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.

Monday morning my little family went out and planted our vegetable garden. This might be the earliest I have ever planted my vegetables. Out in the community garden, many participants were getting their plants in. It was great motivation to work on my garden as well. I waited past one cold storm and then went for it. I’m glad I did with all the rain we’ve been having. I don’t have to worry about watering.

Most everything was planted through black plastic. On one garden, I had soaker hoses underneath (the other is stuck with lawn sprinklers). I love using this method: less wedding and higher yields in my experience.

All the transplants I planted I grew myself.  I was pleased with the results. They were better than some box store ones I’ve seen, but not as good as transplants from a good grower. I learned a lot from doing it as well.

One problem I had was forgetting to fertilize. I had used some slow release on the early tomatoes I seeded, but then forgot to fertilizer that other plants until their leaves were yellow. After some liquid fertilizer they did a lot better, but there was irreversible damage. When I worked at the greenhouse, we would fertigate about twice a week. It’s pretty easy to do that with a watering can and liquid fertilizer at home, if you remember. The slow release granulars also worked well when I put it on not too long after germination.

Next time, I think I will use two rows of florescent lights over a single shelf. The ones on the out edges were a lot smaller than the ones right under the light. When the weather warmed up, I just put them outside and forgot the less than ideal light situation.

I ended up with a lot of transplants. I over-planted them in the garden a bit (I do not need two zucchini plants), but still have more.  If you where a little less gung-ho than I was, by growing transplants at home you could do exactly what you wanted. Sometimes that’s impossible with store bought ones because they are often sold in four packs. But the good thing about over planting is they are fun to give away. By the way, if you live close I have extra pepper, tomatoes, and eggplant transplants I’m giving away.

The garden is in, the rain has come and I’m taking a break from gardening. But only until it stops raining, and then I can rectify the patchy spray job I did on the grass out front.