Gardening with Melanie part...

Remember 2 years ago when I planned to do a whole big weekly garden post and then didn't do anything in the yard all summer?  Remember last summer when we planted a whole expansive garden and then it grew and returned to seed while I had a total break down over going back to work?  Well this summer I quietly cleaned up my little garden spot and planted 3 plants.  I did water them for a few days after planting them but have basically neglected them as always.  I planted one strawberry plant.  I know it will be next year before we see if there is any success with that but I thought it sounded fun.  One cucumber plant and one cherry tomato plant.  Tonight on this steamy Minnesota night John and I wandered over to the garden to see how my little plants were doing.  And look what we found!

I grew those!  They didn't exist and now they do.  Amazing.  Can you believe it?!

I know what I will be having on my salad tomorrow.

So the lesson here is...keep trying?  Keep neglecting your garden?  Choose hearty plants.  Yes I believe that is our winner.  Actually, I don't know if I told you this story before but, many years ago when Jake was about Isabelle's age we planted some cucumber seeds in a little patch of dirt next to our driveway.  After one fun day of gardening we totally forgot about them.  Then one day I notice the weeds in that patch spilling over on to the driveway and what do I find but several plump and juicy cucumbers laying on our driveway under a leafy vine that had grown from the seeds Jake had planted weeks earlier.  We were amazed and excited.  So I knew if a cucumber was wiling to develop while sitting on an asphalt driveway that it likely would survive my neglect in a lovely, deer protected garden. 

Proof my theory was correct.

Maybe my thumb isn't black after all.

Just a very, very dark green.

Like the color of my new cucumbers.

Hangin' with the Hardackers

We are enjoying an extended indian summer here in MN and I thought I would share a recent afternoon with you.

Isabelle and the neighbor girl discovered a HUGE ant hill in our yard and set up a table and chairs to observe them and take notes.

Ready with the notebooks.

Hey mom while you are here take a picture of my new tatoo.

On the other side of the yard the garden is flurishing.

Check out the size of those pumpkins!

Oh so happy sunflowers.

And we are going to feast on this golden ear of corn.

Yep we are seriously considering moving to a farm.  Now that we know what excellent farmers we would make, we could solve world hunger with all the food we would produce.

On the other hand, we are really investing in our property over here.  We have added a spare room onto the tree house so if you are in town and looking for a place to stay we have the perfect little guest house in our backyard.

Easy access through trap door in the floor.

Isabelle has been singing its praises.

Gardening with Melanie

Remember right before I started work when I had some sort of crisis, cry for help moment and planted a garden?  I thought you might be wondering how it was looking so I took a couple pictures this weekend:

Let's pretend it has looked like this all summer.  Weeded with the rows all still neatly lined up and I didn't weed for a hour before taking this picture.

Let's pretend I meant for the sunflower to grow through the chicken wire and turn at a funny angle so that now the chicken wire is the only hope it has of staying upright.

Let's pretend that after an hour of weeding the yard doesn't look like a yard that needs its weekly weeding.

Let's pretend that huge grassy area in the back of this photo isn't a giant weed pile we can't take care of because our mower and weed whip have gone the ways of mowers and weed whips.

Let's pretend that this garden isn't growing a huge thistle plant.

Which is so large I cannot pull it even with a gloved hand.  I think it asked me to feed it while I was out there...

So as you can see planting a garden was a perfectly logical thing to do this summer and hasn't at all called out my failures on a regular basis.  The truth is I just planted that lettuce to look at and planned to let it grow beyond its ripeness and let it rot in the ground.

Although I have to admit that getting outside on a beautiful Saturday morning, digging in the dirt and getting dirty while cleaning a spot in my yard was in fact slightly relaxing.  But don't tell anyone I said that because everyone knows I hate to garden.

Gardening

Remember last year when I was going to do a weekly update of my garden and then I never did one?  Well this year, as I begin working full time, Isabelle and I put in a garden.  Clearly this is a cry for help.

As you may recall I had laid a piece of plywood on the grass to kill the grass in the winter and have nice black dirt the following spring.  It worked great and here I am 2 years later finally using that black dirt. (OK I think it is actually 3 years)

When we lifted up the plywood we found a whole ecosystem of bugs and worms just under the surface. My kids were entertained for quite a while by it:

Unfortunately you can't photograph the movement of the ants (well I can't, maybe a pro could.) so these pictures really just look like dirt but you can see the holes which were part of the ants tunnels.  At one point you could see all the larvae on the dirt but they quickly move all the babies to safer ground.  That was interesting to watch.

This is actually the back of the board.  Many of those specs of dirt are actually ants.

And right now you are thinking about how mindblowingly fascinating it must be to live in a house where we are all excited to watch ants crawl.

You should hear about the wild nights we spend watching our grass grow.

Anyway...

A few weeks ago we were entertained by 4 deer that decided to have dinner on the grass in the backyard.  Who can blame them?  It was several inches long as our lawn mower hadn't quite pulled it together for the first mow of the season at that point. 

As a result of that viewing we decided we were going to need something to keep more than just a few short rabbits out of the garden.  We decided we would need some sort of chicken wire cage and so Jake and I headed to Home Depot for dirt, plants for my usual summer pots and chicken wire.  John had a vision and also suggested 3 2x6 boards of treated lumber 8 feet long.  We repeated that part many times so we would remember.  While there I happened upon a junk pile and found 4 fence posts for $4.  I called John to see if he could work them into the plan and we bought them.  Then we decided that we didn't need 2x6 boards if we had fence posts and Jake and I promptly forgot we needed 3 of them and so we bought 2 2x4 boards.  They were treated and 8 feet long so I feel like we were pretty close.  When we got home I didn't really have a vision of what John was planning to build.  One of the keys to John and my success is that I am a visual learner and John is artistic so when I don't get it he draws it:

And then he and Jake build it:

 

And Isabelle and I plant it: 

I haven't had time to mark the rows yet so garden tools do the trick.

 

The chicken wire obviously isn't in yet but since nothing is growing we figure we have a week to finish up that part of the project.

Now we wait and wonder.  Can you grow 2 rows of corn, a row of cucumbers, a row of watermelon and 3 rows of lettuce in a 4x6 garden plot?  Did I mention a couple sunflowers Isabelle and I hid in there?

It is all about having fun.

And my deep denial of what a working summer will mean for my life.

Gardening Part 3

You might think that you missed part 2, well so did I so I figured I would just skip straight to part 3 and keep moving.

This week we continue the adventures of frugal gardening with Melanie.  I managed to plant my 2 pots this week without spending a dime.  You can too if you follow these simple steps.  First, have your mom throw a birthday party for an 89 year old family friend.  Second, when she asks you for help propose decorating with small pots of inpatients around the room.  Third, have her put you on the task and give you the money for it.  Forth, be unable to find inpatients you like and buy other flowers which you plant and bring to the party to create the perfect continuation of the theme centerpieces.

Then after the party

Have Grandma Dorothy beg you not to leave her with the flowers which she cannot use and so pack them up, bring them home and voila, free flowers for your pots.  So simple.

I planted 2 pots and put the left over flowers in with my now dead tulips.  I was told by a friend that you are supposed to leave the tulip leaves so that the bulbs grow and you get more flowers in future years.  When I was pulling some came all the way out but I left the bottom portion of many of the tulips so hopefully it will be even more spectacular next year.

You can't really see the flowers in the garden portion very well here but I am assuming they will start flowering beautifully once they get going.  I may have left the without water in the baggies I planted them in for several days.  It is possible.

Now when planting your frugal flowers you will need soil.  The trick to free soil is, well, a shovel.

I had saved some dirt in one of the pots from last year but the other was empty.  I just got out my handy garden shovel and filled them with dirt from the garden.  Yes I may have tossed a few worms into the pot as well but that is supposed to be good for them, right?  And yes the dirt is a little weedy but I am going to just hope for the best.  My mom suggested that this type of planting may require some plant food.  I will have to see what we have in our garage.  (you would be surprised what I find in there despite my lack of gardening skills.)

As I have been working through my existing plantings I have decided there is an aspect of gardening that is part archaeological dig.  As you work in the dirt you discover things and wonder, "what is that?" or "where did that come from?"

For instance,

What is that?  It appears to be a giant root that I can't find the ends of.  There is no giant tree near this giant root.  It actually looks a little like a giant tuber but I am just assuming it is a root.  It is pretty hard.  The question then continues?  Should I excavate further or just cover it back up and forget it?  Will it unlock a mystery of this yard that I need to know or just make a big hole and a big mess?  Can my curiosity simply be denied?

Also, I ask

Where did that come from?  I mean there wasn't a huge hole in our yard last year.  I am pretty sure we would have noticed it.  I am not sure this picture does it justice but it is about a foot deep, or more, who really wants to stick their hand in there and find out?  While I was thinking animal a friend came over and suggested this had once been the location of a tree which had been cut down and the stump buried. Now years later the stump is completely rotted and the earth gave way.  This seems a likely possibility as we have another smaller hole in the middle of the yard (this one is on the street side of our fence) which also seems to be a former tree.  Of course either way the next question is, what do we do with it?

I am amazed actually by how much I could say each week about our yard, and yet somehow couldn't write a post about it last weekend.  Next weekend I will be out of town but I will try to pre-post one of the many other thoughts I have.

For today I will leave you with a question.  What should we do with a whole stack of these slate tiles? 

I think I am so overwhelmed by the possibilities I can't make a decision. My top two ideas so far are to tile the front steps with them giving us a lovely slate stair or setting them in the yard somewhere to create a small slate patio which might hold a small table and a couple chairs.  What would you do with them?

The garden project week 1

So far I am sticking with what I know in the garden. I pulled weeds in the one garden area I already care for and directed John and Jake to do their own various projects. Jake mowed, after the standard number of threats were made. It is amazing how good weeds look when they are all a uniform length. John walked our front yard with some sort of weed killer to hopefully rid us of the front dandelions and keep the weed patrol happy.

Measuring the concentrate

Walking the grounds

As I was pulling all the prickly weeds out of the hostas as I do every year and wondering what I might say about gardening this week since I tried nothing new I realized that while I feel like this is going to be my first year of trial and error gardening that in fact I have been learning things about gardening for years. I have been a homeowner for an amazing 16 years and our last house was also purchased from a big gardener so surely I have learned something in all those years. Here is a totally random list of what I know about gardening and plants:

• Even if you cut down 7 feet of clematis vines in the spring the new vines will climb all the way back up 7 feet, you did not just kill the only thing that seems to take care of itself in your yard. They really are dead vines not just dormant.
• If you buy a seed mat of flowers out of a magazine and just set it on some black dirt without killing any of the usual weeds or in any way preparing the soil and then just barely cover the mat with enough dirt to keep it from blowing away and then don't pull any weeds when they come up because you don't know the difference between weeds and flowers none of the flowers will grow.
• Eventually tulip bulbs will stop producing flowers in the spring if you do nothing. (I didn't learn what you are supposed to do but I do know that much.)
• Ugly and over grown bushes pop right of the ground if you loop a chain around them and attach it to a truck.
• Large cucumbers will suddenly appear on your driveway if you plant the seeds in a weedy spot next to the driveway and forget about them all summer long.
• Rabbits like tulips
• Iris' will eventually get killed by weeds if you do nothing.
• Weeds can grow as tall as me.
• Mulch really makes even bad landscaping look good.
• Weeds still grow through mulch.
• If your bushes look bad you can't make them look worse by doing a little pruning.
• If you let your sister help you clean your yard she might accidentally pull the honeysuckle out. But that is ok because you probably had pretty much killed it by then anyway.
• Baby clematis plants don't grow well when you plant them in the heat of the summer and then don't water them.
• Nothing but weeds really grows on the boulevard where all the road salt ends up when the snow melts.
• If your grass dies in the summer from lack of water it will still come back in the spring.
• Concrete is a good way to fill in flower beds that overwhelm you.
• Landscaping books tend to assume you know what they are talking about.
• All landscaping work is back breaking. Yet strangely rewarding. Although I am still unclear if the trade-off is worth the effort.
• If your husband doesn't fix the lawnmower for a month that is his way of telling you he wants you to bring it in and have it done for him.
• You don't have to mow in July if you don't water your grass.
• A fence hides weeds from the weed patrol.

I am really looking forward to learning some new stuff this summer. This week we are hoping to meet with a designer who is going to help us finalize the paint colors for our house. I have a concept in mind but John and I don't do color selection. The house is way to big to choose the wrong color. So still no new gardening quite yet. Self-employment is a feast and famine business. We are moving into the famine stage for the next couple weeks but I should be able to hit the garden stores in a few weeks. Until then it will be all about how I am killing weeds and pruning bushes.

The Garden Project

I have a large backyard.  I love it.  Plenty of room to run, play, relax and dream.  We enjoy being in it all summer long.  However, we don't take very good care of it.  As we speak the city weed patrol is probably drafting a letter telling us to take care of the dandelions in our yard.  Yes the weed patrol exists.  Yes we have recieved letters from them before. 

We inherited some gardens from the previous owners.  They liked to garden and grew lots of veggies and flowers.  We have mainly let them get taken over with weeds and mow them down to mimic the look of grass.  There is one spot where some issues came up and because of the uneven ground we can't mow it down so it just grows tall lush weeds all summer long.  Luckily it is in the back corner so it doesn't bug us too much but our alley neighbors probably wish we would take care of it.  They always seem exicted when they see us trying to do something with the area.

The "prairie restoration project" as we affectionately call it.  The city didn't seem to agree and before we put up the fence got a letter telling us our weeds were too tall.  Keep in mind I took this picture today and it is only May.

We also have a smal garden right by the house.  The hostas grow thick each year and are well beyond the need to be split but I wouldn't know what to do if I did split them so I just let the thick clumps of hostas continue to grow.  Some falls I cut all the dead hostas out and other years I leave them and just let the new hosta grow over the old hosta in the spring.  That was my approach this year.

A few years ago I was feeling ambitious and planted a few perinials in the garden spot in front of the hostas.  They are all growing amazingly well considering the lack of attention I give them.  Then last fall I planted some tulip and hyacin bulbs which I have been enjoying during this early spring season we were having here in MN.  Of course I am pretty sure I planted alot more bulbs than I have flowers but I did get enough that I am optimistic about future years.

My tulips, the hyacins in front have already started to die.  Do I have to go pick them now?

One of the perinials I planted years ago.  I have no idea what it is but it flowers nicely each year.

Another flowering perinial I planted that flowers nicely and I have no idea what it is.  There is also a little clump of some sort of iris to the right of this flower that I didn't photograph because it isn't flowering yet and another plant that flowers nicely in the fall.  In the middle of all these flowers is a blank spot begging for more perinials.  And, as you can see, some weeding to be done.

So that is where my gardening skills have taken me in the nearly 8 years we have owned this home.  Every year I think I am going to pull it together and get this yard shaped up.  I am going to keep up with the weeds in both the grass and the garden.  We are going to do something about the spot in the back and every year I imagine I will plant some veggies despite never doing so before.  Other people love to garden, if I just had a little knowledge couldn't I?

So that is what I am going to try to get this summer.  A little knowledge.  I have talked to a few gardener friends and they all say you just have to go for it.  Gardening is all about trial and error.  Well that pretty much summarizes my philosphy of life so I should be a master gardener in no time.

Last fall I talked with a friend who suggested that if I really wanted to plant a garden this spring I should put down a board or tarps or something so that the grass would be dead come spring and I wouldn't have as much work preparing a spot.

So I did that.  I did peak a couple weeks ago and sure enough there is black dirt under there, but now I am afraid to move forward.

After a spectacular April the weather has been terrible the past couple weeks but there is promise of improvement starting this weekend.  I figure there is no time like the present and nothing like a little accountability to keep a person motivated so my plan is to give you my weekly progress report this summer on how my garden is growing.

Things you might look forward to reading about:

• 
  
  What I will plant in that veggie garden.  It is rather small, one of my friends said it was only big enough for one tomato plant.  It is a little bigger than that but not much.  That is about all I can mange at this stage of the game.
• 
  
  Pruning.  We have lots of bushes that haven't really been trimmed since my sister and brother-in-law were in town a few years ago and helped us out.  It looked great then.  Hopefully I can just follow the pattern they started.
• 
  
  Killing the dandelions.  We are going to try to do it ourselves this year.  We usually hire a service every 2-3 years. They seem to be contained for a couple years and then get out of control again.  This time we are going to try a little DIY of the weed and feed.
• 
  
  Weeding the gardens.  I hear you need to do it more than once.
• 
  
  Moving some of the perinials and splitting the hostas.
• 
  
  The never ending battle of the sprinkler system.  We have one.  It has never worked in 8 years.  John has replaced pretty much all the valves and several sections of hose.  We have a new control panel ready to install.  Maybe this year we can get partial usage?
• 
  
  The answer to how to deal with our prairie restoration project.  We are leaning toward just scraping it off and turning it into a parking pad for John's work van.  Of course that will cost money...
• 
  
  And speaking of money.  We will be painting the outside of the house this summer.  If it means we have to start eating 2 meals a day instead of 3 or I have to walk everywhere and not buy gas.  Whatever sacrifice it takes will not be too great to see my house painted this summer!