Some Picture of My Yard

I am ready for Spring and Summer, but not quite ready to get everything cleaned up.  Here are some pictures from around my yard.  All pictures were taken March 20, 2014.

 Iris are growing and last years dead grass, weeds, and iris leaves are still there.

 Violas are growing.

 More Violas.  The purple ones reseed better than any others.

The Euphorbia is starting to flower.  There are only one or two plants in our yard that have water going to them.  This stuff grows everywhere with no water.  I love it.

One of the Euphorbia that has water going to it.  No water this year yet.

 The Sedum is growing.

The Phlox is coming back too.

 

Can you see the green tint?  Compliments of the weed farm next door.  I did look through the fence and it appears that we have new neighbors.  The junk in the yard is different and the weeds are almost all gone.  It is a pain living downwind from neighbors that don't take care of their yard.  Hopefully this year will be different.

The Hens and Chicks are still trying to survive.  The birds (I think Quail) eat them all summer.

Here is the Forsythia that I transplanted in the middle of the summer 2,3,or maybe 4 years ago. I have been waiting for it to die is still growing.

March 19th and 20th Planting

So according to the Old Farmer's 2014 Almanac March 19th, 20th, 28th, and 29th are the ideal dates for planting below ground crops.

I planted my garlic on the 19th.  I usually plant this in the fall, but not this year or last year.  Last year is grew the same as if it had been in the ground all winter.  I also planted shallots and Wandering/Egyptian Onions.  I couldn't decide if I wanted onions or not.  I really do hate the smell and taste of them.  Finally I decided that the Wandering onions are mild and the purple tint to the outside is so pretty dried that I would plant them this year.

Here are the Wandering Onions on the right growing from last year.  I keep onions and chives under all of my fruit trees.  They help keep the bugs away that like to live under the ground all winter and move into the fruit in the summer.  The Wandering Onions make new onion bulbs on top of stocks.  You can see the beige colored dead stocks and the tan bulbs at the end of the stocks (if you look closely).  I went around the yard Wednesday collecting the onions and planted the ones that were still firm.

March 20th my husband and I planted potatoes.  This year we added soil sulfur to the potato beds.  The bottom of the trenches are about 6 inches down from the top of the block.

These are the Russet Norkodah, which I have never heard of before.  We will see how well they do.

Hubby cut them into 3 pieces each.  Some people like to let the cut edges dry before planting.  I haven't found that it makes a difference freshly cut or not.  We planted them right away.  I will say that this is the first time we have ever cut them in thirds.  It will be interesting to see how the center piece of each potato does.

We evenly spaced out the potatoes and then dug down another couple of inches down and placed the potatoes in the holes.  Then covered them level with the original trench depth.

There are 2 rows of potatoes in each bed.  This bed shows the ones waiting to go in the ground and the ones ready to be covered.  We planted Red Pontiac (pictured), All Blue, Yukon Gold, Russet Norkodah, and Cal White.  While digging the trenches you see in this picture we found 2 tiny potatoes.  I got out last years map and found out that the potatoes we found were Cal White.  We had more potatoes than we could use last year so we left this bed of potatoes in the ground.  We forgot to cover them and they rotted.  We decided to plant potatoes in the same bed as last year to see what would happen.

Here is a picture of my garden map that I use every year.  This is my main garden area.  I created this in Auto CAD years ago.  I needed the practice, but you can make any kind of a map.  It really helps with rotating crops and knowing the name of the vegetable you like best when making comparisons.

Here is a picture of my messy garden.  As usual everything is covered with screens.  I have to keep the cat out of the soft soil now and later I have to keep all the other critters out.  The front bed is potatoes.  The one behind it on the left is potatoes.  The center one is garlic.  The two with the glass doors partially covering them in the back are carrots from last year enjoying the warm weather.

Speaking of carrots:

Here are some more carrots I picked on March 19th.  It is interesting to see the parts on the two carrots that were not covered by soil or carrot leaves rotted.

While checking to see how some of the other garden areas were doing I found these two asparagus growing.

This is my asparagus and parsley jungle.  The two asparagus in the above picture are by the black bucket in the back left corner of this picture.  All the green is parsley growing.  I wonder how much asparagus is growing under that mess.

Here is a close-up of the parsley growing just behind and to the right of the red pot in the above picture.

Sorry asparagus, but it is going to be at least two more weeks before I get a chance to clean up your area.

Pictures from March 1, 2014 and March 17, 2014

So where does the time go?  I took these pictures on March 1st.  I just knew that I would get them posted in a day or two.  Well how about a day or sixteen?  Anyway here they finally are.
After loading this first picture I got the opportunity to see and remember where times goes.  I'll tell you about it at the end of this post.

Here are the tomato and pumpkin plants.  Notice the 3 gourd pots in front have done nothing yet.  The two pumpkin plants in the back are doing nothing also.  The two little pots in the center are still empty.  I just keep them watered like the rest of the pots so they will be ready when I need them.

Another view of the same plants in the above picture.

I pulled back the paper and dug through the peat moss and found all the seeds in perfect condition, except for one of the pumpkins, so I replanted the seeds in it. 

If my house wasn't the "Frozen Tundra" as one of the family members named it maybe things would germinate and grow better.

Here are some of the other cucumbers, melons, and tomatoes. Unfortunately I was in a hurry to get to work and realized my house plants need to be watered.  I got the watering can added some Miracle Grow and watered the  house plants.  On the way back to the kitchen I realized the garden plants needed water too.  Without thinking I watered them with the watering can in my hand.  "OH NO! there is fertilizer in the water.  I need to dump that water out.  OH NO!  It is later than I thought I have to go!"  So that was the thought running through my head and now you can see the results from water with fertilizer in it.

Here is what they looked like on February 17, before I fertilized them.  As you can see seedlings do not do well with fertilizer.  I am surprised that any of them survived.  Warning to self  "That clear cracked marble you call a brain ain't what it used to be."  "I could wile away the hour conversing with the flowers if I only had a brain..." (My version)

Well on to the great outdoors.  The cilantro is doing great as always.  This pot just keeps reseeding itself year after year.

This rhubarb is growing like crazy also.  It started sending up a flower in the center, so I broke it off.  When a flower grows it usually means that the plant needs to be divided.  In the case of this plant, which has only been in the pot less than one year, I'm sure it is telling me it needs more room.  This was only a temporary location anyway, so I better find a permanent location soon.

Now for pictures taken March 17.

Here are the cucumbers, melons, and tomato plants after there next period of torture.  I moved them to the greenhouse that my husband set up for me and placed over the heater vent. I put them in the greenhouse. That was the end of February or beginning of March.  Checked on them an few days later and nothing had changed.  When I remembered them again a week or more later this is what they looked like. This picture was actually taken 3/17/14.  I moved them out of the greenhouse and back under the grow lights and nothing has changed since then.  They need some warmth to grow.

Here are the three tomato plants that were doing fine until I kept forgetting to keep everything watered properly.  I keep letting them get too dry in-between each watering.  Another case of where does the time go.

The greenhouse warmth has finally gotten the other pumpkin plants growing and as you can see the one one the right got too dry then too wet and is struggling to make it.  The gourds are still doing nothing.

Maybe I need to give up on gardening this year.  I keep threatening to every year, but gardening is like an addiction and I just can't walk away from it.

Here are a couple of pictures of my little greenhouse sitting over the heater vent.  I do not zip the door completely closed.  It works great!

The two plants in the back are the Big Max pumpkins that had the roots showing in the peat pot cells.  I gave up on the grand-kids and transplanted them into these bigger peat pots on March 1.   The yellow on the leaves is another sign of my watering, letting them dry out, watering too much, and so one.

This is the Pineapple Sage plant that I took cuttings from at the end of last summer.  I ended up with some White Flies finding their way into the house from one of the plants I brought in from outside.  They had about 5 plants that they made homes and multiplied in and every time I thought they were gone I found a new generation of them hatched and flying around. Finally about 2 months ago I got rid of the last of them.  The last thing I wanted was them around when it was time to start planting indoors.  Anyway this plant has recovered nicely from the soaking of soapy water it got to kill the White Fly eggs.  You can still see the dead leaves in the center.  The Praying Mantis loved this plant last Summer.  I hope it comes back again this year.

Here are some more cutting from either the Grapefruit Mint or the Orange Mint.  I can't tell by the smell and everyone else I ask to smell it can't tell either.  It has started growing really fast the last couple of months.  Someday I'll get it into a pot.  So far it has just managed to get into a bigger vase of water.

Look at how much this rhubarb has grown since the picture taken March 1.  You can see where I broke off the flower.  What you can't see is the new flower starting just behind the broken stock of the old flower.

I went to take a picture of the Cilantro and look what I found.  Aphids.  It looks like there isn't going to be a shortage of them this year.  I saw a few in the garden when I was pulling the 4 or 5 weeds I found out there Saturday.  I knew Saturday that seeing Aphids already wasn't a good sign.  Little did I know that they were multiplying like mad in my Cilantro.

Time to put the bottle of soap water to use.  Make sure you spray the plant with bugs until the water is dripping off of the plant.  Get the underside of all the leaves.

Here is what I got on one side of my hand when I moved the leaves to spray.

Here is the other side of my hand.  Yuck.  Of course the hose is attached to the sprinkler and not easy to get to.  No going in the house like this.  I'm not going to chance that one bug may be alive and find a new plant to live on inside.  Anyway I was able to get them all off of my hand while still outside.

Now to end this post with where time goes.

It goes to unexpected projects!  I posted the first picture and went to see what the name of the pumpkin was.  Then I got the not so great idea to take them outside for a while.  I was taking the tray with the three pumpkin plants outside.  One fell out.  I got about half of the soil back into the pot when I decided I should take pictures.

Here are the pieces that were barely hanging on to the plant that I removed.

As I was sliding the plant to a cleaner part of the floor I tore the peat pot.  Once I got the mess cleaned up (including the soil dumped out of the shoes and the shoes put away) I found only one spot about the size of a quarter that needs to be shampooed.
I would really like to blame all my missing time to just unexpected projects but, I can't.  I have been doing a lot of mending and alterations, but Pinterest and getting Netflix almost 2 weeks ago is taking more of my time than it should.  And needless to say is the fact that working really takes up a lot of my time.  Well I can at least say that I have a job that I love.