I  dug out my veggie garden over a week ago. The first freeze is coming tonight, which is several week past the average. It has been cold enough to harm the cucumbers and melons, but the tomatoes were still going strong when I yanked them. I was done with tomatoes and had extra time and beautiful weather, so I put the garden to bed. Felt wonderful. I had a large tomato forest going on. The tomatoes chocked out the peppers and eggplants nearby. The yellow pear was all over everything. Some branches were over 6 feet long–I didn’t bother to keep up with staking and pruning so it was a lovely mess I was happy to tear out.

Pulling out the Garden

Looking back on the year, I  loved my Cherokee Purple tomatoes. My other varieties, romas, fourth-of-july, and yellow pear also did well. The other heirloom I planted, Great White was a little late but good after it started producing. All my peppers and eggplants did not produce well because of poor placement. The potatoes did okay, but I think potatoes had been planted in the same spot for too many years beforehand (not my garden before so I didn’t know). I think they got a wilt disease early on and would have done better with some proper crop rotation. Onions and leeks were less than spectacular, they mostly didn’t ever catch on after transplanting. The blue hubbard and butternut squash did great. The blue hubbard squash are decorating my front porch. It might take a while to break into them. I planted two cucumbers–a striped Armenian and a regular aremenina. We had loads of cucumbers even with horrible powdery mildew.  The best melon wasn’t the two I planted (they did okay, not great), but a volunteer that sprang up and produced eight good melons. Beets did well, lettuce was good in the spring, and the chard was always there, I just didn’t bother to pick it.

That was a bit long, but it was a great garden year. I’m also glad it’s over now. Time for new projects.

So with the load of tomatoes on my counter I decided to try something new. Growing up, extra tomatoes turned into salsa. Currently, salsa sounds like heartburn to me so I was up for other options. I had froze some for cooking earlier, but now I wanted to try my hand at canning. My experience with canning has been occasionally helping others and doing grape juice earlier in the week. (So super easy and we’ve actually almost drank all 6 quarts we’ve made.)  Canning spaghetti sauce would be a new adventure.

The first thing that happened was the water was shut off. I sat there for a second and stared at my tomatoes waiting to be washed and decided to run to the store. I went and bought one plant and a few stones and discover the sale associate at Wholesale Landscape Supply knew who I was. He helped me buy a van full of plants earlier. I’ve never actually gone to a store enough for people to know me. Guess I just needed a store I liked enough.

When I got back, the construction guys (who I believe were supposed to be done in July) had the water back on. So I went at it, blanching, peeling and squeezing tomatoes. I was interuppeted by story time (where my toddler suprisngly sat and paid attention the whole time) and lunch (which my visiting sister prepared). Eventually I had all the tomatoes cooked down, and seasoned. I tasted it and discovered that the difference between store and home-done tomato sauce is the same as store and home-grown tomatoes. They don’t really compare. I will being doing this again.

I followed the directions here. That site seems to have all the preserving instructions I’ll ever want. I’ve been there a lot during harvest season. The only thing that didn’t match was I had less than 15 lbs of tomatoes (mostly romas), and still made over 7 pints of sauce. Which might be because I did have mostly romas that are a whole lot more meatier. I froze the extra quart I had.

Can you spot the red?

Slowly, plants are producing bounty. My fourth-of-july tomatoes are in full production and I’ve picked a few romas. I have three cucumber plants that all are producing quite a bit. I planted a couple of striped armenian cucumbers and thought they both died and replanted with different varieties. I was pleasantly surprised to fine that one did survive. I have loved the variety too. They grow quite large,curl and are beautiful when sliced. My sister mentioned that one looked exactly like a question mark. I’ve picked quite a bunch off of it already, and have taken them to whoever I visit. Here’s a picture of a small one, not quite ready for picking:

The picture above are my cucumber plants. The one on the left is a regular armenian cucumber. It has a horrible case of powdery mildew. So does the watermelon. But the striped armenian seems a lot more resistant. (It’s on the right.) I’m surprised at how bad my powdery mildew is. It’s killing back the plants. Still haven’t come across a control measure I feel comfortable with, so I’m hoping it just won’t get worse.

My potatoes also appear to have a vascular wilt disease. There’s really nothing I can do there but be disappointed. Hopefully I’ll still get a few.  It stinks that I actually know quite a bit about plant diseases but can’t solve the problem. The funny thing about plant diseases is there’s usually not a lot you can do. Control measure are things like get rid of all your plants so at least is doesn’t spread,  rotate for three years, water properly, and plant resistant varieties. Not a lot you can do when the disease strikes the plant, as fungicides are often pretty ineffective to combat infections once in the plant.

Not a horrible year so far, but not quite as good as I was expecting thanks to a long wet spring.

I think I thought spring was busy only because I wasn’t in summer yet. There is never a dull moment.

In the garden: the only thing blooming is the yucca and roses. I don’t care much about either. In fact the yuccas are slated for removal. They just don’t look that great with quack grass thrown in.

I’ve picked peas, lots of lettuce, and chard. My first banana pepper was picked yesterday. The tomatoes have fruit: they just need to mature. My only disappointment so far is the zucchini. This supposedly indestructible plant has struggled a lot but now seems to be taking off. I planted a yellow and a green variety, but one died. The other was very wilted so I tried to perk it up with some water. A week later when it started to look a little better, I took a look at it and realized that the stem had rotted. This hearty plant still managed to root out above the stem root and is still alive. It’s just also very far from producing zucchinis. Now I know: check the plant and soil before just dumping on even more water.

My blue hubbard squash is taking over. It’s kinda expected. At one of my gardens, I did a traditional row layout and the squash didn’t end up with enough room. So now it’s overtaking the onions.

I have more than enough landscaping project and plenty of heat to do them in. My brother and I went and worked on one for a while the other day and quite after a little over an hour. Too muggy and hot, and we were tired. Summer was made for laziness, even if my to-do list is constantly growing.

Everything is growing and mostly loving the heat. I noticed my peas, that are about 3 feet tall and look pretty healthy, just barely got blossoms on them. I’m wondering if it’s just too shady where they are, or the weather was funky (it has been strange), or its’ not a great variety. Hopefully I”ll get a handful. The tomatoes are also blossoming. I’ve got over twenty plants I think, so I’m excited for the bountiful harvest soon to come. Now it’s just weeding and wait time. I’ll probably fertilize a little as well soon.

I finished the shrub bed shown in the last post. Here’s a better after picture. I’m very pleased with how it turned out, now it just needs to survive the summer.

I go hiking a lot, and I’ve been trying to take pictures of all the wildflowers I’ve found. I’m posting some. I’m still working on my id skills, but I’ve marked what I know. If you know something I haven’t marked, please comment to help me out. I’m too lazy right now to look them all up. One hike was interesting. At the trail head the sticky geraniums were in bloom. Then further up we came across glacier lilies. Normally glacier liles are the first out and geraniums are in late spring, but with the change of altitude mixed in they were at the exact same time.

I also realized I really stink at taking pictures of all the ones I see. There’s also chokecherry, Utah ladyfinger and Indian paintbrush.

I installed this foundation planting in the backyard of my parents:

It’s been a fun project to do, from the initial design stage and finally installation. It was installed to help hide a wearing cement foundation and the recent addition of an air conditioner fan. It doesn’t do that yet…but it soon will.

My mom loves lilacs, and had planted one by her bedroom window. I expanded on that idea and used a variety of flowering shrubs (including more lilacs, this time dwarf varieites), to create a longer season of color and a variety of evergreens for year round interest. I did an initial design a few years ago, but it just sat. With the addition of the fan, it bugged my mom again and she brought it up. I took charge and within the week the shrub bed is mostly installed. (That is why you hire projects out: they actually get done,)

While shopping for shrubs, I found a bunch at a nursery I liked and went ahead and bought them. Later on I was ordering mulch from a company that mostly does wholesale, and took a look at their nursery stock. They had a bunch of the plants I had already bought, but for a lot better price. I went ahead and re-bough and exchanged them and ended up saving about $100. If you are in Utah County, go check out Wholesale Landscape Supply. Pretty good selection, great prices.

After we bought the plants, we got a truckload of mulch and a bunch of cardboard and layered them in the area. We planted right through all that. I am hoping this gets rid of most of the grass, all my shrubs will be well adapted and not die. You should plant shrubs in a hole that is twice the diameter and no deeper the planting ball. The depth we were good on, but not always the diameter. I still think that the most important thing about planting woody plants is just avoiding planting them too deep. I’ve seen plenty of plant die from just being buried.

Still left is some more mulch and some edging. Then hopefully this will be a gorgeous long lasting shrub bed.

Can a gardener have too much compost? I went and got a load for the garden. (Incidentally, I moved. Now I have a new yard to take care of. And the first thing I did was made sure I had a garden design. I’ve been doing them for other people, and I’m now a lover of my own product. Wouldn’t landscape without one. ) I top dressed all the beds by about an inch. It makes a great mulch, although it’s probably not stopping any weeds anytime soon.

I’m surprised that more people don’t do this. I like this post where she applies it to her lawn too. I used yard waste compost from the dump. It’s cheap at $20 a yard. The only problem with it is it can be somewhat variable in quality, including problems like high salts, but with low application rates (one inch or less) that shouldn’t matter too much. The layer of compost should help replenish my soil and also help break up the clay. I only wish it had been done consistently a long time ago.

I decided to start extending out my planting beds as well. Since we just moved I had lots of cardboard boxes. I flattened them out and laid them down with compost on top. We’ll see how it turns out in a couple months.

I also planted a new berry patch with ever-bearing strawberries, a fall bearing golden raspberry and a June bearing red raspberry. Some of the strawberrys I planted last fall in my old garden. They looked like they would be loaded soon, but with the move I’m not expecting much of a crop this year.

It’s flower time as well. While I was compiling a list of perennials I come across here, I was surprised at the number that bloom in late spring to early summer. In my garden I have peonies and columbines. I love using the peonies as cut flowers and I’ve been giving them away all over. There’s a big row the length of the driveway, so there’s plenty to share.

I also have harvested my first crops including lettuce, radishes, and chard. The veggies gardens all look great, although I was sad to lose my striped Armenian cucumber and french melon plants. I was excited to try both, but I guess I’ll have to do them next year instead.