pretty in the snow!

Ouch

Impatience is a virtue that generally causes me much soreness the next day (and Jason too). I'm told we are getting snow on Saturday so we decided to go ahead and make a push to get the garden path laid last night...the stones can cure on top of the ground or in the ground just the same.

It's about a third done and my glutes are really not looking forward to continuing this process, but my mind is saying (in Okie) 'GITTER DUN!'

Hardscaping

(this is NOT our garden...yet)

Jason and I have been itching to do some hardscaping but after researching the cost of stone we thought we'd have to put it on the back burner until we had a grand to spend...until I saw the picture above. It looks like chunks of concrete shaped rocks. We thought we'd give a try at making a faux rock path - that winds through our kitchen garden - to the compost bin (see drawing in previous post).

We bought $10 worth of Quikcrete (240 lbs), sand and some little rocks. We thought about building some wood forms until we found a couple of 4x6 ft shallow boxes that would make a good container. After covering the boxes with plastic garbage bags, we mixed up the concrete with a bit of ocher pigment and poured the slabs about 3 inches thick.

We let the slabs dry for two hours and added some rough texture with a stick.



Then we mellowed it out with some crumpled plastic...a grocery bag works great. NOTE: wash your hands immediately after working with this stuff or, better yet, wear gloves.



We threw in a few rocks for added texture. They will be pulled out later to leave divets.




After letting it set up for 24 hours...



...we set the form up on its side and let the slab fall out to break it up into peices then laid it out to cure for three days.



We'll be laying the pathway over the weekend...I'll share the results!

The back yard garden

Here is the design for our cottage-companion-kitchen garden.

Our friend Amy lent us a gardening book called "You Grow Girl", which was birthed out of the website: yougrowgirl.com. This is where I learned about companion gardening, which is: placing plants together that help each other out...like tomatoes and marigolds.

Traditional cottage gardens used this knowledge and planted everything close together to reduce weed proliferation. Certain flowers, herbs and vegetables living snug-ly together help nourish each other, repel pests, discourage certain diseases from taking root and encourage beneficial pollinator and predator insects to come hang out and feast. The best benefit (as an artist) is IT'S PRETTY.

I'm heading off to the garden store to pick up a few goodies then to plant seeds in little cups :)

First Blooms

And so it begins...

An (ALMOST) Finished Project

At long last the scooter was ready to ride! I took it on a spin and gave it back to Jason to finish up the tweeking! Finally...

Great Water Collection and Filtration Ideas

Jason and I are wanting to move our renovating outside this season since most of the inside of our house is done. We live in a city that has some serious flooding issues and discovered a type of landscaping called "rain gardening", which is a shallow, constructed depression that is planted with deep-rooted native plants & grasses that slows down the rush of water from hard surfaces, holds the water for a short period of time and allows it to naturally infiltrate into the ground. A rain garden can be thought of as a personal water quality system because it filters the runoff from your roof and lawn, recharges the groundwater and conserves municipal water resources by reducing the need for irrigation.

I've been researching water collection containers, such as 'rain barrels', and came across a discreet and multifunctional system called a 'rain bench' by Second Rain.

It is connected to the downspout drain and collects water that can be used to water the garden! The kits cost about $70 per 60 gallons of storage. Jason and I are thinking about building some raised beds in the backyard with these benches built into the bases with a soaker hose hooked up to the water supply below.

I emailed the folks at 'Second Rain' about my raised bed idea and here is the message I received from them this morning:

"Thanks for the request, and this is exactly the kind of innovation that what we are excited about developing and sharing with others.

It is feasible to build a raised bed right on top of the rain bench. In fact, we have also been finalizing the details for a bench cap that would direct all water that falls on it through a filter and into the upper overflow fitting of the bench right below it.

What this means is, not only can you build the raised bed on top of your bench, but it can be set up so that any excess water that you use to irrigate this bed would flow back into the rain bench for reuse, increasing your water conservation further.

Cheers,
Scott Gear"

I love it when I have an idea that might actually work!

More Garden Talk

Yesterday was such a GORGEOUS spring-like day that I could not think of anything I'd rather do than work in the garden. The bulbs we planted a few days before had not died so I decided to transplant a few dozen other bulbs that were scattered all over our property...as well as a handful of daffodils from Dock's yard that are just on the edge of blooming.

I scattered flower seeds around the bulbs that should start taking off once the bulbs are finished doing their thing.... poppies, chives, sweet basil, lavender, cone flower, chamomile and a few others. I forgot to mark where I scattered the seeds so it will be like Christmas when everything starts coming up next month and blooming over the summer months.

Spring is When...

Spring, for me, is when the bulbs start poking out of the ground. This is the first spring at the Wellstead and it has been exhilarating to see what's been popping up out of the ground around our house. Many of the plants that are cropping up are iris bulbs that Helen (the previous owner) planted many years ago...so we decided to add to the early spring bounty that will be blooming in a few weeks. We planted - in our sun garden - a few different types of tulips, daffodils, and hyacinth as well as dwarf cannas and and an elephant ear bulb that will come up in the summer.

Next up will be filling the shade garden with hosta and caladium bulbs, a couple fern roots and some lily of the valley and impatiens...as well as about a dozen spider plant clumps that were left over from our replanting session on Sunday. We planted a couple of spider plant clippings last year and they did surprisingly well.

The thing that I've found most exciting is seeing many of the perennials I planted last year beginning to sprout :)

Workshop Project

Jason was raised with an array of two, three and four wheelers...I have never driven anything with less than four wheels and two doors. I suppose he thought that this doesn't seem fair so he found a great little scooter to restore. It's torturing me. I don't know why, because it's still too cold to drive but my inner eight year old is feeling VERY IMPATIENT.

Kitty T.V.

The window that looks out into our backyard is our cat's favorite hangout spot...because of all the birds. Jason recently picked up an Oklahoma bird field guide which stays on the dining room table near the window so we can look up all the birds that frequent the bird feeder that we liberated from the curb in front of someone's house last fall.

At one point I identified eight different bird species hanging out all at the same time: European Starlings, Common Grackles, Mourning Doves, Dark-Eyed Junkos, a Downy Woodpecker and a Red-Bellied Woodpecker, a House Finch, House Sparrows and Cardinals. There must have been over forty birds out there!

We just bought some suet for the woodpeckers and added a new type of seed mixture to keep everyone happy (including the cat).

Big Snow

We've had a REAL winter here in Oklahoma...during this last snow we all decided to take an evening walk to the park a few blocks from our house. Jesse and Tillie spotted this unusual work of art and got a real kick out of it.

New Years Eve

Jason's mom got him a smoker for Christmas this year so we decided to smoke ALOT of meat and ring in the new year with friends in the 'man cave' - which is what the workshop is called when Jason is having boy time with buddies.

The house has been de-Christmassed and things are beginning to get back to normal around here. We are all sorting through our gifts and starting to fit them into our lives.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!