Early Spring Random Photos

Abe in back looking handsome

Tulip bud

Lettuce, wild arugula and giant red mustard sprouts in the cracks of the sidewalk

Last year's onions will bloom shortly, with chaos in the background

Dew, my terrace, tulip bulbs etc...

I'm back to taking some pictures then blogging a few days later. It's amazing how fast things change and given my freestyle gardening, how busy I get. I did a lot in back but I still need to sow more scarlet runner beans and some more beans in front. Todd made me watch some permaculture videos which is what I am leaning towards. Some videos came from the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia. This is pretty cool stuff, makes me wanna pack up and find 5 acres somewhere.

Here's a dewy cabbage with dewy self-sown fennel. Self-sown plants are one aspect of permaculture. The bottom line is getting the most whatever it is you want with the least amount of effort. I did a post, Lazy Man's Way which seems pretty close to the perma culture philosophy. I am glad that this is catching on in some places.

One thing I saw a lot in the permaculture planting were terraces. Terraces can make passive irrigation pretty simple. This small terrace here isn't exactly set up to water itself, but it's true that I could water the top to overflowing and just let it filter down. This terrace has filled out quite a bit since I established it.

This tulip is not an example of permaculture. I decided to do the extra work of lifting my bulbs this year. Usually I leave them which leads to them gradually dying out. I really liked the flowers so I thought I'd try lifting them which give me the option of planting them in a different location. At this point I DO rotate my crops. I follow the simple rule of not planting brassicas, and plants in the tomato family in the same location consecutively. I'm not absolutely strict about that but it does makes me keep some semblance of structure I guess.

This tulip bulb has a smaller bulb that grew on the surface of the soil. Perhaps 6 of my bulbs had this going on. From what I understand tulips are native to a place that gets hot and dry after they bloom. Somewhere in Turkey? I'm too lazy to see if I am remembering that correctly. I guess that in the wild surface bulbs like this would break away from the parent plant and get scattered, hopefully to a nice new bed. Right now the bulbs I dug up are in a paperbag on my porch mixed with some vermiculite to help them dry up a bit. Then I'll store them in the basement til September. I hope this works out well.

I posted this picture because it has a cat in it. The bare spot of soil is where the tulips were. I intend to sow some beans here, maybe more flageolet. I probably should harvest the lettuce.

Spider and other things

This spider has been around for a few months and keeps getting bigger. Have I said before that I LOVE spiders? I kinda don't let them build webs where I pass but I try to let them have some space. Anyway, this jumping spider gets around a bit. Here he seems to be eating an ant or maybe a small bee.

 

My garden is definitely coming into its own. The tulips above are done, but I am letting them feed their bulbs for next year. There's a lot going on here, many different plants growing together and none that I can see are weeds. I suppose I overplant but I think it's prettier that way. There is a bit of bare ground in the foreground.

 

I'm always happy to see my broccoli start heading. This is pretty small still. I'll let it get a bit bigger before I eat it.

 

Here's Abe wondering around. He always uses the stepping stones. Really, I need more of them. If anything they keep me from overplanting, just a little bit.

 

Hops, Tulip Bulb and a Cute Kitty

It's getting hard for me to come up with titles. Given that these posts are photo driven rather actually about any specific gardening issues.

The cascade hops are growing fast. I might expand the area I have for them to climb on. The salad ball is still filling out but some stuff is getting past its prime like the mizuna. I have nibbled on a couple flower stalks so far. I'm not sure if I want to let it go to seed or harvest the whole thing. It would leave a large bald spot right now. When the nasturtiums fill in I might pull it. The lettuce hasn't bolted yet.

Should I be explaining stuff here? See, I can say a bunch of random things about whatever, but it's sorta easy for me. Once I talk to people, especially new gardeners I'm struck by how little they know.

I'm not a tidy gardener. I groom this ball and my saladbowl, and my beds actually by kinda grazing. If I see a leaf overshadowing something else, I'll pull it and eat it on the spot. If it's a whole plant I generally save it for later.

I pull a few plants up by the roots and put them in a glass of water on my chocking board. Basically, for the past few weeks I have made a series of 'salad bouquets' Really, they are quite pretty.

The bouquet on the right is from a month ago. That's mizuna and fennel. They must be 500% bigger now, especially the mizuna.

I am pretty happy with how my tulips turned out but now I am a bit confused by this recent development. What you see here is a tulip bulb forming just bove the surface of the soil. There seem to be 6 of these growing.

Does this mean my tulips are really happy, or are they very unhappy? It does look like the healthiest tulips are the ones doing this but what do I do with these bulbs?

I tend to treat tulips like annuals, something I pull up and compost when they are done, but these were so pretty and so many passers by commented on how lovely they were. Should I dig them up in a few weeks and store them till September? I will decide soon, won't I?

Sally is a ham for the camera. This is her response to "Sally, do something cute." Need I say more?

Garden Eyecandy

This might be obnoxious but I haven't been updating fast enought to catch up with my garden. Everything is just exploding!

This tomato is not in an ideal habitat but this isn't about perfect tomatoes, it's about fun and maybe sharing with the neighbors. It's a cherry, either juliet or super sweet 100. Don't be fooled by it's shady spot. I have plans to somehow train this against the railroad tie wall where there is plenty of sun. I just think I will have to tweak the balance of nutrients in its soil more carefully than a standard planting.These feral chamomile have miraculously not been tread upon. Either my neighbors understand that this isn't a weed or they just think I am crazy and are afraid to damage this flower. I think that they somehow understand that I am up to something special.The saladball is slowly filling out. I plant something else as if this were a sketch I sit with every few days. Always a work in progress. It already looks different than it did from this photo which is maybe a week old.For some reason this little bay laurel makes me happy. It suffered so much this winter and now it looks alive.These cascade hops are in their second year. What a difference a year makes! Maybe it will be worth harvesting this year.This blur of plants are pretty much all greens and all edible. OK, a few aren't but they aren't weeds. I thin them pretty much everyday. It sorta forces me to eat my vegetables. There's mizuna, red cabbage, pansies, florence fennel seedlings, onions and probably something I have forgotten. Damn! I have surpassed the 20 item limit of things I may tag this blog with. Sure, I could have made it 2 posts but whatever.This lacinato kale should be pretty graceful in this pot. I tucked in some allysum and some chervil thinnings from the salad bowl. There's even a basil plant, just basic basil. Now if I can find some red russian kale, I will be happy. I might have to grow it myself. hmph. One disadvantage of Pittsburgh is a lack of exotic stuff. Now if there were enough of a demand I WOULD put more effort into growing my own to share or perhaps sell with to other gardeners.These wallflowers are nice, and half haven't started blooming yet. Tansy, monarda and calendula have yet to flower. This wall is built of found things. I am quite fond of thrifting, indeed, my latest project is the result of thrifting, actually a good find. More on that shortly. I don't know if I have said it here, but I sorta feel like recycling in whatever form is a very patriotic thing to do. I don't want to be preachy, but when I think about things coming from far, far away and using fossil fuels to do things when it's all in your backyard it kinda upsets me.This cat always looks scared. here is a rare view of my backyard. It needs a lot of work. This was taken through my kitchen window. I don't think this cat is feral, she's just a scaredy cat.

These are my tulips at their best this year. Already more than half of them are done blooming. Just this yesterday I heard a very small child say very clearly "TULIPS" when he passed by with his family. This made my day.

These oyster mushrooms show a new direction I am going in garden synergy. If my experiments work out, I'll share them. Honestly for the most part if I show you something here I think you should try it for yourself. The stuff I am trying that I'm not sure about, I don't share.

These ants with amber distended bodies fed from my hummingbird feeder until I filled the ant guard with water. I really do not like ants but these look like jewels. These ants are actually, at least on my browser, a fifth of the size they are here. The black surface they are walking on is a cast iron shepard's hook which looks fairly smooth in normal vision.

I hope that in the future that I will stick to my goal of posting twice a week. I think the poison ivy set me back. Anyway, already I have a lot to document.

Planning your garden

One thing that's nice about a vegetable garden is that in most cases, every spring you have a clean slate. You may rearrange your garden in new ways. Indeed it is often better that you do so. If you grow tomatoes and brassicas in the same spot year after year, it is highly likely that they will be afflicted with various diseases as pests settle in.

Last year was the 1st vegetable garden in front here and I had a lot of weeds and english ivy slowing me down. It started out being fairly structured but that didn't last. I don't seem to have any current full bed pictures this year. I guess there's a reason for that but these 2 '08 pictures were probably taken in late April. Maybe in a few weeks I'll have some idea of what I am doing.

I got trigger happy when I was uploading and lost track of an image. I guess I'll reload it. This one is my lovely 'stage left' garden bed. What looks pretty sparse here rapidly filled in. One thing that is different this year is that I have more stepping stones.

What you see here are 6 red cabbages, lots of lettuce, various onions, some pansies to pretty it up, and some tulips to pretty it up. When the tulips faded I ripped them out and planted tomatoes.On stage right I planted some strawberries in a nice diamond. They barely resemble this shape now but I think I'll let them be. I should have kept the runners in line but strawberries are so cute. This year I have taken the ivy back a bit more. Last year I spent a long time ripping it out of this bed. Sure, it's great groundcover but I like other things more and I just don't have much space. Again, I have put in more stepping stones.

I don't do rows but I try not to walk anywhere in my beds unnecessarily. It does not take long for them to become covered as I tend to overplant.

White House Vegetable Garden I exclaim!

Wow! They are doing it! It's about the scale I'd hope for really. All right, off the top of my head I do not have much to add to this news except that I hope it will encourage more people to grow their own. With that excuse I will talk about my own garden.


This is the only fennel that seems to have wintered. There were 4 left last fall that seemed to die off one by one with each deep freeze. I hope this produces some nice fennel bulbs.


Here's some red mustard seedlings that are self seeded. I'l have to thin them.


This is something I found in a neighbor's trash. It was just the metal frame. I wove in this brown cord to serve as a skeleton and lined it with felt. I wanna grow salad greens in it and maybe try out a little mushrooms. Now that's a whole new can of worms but in contemplating the synergy of bokashi, I have contemplated how useful fungus can be to a garden's fertility.


Artichokes don't generally survive the cold of Pittsburgh so I wintered this in my coldroom in my basement. This one did not bloom last year. It should this time. In the background are some tulips shooting up. I just couldn't resist getting some deeply discounted bulbs late last season.