Pre-Halloween snow

Oh, goodness, I can't believe I haven't written in here for 2 months.  Ridiculous!  I'm going to revamp how I do things here.  I think the blog must be about more than gardening because I have so much more going on.  I'm a mom, I like to cook, I have other hobbies.  

But in the vein of the title of this blog, I want to show you just how snowy it can be around here.  

We had big plans for Halloween this year.  A bunch of friends were coming over.  I decorated inside and outside the house.  My husband built a coffin and a crypt facade for a little Haunted House.  Since we live in a village and many of our friends live in the country they all came to our house to watch the trick n' treaters.  My husband dressed as a mummy and laid in his coffin to scare the kids when they came up our walk.  I bought lots of booze, made too much food and even got my hands on some dry ice.

But two days before Halloween, on the 29th, we got 18" of snow.

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In this area, snow is a way of life. No one bats an eye. You never see people at the grocery store before a predicted snow storm loading up on toilet paper and jugs of water like you did in my hometown of Philadelphia. People still go to work when it snows. Life goes on. And 18", that's nothing around here. But when the 18" is heavy wet snow and falls on trees that still have many of their leaves, that causes substantial damage. We lost our power for most of the day. School was cancelled. And it kind of put a damper on our Halloween plans. How would we put up the graveyard and crypt in a yard full of snow?

The next morning, the day before Halloween, my husband blew the snow out of the yard with the snowblower. When it broke down, as it is want to do, we shoveled snow out of the yard. Halloween day was warm and sunny and much of the piles melted and we had a great party.

Sunflower Mania

My garden was recently spotlighted in the small local newspaper here.  Much was said about all the sunflowers.  They are definitely the predominate feature out there right now.  It's not intentional.  They all grow on their own and I don't have the heart to pull them all out.  I do pull a lot of them, otherwise the yard would be a great big field of sunflowers.  I do love them, even if they make my yard look ridiculous.  When have I ever cared what other people think?  It's just a good thing that I don't live in a neighborhood nazi...uh... association area.  A few weeks ago we drove through a town that was having a sunflower contest.  I would have won, hands down.

Another Jungle

Every year my vegetable garden turns into a jungle.  Despite careful planning to maximize the small space and yet keep things neat, things always go wild.  I know it is my fault.  I cannot bring myself to pull all those self-seeded sunflower, dill, cilantro and borage plants.  That certainly adds to the issue.  The other problem is that I plant very closely.  As I said, the space is small and I want to get as much food out of it as I can.  But as a result, I now have to climb into the back of the tomato row on my hands and knees.

And then every year there is one huge sunflower that dominates the garden, like a sentinel.  I should dress it like a scarecrow the way it looms over the rest of the plants.  Someday, I swear that I will have a nice neat garden with wide rows that I can amble down with a basket on my hip. So here is the garden today.  Do you think there is any hope for me?

A wish for berries

One thing I do not grow is fruit, simply for a lack of space.  I feel confined by our corner village lot.  Apparently almost an acre is not enough room for me, especially when a rather large house consumes most of that acre.  I think I'd like 3 acres.  

On one acre I would have 4 vegetable garden beds each about 20x30 feet in size.  This would give me enough room to rotate the crops from year to year to reduce disease and pest problems.

A second acre would be dedicated to fruit crops.  I would have several apple trees, a large stand of raspberries bushes, a big strawberry patch, a few rows of grape vines and, if the soil is acidic enough, quite a few blueberry bushes.

Then, that third acre...  Well, here is my thought.  I'd like to do a u-pick flower farm.  I'd have rows and rows of cutting flowers, such as gladiolas, dahlias, sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, lavender, etc. that people could come in and cut their own bouquets to take home.

So, that is my ultimate dream and someday it will come true.  If I had all that fruit I could make more pies like that one up there. 

Ode to bugs

I am learning.  It may take me a little longer than some people to figure things out, but I think I'm a pretty smart cookie and I usually get there eventually.  

I used to hate aphids.  They are so gross looking, right?  And I used to battle them.  I'd spray them with hard bursts of water to get them off the affected plants and I'd try insecticidal soap.  None of it was very effective.  And once, as I hang my head in shame, I specifically remember spraying some lupines with Seven.  Then one day, I just gave up.  "Screw it, let the aphids have everything!" I said to myself. 

 This year I have a patch of yarrow that planted itself in the corner of the yard next to the neighbors fence.  I noticed it was completely infested with aphids, but I didn't care.  Then I noticed some lady beetles on it and thought they'd never eat all those aphids.  Then later I saw that there were a whole lot of lady beetle larvae climbing all over the patch and I started to pay close attention.  On looking today, there is not a single aphid on that yarrow to be found.  And when I say it was infested with them, I mean every stem was covered with them from top to bottom.  I've never seen anything like it.

So there is the moral of that story: Leave the bad bugs alone and the good ones will come.

More about bugs: It looks like we are back in the caterpillar raising business.  I did this last year; brought in butterfly eggs and cats and raised them into butterflies and then released them.  I wasn't going to do it this year.  It's a lot of work and someone has to be around all the time to keep them fed and to release them when they emerge from their cocoons.  We did have a few Black Swallowtail cats on the dill in the garden, but every single one has been eaten by an industrious bird.  So, I caved and we've now started collecting the Monarch cats.  They are fun to watch.  The kids love it.  And it feels good to be saving a few beautiful lives.

Reseeding Annuals

Some of my favorite plants in my flower gardens are reseeding annuals.  I don't put down mulch specifically for their benefit.  If I did mulch the perennial beds they wouldn't be able to sprout.  Here is a pictorial list of most of them.  Some aren't blooming yet, like the sunflowers, and aren't included.  Maybe I'll do a late summer list.

1. Peony poppies - Papaver somniferum

2. Shirley poppies - Papaver rhoeas

3. Love-in-a-Mist - Nigella damascena

Year of the Striped Cucumber Beetle

Seems like every year I get a new pest in my gardens that I must wage war upon.  There has been the Saw Fly larvae which have made me pretty much give up on columbine, the Japanese Beetles which love my poor roses, the Squash Bugs which try to consume my zucchini, and various other annoyances.  I suppose the more I garden, the more the bugs are going to be attracted to their favorite foods that I just lay out for them to feast upon.

The new one this year is the Cucumber Beetle.  Never saw one in the gardens before.  They did some serious damage to my tiny tomatillo plants.  Then I surrounded the tomatillos with marigolds and they moved to the zucchini.  Ah, the poor zucchini, if it isn't Squash Bugs, it's Cucumber Beetles.  So far this year, knock on wood, I've only seen one Squash Bug and it was promptly squashed.  Heehee, squash the Squash bug eating the squash.  So far the Cucumber Beetles haven't found the cucumbers, despite the ominous name.

It takes a lot of resolve to not break out the heavy chemicals when you watch a pernicious bug chow down on one of your favorite plants.  I do believe in companion planting as the most effective way to battle a great deal of the pest found in the garden.  Many plants are helpful not as food but as either a repellant or camouflage for the food plants.  Others may attract beneficial insects to the gardens.  So you will find in my garden, planted among the usual food crops, marigolds, cosmos, nasturtium, borage, sunflowers, tansy and calendula.  Aside from the nursery bought marigolds I bought the other day for the tomatillos, none of them are blooming yet.  But you'll be sure to see a picture of the garden when they are.