End of the Month Roundup-May......a few days late!

May found temps closer to normal than April had, but the roller coaster continues.  I still have been unable to plant much because of continued  frost. We are supposed to have temps in the low 30's the next couple of nights.  Hopefully that will be the last of it. I need to get planting.

May had 20 days of sun,  3.3" rain--of which 2.1" of that fell just in the 4th week and NONE in the first and third weeks. With sandy soil, that's always a problem.

We had a high of 84 on the 1st and the 30th,  and a low of 28 on the 25th.  We had plenty of frosty mornings and my many flats of flowers are more travelled than most people I know.  They get hauled in and out of the house and garage on any night calling for 38 or less---my house is located at the bottom of the hill and I'll typically freeze when most people don't.  

I have the potatoes planted.  Three beds of Yukons were planted on the 20th, and are just coming up.
Red Pontiacs (only a dozen plants) were planted on the 21st and are all up.
I got my order in for sweet potato slips Saturday.  I can't plant them until Wednesday--when the frosts are supposedly done.
Peas, spinach, lettuce are all doing well.  Broccoli is doing great. Cauliflower is a bust AGAIN. The frost last night wiped them out. I have no replacements on hand. I give up on them until fall.
Strawberries look great and many are flowering already. I have all the beds covered and that saved them from the cold.  Looks like an abundant crop ahead for those.

I planted corn and sunflowers today. It's so late this year, but hopefully we'll have a nice stretch of weather and it will catch up.

In the flower beds,  things are coming along well. I haven't planted any of the annuals (frost thing again!) but the perennials that survived the winter look good.  I did lose all my mums this year. I had most of them for the whole 5 years I've been gardening, so they will be missed. 
I also lost several Agastaches  and my Artemesia 'Powis Castle'.  I'm replacing them, as they looked so good in front of the Cleome patch.

I am hoping to plant my flowers and vegetables by Saturday. Of course, I thought LAST week I could get things planted.  We'll see............

Let the Planting Begin!

It seems spring cannot make up it's mind this year--the weather has been a roller coaster of temperatures.  Mother's Day weekend included plenty of wind and SNOW.  I'm sure that put a damper on many picnics, as well as treks to area garden centers.  But, a few days of warmth and sunshine and all is forgiven.

I got the onions planted--I ended up with 135 in the bed--which will give me plenty for the year.  Dixondale was generous as always with the bunches, and I ended up giving the rest to neighbor Darby down the road.  It didn't even look like I had touched the bunches. I'm sure she could plant twice that many and still have plenty to share!  She gave me 2 dozen of her gorgeous organic eggs in return. Can't beat that!

I'm hoping to get the potatoes planted this week, but top priority will be given to orders from Nourse Farms (3 kinds of raspberries, a couple more blueberry bushes and another variety of ever-bearing strawberry) and BlueStone Perennials that are due to arrive this week.  

The only thing growing so far is lettuce, radish, spinach, garlic, and sugar snap peas. I can't recall ever having so little going on in the garden at this point in May.
The good thing is everything is prepped and ready--so it will just be a matter of getting things into the ground.

Garden Update 5/9/13

Spring has finally arrived...........I think.
The entire month of April was 10 to 20 degrees BELOW normal. Our first warm day was April 26,
We finally got rid of the snow and in the past ten days the lawn has greened up, the forsythia are in bloom and all is right with the world...........I'm just WAY behind on garden cleanup and prep work.

I "edged" the corn and pumpkin growing areas with downed trees Don found along roads.  I don't know why. I guess I like a defined growing area. Maybe it was just an excuse to be outside longer.....

I got the blueberry patch done April 27-28.  I added coffee grounds and compost. I also spread new mulch (pine needles) on the beds, pruned out any dead branches, and remulched the aisles in between the rows.

The garlic is up and going strong.

All the beds are ready to be planted. It's just a matter of waiting for our last frost date of June 1.

I got the strawberry beds cleaned up after last years' neglect. I had a real problem finding the rows and eliminating all the tangles of new plants.  I am NEVER leaving for long periods of time again. What a mess to deal with! 

I also got the sidewalk and kitchen window borders tidied up and ready for spring.

The tulips I planted last fall are coming up.  I didn't note what kind.  I always think I'm going to remember .  I never do.
I will be starting to plant this area up this summer with perennials I raised from seed this winter.
None of the perennials I planted in this area last year survived the rampaging deer.  I may have to fence these beds.

The only color I ever had in spring was from a couple of daffodils .  I'm slowly working on that.  I got some pass-along muscari from Cranky Dolores.  In other beds, I planted various alliums and tulips. It's not much, but at least I'm finally  moving forward on this. 

Don hauled Donkey Doo last week and I used some of the extra to expand yet again.  This is the border on the East side of the house. I'm trying to eliminate the need to mow around that rotten satellite dish DirecTV had to place in the STUPIDEST spot of all.  Perhaps no one will notice it surrounded by flowers??


The porch and deck are loaded with seedlings I started this winter.  I have tons of delphiniums, foxgloves, lavender, agastache cana, hyssop, and artemesia . I also have all my vegetable starts and 6 flats of cosmos/zinnias/alyssum.  These get taken inside whenever temps dip to the 30's.  It's going to be a LONG month of hauling in and out.  I'm shooting for June 3 as my planting date.

Happy Spring! (finally!!)

Garden Plans for 2013

 Fruit Garden Plan --- Includes new planting area where raspberries used to be.  I've FINALLY moved them out of the garden. We rarely got to enjoy them--they were fall bearing and we usually had a killing frost before they matured.  I've ordered summer-bearing varieties (early, mid, and late) from Nourse which are scheduled to deliver in May.  They will be planted OUT of the garden.

I also ordered 2 more Chandler blueberries from Nourse to be delivered in May.  I am removing 2 out of the 5 Patriot blueberry bushes as they are not doing well . I'm glad. We MUCH prefer the Chandlers.

Vegetable Garden plan.   I'm adding in another ever-bearing strawberry this year and removing the Cabots that were put in in 2008 after they are done bearing.

I'm putting in a third bed of Yukon Gold potatoes this year. We can't seem to get enough of those. I used the last of them in February and we've been reduced to buying them at the Organic co-op in Traverse City---an outrageous $1.99 a pound. Yikes!
I'm also trying sweet potatoes from slips grown at home. I don't know how well that will work, but I have the extra space so I feel it's worth a try.

Not shown are peas, which will be grown up the trellises that run down the center aisle.

I'm hoping to get both a spring and fall crop of broccoli in again this year. We ran out of that this winter. 
Hopefully this year will be kinder to the cauliflower.  Last summer was ungodly hot and it bolted so we didn't have ANY for the freezer.  I'm currently paying $3.49 a head for organic at Meijer. Ugh!

The first day of Spring was VERY un-springlike.  We got a total of 6 inches during the day. Today is snowing heavily as well.  Temps for the final week of March are forecast to be in the 30's /20's.
We had no winter in December/January.   Seems it's giving us all our snow in February/March.  I think it's going to be a late start for even the salad fixings.

I did manage to wade through the snow and get a cold frame set up last week. The snow is melted in the bed and warming up slowly. Now if it would just quit snowing, I could get that spinach going......

Final Post for 2012- WInners and Losers This Year

 I think 2012 will go down as one of the STRANGEST growing years I've ever had.

Some things were so early, and yet other things were so late.

I've never had a better year for Dahlias. They were stunning.  I wish I had enough time and space to show you all the different varieties and just how drop dead gorgeous they were.

I wouldn't have thought this year was good for them at all. We had lousy rainfall, too high temperatures in July. Lousy lousy. But, I guess maybe that was for ME, not the Dahlias.

The sidewalk border was a HUGE disaster. We were gone for the month of June and the deer mowed everything down, time and time again.  It wasn't until a very dear reader wrote with a solution that I was able to get this resolved.  Grated up Irish Spring soap---I soaked down my plants with it.....and the deer went away. Hooray. So---things finally bloomed, although they are SHORT SHORT SHORT.  Oh well, better short than never....hahahahha!

Best combo----Agastache Desert Sunrise, Agastache Blue Fortune and Rudbeckia Goldsturm

This is a combo I'm not sure of. Love the Agastache cana and the Perovskia.  Love the sunflowers. Just not sure about together.

 And  a new pairing--agastache cana with Gaura-Whirling Butterflies from seed.  Too bad an idiot that doesn't know how to use a camera (moi!) couldn't get BOTH in focus. You'll have to take my word for it---STUNNING!!

In the scummy pond bed, I LOVED the Cleome paired with Agastache Blue Fortune and a feather reed grass. Will do that again next year for sure.

Out in the vegetable garden, things were REALLY odd.  Had a great year for potatoes, green beans, onions, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli and garlic (though the heads were small).   It was a terrible year for carrots (almost no germination) and the cauliflower bolted in July's gawd-awful heat so NONE of that this year for the freezer.  My first year of failure on those. What a huge disappointment.
I also have NO pumpkins this year for decorating....but, I'm not home so I guess that's ok too. 
I tried corn for the first time--it worked well, I just didn't much care for the variety.  I'll try another kind next year.

Winning idea this year---LOTS of natives in with the vegetables. Seems all the pests LOVE milkweed and Goldenrod and left my vegetables alone. 

My first and LAST year of growing Great Northern Beans.  Oh, they grew and produced, but for all the work involved shelling these, it is SO not worth my time when I can buy ORGANIC soup beans for $2 a pound.  My time is better spent elsewhere.

The butternut produced well this year. I ended up with 15 to trade, but I did lose 5 more to splitting. I've never had that happen before.  Thoughts??

I grew my usual Copra onions for storage. No complaints there. BUT, I tried a variety sampler also and I won't do that again. Good for fresh eating....but they do not store well, and since I'm out on the road YET AGAIN, I had to give those all away.  I'm sticking with just Copra next year.

So, I have enough food stored. I'm glad. But, I have a lot of disappointments too. It's been a weird year.

I'm on the road for a final trip---a very very special trip. Not only is it our FINAL big trip EVER (hubby promised!) , but it is our anniversary.  I am taking a vacation from blogging for a bit. I am spending this final journey just enjoying this beautiful country of ours and giving hubby my full attention.  He certainly deserves that.

Best to all of you and thank you for all your wonderful ideas and suggestions and kind words. 
I'll be back spring 2013. Have a wonderful winter.

End of the Month Roundup-August

August has been a very fine month-a bit dry, but with nighttime temps cool enough to produce heavy dews, nothing suffered .  We had several weeks in the 70's, lots of nights in the 40's.
We had 1.9" rain for the month. 
We had 24 days of sun.  There were 4 days in the 90's, and 2 nights that dipped into the 30's. Can you say "roller coaster"?  The forecast today is upper 80's and sun--a warm ending to an otherwise pretty cool month..

 

There's flowers galore left, but not much else still growing.

Melons under their plastic tent,basking in the extra warmth--the nights are pretty cold now.

 

Most beds in the vegetable garden are empty now.  I do have melons , tomatoes, and the fall crop of broccoli growing. Most things have been harvested and "put up" for the winter.  I top dressed the beds with Donkey Doo as the harvests were completed. I'll put grass clippings and chopped up leaves on after we get back this fall....weather permitting.

 

Pretty much the only thing left is flowers.

 

My very first time growing Calendula---it was in with the 99 cent garden seeds--and I like them a lot!.  Speaking of the 99 cent garden--it was the most productive of all my beds.  The first green peppers, the first beans, good carrot germination.  A big success. The neighbors that got that bounty are happy!  And I learned a good lesson about hybrids versus the good old standbys....sometimes new and improved---isn't!

Another nice surprise--the Zebrina , from seed given to me by my good friend Deb Arnold a couple of years ago, magically appeared scattered around my vegetable garden this summer. It must have lain dormant all of last year. Amazing.

 

 

I'll be doing the FINAL post of the year next week--all the harvest totals, etc.  We're leaving after that and by the time we get home it will be time for some indoor hibernation.

 

Now, before you scroll any further----MAMA PEA---there are CRITTER pictures and since I know how you feel about bugs, and such---I wanted to warn you so you can skip the rest of the post!!

 

 

 

First up--a Walking Stick--which I haven't seen since moving to Michigan.....maybe because there are so many trees I don't "notice" them?

 

And hubby found this Skink climbing around the barn.  I had one last year that I found while digging around in a tub of potting soil......with my bare hands. Needless to say, the ENTIRE neighborhood heard me scream.  I'm not afraid of them, but when something crawls out of the dark unexpectadly-----eeeeeeeeeesh!
Hope you have a wonderful week!

Garden Thief and a Scummy Pond Bed Update

This has been an incredibly full week.  I finally started digging up the scummy pond---and got it removed. It was an old tank that had rusted through. I didn't know what it was-the previous owner used a lot of "cast-offs" for projects around here.

We have had the grandson up from Arizona for 8 days. They left last Sunday and I can't believe how much energy a 3 year old has. He's amazing and funny and so eager to learn.  He loved helping me in the garden--here he is harvesting lunch. He was quite amazed when these potatoes turned into Mashed Potatoes. It's funny when a little kid has that "light bulb" moment.

Here he is cruising the aisles of the blueberry patch--scoping out the last of the Chandlers.  All of the varieties of blueberries are now done.

It must be love, if I let him steal the few carrots we had this year.

All varieties of my tomato plants are fully loaded---but NOT ripe. Despite our extremely hot July, it just wasn't enough.

The melons are also huge and UNRIPE. Sigh.

Below-the blackberries are beginning to ripen, and of course, the birds have found them.

The Scummy Pond ended up being over 3 foot deep. It's a bigger job than anticipated!

The fall broccoli is coming along okay, but it's doubtful I'll get any before we leave for our final trip.

The nights have started cooling down and most mornings find us with a HEAVY dew. Within a couple weeks we'll have frost. Looks like a no tomato year. Rats. So close!

Another shot of the carrot thief. He made trip after trip out there to steal them. Brat. I miss him already.............

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.