Catching Up Eye-candy

It really is hard to keep up. Here's some non sequential photos that caught my eye.

This was the salad bowl. The beets were in it early on and though they are stunted are still lovely. Enough has survived in it to keep it pretty even though they aren't exactly thriving.

This is a good view of the 2nd crop of cabbages filling out. I get a kick out of this everytime I look at it.

These hops are glorious. It will be worthwhile to harvest them this year. Last year they were far less productive.

This is my 3rd post today! I intend to do one more post. I took too many pretty pictures not to.

Bokashi Sidedressing and the Summerbowl

I said I would talk more about bokashi so here it is. Below is a picture of 2 tomato leaves, oversaturated to emphasize that one is greener than the other. The one on top is one of my ground tomatoes while the one on the bottom is from my box planter. I noticed a few weeks ago that the ground tomatoes have become distinctively less green than the box tomatoes. The reason why I believe this is so is because the box tomatoes have been enriched with bokashi.

And so, I decided it was high time I gave the ground tomatoes some of their own bokashi richness. I can't just top them with it. This is super rich stuff. Instead, I side dressed them.

I have a special skinny shovel that is perfect for digging deep narrow holes. I dug a hole as close as I dared to without damaging my tomato's roots. I have a little secret thing I've been planting in tandem with my bokashi, it's hair, hair of any kind be it my own, my pet's or in this case waste alpaca. Why do I have waste alpaca? If you wanna know check out Gabrielle Spins, my other blog which I have not been very active with. Perhaps I will again as it gets cold again but really, the dynamics of a garden are much greater than spinning.

I got interested in using hair to fertilize when I heard about Smartgrow. This seemed indeed to be something smart but it also seemed to be something I had available already that normally I just threw away. Anyway, burying hair below the bokashi means it will break down faster for my plants to use sooner.

Right on top of the hair is the bokashi. Then a little bit of backdirt mixed with some lime. Bokashi smells like vinegar and is very acidic. In part because this is in fairly close proximity to my well established plants it is a good idea to help the soil to maintain a go pH balance. Then I backfilled the rest of the soil. I hope that in a few weeks from now I will see some positive results.

My garden is revised many times during the growing season. This saladbowl is one example. I spared you the shot of the chervil fully bolted and gone to seed. Gone is the pretty flower phase, it was down to the seeds turning brown while the plants yellow. I pulled the majority of them up. Indeed I pulled out most of the lettuce. It too was bolting and bitter. The soil for being so overwatered had become pretty nutrient poor. Really, in all honesty, this is NOT an efficient way to grow vegetables. It was a pretty experiment.

Now I'm not ready to just chuck it all away so instead I pulled up the worst of it, leaving in particular these lovely beets. I mixed in some fertilizer, not bokashi this time. I don't think bokashi is a good option here, just a dry organic fertilizer with a bit of lime and some water retention crystals. This time, I hope to keep whatever I have here growing. With that in mind I planted just about the least sensible thing I could think of, a watermelon.

I will keep you posted on how that works out unless it is a complete disaster that is an embarrassment to me. I am not above being embarrassed and under-reporting my failures.

I need to document my backyard

This morning I took 80some pictures. We had a good week of rain and warmth and it shows. I have fallen into choosing about 8 pictures a day to post and discuss. Today the choosing was pretty tough.

Here is a slice of the saladbowl, which probably should be harvested soon. The lettuce is starting to get bitter. I will replace it with something more suitable for summer weather. The pansies will probably die out as they get too hot, the chervil is bolting so something should replace those 2 as well.

Also shown is red giant mustard which I will probably all but eliminate. I'll leave one or two to go to seed.

In the background are the birdseed sunflowers which please me more and more each day. They have buds now. I imagine they won't get much taller than they are now but I could be wrong.

This tomato is a clear indicator that I do not grow my veggies for maximum productivity. A few years ago I grew a cherry tomato on a stoop that faced an alleyway that I encouraged passers-by to sample. I guess I like to share. As long as they don't end up throw tomatoes around. This will takes some engineering of this habitat.

I could call this photo 'gratuitous cat picture.' Sally tolerates the Cheddarhead, especially since he doesn't really take any guff. She used to run at him full speed but he always held his ground. Lucky for her, he didn't retaliate. Now she leaves him alone but she still is annoyed by him, as all cats annoy her

Finally my self-sown calendula is beginning to flower. Calendula has a very interesting story. It has excellent medicinal properties that have been known at least since Roman times.

Beau Désordre

I was in Africa once. I saw what was called the "Zairoise miricle" that people could live and breed without any real government. I enjoyed the local music I heard there. Years later I bought a bunch of records at a flea market, 5 for a dollar or something. They were from the 70's I think. I had scant knowledge of what it was but I believe I found some Soukous. It was different than most of the African music I heard on the radio, and to my ear better. Zaiko Langa Langa was one artist and this was described as being "beau désordre", beautiful chaos. I think that that could describe my garden.

These pots are looking very nice. I got my lacinato kale, very stately, next to the salad bowl.

I just let the chamomile take over the swan. It looks a bit weedy perhaps, but I don't care.

My strawberries are getting luscious.

More Stuff!

As promised, I am doing another post. It's May you know? There is just so much beauty I could cry, but I won't.

Here's the cheddarhead eating by my saladbowl, which is filling out nicely though this isn't its best side. Behind it is lacinato kale and an eggplant. Yup, I haven't caught up with everything here.

This planter has a matching one, sorta, on the other side of the steps. It started last year with lipstick salvia which i wintered with partial success. The salvia was kinda ragged so i filled it in with mizuna which already needs to be harvested, allysum and of all things hops! The hops are an unknown ungendered quanity. A friend gave me seedlings this spring and just for kicks I am keeping a few to see what's up. Who knows, I might end up having a new variety.

This porch still life is my fancy swedish ivy, mona lavender, with vases of chamomile and acapulco anise hyssop. I trimmed back the feral chamomile a touch but wanted to see if the buds would bloom in a vase. They have.

Chives are so easy and pretty, especially when they bloom. In the background is one of my bokashi buckets.

Well, I think that's it for today. I have a lot that I haven't covered.

Monetize

Each week I will post images of stuff as they grow. Red Mustard is just lovely. You may see its progress, including last year's predecessor by clicking on the red mustard link below.

This salad bowl planter will also be highly documented. I want it to be just covered with growth so that you cannot even see the container

One of my favorite permanently potted edible plants is this bay laurel. It is in its 2nd year and since I have put it outside a few weeks ago these leaf buds are opening. Though I wintered it indoors, it is hardy to about 25 degrees Fahrenheit so light frost is OK. In a year maybe I'll use some of its leaves. It grew slower than expected last year.

I hope I am not violating any terms of my agreement by acknowledging that I have decided to use adsense. Anyway these are sponsored links, not favorite sites but hopefully some inadvertently will be selling things that I would personally endorse. They are chosen, not by me, to correspond with the content of my posts. They seem to be pretty low-key so I don't think they'll hinder the 'Gabrielle's Landscaping' experience.

Anyway, outside of this post I will not really mention them. If I endorse something in a post, or anywhere in this blog it is because I personally like it. From what I see it's pretty obvious which is an ad, usually there is an "Ads by Google" somewhere, and what isn't, like my 'supplies' box. That's my uncompensated opinion, not an ad.

Progress

For lack of a better idea, I titled this 'progress' really because I wanna see some. Spring is here but the my garden has yet to explode in growth like it will.

The romaine lettuce isn't large yet but it is adapting to its habitat. Hopefully something will sprout on the surface above within a week.


This bay laurel is in it's 2nd year. I will try not to neglect it as much as I did last year and maybe it will grow 6 inches like my plant guides tell me it will. Those red pebbly things are hydroton, expanded clay that I've experimented with in making selfwatering containers last year. I topped this bay laurel with it to possibly discourage fungus gnats from getting to it.


Finally, my mint is showing some life!


A friend told me of some hops growing where he works. I asked if he'd share a rhizome with me and he brought me a pot full of these! These are hops seedlings! I decided to save a few and try to figure out their genders later on. Allegedly, these have some sort of Belgian beginnings. All I know is that there were 2 varieties of hops where these came from that have been there for about 10 years. If I am lucky, I might end up with something unique and good.


My red mustard seedling after many months, are growing true leaves. Again, I'll have to thin these when they finally start to grow.


This is cascade hops I transplanted from a pot I grew them in last year. Last year they weren't very productive, this year I believe will be very different.

Salad Bowl

Remember my found homemade planter? I said I'd turn it into a salad bowl. So here it is all barren.


I've been trying to sprout my own lettuce but it's been slow going so I couldn't resist these romaine babies that are ready to go. I just cut slits in the felt and stuffed the seedlings in. I'd prefer more variety but it's early yet. These grow fast enough that I can eat them and replace them with something else later, plus I should be able to plant a lot more in here.

On top I thought I'd pop in some onion sets. This mixing spoon makes a fine dibble.

In goes the onion.

To make it more tidy I dibbled the rest before planting.

And that's it for now. Lettuce is very satisfying because it grows fast. I can't wait! Onions take longer I guess but I could just eat the greens. This is fun because you get to change it up whenever.