In the Garden Again.

Since last week I have been working in the garden. I finally laid out the weed cloth in the pathways that didn't get finished last year. I put out the mulch I purchased last summer also but I am still short many bags. I will be haunting the home improvement stores for broken bags which you can get for a lot less. I am really happy with the work so far and think that kind of work is done now. Now I can concentrate on the garden boxes. I will be out cleaning up all the piles of alpaca poop to add into my garden beds.
I planted peas last week and they are popping up. Today I planted beets and Bob and I planted onions. I know it is late for the onions but that should be ok. The soil is still cool almost cold. We got more rain last night and may get more this weekend which is good for planting.
I am trying a planting method I used years ago when I lived in MA. I was reminded of it by someone a few weeks ago and just wonder if it will work for me again.
I will post some photos of the garden soon. Loving this weather!
Li

Being Thankful for Wonderful Friends

So 7 days ago I took my darling husband into the emergency room at 7 AM and 10 hrs later he was coming out of surgery with out a gall bladder.  The Thursday before that we went and picked up scaffolding so that we could start the work on the siding for the second floor, :"Oh no now what?".  Good friends that's what.  Our friend Al and his wife Lizzie had said they would come and help when we first started this project.  I do not do heights well. But now with Bob being laid low we were not sure if we were going to have to post pone the job, did I say I don't do heights well.  Thanks goodness Al's brother said he could come and help. So as you can see, we are almost done with the east side of the house.

That is Al and his brother Joseph working on the peak.  Those angles are so much fun.  And kids wonder why we need algebra and geometry.  

Here is Bob looking on but he did the cutting which was necessary.  He felt better being able to help some what.  I know he is itching to get up there.  We are on hold until Bob can get up there and take down the stove pipe.  Then the rest will be done on that side.  The wood trim at the top is going to get beefed up some and then painted a wonderful dark plumy red.  Oh I forgot to say we got the new window in as well.  It is a casement window and will give us some more air and breezes through that window during the summer.  To bad the guys are hiding it and to bad it is only their backs you can see.  Next group of pictures I will be sure we can see them.  Next weekend they will be working on the other side of the house.  That side has two windows.  

Once this side is all done I can start thinking about what I want to do for some landscaping. It is a bare canvas.   I have lots of iris's that will do well there along with some 4 o'clocks and may add some of those nice natives I have wanted to add also.  This is the east side so it can be hot since there isn't much shade there.  I do plan to plant one of my mulberry trees in this area between the house and where I was standing.  

I will post some more next week.  

Summer is Finally Over!
This has been such a year so far.  The drought has hit our place with a vengeance.  The pastures are dead and I have no idea if they will recover and if they will how long it will take.  Of course we are still in the grip of the drought with no end in sight.
On the bright side my husband and I went to his 50th high school reunion in Bellevue Washington.  The weather was cool with some rain on Sat night.  Friday we drove around Bob's childhood neighborhood.  The landscapes were so lush and green.  I think the pictures will tell it all.  So here is a treat for those of you who have nothing but brown to look at.

I thought this planter was unique.  It was made of metal but looked so much like terracotta. 

 Do you remember what this green stuff is? In case you don't it is grass.

 This is looking out over Lake Sammamish on Sunday afternoon.  It wasn't really cold but the drizzle was so nice to feel on our skin.

What a glorious day in May

The past few days have been wonderful. We got at least 1.53" of rain on Wed. into Thursday. That is about the first measurable rain since Sept. The air is cool and dry which makes it perfect gardening weather. Last year I started laying down weed cloth down on the paths in the vegetable garden. And today I added some more. I also put down some bark mulch over the weed cloth. I have two bags left which I will but down tomorrow. I am hoping that this supper duty tough weed cloth will last as long as they said it would. I don't want to have to do it in ten or twenty years. Of course in twenty years I will be 80 so it won't matter I guess.

Everything is growing and starting to produce. The beans have flowers as do the tomatoes. The evening temps have been a bit chilly so I don't expect much from the tomatoes yet. The rain storm we had last week also had some lightening with it and what a difference rain and lightening make in the grown in the garden. The beans grew several inches over night. That extra shot of nitrogen does it every time.

In my last post I mentioned getting some Indian Runner Ducks. They have grown so much in just a week. I wish I had taken their picture when they first arrived but here they are now. Aren't they cute. I still don't know who is male and who is female. I guess it will be awhile before I do know. They do come to my voice which I think is so cool. That means they are getting to know who I am. The lady with the food.

It has been a long time since I have written.

I can't believe it has been over a year since I have written on my blog. Shame on me. Lots of additions have been made since last year. We now have three alpaca males that were rescues. They were only a yr old when we got them and now they are two years old. I have their baby fleeces as well as this years sheering. I am looking forward to spinning up their fiber. I think I am now an alpaca yarn snob. These are the three boys, Roberto is the red one, Cristo on the right and Edwardo is in the center.

Yes 2010's winter was a rough one, we even had 6" of snow but this years winter was even worst. What the grasshoppers didn't kill the 2 weeks of below freezing did.

Yep the grasshoppers killed off my wonderful veggie garden last year except for my two kinds of cucumbers. I had a great crop of cukes last year and many jars of bread and butter pickles to boot. Also the pepper plants survived but did not produce much until later in the summer/fall once the grasshoppers started to die off.

Even though I didn't have much of a garden last year I did get all the garden boxes built and filled with soil and compost. They are now planted with all kinds of veggies. Back in Feb. I planted my onions and in early April the green beans. I am hoping they will produce before the hoppers come out and do them in. In spite of the gale force winds I did plant my tomatoes and peppers a few weeks ago. Two out of five tomato plants managed to stand up to the wind, heat, and then cold. I did plant three others along side the deck on the east side of the house and have two others in large planters getting ready to be placed in the back yard now that the wind has let up. Today I replaced the tomatoes that died with new ones plus I have 4 more added to the garden. Got the eggplant plants in today too. Saturday we planted some seed like those cucumbers I planted last year along with corn and carrots. I finally go my zucchini seeds and so I will plant those and some summer squash seeds later today. There was some rain on Monday and I am glad I got those seeds in when I did.

I am hoping for a good garden this year because the last two or so were so bad. Last year at this time we were getting rain but it seemed to come to an end before May ended. We haven't really seen any beneficial rain since last May. Our garden is now on a drip system but without rain I do not know how long I can keep watering. Once I get the plants more established I will mulch and then cut back on the amount of water. When you are on a well you need to be careful. Plans are in the works for setting up those rain barrels and putting gutters up along the studio and the house.

As the end of every growing season it is good to reflect over that season and plan to make it better. So the year before last I decided that growing in rows and fighting burmuda grass was not what I wanted to do any more so I changed that by putting weed cloth down on the paths soon to be covered with bark mulch and using garden boxes to grow in. If I had not had a biblical invasion of grasshoppers last year I may have gone about my gardening with out needing the assistance of two Indian Runner Ducks. They just arrived today with hopes that once they are grown they will keep my garden free of bugs. If they can eat all the grasshoppers they may end up being to fat to waddle about. LOL.

I will get some pictures of the new garden and the new pest patrol posted over the next few days.

Is it Spring Yet?

Oh my gosh what a winter we have been having here in the TX Hill Country. We had several days, in a row mind you, in Jan of 14 degrees during the day and 9 at night. I am so hoping for my fruit trees and bushes to have made it through those cold temps. I guess time will tell.

As I spoke about a while back on my square foot gardens and how I was going to plant all this great stuff for my winter garden. Hah! The winter garden is not much of a garden because if the constant cold and rain. The rain is fine and the raised beds shed that off, where before the veggies would be doing the back stroke to stay afloat. The cold has kept the ground to cold to get the seedling growing never mind making it possible for the seeds to germinate.

The broccoli plants I put in during the fall have taken giant steps backwards. Ok so I should be glad they are still alive. The beet seeds I planted germinated and then it got cold and are still sitting there with the two little leaves they get right after they germinate and pop up out of the ground. Is that depressing or what? But hey they are still alive even after all the wind and 9 degree nights. If it ever warms up they may just grow. Ok hope springs eternal. Theres that work spring again.

One thing I need to do this next week or so is get the fruit trees pruned. They will start flowering soon. I also plan to get my seeds started first part of March. Can't wait to try out that seed starting heat mat. Since the greenhouse isn't heated with a heat source other then my heat lamp which works when it isn't too too cold. I just could not subject those poor little seedlings to that cold. I have been wanting to start my seeds so now with the night temps warming it may be a good time to start.

I promise to get back and write more. Now that it looks like warmer weather is coming I will have more to write about and I will post some pictures of my garden boxes. Also I want to tell you about this cool talk I attended on Heirloom Tomatoes.

Happy planting.

Time to rethink the garden

The weather is great and I am ready to take up the summer garden and start fresh. This past gardening season is one I would like to forget. When I lived in MA the garden was over by mid Sept. so if it got out of control or the weeds started taking over, it was for just a short time. I could pull it up and till it in and forget about it. But here in TX that isn't the case. Yep the garden got out of control and there are still plants producing a little bit. I hate to yank them out yet. So, what I am doing now is planning the winter crops and how I will deal with this garden next year.

I have a hard time with disorganized gardens. Last year was the first year I had good results in this fairly new veggie garden. Nothing got out of control and the weeds were not a problem. For some reason this year was different. I didn't have weeds as much as I had grasses. Even though I had laid down a weed barrier the grass traveled underneath it and came up where the plants were. Eventually by the end of July the heat and the grass was my downfall. Enough of that.

After some contemplating what to do so that I can enjoy the garden and keep it in line I concluded I needed to add some garden boxes. This way the paths would be permanent and I would not have to deal with them any more. I am going to lay down weed barrier with some mulch on top. When I run out of that free really good weed barrier I may let grass grown and then keep it clipped. Of course if it isn't watered it could die down if we have another baking summer again and no rain. Not sure if that would be as nice to walk on. Keeping nice paths between the plants was one issue I had so this should solve that problem.

My first 4 boxes will be 2x8 feet. I have a square area off the main garden that these are going to be placed in. It has a shade cloth for summer and I can place the summer squashes in there and a few other veggies that need some relief from the heat during the summer. But for now I will plant my beets and other cool weather crops there. The shade cloth will be pushed back since I will want to have the sun for the winter crops but also to heat my studio.

Since this patch of garden had not been planted this summer the grass grow like crazy and was a foot tall or more. I hit it with the weed eater and knocked it down. Even though we had several days with out rain the soil was still soaking wet and sticky and could not be tilled. We have rain coming in again mid week but if all goes well maybe by next week it will be dry enough to till. The reason I am tilling is this: I want to take some of that good soil I have in the paths and add it to the boxes. I can sink the paths some lowering the boxes some giving me more soil in the box and less I need to add.

I have been hearing a lot about square foot gardening so I decided to check it out. Not a hard concept to follow or do and I am going to give it a shot. I will be putting my own twist on it a little bit. My soil is rich and full of composted manure and such so why go out and buy more. I will go ahead and add my peat moss and vermiculite to what I have and mix it up. I then shall lay out the grids and get planting.

I haven't decided how to lay out the main part of the garden yet. I have some left over 2x6's hanging around from some building projects that I will be using to build the remainder boxes. I have two 2x6's that will make a 5x5 and that may be the center box with other boxes arranged around it. I was thinking of putting it on the diagonal and use that center 1 foot for some sort of architectural item that vines can grow on. I have all winter to find something or build something for that. Of course I need to plan my drip system for this new plan as well. And one thing I am not going to skimp on is a timer. Last summer I used one that was great but was battery operated. Then the battery ran down and the timer went screwy. And putting a new battery didn't help. I think this year a hard wired or plug in type timer is how I will keep my drip system working correctly. One gardening friend is good at laying out drip systems so I plan on calling on her for help.

I also plan to use rain water for my drip system but if we end up running out of rainwater I will use the well as my back up.

Next week I plan to get to work on this new idea and will post more with pictures of what I have come up with so far.

Happy Fall and Happy Gardening