Recent Garden Activity
This picture was actually taken over a week ago and the tomatoes have grown since. I don't know what Branwen will end up doing with this many, but I'm sure she'll think of something.
Mother's Day is the Busiest day for Garden Stores
Did you know that Mother's Day is the busiest day for garden stores? It seems obvious, right? I must have known this on some level, but it didn't occur to me until I actually went out to buy plants.
My garden store of choice is Garden Fever. They have intelligent staff, a great selection, and as it turns, the ability to continue functioning when they are swamped.
My primary reason for visiting was to get stakes for my peonies which were in dire need. Once I was there, I couldn't help buying several other items. There goes my fun money budget for the month.
Weed or Not?
It was obvious that the previous residents of our house knew a thing or two about gardening. Now it is time for us to learn something. The following seven plants exist on the property. Can you identify what is a weed and what is not?
Specimen #1
This plant has pine-needle like leaves.
Two Varieties of Garlic
I have never grown root vegetables before. Yesterday I bought two varieties of garlic from Garden Fever in Beaumont, Spanish Roja and Brown Tempest. It looks like each sprout starts from a clove which, when ripe, will have grown into a whole head (I had to read wikipedia to get the terminology correct...)
A mess of long rubbery white roots emerged from below the clove. With five plants per plastic container, these roots were densely intertwined. The scent which arose while man-handled these plants was fantastic.
Raised Bed
I finished my raised bed last night. I say "night" because by the time I was done, I was using the driveway floodlight to read the level, which as it turns out is not a good way to level anything.
The construction was simple and cheep. The whole process involved:
- two 1x8x96 planks, ceder
- two railing posts, ceder
- decking screws
- shovel
- screw driver
The railing posts make up the corners. There is nothing special about these posts, other than price (less $1.50 each). Cut in half, they were the perfect length. I dug 1-foot holes and buried them to keep them from moving. This was the hardest part of the process; apparently digging holes is hard, which I suppose means that I made a good career choice in computers.
Home depot cut the planks down into 3ft and 5ft lengths so they would fit in my car. A few wood screws and they were attached to the posts. They made up the raised edges of the box, resulting 3ft x 5ft x 8in, or 10sqft.
Over all, I am very happy with the result.
Soil Testing
Like many others, I am concerned about poison in the food I grow. After a week of inaction, I contacted Wy'East and got the necessary forms for soil testing. The process is straight forward: gather samples on a dry day and place them in labeled baggies while documenting the process on a chain of custody form. The lab tests each sample for a moderate price.
Ultimately, this was all a mute point, because the ground in my back yard is inhospitable to plants. It was initially advertised as "backyard RV parking". This amounts to a strip of clay-like dirt, covered in gravel. Digging in this soil was extremely difficult. The shovel I purchased for the job bounces off the gravel bits embedded in the clay. The process of making a hole was more like scraping than digging. I would not classify this ground as dirt.