The Midsummer Garden

It has been quite some time since my last post, as I find summer is more about the living of life than its documentation.   The garden has gone from mostly to potential to actual production.  We have eaten our salad crops fairly regularly this month.  The winner of the new crop of the year award is kholrabi, which was easy to grow and delicious with Mrs. Gardeners famous dill dip.

Mrs. Gardener has also been highly motivated in the weeding an composting department, so that our garden still looks show worthy.  It was a very popular tour stop at the graduation party a few weeks back.

Very soon we will be getting raspberries, though in smaller quantities than previous  years.  The new growth is good, so next year should be back to our normal bounty.

Our one apple did not make it, and strawberries have been a bust, and are soon to be plowed under for good.

The pole beans are growing at a phenomenal pace and have shot up my lattice in a matter of days, and are soon to reach the top.   Where will they go then I wonder?

We had a pesky deer eat the leaves off the squash a few days ago, so I applied Deer Scram and hope that discourages future visits.  Meanwhile the squash has grown back rapidly.  Hard to keep a good squash down!

The foreground of this picture to the left is pumpkin, the far end is zucchini, neither of which the deer ate--they went right to the squash---go figure.

It will never look this good again

It has been a couple weeks since I have posted last.   Busy with work, and gardening, and politics.  On the 12th of May we had a big day--transplanting all the bedding plants, and seeding the large seeded veg like corn, beans, and various cucurbits and even melons. The asparagus is done for the season, the potatoes are getting bushy, the lettuces are nearly ready for first harvest, the strawberries have flowers, and we even have one apple!  The major addition for this season is the pole bean support, which was converted from my grow light stand (after getting a coat of Thompson Water Seal).  These are the golden days for any garden, when everything is small, neat, and weed free.   However, I don't garden just for looks, so I do welcome the fruitful days to come when squash will be taking over the yard, tomatoes will be groaning under the weight of their red globes, and giant zukes and cukes forming every time you turn your back.

  We are going to try to grow  tomatoes with out cages this year (cage-free!), training them to a pole and keeping the branches from getting out of hand.  Most of the good fruit comes lower down and close in any way.

  Lynn has been real busy weeding out the perennial gardens--strawberries, raspberries, and the flowers on the "berm". My job is now to haul in some mulch to preserve as much of the progress as possible.
  Below is our one apple--which I now think is on the Honeycrisp, not the Zestar, which didn't put out any flowers this year--not sure why.   Could be the warm March followed by the cold April.  Anyway,

one is better than none!   I can be patient.  It doesn't pay to get too anxious to eat fruit from a tree, no matter how good it looks for food.   There is ample historical evidence to attest to this principle.
   There is also historical precedent for not waiting forever either.  If a tree doesn't bear fruit, it gets cut down--not that we are considering that for our apples.   We will continue in Patient Mode, not in Judgment Mode, as this is only our fourth summer with these trees.  They are still babes.

First fruits

Our first crop from our 2012 planting has come in.  These radishes were planted March 17 and harvested  (by Mrs. Gardener) May 6.   That is 7 weeks and about 250 growing degree days (base 50).  I plan to plant some more as soon as the soil dries out, but with warming temps I should get a crop in fewer weeks.   These are very tasty radishes too--very mild.   We received 5.6 inches of rain this week, which should give the subsoil a good reserve in advance of transplanting activities in the next few weeks, once we are past the last average frost date.

Wascally Wabbit!

A bunny got to our lettuce last week, necessitating the construction of a security fence.  While I do believe in free-range lettuce, I didn't plant enough to share with the free-loading neighborhood rabbits.  However, they are welcome to all the grass they care to eat, so invite all  your friends, I say.   In fact, if they could eat the dandelions in the grass, that would be even better.

47 bottles of beer on the floor....

Last night I bottled a new batch of beer.  I started this hobby two years ago, and this is now my 6th batch.  So far I have made all ales from extract kits, this one being a German ale called Altbier.  Starting with my next batch I plan to forgo the kits, and branch out on my own.

Signs of things to come

 I saw our first strawberry flower this week.   Like the fig tree in the Gospels that didn't bear fruit, we are giving this patch one more year to prove itself, or out comes the rototiller!

Our small blueberry bushes have faced much adversity, (drought and grazing deer) so we don't expect to be bearing loads of fruit for a few years yet, but I did spy a few small flowers on the earliest of the three varieties.








We had a real frost last night, enough to freeze water in puddles, but not enough to harm hardy plants so it would seem.  The lettuce I transplanted from bedding plants didn't seem to mind a bit.

Lights, camera, action

Thanks to Mrs. Gardener the bedding plants we bought on Saturday have been transplanted from the little 4-pack size to a 4" pot.  This should be the last stop before they go into the garden, unless they just go crazy in the next 3 weeks.  The last average frost date in these parts is around May 5-10, so we will wait until then to put them out in the garden proper.  I made this little grow light set up a few years back, but haven't used it for the last few years.  On warm days we can set the plants outside and bring them in at night, and on cool days they can stay indoors out of the cold and wind (but not terribly warm in the garage I'm afraid).

Black Gold

 Saturday Ruth and Sam helped me move some finished compost to the gardens and refill the composting bins with new compost-able material.   It's fun to be able to recycle the garden waste and turn it into something that keeps the gardens fertile.  Saturday was just a perfect afternoon for garden work as it wasn't too hot and sunny for what was pretty manual labor. Later in the evening is started raining, and we got an inch of rain Saturday night and another 0.75 Sunday night.  I has also turned cold, with a threat of a frost tonight.  Happily, a warm up is coming.

Spuds

Today was a big afternoon in the garden.  Mrs. Gardener and I did some strategizing, then went out to the garden stores (Donahues, Farmer Seed, and HyVee) to check out what they had. Most of these places are just getting their inventory in place.  Today we bought some seed, seed potatoes, and bedding plants at Farmer Seed.   As you can see from the picture the seed potatoes went in the ground today.  Even though we got 0.3" of rain yesterday, the soil was workable by the late afternoon.  We picked smallish potatoes and planted them whole (instead of cutting in pieces).  Many of the garden books tell you to cut them, dry them, and maybe even treat the exposed surfaces with a chemical.  Last year I cut them and planted them right away with no treatment and all but one grew.  This was even easier.  We selected two varieties this year.  Our favorite, Yukon Gold (foreground) and Kenebec, a traditional baking style potato that is supposed to have good storage qualities.

A quiet week in Lake Wobegon

It's been a quiet week on the garden front.  Cool temperatures have persisted for two weeks (very normal April weather) and the lettuces and radishes aren't doing much.  The peas seem to be growing however.  No frost damage on anything that I can tell.  May never know really if the covering on the apple tree helped; at least it probably didn't hurt.  The farmers are getting their fields  ready, but most have resisted planting corn.  In about 10 days I could be on a planter, probably wearing coveralls.  Might plant potatoes and onion sets this weekend.   Mowed the grass again this week, some of the yard for the first time, some for the second time.

You never know 'til you try

It is supposed to freeze tonight, so we decided to attempt to protect the apple blossoms on our Zestar from being frozen and not setting fruit.   I personally don't think it will be enough if it stays below freezing for more than a few hours, but no way to know without trying.

By the way, last week we had zero GDD and 0 precip (though I think it did drizzle once).

Christ has Risen! He has Risen Indeed!

Our journey East of Eden takes us through some other famous gardens besides the garden of Eden and the garden-city of the new Jerusalem.  This week in the church year we commemorate Jesus passing through the Gethsemane where he prayed for us and was betrayed, and the garden tomb, where he defeated death and appeared to Mary Magdalene, who supposed Him to be a gardener.  The world around us is filled with images of death and resurrection, not least of which is the simple act of planting a seed or bulb.  Our Christian hope, put simply, is that one day we will be planted, and rise again.  "O Death, where is your sting?  O Hades, where is your victory?....Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!"

Will the real daffodil please stand up!

Here is the picture I should have posted yesterday.  Note to self:  all yellow flowers are not daffodils!

"The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la"

I hope somebody gets my G&S reference....anyway the daffodils are up after (according to my bride) being absent the last few years...we don't know why.  Taking a break I suppose.  I think they look rested, don't you?

Apple Blossoms

It got down to near freezing last night, but I think our yard escaped the frost, and the apple blossoms will be OK for now.  We have high hopes for our little orchard (two apples and a peach) and don't want to lose what few apples we are likely to get with such young trees.  Pictured is our Zestar (the Honeycrisp hasn't bloomed yet).

Raspberries

The raspberry canes are now starting to put out leaves on the 2nd year growth.  The canes that bore fruit last year die and will be pruned away soon.  For the first time since we started the patch it looks like we might not get a very good crop.  Seems like we didn't get many new canes last year, so there won't be many bearing fruit this year.   It's still early, so I may be wrong (I hope), but that would be a big disappointment, because raspberries are the favorite of the Nyhus household, and have been very prolific.

That's why they're called Strawberries

We haven't been very successful strawberry growers.  This year is our  fourth season and we haven't gotten more than a few pints of small misshapen berries.  The year we planted them we got maybe one berry, but we didn't expect much.  Our expectations were high the next year (2010 I think) but a frost came through at flowering that made that year a loss.  Last year we got enough to pick, but the fruit was small.  We think perhaps we let the vines get too thick, so late in the season Lynn thinned out the stand and made walkways.  Earlier this week I put down straw in between the "rows".  This might be the last year for the stand if it doesn't work out.  I might be inclined to try again with new plants and a new location in the garden.

April showers bring.....

Mayflowers!   Except that those pictured were brought by March showers, seeing as there aren't any April showers yet.   These little beauties grow on the edge of our property, having been planted by our neighbor's father many years ago, and the patch has spread nicely to both sides of the property line.  I don't know the botanical name of these, but our neighbor, Ollie, calls them Mayflowers, so that is good enough for me..

Mowing in March?

It's true.   The grass got a bit shaggy around the garden plot (this is the sunniest spot on our property so the grass gets the longest here) so I dug out the mower, cleaned the spark plugs and blew out the air filter, and mowed the grass.  When I laid out the garden I thought it would be a good idea to leave grass strips so keep weeds down and keep up from walking on the places we plant.  It has worked OK, although the grass tends to encroach on the garden and vice versa, making it hard to mow with a mower.  So far it is superior to mulch, which weeds seem to like to grow through anyway.

Week two of the EoE garden saw much cooler temperatures-only 5 Growing Degree Days (GDD) compared to 90 last week.  I dumped 0.4 inches of rain this week to add to the 0.8 from last week.

The secret of Popeye's strength

No, that's not grass, it is spinach.  Like lettuce it has two cotyledon leaves, but they are elongated.  But enough of this chit chat, let's get down to the meat of this post: I hated spinach when I was a kid.  The only way I ever saw it was canned--a slimy green mass that I was convinced was inedible no matter what it did for Popeye.  However, times change, and now I know about all the mysteries of life, like Spinach Quiche, and fresh spinach on a salad.   And the great irony, I have even ordered cooked spinach all by itself in a restaurant--and enjoyed it.  I mean--what's with that?

Small beginnings

Pictured is a  clump of leaf lettuce, just emerging with its two little cotyledon (seed) leaves visible.  I planted 4 such clumps of 4 different salad greens (they will be thinned when they get bigger--I over planted as I didn't know how good the germ on the seeds was going to be)..  Greens are one of my favorite garden veggies, because they are easy to grow and give such immediate satisfaction.  You want a salad?  Walk out the back door, pick it, wash it, and toss it together.

Give Peas a Chance

Today's crop o' day are peas.  Creepy, huh?  Well not yet, but they will be.  That is why I have provided something for them to creep onto.  Inexpensive tomato cages make a good support system for peas, but ironically not very good for tomatoes.   An average tomato plant will overwhelm a cheap tomato cage, and the first good wind they crumple.  So this particular tomato cage has been assigned to pea-duty.  Sure, its a demotion, but whose going to find out?  Not like I'm going to post it all over the internet.   Oops.

Asparagus

You may not be a fan, but you should be.  I grew up eating this as an overcooked mushy vegetable, mostly in school lunches.  In reality it is an easy to prepare and delectable seasonal treat.  From now and for the next several weeks we can have almost daily harvests of the stuff.  After that it is a spectacular and showy plant.  Our patch is in its 4th year, and the 2nd year of harvesting (it is good to let it establish until the 3rd year).  As far as I know, this patch can grow perpetually if not over harvested.

The week in review

The first full week of the garden year was just about perfect.  We received 0.8 in. of rain total, and had 90 heat units, which would have been very nearly enough to get corn to emerge had I planted corn.  The only time the temp dipped below 50 that I can remember was yesterday morning, when it was a chilly (but still above normal) 40 degrees.  Last year at this time it was 8 degrees!

Stand back

Depending on which of my children you ask, today's highlighted garden crop is either the source of frequent delightful summer deserts, or a poisonous threat to national security.  I really enjoy watching rhubarb grow in the spring because it comes on so fast and results in such spectacular foliage.  These particular plants were rescued from the back of our property where I kept mowing over them the first year we lived here.  I finally dug them up and moved them to a more featured location.  Since I took the small fence down from around the garden, the bunnies like to live (or at least loiter) under their foliage

And the winner is....

I know you have been waiting with impatiently to find out which of our contestants (see "For the record", March 18)  would emerge, ahem, the winner of the race to the surface.   Well, it was our odds on favorite, the Cherry Belle Radish.   We knew it all along, and that is where the smart money was.   But the snap and snow peas finished respectably, as we will see in a later post (a little dramatic foreshadowing for you author types).

Hey bud, nice seein' ya

One of the most anticipated sights of spring are buds on the apple trees.  We have two apple trees--a Zestar and a Honeycrisp.  The Zestar is the earlier of the two to flower and fruit set, and apparently to putting out leaves as well.  These trees are only a few years old and haven't borne a crop yet (we did get one small apple from the Honeycrisp in its first year). One of the years we received a late frost during flowering, and with the early start this year, that scenario is possible again this spring.  I am working on my strategy for protecting these dwarf trees in the even that a freeze is predicted during a critical stage.

Playing to the crowd

Here's a shout out to my two followers on the blog.  Saturday morning they teamed up to make an outstanding lemon curd coffee cake, pictured below:

Believe me, it tasted as good as it looks!

Vern L. Equinox

After a week of summer-like weather, we can now say that spring is here since we have come to the vernal equinox--that biannual point when the earth looks the sun in the eye.  The local weather has changed to accommodate--we got a nice 0.4 inches of rain yesterday evening, and the forecast is to be drippy today.  The seeds I planted Saturday are lovin' it.

For the record

One of my main reasons for starting this blog was to motivate me to do a better job at keeping track at what I have done in the garden, so it's time to record the varieties I planted yesterday:

Buttercrunch Bibb Lettuce  (2009)

Simpson Elite Loose Leaf Lettuce  (2009)

Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach (2011)

Parris Island Romaine Lettuce (2010)

Rainbow Swiss Chard (2010)

Cherry Belle Radish (2010)

Early Snap Pea (2010)

Dwarf Grey Sugar Snow Pea (2010)

Nearly all our seeds come from Farmer Seed and Nursery Company, a catalog seed company that also has a retail store in our home town.    Very handy.   The year purchased is in parenthesis.  We'll see how good the germination is-- I over planted and expect to do some thinning.

Journey through the garden year

Welcome to my blog.  The purpose of this blog is to take you, the reader, along with me on a journey through the garden year.  We may take some side trips along the way.  This is my favorite time of the garden year--the time when last years perennials come back to life and the garden is all possibilities.  It is also when I have the most time to devote to gardening, and before war is declared on weeds.  I live in Minnesota, and in a good year we start gardening in April, with May not too late to put a garden in.   This year we are having a warm and gorgeous March, with several days in the seventies.  This past winter was a dry and mostly snow-less season, so the garden was fit and ready to go on St. Patrick's Day (today).  So in go the lettuces, radishes, and peas. The herb garden is coming to live as well (see chives above).

The title for my blog is from Genesis 3.  The Bible begins in a Garden and ends in a Garden-City (see Revelation 22).  So, in a sense, all of life is trying to get back to the Garden.  In between times, we are East of Eden, toiling among the thorns and the thistles, eating our bread "in the sweat of the face."  Despite this curse on the ground, by God's grace the earth still yields food for us, as Psalm 104 says: "He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the service of man, that He might bring forth food from the earth, and wine that makes glad the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread which strengthens man's heart."