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.

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.

Indoor Things

When you move things inside, you've got to look them over. I moved this small bay laurel tree inside a month or so ago and noticed just a couple weeks ago that it was just coated with scale.

Scale is the leech of the plant world. They attach themselves anywhere that they can suck the life out of your plant. In this instance they were on the stems and leaves.

If it is feasible, a q-tip dipped in rubbing alcohol is effective at removing them. The photo here shows my partially de-scaled bay laurel. This was a couple weeks ago.
Yesterday I found MORE scale on it, not as bad as the last time but I needed to descale it again. I am glad at this point that my tree is still quite small. I think I'm going to find a few more in a couple weeks. I sorta like KILLING these nasty creatures.

Next we have Abe the cat hanging out in his spot. I geririgged a shelf over a radiator so he could sit by the window in a warm spot. The plant hanger next to him has catnip growing in it, but it's always been anemic. The vines climbing up it are he shou wu. Behind him is some wheatgrass. I planted that because he had been eating my lemongrass and he does now seem to prefer the wheat. I do however need to trim it every once in a while, thus the dish there with freshly trimmed grass on top of various dead leaves I've pulled from other plants.

And finally my forced hyacinths. I just took them out of the refrigerator and after a week in the dark of the basement, I'll hang them in a window. I understand that it's a good idea to make a gradual transition from cold and dark to warm and light with hyacinths. Sometimes the blooms bust out of the bulb, splitting it, before the leaves come out. I've never had this experience, but I hear it's not pretty.

I found a picture of a prematurely blooming forced hyacinth. It's lovely but preferable to have the blooms a few inches above the bulb with well formed leaves below. Actually last year I did have one or 2 hyacyinths that did this. I was less careful last year to do a gradual transition. Maybe I won't have this problem this year.